Adventures in Brazil!: March 2013

Friday, March 8, 2013

And the storms keep coming...

This is happening....right now, crazy weather! Once again, it was 90 degrees F a couple hours ago!

Within a matter of minutes half my room was soaked (yep, its a baby room).

Thursday, March 7, 2013

Went to go see some great jazz funk music in this amazing park and afterwards caught more live music in SESC in Pinheiros where dancers were doing freestyle interpretive dance, children were dancing with them, and the rest of the family sat around and listened to the great jazz taking place.

Thought you would enjoy the video and the beautiful graffiti next to SESC. If you're in SP, you should definitely check out the park and all the free events they have going on, its a great green space that is built to last (and sustainable).
http://pracavictorcivita.org.br/

New Apartment!

http://www.danubio.com.br/arquivo/produto/
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So I have finally settled into my new apartment next to the famous Avenida Paulista! It has everything you need, lots of things to do, and best of all, I have 3 incredible roommates that are helping me with my Portuguese and really getting to know the city: where to eat, where to shop, who has the best juice, meats, cheeses, live music, etc. During my lull in Portuguese classes I didn't think I would be able to stay busy, but I spend most of my mornings doing a language lesson or two on DuoLingo (the free language learning website, I wholeheartedly recommend it!) drinking coffee and eating fresh fruits with yogurt or the Brazilian version of cream cheese on toast called requeijão cremoso.

If its sunny, which it usually is by 9am, I head up to the terrace to read articles or write verb conjugation tables in Portuguese...sometimes I read a magazine or newspaper (Portuguese), catch up on letters and postcards, which usually turns into a nap. A gust of wind or dense cloud usually wakes me up, and I scurry downstairs to the apartment before the afternoon rainstorm cuts loose, and it moves fast. Here's a picture I took one afternoon where the sky changed from a cerulean blue to a bruised gray in 15 minutes....the power went out within the hour:

http://files.espacotemaki.com/200000551-e2874e3814/
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I usually make lunch around 2pm, standard Brazilian lunchtime, a sandwich and salad or homemade temaki, which is pretty much a sushi taco and is super delicious and MUCH cheaper to make at home.

Of course mine doesn't look this pretty but it tastes the same and is much faster than going to a restaurant where getting take out takes as much time is eating there.

Here's some tempura temaki I made recently with carrot, green and yellow peppers, onions, and a simple egg/manioc flour batter with cream cheese and sesame seeds (and hot peppers, of course):

So I've tried to make a routine for myself to keep working during the week. I've discovered a quiet place in the PUC library where I can type away all day without interruption until about 5 or 6 when the night students show up to do group work before class.

Fortunately I was there when I received an email from the Consulate office of Bolivia here in SP stating that I could meet up with Ambassador Jerjes Justiniano from Bolivia to chat about my research and safe access to the Bolivian population!

It was pretty crazy actually tracking him down, but after going to two consulate offices (3 metro stops/hour apart) and waiting in a sweltering hot office for 2 hours watching Bolivian families pass through the lengthy process of becoming Brazilian residents. In the end it was probably just a political move on both our parts but will definitely be helpful in accessing current policy in Bolivia and looking at the 2012 Census data concerning immigration patterns to Brasil, it was a great day!

A day to relax in Guarujá, a beach 1 1/2 hours away from the city center.

The awesome roomies jamming in the street in front of Alberta #3, a chill bar in the Centro, their band's called The Soundscapes, check 'em out on Facebook!

Well that's about it for this load of updates! In the future I'll be do a bi-weekly update on new foods, music, movies, drinks, and events/travels.

http://www.correrpelomundo.com.br/wp-content/uploads/
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I just signed up to do the Meia Maratona in SP 2013 on St. Patty's Day! Its a 21k so wish me luck, I am definitely not in shape for it but I'm gonna try to conquer it anyway!

Following that I also signed up to do another half, the standard 26k, in Rio in July! This one I'm really going to be timing myself, I would love to beat my Baltimore time of 2 hours! Should be a beautiful run in both places :)

Making Friends

Cheers to Making Friends!

Between Carnaval and now I've been chipping away at the ole thesis, salvaging what I could from last semester and reading up on current research in the field that's occurring here in SP (most of which I could not access from the states and my Portuguese was much lower). I've had leads on NGOs that then fizzled out to reach the Bolivian population I need to interview to mold the research part of my thesis. Contacting professors in the field here has also proved fruitless, so I geared toward another avenue of communication, creating a strong social network within the academic and social fields that I've already been exposed to.....in other words, smoozing my way in :)

I've also been exploring museums, musical performances, and different parks around the city just to observe and hear what people are buzzing about in SP.

Politics...

At the Museum of Portuguese Language. I found this work to be powerful, but its reflective quality even moreso up close.

Samba...

Religion...

The beginning of the new school year at PUC-SP...

So freshmen are hazed in the street outside of the university after the first day of class with paint, oil, flour, eggs, and of course alcohol poured all over them.

Since people are allowed to drink in the streets in Brazil (18+ years), guys sell mix drinks in carts. However, as advised by many, most of the liquors have been watered down or mixed with something else that could cause major bodily harm....as always, stick to closed containers :)

They love their street parties!

CARNAVAL!

AWESOME AMAZING FUN CRAZY DIVERSE MARATHON OF INCREDIBLENESS!

That's carnaval in a nutshell :)

cross country drive to Rio from SP

We stayed in a great apartment, Sofia, her friend Julianna, 3 other American girls and myself.

The first day we were up bright and early to start the first bloquinho of the week. Bloquinhos are block parties where live bands are playing in trucks, people are dressed up in costumes, and everyone is squashed together in one hot, sweaty parade that goes for a mile or two. Guys are carrying coolers of beer on their backs, selling squirt guns, and everyone is dancing and singing in the sun....for about 4 hours.

The awesome apartment, the bloqos passed right in front of those windows!

Grandma, mom, child, and grandchild are all there to celebrate the biggest holiday in Brazil and THEY DO NOT STOP.

When you see grandma dancing in the street after 3 hours and you feel beat you realize that this is a life skill, surviving carnaval...and that is just the first part of day one!

The view from our apartment window

Even though I didn't know the words to the songs, or have conquered the art of samba dancing, I had a blast dancing and humming along with everyone, trying hard NOT to look like a gringa.

Delicious margarita pizza for lunch. This is the only time I've had pizza for lunch here in Brazil, its just a dinner thing....and as you can see, you eat it with a fork and knife, none of that actual touching of the food...which was probably much better since we hadn't washed our hands, we were lucky to get a pizza and a table!

Escolas de Samba do Rio 2013

Carnaval Parade

So the parade is what I thought of before going to carnaval. Lots of beautiful men and women dressed in amazing costumes, dancing samba, and these crazy floats and heaps of people watching it all happen. Well, essentially that's how it works. What I did not know beforehand was that the parade begins at 9pm and ends around 6am....and then the bloquinhos begin again at 10am....so essentially you have time to shower and nap before starting the day haha. Unfortunately after 3 days of this craziness was the parade and I was exhausted. We walked around all day chasing bloqunhos (half-heartedly, by this time even the Brazilians were looking a little tired) and then headed to the parade. We were in cement bleachers along this huge avenue built and used only for carnaval where you pretty much pay for a place to stand and pray you don't have to use the bathroom or that the water guy walks by, as it is still extremely warm and humid at midnight.

Yep, I was tired....this is around 11pm

So each group of floats is a school. Each school is ranked by order of quality of performance (dancing, floats, costumes, music, originality, etc.)

The craftsmanship of these floats is incredible, the amount of detail and anamatronics used by each school was breathtaking.

So as you can see, each float had several components to it: dancers, moving parts, lights, the float itself moving, and everything had to be insync to get the highest score.

This float, at least the jellyfish, reminded me of the bit on 'Octupus's Garden' of the Beatles Love show
by Cirque du Soleil

very powerful imagery here...the school's theme was human influence on natural resources, I love the contrast of the lush ocean with the oily dead ape and fish, they even used a chemical smell after a perfume smell to stimulate all the senses!

I limped home after 5 days of a great time (I skinned my knee on the first day), I highly recommend going to Rio for Carnaval and staying in either Ipanema or Leblon, they are both great neighborhoods!

Student Persepective: Activities

So sorry my blog is so backed up! Life is actually beginning to form here so I apologize for the late posts, I'll definitely make a greater effort this month to post more often :)

So we're heading to Carnaval in Rio tomorrow for what should be an amazing adventure! I plan taking copious amounts of photos/video so next week's posting should be great!I have a great lead on an apartment with other Brazilian students/musicians so I'm hoping to find my own apartment to share with people that will really expose me to the awesome music and art scene here in SP.

I went to a pre-carnaval bloc party in Vila Madalena that was packed with every kind of person, and a Beatles coverband was playing!

This is Flavia, my amazing ambassador to the university and to Brazilian culture. As you can see, she's helping me fit in with the crowd! She also speaks Spanish and English which is great when I get held up on a word.