June is Portuguese Heritage Month in Vancouver and the festivities started today with a kick-off party at Vancouver's J Lounge. With Mariza singing in the background (don't get too excited, it was a DVD), free Portuguese wine, bolinhos de bacalhau and a few other goodies (no more mouth watering details, promise), the event started with an introduction by Terry Costa, Consultant to Government of Portugal in Canada (Arts & Culture Commission).

The event unfolded quickly, avoiding the pitfalls of long, boring, drawn out affairs and included short but memorable speeches from the Consul General of Portugal, Dr. Carlos Amaro, the Consul General of Brazil and City of Vancouver Councillor Raymond Louie who was representing the City and seemed genuinely thrilled to be there addressing the crowd.

The event wrapped with a little traditional music (rancho baby!) care of the Grupo Folclorico Ilha Verde who performed a couple of traditional ditties. I caught a few on video including this one which was my favorite of the bunch:


If you're interested, a few more videos here and here.

The month is full of special events celebrating Portuguese culture. The entire schedule of events is available at http://www.portuguesemonth.com/. If you attend an even and happen to be on Twitter, I urge you to use the non-official (aka Decreed by Marina, Of No Particular Importance) #yvrphm.

I'm hoping to make it out to a few events. You can keep track of all the happenings via pictures in my newly created Portuguese Heritage Month Set.

See you around town!