Daniel is traveling tonight on a plane...

dum dum bum-bummmm

Thank you Elton John.


So this is my last post (from Brazil at least) of Daniel Katz in Rio de Janeiro. I got back from about 3.5 weeks of traveling around Brazil last night, and am tying up loose ends before my 6:55pm flight back to the land of (mostly) drinkable water. Thank you so much, Brazil, for giving me a stomach ache to take home with me as a souvenir.

I'm not really sure what to say - it's not like I can sum up my experiences of the past 6.5 months in a sentence or a paragraph or an essay. In fact, even if I tried to do just that, I think it would completely bely the experiences I've had. I don't think I'll be able to truly appreciate the things I've been through - both internally and externally - until I've had at least a few months back in the (my) "real world" to understand things in context.

Thanks so much, Brazil (for real this time), for giving me a new, different-shaped mirror with which to begin seeing and understanding myself in new ways.

And now I'm going to go eat a whole LOT of Açaí and hope it fixes my stomach.

What do you do when Life gives you lemons?

Rent motor-bikes.

After our dejected return to Poconé, we spent most of the evening trying to figure out a way to get back out to the Pantanal for the day Thursday to try to enjoy what little good-weather time we'd have in the area. After discovering that we weren't going to find a car (which would have to come with driver) for less than R$200, we started getting creative. The result? The discovery that both Sascha and Arthur, as holders of German car-licenses, thus also must have motorcycle licenses. R$100 and about 8 hours later (about 6:30am) we were back on the Transpantaneira, 4 of us and 2 backpacks on 2 2-wheeled vehicles, finally feeling in-control of our own destinies.

Of course we should have known that by "two new, excellent motorbikes", what the renter-guy actually meant was "one dirtbike appropriately constructed for offroading, yet which will be making very strange sounds by the end of the day; and one, well, scooter." That's right... off-road scootering. And no one could have made it look better.

We had an awesome day, however - which totally made up for the few essentially "lost" days we had before. We rented canoes for a couple hours and paddled up and down Rio Claro, did some pirahna-fishing (which included discovering Arthur's impressive knack for catching a damn big pirahna, and rather than getting it in the bucket placed in the boat for that purpose, bouncing it off the side of the bucket to fly off the other side of the boat), saw an otter do some fishing of its own and generally enjoyed the Pantanal's wildlife.

Last night we got our tired selves back to Cuiabá to stay in an ...interesting hotel next to the bus-station, so that we could be up in time to catch the 7:30am bus to Chapada do Guimarães - a beautiful highlands also relatively nearby. Today was spent seeing waterfalls, swimming in waterfall-pools and jumping off of and around waterfalls, followed by experiencing an impressive feat of off-road taxi-driving (city-taxi + a decently long road mostly composed of sand = a taxi-driver who certainly earned the R$100 we all at first thought was exorbitantly expensive for the trip) to arrive in Cidade das Pedras ("City of Rocks"), which was fantasticaly beautiful, to say the least (I'm feeling at a loss for extreme adjectives at the moment).

So the adventure continues tomorrow with some more time around the Chapada and then a 4:30pm flight from Cuiabá to arrive in Belem (at the mouth of the Amazon River) at about 1am.

Bring it on.

If it wasn't for bad luck...

we'd have no luck at all.

Average temperature in the Pantanal in July: around 30C
Temperature on Monday, when we arrived in Poconé, the "gateway to the Pantanal": around 35C
Temperature from Tuesday morning when we left Poconé for the Pantanal through Thursday at about 12:00pm : 8-14C
Temperature Thursday at about 1pm when we got back to Poconé after having finally given up and decided to head back out of the Pantanal because it wasn't worth paying R$115 a night to do nothing but be cold: 25C

If it happened in a movie, I would have scoffed at the impossibility of such perfectly BAD timing.

And what did we get for our time and (therefore) money?
Arthur got a cold.
Sascha got a lot of sleep.
Daniel got a stomach ache because all he did for 2 days was sit and eat out of boredom.

Ok, that's not being totally fair. We did also get to see some crocodiles, birds, and random other wildlife; ride some (cold) horses; fish for pirahna and play cards. But man, just the ride out of the Pantanal in the cab, when the sun finally had come out, gave evidence to what amazing wildlife we should have been seeing with our time there.
We all also had the thrilling experience of living with a constant of at least 4 layers of tshirts on at all times, since none of us had packed expecting such cold, and since the (delightfully rustic) lodge we were staying at had been built with the expectation of a climate which almost never drops below 20C-ish, and thus has no need for a single room capable of being made warm. Pretty much the only two ways to be warm were to be in the shower or in bed for an extended period of time.... but oh was there hell to pay when leaving either place!

So, back in Poconé waiting for Divine Intervention to tell us what to do until our flight to Belém on Sunday (where I hear it also never gets cold), since clearly we have absolutely no control over how this trip is going.

The Next Part of the Journey Begins

Matt and my week in Rio (and Ilha Grande) was... incredible! Unfortunately I have neither time nor patience to recount every story in great detail, nor upload pictures, but I'm sure you can all imagine the kind of fun we would have. And I'll get the pictures up when I'm reunited with my computer in 3 weeks.

I just packed Matt off in a cab to go catch his flight (tear...), and am getting everything arranged to begin my 3 week whirlwind trip around Brazil - starting tomorrow!

First stop: Cuiaba and the North Pantanal! I'll try to update relatively regularly with how the trip is going!

Now to go enjoy what remains of my last full day in Rio!

The Weekend's Amusements

Woohoo! My last weekend before Matt comes! Wow... that means it's my second-to-last weekend in Rio. That's strange and surreal. I'm going to go ahead and stop thinking about that.

The past couple nights have been amusing-

Thursday night Galen, Arthur, Rafael, Joao, Breno and I were hanging out at Bar Pires (the bar right outside of campus that's the unofficial it's-Thursday-night-so-the-weekend-is-starting hangout spot) and decided to go to Via Show - apparently the largest club in South America! As things generally go with Brazilians (Rafael, Breno and Joao), it took us a solid 2 hours after deciding to go to actually go. Via Show is actually just outside of Rio proper - a bit north of Zona Norte. Rafael drove us there, and as we were driving along the Linha Vermelha and chatting about corrupt police in Rio and such, a police car appeared behind us and pulled us over. This is fairly routine - they didn't have any specific reason for pulling us over other than us driving on Linha Vermelha (a rather... notorious... highway) late at night. They started hassling Rafael about his registration being out of date and then asked where we were all from. When they found out 3 of us were gringos, they told us to get back in the car and hassled Rafael more. Long story short, Rafael gave them R$30 to encourage them to let us be on our way. R$10/gringo, the way I figure it.

Via Show was a sight-to-see and a general good time, and a good way to celebrate my classes ending for this incredibly academically rigorous semester!

Afterwards, on our way home, Rafael decided he wanted to show us a different side of Rio. He took us to Rua Via Mimosa (not sure if I'm spelling that right), which is apparently pretty much prostitution-central of Rio. We just walked around to see that... world... and then headed back home. It was definitely worth seeing - an unfortunately (to me) significant part of Brazilian culture and life.


Friday morning (well, later Friday morning I suppose!) I got up and decided to go relax by the lake for a few hours. It was a nice lazy day, with the highlight of activity being the bike-ride to pick up my (fixed!) jeans from the tailor. I can wear my jeans again without risking getting fined for indecent exposure (assuming that's a law here, too)!

Friday night I didn't have any plans and wasn't in a going-out-big mood, so I headed down to my local bar and had a great evening of sharing a couple beers and interesting conversation with my local buddies. I'm going to miss the atmosphere at these little local bars a lot. I just don't feel like there's the same feeling of welcoming by locals to their watering-hole in the States.
Anyway, I wound up hanging out chatting with one guy specifically until pretty late. He's a 60-some-odd year-old salesman and, long story short, decided that I'm his new youngest son. We talked about politics and culture and religion until all hours and, well, that's about it. Sorry Mitch... looks like I've got a new Brazilian pops!

It's been a funny and interesting couple days - it's awesome how after 5 months I'm still having experiences that are teaching me about and immersing me in Brazilian culture. How can I possibly only have 2 more weeks here???


Edit: I SAW AN ARMADILLO IN PARQUE LAGE THE OTHER DAY! I have no idea why I'm so excited about this... but that's just one of those things I never thought I'd see in the wild!
And here's the only crappy picture I got of it:

Who Am I?

My last post and the old Portuguese tailor who thought I was Russian the other day led to the idea for this... a list of nationalities that people in Brazil have thought I am:

1. Brazilian (woohoo!)
2. American (dang)
3. Portuguese (we've been through this)
4. Russian (definitely don't understand that one)
5. German
6. French
7. British
8. Australian

We'll see what others I can collect in the next month and a half!

To be or not to be... Portuguese?

So I was procrastinating and generally wasting time a couple days ago (as I am, in fact, doing again right now) by wandering around Ipanema. In the course of my amblings in and out of stores I had not one, but two different people, in different places, at different times, think I was Portuguese!

In the first case, I was in some super-expensive store (full, of course, of jeans and shirts all faded and ripped to a perfection that justified their R$500 price-tags) in super-touristy Ipanema, and a sales-lady I was chatting to asked where I was from.
"California"
"No way... Seriously? I don't believe you!"
"Why? Yeah, I'm from California. Where did you think I was from?"
"I thought you were from Portugal!"
[Whoa! My Portuguese is good enough for someone to think I'm a native speaker??? Awesome!]
"Seriously??
[Oh wait a second... does that mean I have a Portuguese accent? The Portuguese-Portuguese accent is hideous!]
Wait a second - are you saying I have a Portuguese accent?"
"Yeah, a little bit"
"That's terrible! Portuguese accents are soooo ugly!"
"Uh... my entire family is from Portugal."
[Ahhhhhh crap.]
"I'm so sorry! I... uh... you know, this R$430 shirt looks way nicer all of a sudden!"

So it's official. I can put my foot in my mouth in TWO languages now!

(Gotta love Google Image Search)

The second instance wasn't nearly as... eventful. Another sales-guy in another store just asked me if I was Portuguese. I said "No, I'm from California" and asked what about my accent made me sound Portuguese, since it was the second time that day. He gave me some explanation which I only half-paid attention too, because I have the attention span of -- Hey look! There's a pretty bird outside!

Vai Subir, Subir! - Hiking Pedra da Gávea

Arthur had been waxing poetic about it ever since he went last month, so we finally all agreed to meet at 8:00am on Friday to hike Pedra da Gávea - an 842 meter high rock dividing Zona Sul from Barra de Tijuca in Rio.

We got together at 8, and after meeting up with some more folks (we were 14 total), wound up finally at the base starting our assent at 10:15. The first couple hours were pretty standard steep uphill forest hiking, with occasional rocks to clamber over. The real fun, however, started at about hour 3... when we got to the real rock-climbing! And Daniel remembers (again) that he loves climbing things! Daniel also realizes (too late) that jeans are a bad idea for hiking in general (I swear I expected it to be cooler) and especially for rock-climbing. See the pictures.

The view from the top was (obviously) fantastic. Look left to São Conrado and Zona Sul, straight to the Atlantic horizon, right to Barra de Tijuca and behind to seemingly endless rainforest. The sun was shining and the packed sandwiches and snacks were excellent. While eating I ruminated on how badly I wished I had brought a parachute. I mean, really, hiking back downhill is always soooooo much more lame. I'd much prefer just jumping off the top and letting gravity and wind-resistance do the work for me. Maybe next time.

All told it was a 6-hour round-trip excursion, and well worth the extreme sweatiness and now-necessary trip to a tailor!

Hiking Pedra da Gávea

Fluminense Campeão de Brasileirão 2007

Last night was the final of the Brazilian soccer championship. One of Rio's 4 teams, Fluminense, was in the final against Friburguense (from Florianopolis, I believe). A rabidly 'Nense Brazilian buddy, Rafael, took a handful of us gringos to a down-and-dirty Fluminense fanclub to watch the game. It was, in a word, ridiculous.

We drove to Zona Norte (GASP - leaving our little protected haven of Zona Sul???) to the clubhouse of a Fluminense fan group called "Young Flu" (Haha...) to enjoy a good old fashioned churrasca and cerveja while watching the game. The place put frat houses to shame.

Bar: check.
too-small TV: check.
pool-table: check.
2 chairs I wouldn't touch in a hazmat suit: check.
bathroom that made me feel dirty even though I can pee standing up: check.
bucket the size of a small jacuzzi full of ice and beer: check.
about 75 fanatical and drunk Brazilian men: check.

Everyone was incredibly friendly - which still catches me off-guard, even though Cariocas always are. I don't think I've ever been told "fica vontade!" ("help yourself!"/"feel free!") so many times from so many people in such a relatively short period. The even more impressive part was how the three gringo girls (one of whom has blond hair, blue eyes and doesn't speak a word of Portuguese)were not attacked like that cow that was lowered into the velociraptor cage in Jurassic Park (man, does anyone else remember that scene? That was gruesome!) by the aforementioned 75 drunk testosterone-fueled Brazilian guys.

Well, the game itself was pretty uneventful. Fluminense scored a goal in the first 3 minutes of the game, and the next 87 minutes were pretty full of not-scoring. But holy crap. When minute 90 ended and Fluminense was still up 1-0... the place exploded. Screaming, hugging, beer flying through the air. I won't lie - I ran for cover! Or at least I tried, but kept getting pulled back in by some jumping, hugging, screaming Young Flu.

When we finally succeeded in making our exit, we headed back to Zona Sul to some (predetermined?) main intersection in Leblon which had apparently been decided on as the ideal location for a post-victory street-party. And then to Gavea, for more of the same. Mind you, this is at about 2:00am at this point... and no one's showing any sign of slowing down!

Basically, what I'm trying to say in this blog entry is... Brazilians REALLY like soccer. And I wish I had brought my camera last night!


I'd also like to congratulate Peter Fiek for calling the outcome of the game 'cause he'd "heard of" Fluminense before. Hahahaha.

I found this on youtube, it's the Young Flu fan club at a Fluminense vs. Flamengo game in the Maracanã (also a good general illustration of what futebol games are like in Brazil!):

Land Reform Settlement and Ouro Preto

Always striving for new highs (lows?) - this one's about 2.5 weeks overdue!

The UC Education Abroad Programs director here at PUC arranged another trip for us for the weekend of Friday May 11th to spend a couple days in Ouro Preto, in the state of Minas Gerais.

We met at 8:00am (ugh.) on Friday and got underway. On the way to Ouro Preto, Steven had arranged for us to stop at a land reform settlement. Land reform is a hot issue in Brazilian politics, and has been for many years (in pretty much all of Latin America, actually). Basically the deal is: as a result of Brazil's history, there are tons of huuuuge plots of land which are owned by a (relatively) few rich people. In many of these situations, the land is laying fallow, for whatever reason (I really don't know why - maybe a bunch of the rich people are just too damn lazy to do anything with it?). This land originally belonged to small-time farmer families, but when all this land was concentrated, they were all kicked off. As such, there's a huge landless peasant/farmer population, who formed a movement - the MST - which is one of the best organized and most effective landless farmer movements in Latin America. So often times, the MST will organize an "occupation" of some of this fallow land, and they'll live there until the government expropriates the land from the owner and redistributes it to them. This happens in an infinite variety of different ways - sometimes with bloodshed and massacres, sometimes with an "oh, ok, yeah sure, you guys can have it" (since when it expropriates the land, the government actually pays the landowner a market value for the land - it's not like they're getting totally screwed-over). Anyway, it's a fascinating aspect of Brazilian politics & culture, so it was great to get to see a land settlement in real life.
We drove about 5 hours (was supposed to be ~3 hours) to this land settlement in the middle of nowhere. The place was pretty phenomenally beautiful (times I wish I had my big camera...), and we had a unique opportunity to talk with and ask questions of the community leader, and learn about their struggle with the land. They were granted permission to move onto the land 2 years ago, but as of yet have not been able to get any state loans, and thus the ~30 families have been living in primarily homemade-brick huts about the size of my room for 2 years. Definitely makes my digs here feel nicer!

Land Settlement

After hanging out there for a couple hours, we got back on the bus for another too-many hours and wound up getting in to Ouro Preto at about 8:30pm (the supposed 5 hour drive had somehow turned into 10 hours... not including our stop-time at the land settlement!). Ouro Preto was definitely worth it, though - even if just for the crisp "wow, they actually have real winter in Brazil?" cold mountain air that welcomed us upon leaving the bus.

We were all pretty hungry when we got into the hotel, so we split up and headed off for dinner. Galen, Ella, Alice (Ella's sister who's visiting and was allowed to come along since it would just be plain mean to not let her) and I found ourself a charming little restaurant in what felt like the basement of some ancient building, but in a charming surrounded-by-brick sort of way. While we were eating, Stephen, his 8-year-old daughter and a couple of UC-ers wound up wandering in for dinner as well. The 8 of us took our sweet time with our dinner and wound up pretty much shutting the place down. The (1) waiter seemed reluctant for us to leave, so engaged yours truly in an impromptu magic- and bar-trick contest. I flabbergasted him with the ol' get-the-Real-from-under-the-empty-upside-down-wine-bottle-without-touching-it trick (thanks Mitch). Somehow, we talked Steven into accompanying us to get an after-dinner drink at one of the town center's 2 bars. And lo-and-behold... the University of California wound up buying us drinks! Woo! Thaaaaanks Cal!
Steven and his daughter (quite the conversationalist) left us college students to... well... be college students. Galen, Alice (Alice was kind of the silent partner given her lack of Portuguese) and I wound up meeting a small handful of awesome students from a university in São Paulo who were in Ouro Preto on a stop on their field-trip with their geology department and spent a good amount of the evening exploring one of the many things Minas Gerais is famous for - cachaça - and, well, chatting. Always making friends. Sadly, they were leaving the next morning at 6:45am. I don't know how, considering I (think) we wound up parting with them at around 4:00am.

Saturday morning I found out why Ouro Preto is worth the trip: it's beautiful in a way that is unreal in Brazil. I say that because there's no beach anywhere remotely close, and no forest. Ouro Preto became an important city during the gold-boom in Brazil as the then-capital of the state. It had several gold mines and at one point was apparently the largest and most important city in all of Latin America - even rivaling New York for a time. The city looks like it was frozen in time - there are strict laws protecting the 18th and 19th century colonial- and Brazilian-baroque-style architecture. With the backdrop of never-ending green that plagues almost all of Brazil, stunning views abounded. Combined with clear blue skies and the cold mountain-winter air made for a overall phenomenal locale.
Steven had hired a tour-guide for our group so that we had the option of touring around with him to learn about the city or adventuring off on our own. Most of us decided to hear what he had to say - for the first half of the day at least. There are some beautiful churches in Ouro Preto, including one which was built and attended only by the black population of the time (almost all of whom were slaves). Most of the funding for the church came from gold smuggled out of the mines in the hair of female slaves, as well as from one slave who managed to buy his freedom and become an exceedingly wealthy landowner. The most impressive and interesting part of the tour, in my opinion, was the tour of an old slave-worked gold mine. Everyone knows that slavery sucks, but I have to say this was the first time I really got to (to some degree at least) feel how much it must have sucked. Slaves of this region were bred to be very short and very strong, because they usually worked in mines maybe 3.5 feet high (and wide, for that matter). Try swinging a pick-ax with any effect there. The place was... claustrophobic to say the least. If a slave showed signs of growing too tall for the mines, he was immediately castrated in order to keep him short and ensure that he didn't go and reproduce and make more too-tall slaves. Slaves' average life-span was about 21 years. I'm not ready to die. (Or be castrated.)
Galen, Ella, Alice and I wound up deciding to break off after lunch + another church and just meandered the streets on our own for the rest of the afternoon. We stumbled upon a purveyor of that current specialty of Minas (I'm not talking about gold anymore - and I swear we totally found it by accident), and all picked up a couple of souvenirs (see: How to Make your Friends, Parents and Roommates Love You: a Guide to Drinkable Souvenirs, by Daniel Katz). Dinner was an all-you-can-eat affair paid for, once again, by the University of California... and any of you who have ever seen me eat, especially of the all-you-can variety, can imagine how that went. We managed to talk Steven into a nitecap again, so yours truly did his part to make contribute to the delinquency of an authority figure. And the night welcomed us with open arms.

Sunday we took an old locomotive to the next town over - about a 45-minute ride - for the novelty of riding in a train-car that smelled like a sauna and opportunity to see a bit more of the countryside. In the next town, we got some lunch and got back on the bus to watch Back to the Future III and make the (much quicker) journey back to Rio.

Once again, all told: a great trip.

Ouro Preto

The Little Things Which Actually Do Make Life More Pleasant

Or: "Things I'll Miss When I Return Home"

1. The porter at the building across the street who's an amazing guitarist and passes his time at work strumming away on guitar or mandolin.
2. Someone who lives nearby and enjoys practicing jazz saxophone at high volume with the windows open. Makes me want to pick mine back up when I get home!
3. A meal of MORE than enough food, including a drink, for less than US$5. Healthy? No. Satisfying? Very.
4. The weekly produce fair a 5 minute walk from my apartment.
5. The 10 minute walk which brings me to the set of most of the 2nd half of the video for Snoop Dogg's "Beautiful"
6. Portuguese - and getting to feel productive sitting at a bar talking to old drunk guys, 'cause I'm "working on my Portuguese"
7. Becoming best friends with a cab driver on Friday night and winding up making a pasta dinner with him and his wife before he drives you and Nicole to the Jorge Ben Jor concert

Pancakes and the Lapa Antique Fair

Woke up this morning at about 9:15 to the sound of an absolute downpour outside. Combined with the sound of Rafael and his friends celebrating a short school-day with animated bouts of video-game soccer, the morning had a powerfully surreal and exciting feeling. So I decided to follow my gut, skip my usual Wednesday schedule of capoeira and yoga from 11 to 2 (oh what a hard life I live) in favor of a trip to the market in order to make pancakes! From scratch! Woo! They turned out surprisingly well, although I sorely felt the lack of dark chocolate chips (I had to use some gross milk chocolate bar instead, and banana) and maple syrup. Of course they didn't hold a candle to Mom's famous pancakes (the powers of which have been known to motivate my friends to rise at the crack of 9:30am on a Saturday in order to be at my house for pancakes at 10:00am), but they'll do in a pinch!

It's 1:45 now and the rain has barely changed! This is the most consistent rain I've seen since I've been here. (What was that about a rainforest, Mom and Mitch?). I love the rain - I'm shocked at how much I've missed that aspect of Berkeley being here. There's something very surreal and magical and exciting about it, especially when you're inside with a cup of tea and some pancakes when you should be out... you know... "exercising".
A place you know intimately can be completely transformed by the rain.

Anyway, I figured I'd take the opportunity to write about the Lapa antique fair.
Every first Saturday of the month, there's an antique fair during the day in Lapa. I decided to go last Saturday. There were a bunch of vendors with booths set up, and a lot of the antique stores and studios had opened up their doors to allow people to walk in and out. The antiques themselves were nothing super-amazing, but the opportunity to see all the old-Rio buildings in the daylight, especially in an atmosphere of festivity, was well worth the trip. Lapa certainly is an amazingly beautiful area. The mansions of all the old, early 20th-century wealth, now in varying states of decrepit decay or restoration are fascinating and beautiful, especially considering the proximity and contrast of nearby ultra-modern buildings like the Petrobras offices and Municipal Cathedral.

And what antiquities did I come away with? Only 1: a shave. Oh yeah, I paid R$5 for a guy who's been doing it for 55 years to clean me up with a straight-razor. Complete with pinching my nose a bit and pulling it up in order to better shave my upper lip. And applying shaving cream with a brush. Afterwards he put about 6 different powders and creams and liquids on my face... the only one I could identify was after-shave, 'cause it burned like the dickens.
I highly recommend it!

Lapa Antique Fair

The São Paulo Suburban Sprawl

Monday April 30th and Tuesday May 1st were holidays here in Brazil (and neither of us have class on Fridays), so Arthur and I decided to hit the road to visit Pamela for a nice looooong weekend.

Well, the first thing I learned is that it's official - it is COMPLETELY impossible to travel easily in this country.
Arthur and I wanted to try to get the earliest bus possible after classes Thursday late-afternoon, in order to hopefully get to Pamela's early enough to go out Thursday night. I had class until later (2:30), so I booked it home, threw stuff in a backpack and got down to the corner, to wait for Arthur. Arthur's friend Rafael had offered to give us a ride to the bus station, and said he'd be ready to go whenever we were. So I hauled ass and got myself ready by about 3:15.... and Rafael and Arthur got there by 5:30.
Lesson 1 - the double-edged sword of Brazilians doing you favors: they'll do it... but they'll do it in "Brazilian Time" (ie. whenever they damn well feel like it).
Ok, so we get to the bus station at 6ish... 6 hour bus ride and we'll be there by midnight. Not too bad, right?
Wrong.
Well, Arthur neglected to mention that Pamela doesn't actually live in the city of Sao Paulo - she actually lives another 1.5-hour bus ride South, in a town called Americana (woo!). Greeeeat.
So we get to the bus station in Sao Paulo at around 1am, and Arthur assures me that Pamela had assured him that buses run from Sao Paulo to Americana all night.
Wrong.
"I'm sorry, the next bus isn't until 4:30am."
Daniel gives Arthur a look signifying something along the lines of 'I'm going to eat your first born child'
Fortunately, Arthur's able to get ahold of another friend who lives in the actual city, and she agrees to take pity on us and put us up for the night. Of course the metro was also closed until the morning, so we took a cab to our savior's apartment and crashed for the night.
In the morning we got ourselves (via metro) back to the bus station and to Americana by about noon. Finally.

Pamela and Nina (her German roommate) were awesome enough to have cooked a HUGE lunch to welcome us, so that entertained us for a good couple hours, and then we set about wasting time until night fell. I actually had a paper for my International Relations class due on Thursday (yesterday), so I tried to get some work done on that... but mostly just enjoyed the uniqueness of having reliable, fast wireless internet.
That night, Arthur, Pamela and I met up with a couple of Pamela's friends, Tammy and Leo, and headed to some delightfully euro-trashy club called something ridiculous like "Ziff". Everyone had fun until the whee hours of the morning. Unfortunately, I forgot my camera, so I'll have to try to get pictures from Arthur.

Saturday morning (probably early afternoon, actually), we headed off from Pamela's apartment to her parents' house in... some other suburban city that's something like Vinhede (something related to "vinho" - wine). We dropped our stuff off, took quick showers and then got in the car with her parents on our way to the city of Sao Paulo to Pamela's grandmother's house. (Bringing 3 unknown friends of your daughter to your mom's house: brave) Grandma & grandpa treated us (and what seemed to be practically the entire extended family) to a fantastic (and huge, once again) lunch. Daniel has difficulty standing afterwards, much less making polite conversation.
We head back to Wine-town to Pamela's parents' house (where we'd spend the rest of the long weekend) and have some nice down time (everyone else naps and I have to work on this paper. Lame.). We had planned on going out again this night, but no one was feeling quite up to it. So instead we (Arthur, me, Leo, Pamela & her parents) hung out at home and ate fondue (ugh... more eating) and drank wine and chatted for several hours. Pamela's parents are great and made us feel very welcome. We spent a lot of the weekend talking about languages - differences between Portuguese, German and English; observations on each others' respective native languages or on our own. I spent about 45 minutes trying to figure out how to define "cheesy" to Pamela and her parents... it's a surprisingly difficult word to explain!

Sunday, a friend of Pamela's was having a churrasca (Brazilian barbecue), so, once again: big lunch. We hung out and got to see how fun happens in the Brazilian countryside. Basically: roast meat, drink beer, eat meat, play cards, drink beer, eat meat. Sound familiar? I spent a good half hour trying to understand the card game they all were (very animatedly) playing... to no avail. So instead, we started doing acrobatics on the "soccer field" (see pictures). When all else fails: start climbing on each other.
Sunday evening we met up with some more of Pamela's friends at... wait for it... TGI Friday's. I'm not joking. It was almost painful. Overly-enthusiastic waiters with as many stupid pins as they could attach to their stupid suspenders over their stupid red-and-white-striped shirts... and everything. The menu was even designed as "Take a road trip around America!" I was tempted to try their interpretation of a Philly Cheesesteak, but I (thankfully) resisted.
We had enough fun at TGI Fridays (which was even located in a very American-style mall), so decided to head back to the parents' house. Once back in the general area, we all agreed it was too early to go to bed, so instead headed uphill to a really high point in the neighborhood which had a great view and commenced a lively game of King's Cup - a game which I will not describe here.

We had planned to spend the entirety of monday in the actual city of Sao Paulo, but by the time everyone got up and breakfasted and showered, it was well into the early afternoon. We got to Sao Paulo, had some ice cream, wandered around, and then made our way over to an all-you-can-eat sushi restaurant to meet up with a bunch more of Pamela and Arthurs' friends. I ate an absurd amount of sushi... for US$15! Man I love this country. By the time we left the restaurant it was about midnight (we ate dinner for a solid 3.5 hours!), so we head straight over to a club where Leo was meeting us (he had gone to have dinner with his family). After waiting in line there for about an hour and a half, we all decided that we didn't actually have that much interest in being there... so we ventured off to some other bar which had a live band playing Bahian-style Carnaval music - all very cheesy (!) but a lot of fun. Home by about 6:00am.

Tuesday, Pamela's mom decided to make us feijoada (THE traditional Brazilian meal: beans with meat, collared greens, friend manioc flour and orange), which was delicious. I spent most of the rest of the day working on my paper, with random Brazilians coming in to look over my shoulder and correct my horrible Portuguese. By this time in the long weekend, Arthur had generously spread the ugly cold he had brought with him to EVERYONE else (thank you SO much for the headache I still have, Arthur), so we were all pretty much a big ball of excitement and activity. Arthur and I decided we'd just take an overnight bus back (straight to Rio, no stop in the city of Sao Paulo this time)... which turned out to be a horrible idea. I got back to my apartment in Rio at about 8:00am on Wednesday feeling like I'd had about a 30 minute nap's worth of sleep. Well, suffice to say I only made it out of the apartment once all day: to go buy a toothbrush to replace the one I'd forgotten at Pamela's apartment.

And that was that! Finally got the paper done ("gave up" may be the more appropriate verb) and got a good amount of sleep Wednesday night... not that it helped, 'cause I still feel terrible!
It was really nice getting to hang out in a Brazilian home for a weekend. Other than where I live, I'd never been in a Brazilian family's home before, and it was very warm and welcoming and relaxing. So thank you very much, Pamela & your parents!

Sao Paulo (well, the suburbs at least)

My pictures from the weekend are pretty selective - as far as when I remembered to bring my camera along. I'll try to get ahold of Arthur's pictures sometime in the near future!

Little things that make life more wonderful

Or: Reasons I Hate The Instinct 13 Years of Soccer Taught Me, to Try to Catch Falling Objects With My Foot.

**UPDATE 6/7/2007**: after alternating filling up with blood and then leaking all over my sock for about a week and a half, the toenail in question has now almost fallen off. It's like a loose tooth... who knows what's still holding it on, but I know if I keep playing with it it'll eventually just fall off. Do I get R$1 if I leave it under my pillow when it comes off?


The lesson I learned: when plates fall, it's preferable to let them break than to stop the edge-first fall with just your big toe.
Geni expressed her empathy/concern with "Did the plate break????"
Thaaaaaaaanks.


GROOOOOOSSS!

Just had to share that with you all.

The Red Bull Air Race

A couple weekends ago, the Red Bull Air Race visited Rio de Janeiro.

The Air Race falls somewhere in between an actual legitimate sporting event and a Red Bull publicity stunt (and I'm thinking it's more weighted towards the latter), but whatever it is... it's RAD! Just imagine light little prop planes flying ridiculously fast and ridiculously low and making turns that seem like (and probably would) they'd make any normal person black out. It's awesome.

Arthur and I got ourselves a pretty good spot, standing about ankle-deep in the delightfully filthy Botafogo Bay water... right at the spot in the course where they did the loop-de-loop. Once again: RAD!

And they even started off the festivities with fighter-jet fly-by's and parachuter-stunts (complete with smoke bombs! Ooooooo...)

So I hung out for a couple hours, oddly did not see a single person drinking Red Bull, and then got on my bike and made airplane sounds with my mouth allllll the way home.

Red Bull Air Race

For more: www.redbullairrace.com - you can even watch a video of the race in Rio!

The Halftime Show

On Sunday, April 1st, Mom and Mitch arrived to begin their two-week stay here. Their stay was perfectly (and unintentionally, I believe) timed dead in the middle of my time here. As such, I took the opportunity for a nice intermission vacation, and soaked up as much familial love as possible, to last me over for the next few months.

Their stay really was great. Even though I (technically) had class during this period, I let myself take a well-needed break and enjoyed shutting my brain off. I don't have the energy or memory to go through what we did every day (Mom has it all written down and I'm sure would be more than happy to go through their stay in great detail with every single one who so desired to hear it!), but I can at least provide a good general outline:

The parental units got in to Rio's international airport around noon on Sunday 4/1, and since this would be the only weekend-time they'd be in Rio, I ran them a bit ragged taking them to things (fairs/markets) that only happen here on weekends. We spent the next 3 days in Rio, touring around and seeing the sites (The Big Jesus on the Big Hill, cultural centers, exhibits, downtown, etc).
On Thursday we flew down to Iguacu falls (some VERY big waterfalls which make Niagara look like one of those fountains of a kid peeing) in Southern Brazil (the falls are half in Brazil and half in Argentina - the border runs down the middle of the river), where we stayed in the only hotel that's actually located inside Iguacu National Park. We spent 3 days there, which was admittedly more time than we really needed there, but the forced relaxation was wonderful. We visited the falls on both the Brazilian and Argentinian side... and let me just say they are aMAZing. The sound and the obvious power of the falls was stunning. We also got caught completely unprepared in an insane tropical downpour while visiting a bird park in the national park... and thus was born the catchphrase of the trip: "so THAT's why they call it a 'rainforest.'"
We flew back to Rio Sunday, spent Monday bumming around, Tuesday I went to class (booo) and then we decided last-minute to go to Buzios (a famous beachy/resorty area a couple hours south of Rio) Tuesday night through Wednesday evening. We had to be back Wednesday evening in order to see a semi-final soccer game between two Rio soccer teams at the huge stadium here.
It was ridiculous.
We got there early and hung out at a little bar by the stadium, watching and listening to the loud&rowdy fans go nuts. When we decided to enter the stadium, we were walking along by the stadium wall and all of a sudden several hundred fans (of the other team) started sprinting towards us... being chased by riot police on horseback! We safely got inside and took our seats in one of the teams' (Botafogo) fan-sections (the parents wanted the full effect - none of this "neutral zone" seating crap for them!) and watched an incredibly dramatic and exciting game which ended in shootouts after reaching 4-4 in regulation time. To add to the drama, Romario - one of the other team's (Vasco de Gama) star players - was trying to score his 1000th goal (a feat only previously accomplished by Pele) during the game... and failed! Thursday we hung out at the beach and then went out to a samba club with my homestay mom. The two surprises of the night: Mitch had fun dancing, and we discovered that my homestay mom shares the same birthday as both of my real parents! Whaaaaaat? All of my current parent-figures share the same birthday... scary! Friday day we hung out at the beach some more, and then got Mom & Mitch to the airport. They enjoyed 24 uneventful (if boring) hours of travel and got home safe.

And best of all... now I have enough peanut butter to kill a small moose!

Mom & Mitch visit

A Little Update

Nicole and Arthur just gave me some of their pictures from Carnaval and Ilha Grande, respectively, so I've created new albums for them and updated the respective posts!

There have also been a couple updates to the "People, Places, Things" and "Graffiti" albums.


The parents arrive in 3.5 days, to visit for 2 weeks! Woo!

Ilha Grande

At Mom's (not-so) subtle request:

Last weekend Galen, Nicole, Arthur, Arthur's 2 good friends Kathy and Christina and I traveled to Ilha Grande - an island about 2 hours south of Rio - for the weekend.

I had a meeting that didn't end until a bit after 1:00 on Friday so Galen (graciously) waited for me and we met up at the bus station. Naturally, since apparently traveling can never be easy in this country (at least for me), we got there about 35.581081385 seconds after the 2:00 bus left, so had to amuse ourselves in the bus station for an hour and then catch the 3:00.
There are two towns where one can catch a ferry to Ilha Grande - Mangaratiba and Angra. Mangaratiba is about 30 minutes closer by bus to Rio, but the guy at the bus station told us that there were more boats leaving from Angra, and since we had missed the 3:00 Mangartiba ferry, we should just go to Angra and get a water-taxi to the island (otherwise we'd have to wait in Mangaratiba for the next ferry... at 10:00pm). We got on our bus and headed down to Angra, getting there about 5:45. When we were about half an hour out of Angra, it started POURING rain. Kind of a bummer since we were headed to an island renowned for its beaches, but we were both intrigued by the idea of taking a boat to the island in the rain - something very exotic and tropical about it!
Well, we got to Angra and had THOSE dreams immediately dashed - apparently since it was starting to get dark and (more importantly) it was pouring rain, none of the taxis would be running any more that night. We made friends at the little tourism-info-desk in the bus station and asked them about 5 different times in 5 different ways if there was ANY way we could get to the island from Angra.... but the answer was always "no." (even though I think they liked us).
If we had been 35.581081385 seconds earlier to the bus station in Rio, we would have been in Angra an hour earlier, and thus beat both the rain & the dusk... and been on the island by around 6. Instead...
Back on the bus, to Mangaratiba. The bus (which was on it's way back to Rio) was considerate enough to drop us off on the edge of the highway in the middle of nowhere by a road which headed to Mangaratiba, with explicit instructions to "Eh, go over there and wait for another bus." "Which bus?" "It'll say 'Mangaratiba.'" Right. Stood in the downpour at a "bus stop" watching small-town-Brazil life crawl by and waited for our mystery bus. When it hadn't materialized in about a half-hour, we managed to flag a kombi (kind of an unofficial bus - usually of the Volkswagen breed) driven by a toothless-yet-chatty gentleman who finally delivered us to Mangaratiba , where we sat and amused ourselves (It's a damn good thing that 2 guys in their 20's can still be fully entertained by hangman tournaments on restaurant paper table-cloths) until the 10:00 ferry.
Finally completed the 3.5 hour trip after about 9.5 hours. But it was worth it!

Ilha Grande has a pretty interesting history. To be honest, I'm too lazy to look up specifics, but (based mostly on hearsay) throughout history it's been home to two notorious prisons (at different times) as well as a popular stopover for smugglers and pirates. It's remained mostly undeveloped (due to the prisons), with only a few small towns, and almost no cars on the island. The most recent prison was only closed (relatively) recently, and since opening up to tourism it's apparently been somewhat of an experiment in sustainable tourism. There is (again, based on hearsay) no foreign investment in tourism on the island, so all the hostels and pousadas (guest-houses) and other tourist-businesses are owned and run by locals. Most of the island (I believe it's the 3rd largest island in Brazil) is completely covered in Atlantic rain forest. Everywhere you look is green, the waters are crystal clear and perfectly blue, and it looks like the kind of place where at any moment you'll hear "Yo-ho, yo-ho" approaching from the distance. Basically, it's unbelievably beautiful... the kind of place that's hard to believe still exists today.

Despite the rainy weather, we decided to spend Saturday hiking. Just wandering through the forest was amazing, and the off-and-on rain made it just feel that much more exotic. We hiked to a natural pool formed at the base of a small waterfall in a freshwater stream. Nearby to this stream were the ruins of a couple-hundred-year-old aqueduct that used to be used to bring water to the city (and which, being guys, Galen and I were obligated to climb on top of). We then continued on to a more serious waterfall further in the forest. I still have no idea how you're supposed to get to this waterfall, because we definitely took the most convoluted route possible (including using vines to repel down short rock-faces).
[A cool side-note: almost all of the paths used to hike around the island today are the same paths that were used by the natives who lived on the island before the time of colonization]
Up above the waterfall, Galen discovered a fantastic natural water-slide, courtesy of smooth water-worn rock, slippery moss (as Nicole and Kathy demonstrated for us) and a well-placed pool. No, the slide did not end by going over the waterfall (fortunately or unfortunately)!
From there we hiked to a beach where we were able to catch a water-taxi back to Angra dos Reis (the main "town" on the island - where we were staying) and finish the day with a huge buffet dinner.

Sunday, Arthur, Christina and I decided to take a boat trip to a couple of the sites around the island. For R$15 (about US$7) we were taken around to a lagoon and 4 beaches around the island from 10:30 to 4:30... and they even served us some fruit for a snack! I don't remember the names of all the beaches, but the lagoon (Lagoa Azul) was incredible. Just floating in the crystal water and staring at the island, it felt like another world - or at least another century. The funniest part of the trip, however, was when another boat arrived in Lagoa Azul and, in the process of trying to drop anchor and park, collided with our boat. Nothing too terrible (just a little rip in the tarp over the deck), but the skipper's look was classic - he just stood and watched helplessly as the other boat loomed near, with an expression of "Are you serious?". The entire post-collision discussion between crews was communicated in shrugs.
For lunch, the boat dropped us off at a beach where Arthur, Christina and I shared some great fish (well, actually, Christina doesn't like fish... we had been talking about having chicken and then Arthur and I changed our minds in favor of fish - but unwittingly made that decision in Portuguese and forgot to confirm with Christina in a language she speaks! Sorry Christina!). And then on to a couple other beaches! The day itself was not incredibly eventful, but I don't think I've said "Wow, look at this!" so many times in a 6-hour period in my life.
We got back to Angra dos Reis at around 4:30, killed an hour with a leisurely tigela de acai, and hopped on the ferry back to Mangaratiba and (delightfully uneventfully) back to Rio.

I already want to go back! Why does this country have to be so big and have so many places I want to visit?

Ilha Grande

On an entirely different note: I had an hour-long in-depth conversation about movies, literature and music last night... all in Portuguese! Whoooaaaaa!

Update: Arthur's awesome and gave me all his pictures from Ilha Grande, so I made another album with a handful of them -

Ilha Grande from Arthur

Thanks Arthur!

Parque Lage

Parque Lage is a park I live next to which used to be some old rich guy's estate until he died, some other stuff happened [...] and now it's a city park which basically consists of a chunk of walled-in forest with paths running through it.
The old estate-house now hosts a school which holds art classes, and in the courtyard is a cafe (which holds the occasional Friday-night jazz concert, like the one I went to last week).
The park is incredibly beautiful and peaceful, and has quickly become one of my favorite haunts - relaxing on a bench reading, sitting in the cafe doing some homework/research or just wandering around the paths enjoying the scenery and feeling outside of the city.
When I was in the park the other day, I brought my camera with me to take a few pictures. If I take more pictures in the park in the future, I'll upload them to this same album:

Parque Lage

My Night With The "Haves"

So I had an interesting cultural experience last night... which was actually the opposite of the kind of cultural experiences I expected to be reporting on as "interesting."

I was hanging out at my local "pé sujo" (literally "dirty foot" - used to refer to the little bars located on pretty much every block where every type of person can be found) and, after having a 20-or-so minute "conversation" with some very drunk and confused Brazilian man who decided we were best friends, I determined that I needed some different society. I made friends with a group of 4 (closer to my age, and sober enough to speak Portuguese that I could understand) Brazilians sitting at a nearby table.
I was enjoying just sitting and chatting - for the practice, if nothing else - but they decided that we should all go to some club in Ipanema. Since I had decided my theme for the evening was to "go where the night takes me" (it had seemed like a safe theme at the moment seeing how I had no plans and no ideas of what to do for the night), I accepted their invitation to come along. It quickly became evident that I was keeping company with some of Rio's high society when, upon arriving at the chic club, I was informed that we would not be waiting in the gigantic line outside (pshaw, how plebian), because my new friends knew pretty much everyone there.
After waiting in the line-to-not-wait-in-line (this aspect of clubs always amuses me), which was more of just a mass of people standing around by the entrance waiting for their "friends" to get them in, we were brought inside and given our wristbands which would grant us access "upstairs." I had forgotten to grab my ID when I had gone out, and technically you need some form of ID to get in anywhere, so (at my companions' direction) I got to act the ignorant American tourist for a little bit and pretend I didn't know anything about anything. Surprisingly, it was actually difficult to not slip into Portuguese for my few minutes of playing dumb!
Anyway, we got in and immediately went upstairs (of course we wouldn't want to be mixing with downstairs people, now would we?), which was pretty much the same as downstairs except smaller and with a couple couches. My companions had some friends who had gotten table service, so we wound up hanging out around their table for the night. Apparently the gentlemen who had gotten the table service had decided that the best use for the couches around their table were as platforms to stand on while drinking.... what better way to ensure everyone can see you and your bottles of champagne and expensive liquor and foreign-bought Abercrombie & Fitch shirts?
High society is funny.
I danced, hung out, tried not to gag at the American-level drink prices and ate some sushi (because naturally there was a sushi bar upstairs); but mostly enjoyed just watching Rio's young, fabulous and sickeningly wealthy playing their game.

I think I prefer the pé sujo.

Pirate music on the bus and Brazilian Louis Armstrong

Connor and his apartment-mates were lovely enough to host a little party Thursday night. The party was all well and good and the company sublime, but the real highlight of the evening was the bus-ride there.
That's because when I stepped on to the bus, I was greeted with PIRATE MUSIC! This gentleman was posted up in the first row on the bus, playing his accordion with a grin of absolute self-satisfaction on his face. It took all of my self-control not to burst out laughing immediately, but I kept it to a chuckle and sat in the seat behind me. The entire bus-ride, he kept turning around to look at me with an expression of "look at this! Isn't this great! I'm playing the accordion... on a BUS! HAH! I'm brilliant! HAH!" And every time we'd pull up next to a car at a stoplight with its windows down, he'd play with a new vigor and volume and try his damndest to make them love his accordion, too.
I say: well done, sir. Thank you for making my busing experience that much more ridiculous!

Last night I went to the Parque Lage (a park I live next to that used to be some rich guy's estate and is now basically just some walled-in forest with an estate-house in the middle of it that has a cafe in it - really an amazingly beautiful place to seek respite from the city) to see a jazz show at the cafe. It was a really informal little deal... just a small handful of older Brazilians playing old New Orleans-style jazz. It was worth it just to see/hear old Brazilian men sing (or try, at least) in a Louis Armstrong voice... complete with thick Brazilian accents. That combined with the wonderful summer night weather and the beautiful surroundings really made it a lovely (and amusing) night!

Carnaval

Aaaaaalrighty, continuing on with the few-week delay in posting... here's Carnaval!

I'll let the pictures (and captions) do most of the talking, but all in all, I have to admit I was actually a bit underwhelmed. I do wish I could do it again knowing what I know now, having been through it, because I just kinda didn't know how it all worked beforehand or what to expect. I was expecting more of a Santa-Barbara-on-Halloween, San-Francisco-on-St.-Patrick's-Day, Las-Vegas-anytime type unavoidable street-party, but it turned out you really had to go hunting for the party. Then again, the fact that I live in a quieter neighborhood certainly had an effect on this... what I saw of Ipanema was much more of what I expected! (see pictures)

Carnaval

Sadly, a few minutes after the last picture (of Galen and Nicole) was taken, I had another first experience: getting robbed.

Galen, Nicole and I were in an area of Rio called Lapa which used to be (and still kind of is) a fairly shady area, but has in the past 10-or-so years become gentrified and kind of club/party-central for Rio. It’s basically just a big street party, with the option of going to clubs - however during Carnaval, the city had put on a series of big free outdoor concert there as well (which we thoroughly enjoyed).

After having been on our feet watching the concert for a while; Nicole, Galen and I were sitting on a curb resting and taking pictures.

I was (stupidly) holding Galen’s camera out to take a picture of us (also stupidly without having the lanyard around my wrist), and a kid came up, grabbed it out of my hand and ran.

We took off after him, and it got handed off a couple other times to other kids (which was supposed to lose us), but I saw that the kid who actually wound up with it had stuck it in his back pocket and was trying to casually disappear into the crowd at the concert.

I should have grabbed him in a headlock, since I knew Galen was coming up behind me, but for some stupid reason I instead just tried to grab it out of his pocket by the lanyard, which was hanging out.

Naturally I missed, so he started running and passed it off to another kid, whose tail I was hot on until I slipped (note: sandals are bad footwear for chasing thieves) and slammed my hip into something (I don't remember what, I just know I wound up with some nice bruises and scrapes on my right side). I kept after him, but while sprinting across the street, I almost got hit by a motorcycle (well, he slammed on his brakes and I just kind of bounced off and kept running), which distracted me long enough to lose him in a crowd.

It sucked.

Naturally, Matt’s awesome enough to give me a camera with the explicit instructions of letting it get stolen if it happens, and I have to go and get someone else’s stolen.

I’m sorry, Galen.

Despite it all, however, I had a great time during Carnaval! It’s all just part of the adventure…

Update:

Nicole was sweet enough to give me her pictrues from Carnaval, so I put the few me-relevant ones (sing it! "Yooooouuuu're sooooo vaaaaaaiiiin") in a new album:

Carnaval from Nicole's point of view

Florianopolis Trip

Once again, this took me an inordinately long time to get up... but here we go!

A few friends (Connor, Moriah, Maria, Amanda, Litonya) and I traveled to the island of Santa Catarina (commonly referred to by the name of its largest city - Florianopolis) for a few days.



We (Connor, Moriah, Amanda, Litonya and I - Maria had wisely planned ahead and bought a plane ticket a while before) initially planned on renting a car and making the drive there ourselves, as we figured it would allow us much more freedom, lend to more adventures, be less expensive than bus-ing and definitely take less time than the 18 hours that the bus would. When we went to pick up the car the morning we planned on leaving, we all (except Litonya) found ourselves with pretty cold feet. We realized:

1. It would wind up being significantly more expensive than the bus, even without counting gas
2. It would probably take about the same amount of time as the bus... especially when factoring in Getting-Lost time
3. At least 1 (ideally 2) people in addition to the driver would have to be awake the entire time to navigate
4. The map was fantastically complicated-looking
5. We'd have to drive the length of a very dangerous highway in Rio

We decided to follow our guts, backed out on the car and headed to the bus station. Mind, now, that yours truly was operating on about 4 hours of sleep, having attended a Fatboy Slim concert until near-dawn the night before we agreed to meet at 9:00am. Basically, the day wound up being an absolute mess. We didn't realize that we had to tell the bus driver we wanted to go to the bus station (the placard on the front windshield said he stopped there... apparently this was some sort of special bus), so took a nice 45-minute detour to the international airport; through some sort of mess of mis-communication, we wound up in an illegal taxi with one of the sketchiest human beings I've ever interacted with behind the wheel; we got caught in one of the most torrential rain-storms I've seen since being to Brazil while killing time before our bus left; and the grand finale was when, due to the difficulty we were having hailing a cab to return to the bus station, Amanda and Moriah decided to try to catch a cab in the middle of the street (the torrential rain storm continuing around us) - which they manage to do successfully, despite the angry honkings of the cars we're creating traffic for - but which Connor objects to so strongly that he crosses to the other sidewalk to demand to be picked up there, only to step on a loose man-hole cover and completely soak his left leg in sewer-water.
And then we got on the bus for 18 hours.

Anyway, the rest of the trip was pretty fantastic. We rented a car when we got to the island, so we got to do a good amount of exploring. We slept for pretty cheap ($8US one night) and I saw/experienced some of the most beautiful sights/things in my life.
Most of the pictures in the accompanying album are from the day we spent on the south of the island. The several hours we were there were the highlight of the trip to me, and will stick with me for a long long time.
We went to a pretty abandoned beach at the very south of the island (the south is the least inhabited/touristy - mostly just little fishing villages) - actually the most southern beach you can reach by car. From there we hiked up a pretty well-used path which went up and over a hill and dropped us on a completely uninhabited (and incredibly beautiful) beach (see pictures of me standing on a big rock). The only people we saw actually inhabiting this entire area were a family who lived in a little house overlooking the beach with an attached bar. We chatted them with a bit and found that they live there year-round. An existence I don't think I would mind too much.
Anyway, I think the pictures do most of the talking!

Florianopolis Trip

Daniel goes to school!

So today was the first day of school!

Since there was no one here to do it for me, I took a first-day-of-school picture (complete with uncomfortable smile):

(Picture taken in the most cluttered part of my room 'cause I love noticing all the little background things in other peoples' pictures. Like my deodorant "with extract of wasabi" [weird - but the best-working deodorant I've ever used] and the 2 boxes of juice I slayed in about a day)

Oh wait- except this was actually from yesterday. Because in typical Brazilian style, they neglected to mention that although yesterday (Monday) was the first day of the "semester," today (Tuesday) was the first day of actual classes. So I had a fun bus trip to school and back.

Now here are some pictures from the REAL first day of school (today). This is what it looked like when I got up for school:


Beautiful, eh?

That's because it was DAWN. Because I have class at 7 in the MORNING. I have NEVER had class that early in my life! We'll see if I keep that class... although unfortunately it's kind of the most logical class to keep.

So today was interesting...
I was shocked at how well I was able to understand what was going on in class! Especially at 7 am!
It's funny how incredibly upper-class PUC is (especially compared to Cal). Everyone is white and clearly expensively dressed, and has a bourgeois air about them. It's more than a little disturbing! It's like USC but only worse...
PUC also feels more like highschool than a university. I kid you not, when I walked into one of my classes, everyone was chattering away greeting each other in that "OMG! How was your summer??? You are SOOOOO tan! I'm so glad we KIT [I guess that's the same in past tense as future, right?] over summer!" It was ridiculous. Everyone knew EVERYONE! I mean, not that there's anything wrong with that, but combine that with the fact that all Brazilians look several years younger than they are and it reeeeeally felt disturbingly like highschool. Even the teacher in that class seemed like a highschool teacher. At the beginning of this class (an International Relations class), before the professor showed up, the whole class even went downstairs to go to the freshman IR class to ask them embarrassing questions and generally haze them. Like a Brazilian college version of Dazed and Confused. Minus the paddles (I think).
In keeping with the theme of lousy information-dispensation, I didn't find out until today (when I asked) that apparently I can't take PE classes for more than 0.5 units for UC! Thus beginneth the great class-dance. The only class I'm certain of right now is Portuguese. Other than that, here are my fun decisions to make (I need 2 more classes):

1. drop 2 of the following: Brazilian History, US in International Relations, International Organizations (an IR class)
2. pick up: Intro to Observational Drawing (1 of 2 times depending on which of the above classes I drop), a graduate class on violence in Rio (I think this is probably a bad idea, but it'd be great for forcing me to do research and I heard it's not too hard), or keep a second of the above 3 (and have 2 classes going towards satisfying Poli Sci requirements).
3. still keep my PE classes? Why not? Although if I dropped them I could only have 2 days of class a week....
   

fun fun fun! I hate beginnings-of-semesters. Even in Brazil!

On a real up-side, every professor I talked to was very reassuring about a foreigner taking their class. I and most of them complemented me on my Portuguese! Especially the Argentinian professor of the US in IR class who was definitely also not the most proficient speaker. (yes, an Argentinian teaching an international relations class on the US in Brazil... how much more international can you get?)

So that was that. And the cat just jumped in my lap, so I think that's my cue...

tchau!

Graffiti in Rio

Rio has, by far, some of the most impressive/beautiful graffiti I've seen. A lot of the murals are clearly several-hour projects... not just the work of someone hastily attacking a wall with spray-paint (however there' s also a LOT of tagging that's clearly just territory-marking). I've been semi-intentionally collecting pictures of the tagging I like, and have set up an album where I'll be uploading them to:

Graffiti

I plan on continuing to add to this album, so check back!

Up and running

Alright, so I finally got all my pictures uploaded using Picasa, and am emailing out the link to this blog.
As of now I'm just going to put links to the albums. I might go back and write up more stories at some point in the future, but for now this will have to suffice!

Everyday Life

People, Places, Things - Random

Futebol

Helicopter Rescue

City Tour

Boat Trip to Ilha Cagarras

Portela Samba School Practice

Imperio Serrano Practice at Sambodromo

Fatboy Slim

I'm going to be going back through these an adding captions, I think, so check back if you desire. And feel free to comment!