All right, folks, sorry to not be producing anything. Classes started on Monday - it feels like a month - and handling different schedules and such has made it harder to blog...especially as I am trying to do it at school for free.
So what´s happening? Last weekend, I was supposed to go to the beach on Sunday. It was a beautiful day. I lazed around for a bit, waiting to ask my host brother if he wanted to go to the beach with me, but then I realized that the grandmother was getting released from the hospital. Before I knew it, I was invited to go visit with them to Petropolis, the nearby "Imperial City," where the grandparents live. I could have said no, but then I figured I was there to be around Brazilians and learn from them, so I decided to go with them.
After the whole hoopla with the decision to take the grandmother home (my senhora wanted her to stay at her apartment and was freaking out about her dad being hard-headed and all that), we went to the hospital to see what was up. The ambulance, which was supposed to take the gramma home, was like three hours late. So, since it was the grandfather´s birthday, we went and hung out in the hospital room and ate possibly the worst pasta I´ve had in my entire life. It made Pasta Pomodoro seem like divine ambrosia. So there we were, like 5 people squeezed into this room, eating and drinking.
The first thing the grandmother told me when she met me? "Isn´t my daughter nervous?" But the word "nervous" here means something more like "hysterical." I answered - "just a bit!" So after an hour and a half longer, the ambulance finally showed up and we got into the little car and got to Petropolis.
Petropolis is a beautiful colonial city built in the nineteenth century about an hour away from Rio. It´s up on mountain. We got there, and the ambulance got there before us, but we had the key. They were kind of annoyed. We get the old lady into her room, after much ado, and the moment that´s done: SE FUE LA LUZ! Everybody busted out laughing - it was hilarious. The doctor came up to me and said, "That doesn´t happen in your country!" And I was like, "yeah, it does!" (I still don´t understand why sometimes we have blackouts in CA in non-crisis times, but we do.) So after all that, the family would not let the ambulance team leave and made them sit down and eat dinner and all that. It was great! We all had a great time laughing it up. We had dinner, ate birthday cake, took pictures with the ambulance folks, made a video. Sound a little bit nuts? Sure, but very fun.
After that, classes began, and it´s basically five hours of Portuguese grammar and stuff. It gets a little bit nuts at about 9:50 when you have one more hour until the break but can´t stand to sit anymore. Ufa! I tried to go to the beach on Monday and Tuesday, but my plans were foiled both days! And then it began to rain. That´s right people, I still haven´t gone to the beach. It´s supposed to stop raining on Monday and hopefully Tuesday will be nice.
After Sunday, things with my host family are more homey. The senhora even offered to do the laundry with me. Of course later she made it a point to tell me she didn´t have to. I almost hit her. I was like, "I know, I can take it to the laundry!" If I knew portuguese better I´d tell her she didn´t have to remind me when she does me a favor. But overall, everything´s pretty nice. I understand more and more of their conversation, though the other the day I had to tell her: "calma! tranquila!" so she´d shut the hell up and let me finish responding to the question she was asking me (she was asking me why the credit card she sent me out to run an errand for her didn´t work - I was like, "look, the people at the store were not doing it"). Anyway her brother and her son, and her entire family really, always tell her that, so I just took my cue from them. Today she and her son are leaving to visit the grandparents for like 5 days, which is GREAT! I hate it when I´m watching t.v. and she turns the light off! I aways end up falling asleep, and I don´t want to mess with my schedule.
So life is just going on and chilling. Below are a couple of culture shock moments yall might like:
- Pizza. What do Brazilians do with pizza? When they receive it, they put ketchup and extra oil on it! Some even put mustard on it. But I´M the weird one! I almost freaked out.
- Road trippin'. When driving up and down extremely curvy highways in the mountains, Brazilians love to practice road slalom. In a road with two lanes, they go really fast in one lane and when they hit the curve, instead of slowing down or, say, turning the wheel, they allow themselves to drift over to the other lane. Yeah! When done with other aggressive cars, semis, and huge buses, it´s enough to make me rather nervous about dying and plummeting to my death!
Hope all is great with everyone!
Friday, July 08, 2005
Friday, July 01, 2005
Só ha que virar à atrás!
Okay, so here I am in Rio. After what seemed like a really long time to get here, I finally made it. The flights were largely uneventful, mostly because on the flight Miami to Rio I took a double hit of Tylenol PM and didn't wake up until about an hour before landing. Unconscious flying is really where it's at.
I got to Rio and again everything was fine. I was a bit dazed, though, or must have been because after exchanging money at the airport, I walked away from my luggage and completely forgot about it. It didn't occur to me anything was amiss until one of the program folks sent to get us asked me if I had only brought a book bag. Thankfully my bag was still right where I had left it!
Out of the group that arrived with me, apparently I was the only one who could make myself understood. Except for someone from Oklahoma, but he doesn't count.
We drove into the city. Going through the northern part of the city on the highway in rush hour traffic: not so hot. That is, until we got to the Zona Sul (the South Side) and sure enough, it was hot. Miranda will back me up here, I think: the city part (not the beach part) was very much like Buenos Aires, which was very comforting. The energy, of course, entirely different from Buenos Aires.
I got taken to my host family, and even though there were and continue to be some communication breakdowns, it was pretty clear to me that my host mom is crazy. How did I know? She's got frizzy heair that looks like it has been dipped in Cherry Kool-Aid. The other clue, really fast talking with lots of idiosyncratic repetition. She is really a lovely person but quite animated. She's quite lively and was actively trying to get someone else from the program onto one of her empty bedrooms. How? By asking me if I could get the program to send her another one. I think she thought I didn't understand when I kept saying ''I don't know anything." But really I don't know jack s.hit. And I don't care. To make matters interesting, another guy from the program DID get dropped off for what we thought was the afternoon but ended up being a whole day.
With all these people, this place must be palacial, right? Wrong. It's fine, but it's a bit cramped. My first room, which I was subsequently told by program staff that I could NOT stay in was about, 8'x4'. My host mom insisted that it was "gostoso, ne?" At which point I started to seriously doubt my grasp of reality, her grasp of reality, and my portuguese because I was certainly thinking "Nao!" But I said yes b/c I didn't realize there was another room, which is the room I'm in now.
Now this room is fine, except that the bed is, well, hard as g.od.da.mned ROCK. It is really quite remarkable. My back is freaking out. I told her today we HAD to get the other mattress down and put it on top. The other catch of my room is that it's her son's, which is really weird for me. I don't *think* that he usually uses it, but how can I know? I asked her about it and asked HIM about it, and they both - citing individual reasons - say that he prefers sleeping on the floor in the living room. I still don't know what the deal is. Her son did say that he preffered near the TV with cable and his playstation and everything that was in the living room, which seems true to me only because when I got there he was engaged in a lively playstation soccer match. But again, who knows, really? If she's been doing this for a while, he may have just gotten used to sleeping in the living room.
Anyway, this guy's really nice, but as far as I can tell he spends most of his time indoors. He does go to school, but it's school vacation. He's 22 and chilling at home. He says it's because after exams one needs to just chill out, which IS what I did when school ended. He may not have any cash, though. At any rate, he is really nice and I try talk to him most of all b/c the mom gets highly dramatic over everything. A politician on t.v.: "meu deus!" A commercial: "Cristo santo!" Now I'm not religious, but there seems to be a clause in there about NOT taking the lord's name in vain. I mean, I'm talking ocd calling up on the lord not your regular "jesus!" (She's got that one down too). The mom and son relationship is like a never-ending late adolescent-parent one: she asks him questions, he doesn't say anything - unless she says something embarrassing in front of his friends and then he tells her not to meddle. Really, very interesting. I am though seeing his point of view a lot b.c homegirl is CRAZY - but sweet. But if I had to live with her all the time AND give up my room to strangers, I might get pretty bitchy too. It's usually all good around the house.
Well, between us all. The apartment itself - something goes wrong every day. It's funny b/c when I did study abroad in DR, I had it pretty damn good. Here, first the water heater wasn't working, then the rooms, now the bed. Amidst it all, the senhora's like 80-year-old mom fell and broke something last week and she had an operation and there's all that action going on. Which means the phone is ringing off the hook between 7 and 10 each night. "Meu deus!" Oh, and the phone doesn't call out either. All this adds to the DRAMA. So now we have her dad at the apartment, who I can barely understand because he is HELLA old and doesn't open his mouth very much, so I can't understand his pronounciation. And once the mom leaves the hospital, she's coming to stay too (her parents live in a nearby city). Can we say, manicomio? Yeah, let's say it. But it is sort of entertaining and fun.
Because I haven't really met people from my program and the senhora's kid only stays at home, I've been staying in and watching t.v. Each night I understand more - and now I think what's going in the telenovelas, though I'm still hard-pressed to give an accurate report of what happened. 'My body also can't seem to decide to change from west coast time to rio time, so I've been staying awake all night and waking up late and all kinds of crap. It's a bit nuts.
Tomorrow, I go on a City Tour at 8a.m.!!! That should help me regularize my sleeping. After tomorrow, I don't think I'll be staying up all night. And then classes start (at 8) on Monday. That will give me structure as to how to spend my time and all that. I've been having a hard time figuring out what to do because I've got no one to do stuff with and my usual partner in crime is very far away (and sometimes I get a little sozinho), but I do get out and do stuff, figuring out where everything is. Yesterday, I tried to see if I could get a chip for my cell phone that would make it work here so that people could call me right to that number (to all those I gave my home number, don't bother!), but my phone didn't work. Damn t-mobile!!! I'll try another provider. After doing that, I walked to Praia Ipanema (I live in Copacabana) and walked down the beach. It was nice...until I turned around (ha que virar a atras!) and saw everything - it was breathtaking! It was so beatiful - the beach surrounded by mountains. I broke out the camera and took pictures. Too many, I think. Whatever.
I gotta get going now, but I will provide a full report of the program's kids' behavior on the city tour. I got seated during the orientation next to the girls from the OK Corral, which is my affectionate nickname for the gaggle of girls from Oklahoma University. If any bovine connotation arises from the use of corral, I will not discourage it. Anyway, they're very loud and had normal voice conversations during the presentation. I am gladdened by the thought that since they weren't paying attention, they'll get lost in the city and get taken by everyone. Everyone on the group, mostly, is about 20-22, which is a wonderful age I'd never be again - or not at that level of gregariousness and ridicuolousness. I've never been good at making friends just for making friends, and with these youth around me, it really is not something that I am actively pursuing, though I'll have to, I guess, since I don't know anyone else. Whatever. I'm sure they'll do and say many ridiculous things that will amuse both you and me. Até logo!
I got to Rio and again everything was fine. I was a bit dazed, though, or must have been because after exchanging money at the airport, I walked away from my luggage and completely forgot about it. It didn't occur to me anything was amiss until one of the program folks sent to get us asked me if I had only brought a book bag. Thankfully my bag was still right where I had left it!
Out of the group that arrived with me, apparently I was the only one who could make myself understood. Except for someone from Oklahoma, but he doesn't count.
We drove into the city. Going through the northern part of the city on the highway in rush hour traffic: not so hot. That is, until we got to the Zona Sul (the South Side) and sure enough, it was hot. Miranda will back me up here, I think: the city part (not the beach part) was very much like Buenos Aires, which was very comforting. The energy, of course, entirely different from Buenos Aires.
I got taken to my host family, and even though there were and continue to be some communication breakdowns, it was pretty clear to me that my host mom is crazy. How did I know? She's got frizzy heair that looks like it has been dipped in Cherry Kool-Aid. The other clue, really fast talking with lots of idiosyncratic repetition. She is really a lovely person but quite animated. She's quite lively and was actively trying to get someone else from the program onto one of her empty bedrooms. How? By asking me if I could get the program to send her another one. I think she thought I didn't understand when I kept saying ''I don't know anything." But really I don't know jack s.hit. And I don't care. To make matters interesting, another guy from the program DID get dropped off for what we thought was the afternoon but ended up being a whole day.
With all these people, this place must be palacial, right? Wrong. It's fine, but it's a bit cramped. My first room, which I was subsequently told by program staff that I could NOT stay in was about, 8'x4'. My host mom insisted that it was "gostoso, ne?" At which point I started to seriously doubt my grasp of reality, her grasp of reality, and my portuguese because I was certainly thinking "Nao!" But I said yes b/c I didn't realize there was another room, which is the room I'm in now.
Now this room is fine, except that the bed is, well, hard as g.od.da.mned ROCK. It is really quite remarkable. My back is freaking out. I told her today we HAD to get the other mattress down and put it on top. The other catch of my room is that it's her son's, which is really weird for me. I don't *think* that he usually uses it, but how can I know? I asked her about it and asked HIM about it, and they both - citing individual reasons - say that he prefers sleeping on the floor in the living room. I still don't know what the deal is. Her son did say that he preffered near the TV with cable and his playstation and everything that was in the living room, which seems true to me only because when I got there he was engaged in a lively playstation soccer match. But again, who knows, really? If she's been doing this for a while, he may have just gotten used to sleeping in the living room.
Anyway, this guy's really nice, but as far as I can tell he spends most of his time indoors. He does go to school, but it's school vacation. He's 22 and chilling at home. He says it's because after exams one needs to just chill out, which IS what I did when school ended. He may not have any cash, though. At any rate, he is really nice and I try talk to him most of all b/c the mom gets highly dramatic over everything. A politician on t.v.: "meu deus!" A commercial: "Cristo santo!" Now I'm not religious, but there seems to be a clause in there about NOT taking the lord's name in vain. I mean, I'm talking ocd calling up on the lord not your regular "jesus!" (She's got that one down too). The mom and son relationship is like a never-ending late adolescent-parent one: she asks him questions, he doesn't say anything - unless she says something embarrassing in front of his friends and then he tells her not to meddle. Really, very interesting. I am though seeing his point of view a lot b.c homegirl is CRAZY - but sweet. But if I had to live with her all the time AND give up my room to strangers, I might get pretty bitchy too. It's usually all good around the house.
Well, between us all. The apartment itself - something goes wrong every day. It's funny b/c when I did study abroad in DR, I had it pretty damn good. Here, first the water heater wasn't working, then the rooms, now the bed. Amidst it all, the senhora's like 80-year-old mom fell and broke something last week and she had an operation and there's all that action going on. Which means the phone is ringing off the hook between 7 and 10 each night. "Meu deus!" Oh, and the phone doesn't call out either. All this adds to the DRAMA. So now we have her dad at the apartment, who I can barely understand because he is HELLA old and doesn't open his mouth very much, so I can't understand his pronounciation. And once the mom leaves the hospital, she's coming to stay too (her parents live in a nearby city). Can we say, manicomio? Yeah, let's say it. But it is sort of entertaining and fun.
Because I haven't really met people from my program and the senhora's kid only stays at home, I've been staying in and watching t.v. Each night I understand more - and now I think what's going in the telenovelas, though I'm still hard-pressed to give an accurate report of what happened. 'My body also can't seem to decide to change from west coast time to rio time, so I've been staying awake all night and waking up late and all kinds of crap. It's a bit nuts.
Tomorrow, I go on a City Tour at 8a.m.!!! That should help me regularize my sleeping. After tomorrow, I don't think I'll be staying up all night. And then classes start (at 8) on Monday. That will give me structure as to how to spend my time and all that. I've been having a hard time figuring out what to do because I've got no one to do stuff with and my usual partner in crime is very far away (and sometimes I get a little sozinho), but I do get out and do stuff, figuring out where everything is. Yesterday, I tried to see if I could get a chip for my cell phone that would make it work here so that people could call me right to that number (to all those I gave my home number, don't bother!), but my phone didn't work. Damn t-mobile!!! I'll try another provider. After doing that, I walked to Praia Ipanema (I live in Copacabana) and walked down the beach. It was nice...until I turned around (ha que virar a atras!) and saw everything - it was breathtaking! It was so beatiful - the beach surrounded by mountains. I broke out the camera and took pictures. Too many, I think. Whatever.
I gotta get going now, but I will provide a full report of the program's kids' behavior on the city tour. I got seated during the orientation next to the girls from the OK Corral, which is my affectionate nickname for the gaggle of girls from Oklahoma University. If any bovine connotation arises from the use of corral, I will not discourage it. Anyway, they're very loud and had normal voice conversations during the presentation. I am gladdened by the thought that since they weren't paying attention, they'll get lost in the city and get taken by everyone. Everyone on the group, mostly, is about 20-22, which is a wonderful age I'd never be again - or not at that level of gregariousness and ridicuolousness. I've never been good at making friends just for making friends, and with these youth around me, it really is not something that I am actively pursuing, though I'll have to, I guess, since I don't know anyone else. Whatever. I'm sure they'll do and say many ridiculous things that will amuse both you and me. Até logo!
Saturday, June 25, 2005
Vambora ao Rio!
I really don't know how to do this thing, but I figure it is a good way to try to keep in touch with everyone. I will try to make lots of entries to keep all my loved ones in the States, especially the lovely mbw, know how I'm doing in Rio. This is just the starter one...hopefully my talkativeness will make these worthwhile, particularly since I will try not to speak English at all while in Rio.
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