The day started early. The concert was in Porto so the freaks who live far away had to wake up at break of the day to go come to the city where Anastacia was. Rafaela, Mariana and Marta are from Porto and we met in the morning to go search for our gifts for Anastacia and Shawn. Later we picked up Mafalda, Telma and Vanessa who would arrive by the end of the morning.
We found a t-shirt saying "I <3 Portugal" and we thought it’d be fun to give it to Anastacia signed by all of us.
Time passed by really fast and it was time to go pick up the other girls, buy the t-shirt, buy other gifts and the bouquets to the ladies in name of Babs and Dagi. An hour had passed and we haven’t done everything we needed to so we went to pick up Vanessa. Now all the girls were together again (the boys arrived later)!
On our way to the subway, when all the girls were together, we found a jewelry shop with a lot of beautiful things so we tried our luck. And holler!!! It was the perfect shop!! We bought a necklace and earrings for both… Anastacia’s necklace had an "A" standing in a half circle, it was silver as well as the earrings, which had a round shape! Shawn’s necklace was circled too with some kind of effects and her earrings were little flowers… All the gifts were made in a Portuguese handmade art called "Filigrana"!
Then we went to the hotel where Telma, Mafalda and Vanessa were staying, they checked in and all of us went to the room, where we signed the t-shirt and took some photos with the presents.
We went to meet up with the guys to eat something. We were all excited and doing a countdown already.
Then we left and went to the metro, which led us close to the hotel where we were supposed to meet with people that would come and pick us up. We went to the other side of the street and sat down next to some stores and stayed there for about 2 hours chatting, taking some photos and stuff like that.
It was about 8pm when Anastacia’s tour manager and a hotel security came and picked us up the Hotel were we have been waiting and took us to the hotel where the Meet & Greet would take place.
We got into the hotel and were taken to a room where you could see a paper saying "M&G" and there were a few chairs in circle. We were 10 fans and were told Anastacia would arrive in a few moments, and after 15 minutes some people were getting in the room, the first person arriving was Anastacia!!
She entered the room starting with a kind "Hey everybody" and with a sweet smile. She said she would compliment us all and, in order, she gave us a handshake and two kisses and said hi individually.
After this, she pulled a chair and sat on the center of the circle, asked us if we all were able to talk English and said she was very happy to see us. She noticed we were a bit shy and, somewhat, still in shock, so she said we could introduce ourselves and she’d like to know our names and where we live, since we were from different parts of Portugal.
With the first fan introduction, Filipe, she talked a bit about Twitter, since she was in doubt if he sent her a tweet and said that she can’t always recognize people through a photo, unless they have their dog or something like that in the picture, it’s always possible.
With Mariana’s introduction, she tried to understand how far she lives from Porto, since she said she didn’t live exactly there. Mariana said to Anastacia she could even go visit her house, on which she answered with a laugh saying she would try to get some time for that.
Then it was Marta’s time. She said that despite living in Porto she went to Anastacia concerts all over Portugal, the lady herself answered saying she was very happy to finally meet us and be close to us.
After that, Francisco told he was from a city bellow Porto, called Aveiro. Anastacia tried to say it but all she could say was something like Aivairo or Availo. Still, she said if she could ever say it, she’d like to visit it because we said it was considered the Portuguese Venice.
Vanessa pointed where she lives, Portimão (south of Portugal), it’s close to Albufeira, the place where Anastacia gave a show in August 2010 and also said she was the girl with the poster of her anniversary which lead to a laugh of Anastacia.
Mafalda stated that her and Telma had met Anastacia on Heavy Rotation Tour in an M&G in Pavilhão Atlântico.
Finally, Telma said she was from a little city called Peniche and she was the only fan of the city, Anastacia found that funny and said we had to find more fans in Peniche.
It was a moment of pure comedy because we all, including Anastacia, ended up laughing with the attempts of saying the city names and our names.
Our chat kept going with a visit to a Portuguese beach, which Anastacia talked about on twitter. She said that she had a little tan and that the weather was really nice because it wasn’t too hot and the view was beautiful. It was great for her to have a chance of sightseeing without having to work.
After that, Mafalda and Rafaela handed Babs and Dagi’s flower bouquets to Shawn and Anastacia, they loved them and found them really beautiful and said they were going to put them in their room. Rafaela asked her if she remembered her ring she had shown to her on Twitter, that said "Forever" on the outside. Anastacia said she did and even added she remembers she had lost it, which surprised everyone so she said "I’m telling you, it’s me reading the tweets!!". She told Rafaela she doesn’t have to be sad, she loses stuff all the time. The most important thing was that she had the chance of showing it to her what it was and what it meant to her. It was a material thing so it doesn’t matter if it ‘s gone, maybe it wasn’t meant to stay with her forever and someone might have needed to find power in it.
Mariana thanked Anastacia for Callum which she said was her Mr. Dreams. Filipe added he had asked an autograph for him but the post lost it. She answered with her most funny voice "Hoooow rudeeee", but said he was there with her so that’s even better. Filipe also said that, when he was in Antwerp with Mariana, they left a letter for Anastaca in the reception and almost missed the plane to write it. So she asked what they said on it, since she receives a lot of letters and normally she can only remember it if we tell what was the subject of it. She mentioned she does read everything, but sometimes the letters are so similar that she can’t remember them with only the names of the fans. She apologized on which everybody said it was no problem at all, we totally understood that.
She told us it was her first time doing a Meet & Greet without working on fan’s stuff, that it was a private event and most of them are surprises so she feared we would show up with big signs saying "Anastacia Fans"! She added that for as much as she would like to do this if the company didn’t authorize it, the Meet & Greet could not happen since they were the ones who contracted them so they were her priority. She also added that she would like us not to film and photograph every second, since it was a private thing, but we had all the right to put our pictures with her anywhere we would like to.
Rafaela talked about Vanessa Silva, the girl who won the contest of the "Live At Last"-Tour and appeared on Heavy On My Heart video, and said she had no photos with Anastacia because her management did not send them to her. She was surprised by that fact. We mentioned Vanessa was now a professional singer, one of the best in Portugal, and Anastacia commented she didn’t need her autograph then, ironically. She ended up autographing Heavy On My Heart single, sent her cheers and also told Rafaela she doesn’t know why but she never forgot that girl.
We told Anastacia we had gifts for her but we decided to take the pictures first.
Each of us took two pictures with the lady herself. After the photos, she gave a hug (a bear hug, by the way!) to everyone, to Mafalda she even squeezed her cheeks because she had her mouth shaking, and she also gave some of her time to talk to everyone individually. After that, she would sign our stuff and always commented on the photos with jokes.
We gave her a kind of poster with some photos, she said it was really cool and analyzed each photo carefully while we explained what happened the occasions and where it took place (concerts and freaky days). We took a group picture, in which she was holding the poster. She goofed around with the Portuguese word obrigada (thank you), since there was two guys there they would have to say obrigado and, in doubt, she could say obrigada-do.
Then it was gifts time! We started to give a little box to each of the two ladies; a necklace and earrings for the each of them. They both loved them and Shawn said we were really sweet for including her.
Then we handed a t-shirt that said "I <3 Portugal" where we all wrote a message and our twitter usernames, which she read and said that now she could see our "Freaky Twitters". She told us she truly loves Portugal and she was going to have some days off and that she’ll finally enjoy the Vinho do Porto (Porto’s wine).
Mafalda and Telma gave them a gift that would realize her dream, since she wanted to be an archaeologist. She asked if it was a bone and opened the present all excited, she finally saw it was a toy where she had to dig a piece of plaster with some tools to find a dinosaur. She said she would definitely try it even with the Portuguese directions. Since it was a kids toy she said if she couldn’t figure that out she must have mad problems. Anastacia also told us that we did a "good job with presents!" and thanked us all. Back to the circle, she revealed her new website (which is being created) is going to feature fans stuff like videos and other things, but she did not say anything specific.
After a few more minutes, she said goodbye, thanked us again, but when we were almost leaving the room Mafalda showed to Anastacia her baby Yorkshire. Anastacia melted seeing the picture and showed to Shawn, she said when they are little all they want to do is bite and he was really cute, which lead us to ask how Freak was. She said he was doing surprisingly better and she rolled her eyes trying to show how freak was dealing and "looking" at cancer, like "I will beat you". Vanessa commented he was following mommy’s steps and Anastacia answered with a smile saying for sure he was! She told us he was with his gay daddies and with Lopita and Anastasia, and thanked us very much for asking.
We said goodbye to her and Shawn, thanked them and got out the room. We left the hotel all excited and couldn’t stop talking about what had just happened. The Meet & Greet lasted about an hour and a half (1h30m).
Some had to go home already and others went for dinner in the city centre, we said goodbye and went home/to the hotel. And that was the end of the big day, with special and huge thanks to the international Official Anastacia Fanclub!! Thanks a lot guys!!
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