Cachaça Khan

blog will be so obsolete soon

2010-03-01T16:40:00.000-08:00

Im going to say that everytime im like HEY READERS why dont you tell me somethin i get 0 comments and I know whose bitch i am.

BUT, lets just chat, favorite memories of me and my life in brazil.

Mine was when i was a baller with money goin to clubs, Mase circa late-90s style (pre-Reverand).

edit: I also wanted to reiterate that blogger sucks and google can choke to death.

An Epic on a Cellular Level

2010-02-24T19:31:00.001-08:00

@ptarmiganmusic (Peter Marting) shared this gem with me. And as I will be leaving Brazil soon (word), it's important I start the transition from travel blog to awesome blog. For instance, this video. Skip to 3:13 for the money-est of money...but the first 3 minutes are more educational and equally great.

Favorite way to kill a mosquito

2010-02-24T19:10:00.000-08:00

I've killed many mosquitos here in Curitiba. Probably near 100. It's been a slow process, perfecting my craft, but I've found my favorite, both clean and high in satisfaction. Highest in satisfaction was using a coke bottle as a bat. You could hear the pop when they hit, and the best was when you saw them fly across the room.

However, this tended to have them end up on the walls. Which led to the least satisfactory and worst in cleanliness, hitting them against the wall. Blood spots, black goo. I used to leave their decaying bodies on the wall as scarecrows but I stopped.

But for the last month...you grab them with your fist and slam them down onto the bed. They don't explode, they just die.

And you flick them hard to some place you won't see.

The perfect answer

2010-02-23T19:35:00.000-08:00

I don't think I've ever enjoyed an answer more, shit's on the real. From dearcoketalk :

I would consider myself an artist; to be specific, a painter, and attend art school, however I feel like I’m not doing enough. I do what I’m assigned, and truly do feel deeply passionate about the work I produce. There is no question in my mind that this is what I want to pursue for the rest of my life. But the problem is, unless I’m specifically what to do, I find myself too lazy to take the initiative to work on my own. Instead I will peruse the Internet for hours, or spend time viewing the work of other artists. I watch TV shows I don’t even like, and I stay up until I’m exhausted; even if I don’t have anything that is assigned for the next day. I’m one of those girls who loooooves to sleep and yet I push myself to stay awake until 1 or 2 in the morning to wake up at 6 the next day for absolutely no reason.
I suppose the real question here is, is there any way to change ones work ethic? I feel like there is so much I could be doing, but I’m too lazy to take the initiative. I feel psychologically compelled to not do work that I’m not assigned, or without a deadline (and even then I will procrastinate).
I’ve discussed this issue with a friend and she says to consider taking anti-depressent / anti-anxiety medication (or something like that at least) to help me concentrate and get me out of this rut, but I’m a little bit wary of those types of drugs and how they might affect the way I paint, write, and think.
Are pills the only sort of “cure” for laziness? Or is there something that I can do to change myself? Or is it something I was born with and is unfixable?

You’re not depressed. You’re just a spoiled brat. That is to say, you don’t need anti-depressant or anti-anxiety medication. Not really. Yeah, there is no pill for what you need.
If you insist on a chemical solution, I suppose you could always start smoking crystal meth. That would definitely get you up and buzzing around, but then again it comes with all those side effects.
The next closest thing would be prescription for Ritalin, but add that to all your apathy and art school, and you’d just turn into one big hipster cliche.
Anyways, if it seems like I’m phoning this answer in, it’s because I really don’t care what you do.
That’s pretty much the lesson you need to learn here. Nobody cares what you do. You’re probably a shitty painter anyways, and there’s a legion of infinitely more talented artists already starving in New York. You should just quit now before you waste any more of your parent’s money.
You can consider yourself an artist all day long, but who are you kidding? You’re not one. You’re just a lazy cunt that goes to art school who wouldn’t know a real problem if it knocked you up after a Bright Eyes concert.
If you want a career in the art world, fine — every gallery needs a receptionist — but don’t pretend to be something that you’re not. Writers write. Sculptors sculpt. Painters paint. Real artists have a burning desire to create.
You either do it or you don’t.

Running out the clock

2010-02-21T16:55:00.001-08:00

I hit my last week in Curitiba. I quit my job on Friday. I take a bus this weekend or next monday for Indaiatuba, Ana's mothers.

Many times when I've quit a job, those last days you feel like, "hey this place isn't so bad. I'm gonna miss x and x"

And this is sort of happening. It's also not. I'm really anxious to go home, also really anxious to leave for Indaiatuba. But there is a lot here I'm going to miss. Some alunos and my friends. I will really, really miss Bel, Bela, Mari and Dani.

Last night, I went to a BBQ for Melina's bday. It was great. Per typical, the first hour is me just kind of sitting, looking at the food. But the more alcohol, the more conversations happen. And the food. Vinaigrete stuffed into french bread rolls. So much meat, cooked perfectly, and cut into little strips so you have no idea how much you ate, but really i probably took down like 2 steaks on the realz. And add sausages coated in faraffa. I was really happy to have a churrasco before I left - and it's process is wonderful. Contrary to an american bbq where you will eat 2 burgers and a hot dog all at once, I really enjoy the process of eating a little bit at a time over the process of hours - the food constantly bringing people together.

And sitting around the hookah, as people talk to me about my last week. Almost universally, people were so understanding of my trouble learning the language, and so patient as I try and patch together my words (which looks and sounds painful, they come out in different volumes and tones, and are nearly always mispronounced).

I want to come back, get a proper carnaval, see all that I did not. There's so much more to see than Curitiba, and with the way everyone talks shit on the people of Curitiba I have to imagine it'll be a much different experience.

And finally as a really strange cap to the night, I had the longest conversation with a 7 year old precocious little girl. With her father working in England, she spoke perfect english, like no accent - actually, a British accent. And we talked about disney land, and the funny thing, with the british accent you feel a little bit intellectually inferior until she mentions being "pARtickkkulahhhly scared by big thundah mountin". Then you realize, pssh, that rollercoaster is weak sauce.

Sup dudes.

pinochioooogod

2010-02-20T10:07:00.000-08:00

I went to the food court today to get some food.

As I walked through the doors, some loud awful music was playing. I looked towards the huge crowd. The song "Elevation" was playing by U2, and a man was having a puppet dance to the song. Puppet dancin to U2 had like, 80 onlookers.

Today

2010-02-18T17:20:00.000-08:00

I got off the bus and was walking off the platform when through one of the open something hit me in the chest. I look down and it's a baby shoe, a bootie. Someone had thrown it at me.

Then someone yelled something I didn't understand.

And I was thinking "I just got George Bush'd?"

Someone then touched my arm and started saying things, so I picked up the shoe and handed it to him.

Pretty analogous to my trip in Brazil.

Yours Truly

2010-02-13T18:27:00.000-08:00

Yours Truly, wonderfully addressed as http://yourstru.ly , is an awesome Web site. Beautifully themed, focused, and featuring a bunch of gorgeous videos. It makes me want to move to San Francisco and act like I'm a part of something. I have a friend who lives there already, any how. The rest is all sell-your-car, take-out-your-savings, drink-alone.

From Yours Truly, The morning benders:

Yours Truly Presents: The Morning Benders "Excuses" from Yours Truly on Vimeo.

Don't you dare fall apart

2010-02-13T13:08:00.000-08:00

The importance of this activity with others cannot be underestimated. I have 2 bottles of Cab though, and am gonna break my duck and watch as many OC episodes as possible. From the aforementioned Tribes and Castes of India Vol. 1 via the Gutenberg Project

66. Living and eating together.
When the members of the totem-clan who lived together recognised that they owed something to each other, and that the gratification of the instincts and passions of the individual must to a certain degree be restrained if they endangered the lives and security of other members of the clan, they had taken the first step on the long path of moral and social progress. The tie by which they supposed themselves to be united was quite different from those which have constituted a bond of union between the communities who have subsequently lived together in the tribe, the city-state and the country. These have been a common religion, common language, race, or loyalty to a common sovereign; but the real bond has throughout been the common good or the public interest. And the desire for this end on the part of the majority of the members of the community, or the majority of those who were able to express their opinions, though its action was until recently not overt nor direct, and was not recognised, has led to the gradual evolution of the whole fabric of law and moral feeling, in order to govern and control the behaviour and conduct of the individual in his relations with his family, neighbours and fellow-citizens for the public advantage. The members of the totem-clan would have been quite unable to understand either the motives by which they were themselves actuated or the abstract ideas which have united more advanced communities; but they devised an even stronger bond than these, in supposing that they were parts or fractions of one common body or life. This was the more necessary as their natural impulses were uncontrolled by moral feeling. They conceived the bond of union in the concrete form of eating together. As language improved and passing events were recorded in speech and in the mind, the faculty of memory was perhaps concurrently developed. Then man began to realise the[139]insecurity of his life, the dangers and misfortunes to which he was subject, the periodical failure or irregularity of the supply of food, and the imminent risks of death. Memory of the past made him apprehensive for the future, and holding that every event was the result of an act of volition, he began to assume an attitude either of veneration, gratitude, or fear towards the strongest of the beings by whom he thought his destinies were controlled—the sun, moon, sky, wind and rain, the ocean and great rivers, high mountains and trees, and the most important animals of his environment, whether they destroyed or assisted to preserve his life. The ideas of propitiation, atonement and purification were then imparted to the sacrifice, and it became an offering to a god.157 But the primary idea of eating or drinking together as a bond of union was preserved, and can be recognised in religious and social custom to an advanced period of civilisation.

Jude's such a pimp

2010-02-11T17:32:00.000-08:00

""Now we are well together, dear, aren't we?" he observed.
"Yes," said she; adding to herself: "Rather mild!"
"How fast I have become!" he was thinking."

Sigh, he's gonna impregnate her.

Melon Collie and the Infinite Sadness

2010-02-11T15:19:00.001-08:00

Sigggh. Today something happened where I realized I'm not the saddest person in the world, awwwweeeeeeeee!!! Remember that whole interest rates post I had that lead to a brawl with my brother in the comments section? I do, it's about two posts down, and was more of a miscommunication about what I had a problem with. Anyway, that whole post started because of a class I had with a student who's a banker here, here in Brazil. Today I had another class with him and was about to go all "So what do you think about the Greece bailout, and the problems of Latvia? Fuck the euro, right?" and then, I get to the front desk. And she smiles and is like, what up, and I say "Eu tenho uma aula com xx" and they all cheer because they know how much I suck.

And so she calls up and makes that scrunched up "I am confused face" and tells me to wait.

And then she hands me the headset phone, which is always uncomfortable, and a voice on the other line tells me the dude is no longer working there. Yeesh. Poor guy had already been dumped a few months ago, and he ain't gettin any younger. So I just was like uhh, he, he..u.m. I left for home. No work for me!

------
I had SOOO much food at "China Food" today. I ate until I was keeled over sick and questioned whether this tendency to go from incredibly hungry to gut bustingly full is the best idea. It clearly isn't b/c I had to sleep for like four hours and just woke up and realized another day is gone. Sat-Tues. is Carnaval. I'm guessing I just won't write anything for those days to give you the idea that I'm going crazy with a bunch of naked people, but really am stuck in this god forsaken town.

Sadly I just had a dream I won the lottery for a million dollars and had such precious observations like "With a million dollars I get can an apartment!"

JUDGE BREAD

2010-02-10T04:07:00.000-08:00

I cannot go to sleep before 4 a.m. which is all nice, and silly, when I have nighttime committments but when I have to be up at 6 a.m. it is a bit of a bother. Last night for 2 hours I couldn't stop thinking about the time I went to a C-level pro-wrestling circuit match with my bud James Hinz in 3rd great that happened to snag Sgt. Slaughter. Halfway through he invited all the kids in the ring, and in my confused, heroic state I thought for sure we were to wrestle him. As I stretched out on the ropes and hopped up and down I thought "man for man we are weak, but in numbers: WE ARE STRONG" and we were to go all "WOLVERINES!" on him, but it turns out he was just a nice sgt. lettin the kids in the cockpit.

And class is so long when I am that tired but I get home and am finally awake, but I'm like 4 hrs. from the first news stories and my eyes are in no kinda shape to read on my computer, so I just keep checking twitter hoping roger ebert gives me some good one liners.

But today I went to the market and bought some french bread rolls. And the bags had steam on them they were cooked so recently. I was drooling on my long walk home, giddy as a school boy. I ate four rolls already, and there are still 6 more!

But yeah, even though I'm finally awake my room smells so I'm gonna take a nap just to avoid that for a few sweet hours.

Learning something

2010-02-09T17:03:00.000-08:00

I imagine that it would be a lonely existence when you can only eat dinner and fraternize with the other sweeper in town.

From The Tribes and Castes of the Central Province of India (Vol. 1):

In the ethnographic description of the people of the Punjab, which forms the Caste chapter of Sir Denzil Ibbetson’s Census Report of 1881, it was pointed out that occupation was the chief basis of the division of castes, and there is no doubt that this is true. Every separate occupation has produced a distinct caste, and the status of the caste depends now mainly or almost entirely on its occupation. The fact that there may be several castes practising such important callings as agriculture or weaving does not invalidate this in any way, and instances of the manner in which such castes have been developed will be given subsequently. If a caste changes its occupation it may, in the course of time, alter its status in a corresponding degree. The important Kāyasth and Gurao castes furnish instances of this. Castes, in fact, tend to rise or fall in social position with the acquisition of land or other forms of wealth or dignity much in the same manner as individuals do nowadays in European countries. Hitherto in India it has not been the individual who has undergone the process; he inherits the social position of the caste in which he is born, and, as a rule, retains it through life without the power of altering it. It is the caste, as a whole, or at least one of its important sections or subcastes, which gradually rises or falls in social position, and the process may extend over generations or even centuries.

Brazil and Interest Rates and FUN!

2010-02-08T17:58:00.000-08:00

Today I had class with a banker. His office was 16 flights up, and the elevator was down (see that word play?) Anyways, I get up, tired, panting, and then had a fascinating class where he finally illuminated me on all the Brazilian fiscal policy and it's effect on their consumerism. Now, I don't have any classical knowledge of finance, only personal curiosity. However, I find it in interesting case. Brazil has been growing at a 5% GDP rate like clockwork for years, re-opening the joke "Brazil is always the country of the future." Brazil also has had many bouts with out-of-control inflation in the past. They also have a population that appears to me to be completely ready to buy their fridges, microwaves, cars, etc. This is all very much like China, however, obviously unlike China their economy is not as centrally planned.

The interest rate in Brazil is 8.75%. I asked if this was the bank lending rate or consumer lending rate and I didn't understand what he said, but it wouldn't really matter anyway as I'll get into. So, 8.75 is really high. By the end of the year, he said that it would likely be pushed up to 10%. The main and overriding concern of Brazil's central bank is inflation, as it should be. In fact, the whole country takes it's cues from the inflation rate rather than GDP growth. Workers unions, for instance, have inflation adjusted pay. If they predict 4% inflation, that's what their pay will be adjusted. However, if it turns out it was 6%, they will strike until their pay is fixed.

Anyways, the strange thing isn't really high inflation, that was expected. But the consumer habits in Brazil are quite odd. When I first arrived I was always thrown off by the pay-by-installment plans that were used for almost every item. I looked at shoes and thought R$50 sounds reasonable until you realize it's 50x4. Almost everything is financed, toasters, microwaves, etc. So, many stores are making most profit off of the interest.

The peculiar thing is that the interest rates they are selling these at is huge. I was told it was often at 30%. But, when you have the poor and middle class peoples who want these things: home appliances, electronics, etc. but can't afford them, they go into the store and the salesman make a deal. 'Okay, what can you pay? $20/mo? You pay $20/mo for 72 months and you have yourself a TV." Absurd right? Again, it was explained, that the worst part is that many people are not even aware of the interest rate, they have no idea they are paying 30% on the installments because of 2 factors: 1) Lack of consumer knowledge 2) There didn't really seem to be effective consumer protection laws.

And it's especially worth noting that electronics and many things are much more expensive in Brazil. So adding in the interest rates, on top of the high cost, they are paying so much more for a microwave. Microwaves are like $20 in the US. And mainly, what I couldn't understand is why then paying by credit card would not be more popular, as you could pay it up front and only be paying 13% on the month. And it seemed to me that he was implying it was easier. For the lower classes with little education, they don't understand interest rates, credit cards, etc, but they do understand someone saying that if they pay him $5 a month they can take home the toaster now.

Ultimately, I find it odd that there wouldn't be a greater movement for consumer education. They would have so much more purchasing power if they weren't continually paying for dozens of months at a huge interest rate. But, I suppose I have to wonder if the government even cares, as they already need to restrict this as seen by 10% interest rates, and this lets them do it by merely burdening the poorest classes. Always an easy option.

But it's always worth stepping back and realizing that was a lost decade for much of the western world has been the best of times in the developing world. All of this growth and this, before Brazil has even really begun production of their oil fields.

Also, write in my damn comment box. And, correct me if i'm wrong on things.

Ideas...

2010-02-07T09:05:00.000-08:00

I like the thought of eating ice cream with a knife as intimidation. A conversation I had, he preferred to stay anonymous to avoid getting the hobo in trouble. He was serious:

anon: i had a hobo buy me gin yesterday

Ben Magnuson: nice haha

anon: motherfucker gouged me though sonnn. ha. and he was trippin so hard about the cops

Ben Magnuson: obviously

anon: unnecessarily though

Ben Magnuson: he's a hobo dude ain't no shame in hustlin

anon: i went to give him the cash and hes like WHOA COOL IT wait a second and then made me walk with him to the bus stop and do some james bond shit you knwo hand off the money all secretively
anon: then he comes back by and just drops the bottle and keeps walkin hahah

Ben Magnuson: hahaha
Ben Magnuson: haha that's fuckin great.

anon: yeah it was funny. sketch though man his fuckin homie was standin there next to me eatin a pint of ice cream with a knife

Ben Magnuson: hahahahaha
Ben Magnuson: i love this story it keeps getting better

anon: and santa cruz has like a shitload of stabbings. especially downtown. rapes too but i wasnt really trippin on that

Ben Magnuson: hahahahaha

What's on the menu toniiitte??

2010-02-06T09:47:00.000-08:00

Today I ordered french bread rolls. Huge deal. See I can pick up meat that is individually wrapped and hanging on a hook no problem. Same with bread. If it's in a basket, I pick it up. Don't even think twice. However, in many of the places I frequent for food nowadays they need me to order the meat and bread from behind a counter. This keeps me from ordering them. But today, I was like, okay, "cinco pão de frances" and she gave me six, originally, and I was like okay. BUT SUCCESS.

I had money for food because Bel lent me some dough for the weekend. This is because yesterday when I was paid, the total was less than my rent. A full month's pay was less than my rent. I was eating one sandwich a day for a week and I was living beyond my means.

But we'll work it out right? Love me.

Went to the store and bought me some:

1 mango

1 avocado

3 tomatoes

3 onions

1 garlic thing

2 limes (should have bought moar)

1 bag of mushroom risotto

2 chicken breasts

1 2 litre of guarana

5 rolls of stuff

ham

cheese

SOOOO super salad? I was thinking avocado, tomato, onion, and then the risotto and making garlic lime chicken. But maybe the mango would be good in the salad too? What do you think?

livejournal entry

2010-02-02T17:28:00.000-08:00

My stomach's been hurtin since sunday and today i tried to self diagnose it thru wikipedia, and everyone at work is against meeee.

Which reminds me. Back when I was 7 or so, I was at my mom's friends house. The friend had a kid, a boy. I'm in his room and he has a 2pac poster with the words "me against the world" from his song, you know. And I said "Who is 2pac?" and he told me: "2pac is this rapper, who feels like it's him against the world."

He totally nailed him. Me and 2pac have a lot in common. Stickups. Common life themes. yep.

FebruRAAARRRRRy

2010-02-01T10:26:00.000-08:00

Today, I went to school at 7 a.m. I quickly check the room listings, and rush to meet my dudestudent. He's there, we begin. He says : I thought I was doing level 3. I was like "Uhh, welll I'm sure I saw level 2... uhh" and I went to check. And then they told me I was in the wrong room.

heh.
heh.
heh.

:(

Passion of the Fruit

2010-01-30T16:35:00.000-08:00

What a title, huh? Solely created because I had passion fruit the other day. And I mixed it with condensed milk, the problem, of course, is that has way too much lactose for me, and i was keeled over dying, it was as if i had ovaries. So disappointing. The passionfruitwasgoodthough.

On one of my walks to school a few weeks ago, I caught myself having this weird chant in my head going over and over, and it went :

"I hate hobos clap clap clapclapclap"

And I thought "Jesus how long have I been doing this?" You've been doing it for 4 blocks "Jesus why am is a second party answering my own questions in MY OWN HEAD?" eu não sei

But every time I stop thinking, the i hate hobos chant re-emerges. But, it's true, i do hate hobos. To prevent another robbery I've began profiling. Anyone:

-With rubber flip flops

-Cut off tees

-Greasy hair

-Funny walk

-no shoes

-Two different shoes

will not be walking near me. The cut-off tees are no sure sign of a hobo, but they are in general intimidating. Shoes are the key, if they are in rubber flip flops (besides me) = hobo. If they have lame shoes = hobo. And also if they have puke dripping all over their beard hopping on one foot = hobo. Sometimes the hobos touch my arms. If only I chanted out loud.

I've been generally pissed of at you recently.

Somebody stole my boiling pot in the kitchen yesterday. I blew through so much money on wine the past week, that i have like no money. I also loaned money to the american at the school - because I'm charitable. Anyway all the food i have left needs to be boiled. I speak much better portuguese which is less helpful while I'm in my "want to kill everyone" mood.

But I get paid on Friday.I'mwithcoco.

I used to have allyson to speak to, and I was worried when she was in a bad mood/laying in bed all day, but now that she's up and about, I realize it put MY staying in bed all day drinking wine seem average. I walk with my fists clenched and stare down everyone while walking.

I'm a damn good teacher, though. When I got evaluated, they gave me all like "meets expectations" and one "needs to work on", but then they wouldn't be advertising their native speaker to their students. I have a number of students requesting me, the business students like me because i have some knowledge of business and can increase their vocab. All others like me because listening to me helps - and I talk. But recently i began teaching a student who has zero english, and i teach her in only english, and it works. I'm amazing.

AROIHDIFHOSUIDVBNOSHER:LAJSR:IOHSODUFNVOLUENLFSIHDRIOAHERINFDOCUSBNEOIHTLAJRIOSNV

For Today

2010-01-28T16:45:00.001-08:00

I might write a long blog post.

But for now, I just post this link:
http://www.newyorker.com/fiction/features/2009/12/14/091214fi_fiction_wallace

I love this story, I love love love this story.

Where's my shnookumssss

2010-01-24T15:51:00.000-08:00

THERE HE ISSSSSSS

Saturday I bought things that I thought were needed to make beef stroganoff and 2 bottles of wine. One bottle was disgusting. The other was good. Anyway, it turns out I BOUGHT EXACTLY WHAT I NEEDED! And then I ate that stuff for a good 20 minutes. And today I finished it off. Also, I'm aware you can see my left nipple...it's like a seinfeld episode. Anyway, the recipe
Stroganoff:
1 cup of bravery
1/2 TSP of fairness
2 bottles of wine

BOOM! Dinner.

Where have I been?

2010-01-23T13:38:00.001-08:00

WHERE HAVE I BEEN?

Internets been out at the pensionato. I was on a roll bloggin, though.

But I didn't come here to update you. I came here to say I have two bottles of wine and am listening to raekwon. And that's a good day for anyone.

Regrets...

2010-01-10T07:41:00.000-08:00

Sigh, everyone's wordpress blog is so much cleaner and nicer than my stupid blogspot blog. Google is just one disappointment after the next until you just wish flanders was dead. :(

also who the hell is this VilenessFats character and why won't they just tell me what to like so I won't just be confused! --> http://www.last.fm/music/Ptarmigan

KARMAWARS

2010-01-09T14:59:00.000-08:00

Okay, so yes, I am indeed a little bit more fragile and frightened when I walk the streets, dudes, i don't HAVE a phone to GIVE anymore! So tonight, in celebrating Allyson's return to online social glory! (i.e. the lone social interacting I get during the day), I made room in my budget for six beers. (R$6.80) MMMHMM. So I walk to the supermarket, never keeping on the same side of the street...try hitting a moving target now betches!

Grab that beer and paid, and on the walk back, doing the same moving target practices, a man in a wheelchair waves me down. And no joke, this same man in a wheel chair I had encountered before - the day I was deported. He needed a push up the bus ramp, but I immediately said "Nao falo Portugues" and he was like :*( - But this time, despite my first reaction being you cannot get robbed by a cripple but I heard him out, motioned "oh you want me to push you?"...

Dude needed help a hill, and I pushed that man up that hill. And I realized, I neglected this poor man before and what happened? I got deported! I got robbed! Now that I helped him? Well, we are dealing with forces greater than me. But I assume some fat cellphone is gonna fall in my lap, and then some really pretty shamwife.SHamwIfesthenewShamWOWlolz.

GODBLESS

Robbed: Real and Thugged out versions

2010-01-07T13:19:00.000-08:00

Perhaps I was showing hubris. Last night I told my sister-in-law I was too quick to get robbed. Today I got robbed. Luckily, I got robbed by a dumb-as-shit crackhead.

Real Version:

On a rainy afternoon, I walked out of my house to go check my schedule, the whole ordeal turned out to be pointless as I'd have no classes again tomorrow. But the rain was important, though a normally busy 5:30 p.m., the streets were pretty bare. I was walking with my headphones in, the wire tucked underneath my jacket. I walk pretty fast and don't stop for requests for anything. Anyway, towards the end of the street a crackheadhobo rounds the corner and heads for the light post where trash is thrown out. This seemed normal, they rummage through the trash for recycling. Except right as I start to walk past he gets in front of me, "seu cellular, seu cellular" I try to walk past and he lifts up his shirt, knife underneath, so I grab the cell and hand it over, and he motions to keep walking. I fumbled a bit, so this exchange was like 10 seconds long. Unbelievable that there were no walkers on either sides, but indeed many a cars.

But the whole time I had my fucking headphones in connected to an ipod touch. Yeah. And a wallet. And the dude took the cheapest thing on me next to my keychain (don't get me wrong though it's pretty rad, it's a bottle opener/nail clipper given to me by AL!!! In fact this probably is used by me more often considering my cell had 0 credits, and was being shut off due to inactivity tomorrow, but, cells are expensive and simcards are not). But why would he be this dumb? Most people listen to music on their cellys, and I think he thought that's what I was using and tried to make it quick, this was pretty damn visible. Or he was just a dumb fucking piece of shit crackhead.

So yeah, deepest apologies to Ana, it was, in fact, HER PHONE, poor girl. And I have no money, so getting another cell really sucks to the budget. I hate Curitiba hobos, and right now have a pretty lousy opinion of Curitiba in general since it's rained for 5 days straight, have no classes, and it's boring as hell and I live in a shit hole. But heyyyy ITS OKAY. I WAS BORN ON THE YEAR OF THE TIGER! AND THIS IS THE YEAR OF THE TIGER! So shit is bound to get better.

Thugged out version

Cruisin on my way to work some dumb bitch steps all in front of my grill sayin some dumb shit and showin me his lil' butter knife and I was like "BITCH" and whipped my gat into his face, cold cocked son wit the butt and started poundin my chest like whattup now, Napahville mothafuckaaaa USA USA, and kicked him as he was cryin lika bitch. Straight up. Teachin him a little biggie 101.

Livin in a Pensionato

2010-01-07T10:47:00.000-08:00

I can't stop laughing at this picture. He has so much dignity! He's even sitting in the backseat being chauffeured when there is clearly an open seat up front! hahaha DOGS

So, the pensionato has been grating on me. My room has become the new room for everyone to congregate in front of. Which if you see my hallway, it doesn't make sense. It's small, only holds 4 doors, is narrow, and is next to the bathroom which is NEVER a place I'd stand next to casually holding conversations.

Now, the kitchen is up four flights of stairs, and is always crowded. And that crowd tends to steal my shit! My tupperware that houses my food for the fridge got stolen over break. What's more? I think it's being used for raw chicken, I can't prove it, they removed my paper saying "108", but it looks like the same one. If only I had cyanide.

In addition, as I stated briefly before I left for break, one night I stopped watching TV on my laptop and go to the bathroom, and there are little poops all over the floor! At first, I thought, human, but then I realized it was dog poops. The little yelpy dog that is barking at every moment of the day, and then makes his way into the kitchen for the .4 hours of the day I'm in there to bark more, right in front of me, pooped in MY bathroom. He doesn't even live on my floor! He's a vindictive son of a bitch. (lol)

Then, that same night!, I go out on the balcony, am admiring the stars, likin that moon, when all the sudden a flaming piece of paper drops RIGHT IN FRONT OF MY FACE and lands on the awning below. I'm like, "Whaaa?" and then a second piece of paper, with second smoldering flames, lands right next to my elbow! 11 weeks ago I would've blogged like "In Brazil, Fireworks are made by lighting paper on fire and throwing it over balconies!", but that ain't the case, I know now, some bud was just throwin flames like nuts over down upon me. HELLBASTARDS.

and now, i'm too lazy to go up to the kitchen to make some rice and potatoes because I don't feel like talking to anyone.

Guess how many classes I've had this week? Did you guess ZERO. Uggs.
Luckily it's rained every day this week PSYCHE that's not lucky.

January.

Wu-Tang level awesome blogging.

2010-01-05T16:48:00.000-08:00

While this might not turn out to be the best blog post ever, it sure as hell is chronicling the best timeline ever. That's always a problem, the really great times are hard to explain in detail because one part being drunk two parts not writing in my head. I usually write all this in my head before writing it down. Jay Z DOES THIS AS WELL.

And, for your sake, Yeah, table of contents pt. II because WOW this'll be long. War and Peace, Canterbury Tales long. So to help you, I'll even give short descriptions of the chapter titles, because stuff like when I describe food just turns out as lists. I ain't a food critic, shit's just documenting. And yeah, friend, there IS pictures, legit ones - why? Because I didn't take them. The pics I took were awful, and I took like 6 before the batteries ran out. Good batteries, much like a good man :( , are hard to find, and don't tell me to buy a recharger, either, smarty pants - I've considered this and unconsidered after finding out uhhhh it's like double my income. (not hard to do.)

Enough typing about what I will type about (bad tendency) Here is the taya-a-able of co-oontents (to the melody of snoop doggy dog song).

PART ONE Summarizing Campinas Christmas!!!
I. Bus Ride - felt up by old man, saved Brazilian family from being torn apart
II. Ana's Dads - food and things
III. Ana's Moms - politics and food and car rides.

I. BUS RIDE

As I entered onto the bus I struggled to figure out what numbers referred to what seats, but finally settled down and knew I wouldn't move out of it (bathrooms on buses scare the shit out of me, and I ain't doin that on a bus bathroom where everyone KNOWS). People settle in and a family settles next to me, daughter adjacent, dad and son across the aisle. The daughter offers me a candy, the dad says something to me. Ugh. I hate this, unexpected difficulties. "Uh, ... desculpe, nao entende." He says something again... screw you man, I hope you di-OH oh, you want me to switch seats so your kids can all be together, right on, feliz natal. And he shakes my hand and promptly offers me a cookie as well. I probably made their day, if not life. They told all their friends, what a friendly American. I'm like, undoing 8 years of Bush era BADwill, singlehandedly. And then the new old man next to me starts chatting me up. I just say random words and nod.

Bus goes off and man, it's an 11 p.m. bus. You can recline all the way back. I don't though, I'm the only person on the bus that feels that is rude. I feel it's rude because I'm 6'1 so when they initially plow their seat back and destroys my knees. And then about an hour in I plop in my head phones, turn on some nice this american life - america's number one party school and was just listening to shrill drunk college girls for an hour and Ira glass begging for money I just...won't...give, a hand starts getting curiously close to my ass. I figure, hey, dudes goin for the seat belt. And it kept going. And I'm thinking, must be mistaking my ass for his own. And then when he gets to the point where he would be wedging his fingers between my seat and my ass, I think...of all the buses in all the world, I sit next to Mark Effin Foley. But I just crawl over as far to the other side of the seat as possible and stay up all night. I felt like cantine boy. I'd cut that bastards arm off if he tried anything, hold the arm up to all the passengers as they gawked outside at the madman.

PT. II ANA'S DADS

Anyway yeah just had some nice meals at Ana's dads house. Her Gma was there who is 95, I couldn't hear what she was saying, on top of not being able to understand what she was saying. But for Xmas she gave me this box that looked like a box of chocolates, so I'm like "Muito HOHOHObrigado" (just hilarious comment), and her father says "Open the box". And I'm like sure, should I eat them now? Haha, oohhh it's soap. It's soap, soap for your face, not gonna be eating that. Her father gave me a tee shirt and CD of brazilian music. I bought them a bottle of champaign for Christmas but on Christmas it wasn't opened, while 4 other bottles were, I wonder if it's because I bought them such an epic, Rappers' preferred bottle of Champaigne that they save it for like, Ana's wedding, or if it's because I bought them the equivalent of Andre, and it was such a slight that they refuse the wedding and global warming.

Yeah so then on Christmas me and Carlos went running with his friend. Ran 6K's, yeah man, that's like MORE THAN HALF OF A 10K! Carlos' friend curiously started smoking up before running, which I don't know if it helps or not but I'm like fast as hell anyways and totally beat him by 60M, at least. Then we had that suga cane watahhh, and it was good. Poor dude that makes that stuff always has bees flying all over him. He's so brave.

Pt. III Ana's MOMS

And then, straight up BBQ time man. Went to Ana's mothers, Carlos got a pork picanha cut, which was just ridiculously awesome. Just poured tons of salt on, lime. And then cooked salmon on it for a few hours, and that was even better. Drank some beer and talked to Ana's mother about my South American political hypotheses, she corrected a few and posed some qualifications. Good times had by all. The next day, Ana's mother took me for a ride around Indaiatuba, showed me the industries were, the parks were, and were all the everything else were.
BTW Brazilian Crime stories. Twice people ran up to Ana's Mamae's car while it was stopped with hands in their pockets like guns and asking for money. She told them to eff off and drove away. Carlos got hit by a car, goes around to say "Yo dude you loco man." and the guy pulls out a knife, carlos grabs it, and the guy pulls back, nearly severing Carlos' fingers. This stuff happened not while I was there, just backstories. In comparison, one time I got really drunk and some dudes beat me up after I called one "Chase Daniel". USA USA USA

Now you are caught up to where I was BEFORE my last blog! That's right, you have the whole NEW YEARS WEEK. Take a break. Take a break.
PART TWO - The week that was REVELLFLIPPINION
Table o Contents.
I. uhuh. - created to avoid renumbering!
II. The arrival - mostly about how crowded the houses were
III. The beachtown - talk about brazilian buttsssss
IV. The first night out - hittin on chixxxx
V. Dancin - How I started a dance crazeeeee
VI. The Food - Probably boring
VII. The Sham Marriage
VIII. Big Brother House BBBQ * The extra B is for BYOBB - lame chapter.
IX. Revellion (New Years Eve) - Wrote really fast cause it seemed that way! Fireworks!
X. Beach Stories and the like - Deleted (already written)
XI. The night where there was a really cute brazilian man NICE - Fairly boring story, chick was hot
XII. Ride Home/Back in Curitiba (AWESOMENESS)
XIII. The letting Go (PICTURES)

Pt. I - Uh Huh

I actually just decided to do two part entry with each their own table, so I just needed this so I didn't have to redo all the numbers.

Pt. II The Arrival

Uggh, I'm gettin carpal tunnel on this rams. So I waited for Dani to pick me up for 2 hours, which is now expected. Anyways on the busride back from Campinas I was getting kind of excited, the moon was bright enough so I could see the countryside with all the mountains and stuff and so I looked forward to the drive to Guarda da Embaù in the daytime (all bus rides to this point have been overnighters (with creepsters and stupid KIDS)). And but yeah I didn't sleep a wink, so I fell asleep right away and woke up and it was crazy nice. Green mountains, man, but eff Appalacia we're talkin nice ones, with lakes in the valleys that reflect the cottages. Isn't that painting a picture? No more scenery descriptions from me. I have PICTURES.

We get to Guarda de/a/o? Embaù, and, I really had no idea what I was getting into. I just kind of paid money and was fine with anything. But our house was not on the beach. It was 3 houses for about 30 people, I don't know the actual amount, and about a 10 min. walk to the beach. These houses usually had 2-3 bedrooms in them. Our house was smallest. When we walked in, I was like, whaat. At the climax, we had 10 people sleeping in there, I don't even know where, there was 2 bedrooms with 3 beds, a mattress on the floor in each room, and 2 mattresses and a couch in the next room. That's only 8. I don't know where the other 2 slept, honestly. But they were there in the morning. House had an awesome hammock where I would lay and listen to music while I unsleepyed after the sun.
On the walk to our house was a street on lined with long structures featuring where people actually lived. One of these houses featured a cute little blonde girl that at first I thought was just a fun kid, but each time walking by thereafter she was being chased by her mother around in circles. So, I mean, she might just be the spawn of satan. But the benny hill-ing she was doing with her mummy was kind of funny. props.

Pt. III The Beachtown

Okay, so we went right to the beach. As you'll see in pictures, when you arrive at the beach there is a little sand dune, then a river, then a beach, then the ocean. To get to the beach you had to either pay a man to take you across on his boat, or swim across. (How oregon trail is THAT!) I always swam, anyway, workin on my beach bod and all. So I swim across, and then I'm at my first Brazilian Beach.

So, yeah, you're right, I should probably answer all questions on the people. Alright, so: the swim attire - men, first. Yeah, most are in short-ass trunks, but by no means universal. I'd have fit right in if I wasn't vampire-pale sans sparkling. So, right...women's attire plus women in general. Okay...well, yes, the women's bathing suits were straight out of the hawaiian tropic girls posters, but luckily for everyone that isn't a meth addicted rural-based midwestern American who buy those posters and stick them up on their walls as they dream about one day going to a hooters restaurant, hoo dog, the women were far more attractive. Like, devastatingly hot, some of them. Although, yeah, sometimes you'd want to oedipus your eyes out when you'd be like "heh-whooo do we have here?" and they turn around and they are 15, and you're like OGOD WHY.

So yeah, If you are a self-described "Ass Man" you might have a coronary and die from the visuals on a Brazilian beach. I'm not, really, and it was a lot to take in. A whole lot of ass to take in. I mean the beach is pretty much a Tone Loc music video. I think I'm just indifferent to that whole body part now. If a situation arises where someone's like "Dude you want to check out her ass!" I'll just be like, what's the point man, I've been to Brazil. Walk into the lake and drowned myself.

In terms of the sun on my pale as folk skin, fortunately every woman in brazil is my mother. Every 5 minute exposure to the sun I was asked to get back under an umbrella. The ocean was niiiice and cold, providing some wonderful relief to a hot sun. I totally bodyboarded like NUTS too. This one guy was better at it than me though, he wouldn't even have his arms out in front of him and would be smiling the entire time, so it was just like this smiling head floating towards you in the water. A short trail walk and you made it to another beach, secluded from any town, and surrounded by mountains. On the walk back we took a different route and I was walking through straight up brazilian jungle. And really, it's thick as hell. If I was a trail blazer with a machete, it'd take like 4 hours to get 2 km in that ish. Which is why I would died before age 10 in any other century pre-20th.

IV. the First Night Out

I'm working really hard to be a Brazilian man, first. Also, I'm trying really hard to find a sham wife. But anyway, the first night out. I put on jeans and everyone was like "jeans, why jeans, ben" and I was like "oh it's all I have" but really it's because I'm self conscious about my CHICKENLEGS. We 'make lots of drink' (my favorite poorly translated english phrase), and I dance and speak some English to some BRAZILIANS and eat food. So we are walking to a bar and it seemed like people were just walkin in the street, so I do, figuring, you know, everyone walking in the street! right? And a car almost hits me and then someone yells "We have cars in Brazil, Ben" Lesson learned!

So R$20 at this bar to get in. And you get a free beer. It's right on the beach, it's crowded, sand floor, music playing from a surprisingly good band (for instance, they played a song that I knew!), so I dance like JAMS. And so not everyone who went on this trip were friends, so towns where they were from was the names. This one guy who lived in the U.S. for three years illegally and now could not return, was named O Brasilia (not O brasilia but you need articles before names bro it was just brasilia). Brasilia was a good dude. I asked him for some phrases to pick up a girl in portuguese. He gave them to me, I walked up to a really pretty girl and spouted them out, she thanked me. Then he came over and said like "oh this is my american friend i was just giving him some words to say, he thought you were beautiful (seriously this is not as douchebaggy in brazil as in states, I proms)" And it was a SICK 1-2PUNCH, but anyway she spoke great english and had just visited Chicago. But after five minutes I ran out of questions for her and it was just kind of like numerous other american bar rejections I've had so then i was like "WELP, um, see ya around the beach!" which was just nice. Maxi then told me I sucked and that she was waiting for me to kiss her, because that's brazilian. And Maxi is very wise, and Argentinian. But dude I'm fine being rejected straight up, but no way in HELL am I having a girl EVER turn her face from my pouty, Jolie-esque lips. I need like written contracts that they will return that magic.

So then we left, and back at the house a dance party was happ'nin, and the cops came and said "Calma" so we went to MY house and start pumpin up the jams, And moral was just I'm really awesome.

Pt. V - Dancing

Well I'm a really great dancer by myself. People are like MAN, he is coordinating his HIPS to his HANDS and spinning, jumping up and down. But, anyway, I thought it was time to teach Brazilians a thing or two about dancing. Yes, they have the "Samba" and straight thug down funke, the coordinated madness, but they don't have Ground Control to Major Foot. And so I teach this dance, invented by I believe Peter or Evan in Columbia MO. where you use your index fingers to control your feet, and then otherwheres. And it took off. Wouldn't you know it on new Years eve 30 brazilians were swingin their feet around and pointin like crazy men?! Strawman, in comparison, fared not so well. But I still like it. Intercontinental dance now.

Pt. VI The Food
Often I just start to cry at how good the food is. Just a psychopathic urge to kill it's so good. The first BBBQ*, well, hold on. Let me adequately describe, they cook big ass awesome cuts of meat for a while over wood burning coals, sometimes soaked in salt, others in some marinade. Then they cut them into pieces and you all just enjoy a few bites. It's excellent, you eat for hours. So, the first bbq I put the cut into my mouth and it tasted like hot sex and I was like Fuck you man how did you make this? And he's like "mustard" And I just started pounding my fist into the brick wall like "SURELY I SHOULD'VE KNOWN THIS SECRET BY AGE 23!", but, no, man, there was more to it. It was a special mustard. But whatever, it was awesome. And on the next bbq, we put regular YELLOW mustard all over that thing and it was flippin great. Also, lime over it all. I learned in brazil that you put lime over everything if you want it to taste awesome. No limit, souljas, to limes. Lime and salt. Alright, the meat the NEXT day, well, dudes, I don't know, it tasted like if you combined lobster dipped in melted butter with a steak, ughman i'm so hungry now. And on this night, they made that cut up tomatoes, onions and vinegar, lime, salt mix that is so awesome, AND rice, AND grilled onions in vinegar and spices, and I ate so much my stomach exploded everywhere, just a bloody mess. Everyone was said to have lost their appetite.

Pt. VII The Sham Marriage
As I said, I was looking for a wife. It would be an easy way to stay, and a nice story to tell (yes, my first sham marriage was to a Brazilian!). So the first night out, I told O Brasilia this, and he said "Go ask her" So I asked her in Portuguese and she said no...rams. So then I asked 3 more, and they all just giggled, like they didn't realize it was life or death? And then, on the second night I hear "BEEEN" and I'm like "Oi!" (B/c I know how to say that!), and they're like, "she wants a green card!" and I get down on one knee, grabbed her hand and put on a real sexy face and her skin just melted off like in temple of doom (have I used that before?). And she said yes.

Later on I'd call her esposa and make comments like "Oh great, my wife is getting hit on by another guy" and I'd get the occasional "you know she was joking right?" And I would put on a pouty face and cry for hours, infidelity is such a bitch!

Pt. VIII Big Brother BBBQ

I'm not sure why I put this in the table of contents, but one of the nights we had a bbq at our house and everyone came. I remember they came like 2 hours late and I thought it was rude but then I remember I was in Brazil. I was asked that night why I don't like "I gotta feelin", and I had to intimate that besides not liking songs that include "La Cheim (or however it's spelled", I've had to hear it a million times already including 3 times in a row (they had just played it 3 times in a row). Then after that, everyone started to agree and started playing it less. I changed the world.

Pointless entry. I've been writing for like 2 hours now.

OHHH, so our house was called house Big Brother after the CBS show. Apparently BB brazil is HUGE, but I don't have a TV so I've never watched it. I'd imagine with Brazilians the show is pretty entertaining/loud. But people kept saying "oh you have immunity for dancing like that " and I'd have to have explained to me what that meant and they'd be like "WTF it's an american show" and I'd have to explain that nobody under 50 watches CBS. One time we pulled sticks to see who would be the "big brother" and I picked the short stick, which was bad. Long stick wins. Longer stick always wins :(

Pt. IX Revellion

Holy shit. Where do I even begin. This was the best new years I've ever had. So, alright, whole day you are on a beach drinking, go home, dress. You dress in white, I forget why, new beginning, I didn't. Then it's like, red for passion, green for hope, blue means you're pregnant (stolen from a joke about moonshine.) Then we went to the girls house for dinner, a rice cheesy, meaty awesome casserole and salad and booze. And then Baile funke music comes on, and dancin, and people walking in the streets singing and chanting, and chanting back, and then a weird coordinated dance to Hey Ya by Outkast, then we go to the beach. I get in the boat at the river, and so it's a clear night under the stars surrounded by drunk people on a Venice-style boat as this guy is power-roddin this boat with a long stick. Get on to the beach, grab some champagne. On a beach, surrounded by green mountains a river and an ocean, hundreds of drunk brazilians singing, an abundance of fireworks hits the sky and comes crashing down on you. It was just awesome. If I could give 1,000 hugs to 10,000 lightning bugs at that point, man, I would. I so would.

So then I gave a bunch of hugs and said feliz ano novo, and tried my god damndest to find a woman. And I failed miserably, it was thrilling. Couple reactions "huh?" and running away. I walked around with two of the brazilian dudes from the group, but their method was somehow scummier than mine, just kind of walking up behind a chick and dancing so incredibly close to the night at the roxbury skits I ran away. And this night I lost my shoes :( but yeah, somehow I ended up back at the house.

If you are wondering how hundreds of fully clothed drunk people found bathrooms on the beach, well, the next day the river level was way above normal. Just sayin...

Part XI - The night there was...

Actually, the night before, I went out one last time. And one of the dudes we started talking to some girls. And they were nice. Then we were talking to other girls, and then it changed and suddenly we were with one attractive girl and one brunette wynona judd lookalike. And he started stayin with that girl and I did one last double check, like "how below my standards is this?" and then said "WELLP" and walked home.

So the last night, I go to dinner with Maxi, Bella, Diego, and Mari. In line at the restaurant, Maxi sees his friend whom I gathered he traveled in Spain with? And her friend. And so this girl maxi knew is hot as hell. And so she speaks perfect English. And I'm tongue-tied and boring, completely reverting to my American suckness. It was depressing. I wanted her to be my sham wife, damn it.

But anyways, I'm goin to Sao Paolo to find her again and wifey her.

Pt. XII The Ride Home/back to Curitiba

I guess it just struck me how this was the first time I had work vacation and was dreading going back to my job? Pretty ramsy. Plus, yeah Curitiba is nice and all but if I had a beach to go that would be rams. But I got back, put my clothes in the wash, walked to work to check my schedule, and looked up at the sky and it was so clear and blue. More than blue. Shit was POST-Blue, that's right, 2010, living in a POSTBLUE world. And then it started raining and my student didn't show up and so then she said she wasn't scheduled and I might not get paid and then I learned I didn't have enough money for rent and now I just have 30 of food money for the whole month and I'm screwed.

BUT SHIT WAS WORTH IT.

Pt. XIII - The Letting Go

Just seemed like an EPIC last chapter.

PICTURES Spawn of satan child on right^^^

There will be no new updates soon...

2009-12-28T02:48:00.001-08:00

Prepare for a loooong winter, boys. I'm going to be gone for like, 4-5 days, celebrating a new decade. Yeah, this is the first fully conscious decade I've lived, I grade it a/n

Anyway, last week, dog poop in my bathroom, flaming pieces of paper falling from the sky, christmas, running, soreness after running, bbqs,

Ana's mother tried to teach me how to drive stick. I am not capable. Pluses: I'm a nice guy, I'm college-educated, employed. Minuses : I can't drive stick.

Waiting for Dani to take me away, she was supposed to come at 8. It's 9. I expect her at 10.

RAMMIES!

Off to Campinas!

2009-12-23T15:20:00.001-08:00

For a Campinas Christmas!

On the way to pick up my physical ticket, and nervous because I'm awful as a portuguese speaker, my friend Cris was there, and she helped me get it! Yeah!

Finally got a haircut

2009-12-22T16:20:00.000-08:00

Bela cut my hair.

I said she should open up a hair salon called "caBELA"

Bs. As.

2009-12-20T09:32:00.000-08:00

Like i said, they aren't great. But it's proof i was there. I like you all!

Looking for ideas...

2009-12-19T19:31:00.000-08:00

that are feasible for execution.

Leave in comments box.

A pretty Mega-Update

2009-12-15T16:37:00.000-08:00

I haven't been writing much at times because there wasn't much to write about. This was not the case with the past week and a half to two weeks. In fact it was pact with things to write about, unfortunately these things also kept me consumed.

And because this might be long, I'll give you a table of contents. Some you may skip through, as I will write this as thoroughly as I can. You can decide the ending. And, to be sure, I didn't skip write because I don't care about you. I assure you that.

Table of contents:

Pt. I - When I stopped being a bitch
Pt. II- When I went out 2 weekends ago
Pt. III - Ro Ro Ro the Bot
Pt. IV - when I started to realize how much I suck
Pt. V - When I realized how much I suck
Pt. VI - I didn't really get deported, but still...
Pt. VII - The Christmas Dinner
Pt. VIII - Buenos Aires pt. I
Pt. IX - Buenos Aires pt. II
Pt. X - Buenos Aires pt. III - the Departure

Part I - When I stopped being a bitch.

For the greater part of a month this blog has been no better than a teenage girl's Xanga page, I know. And I do attribute this to not embracing the gimmick. People responding "But you are Brazil!" stung more than it hung like a badge of honor. That wonderful summer talking point had at some point dissolved away. But it hangs once more, as mistletoe over my door. It's all I have and it's more than most.

Part II - When I went out 2 weekends ago

Two thursdays before, I walked home with thick wads of cash stuffed in my socks. Walking as fast as I could, I entered the door to my apt. and poured it on the bed. I then jumped up and down on the bed until I heard more creaks than I should like.

On the Tuesday of the same week Mari had given me an itinerary of what was to be an eventful week for them. Culminating in a dinner the following wednesday, but highlighted by a costume party on the Saturday. It was on Friday that I finished and scurried home. I was called on, and ventured over. Here at the apt. waiting for me was a package from Al featuring a scarf, a book, and, awesomely, $20 cash. Strange to try and hold in a smile trying on a scarf. Wasn't successful at it, at any rate. At their apt., three of their friends from Sao Paolo, whom I had met previously during the Bohemia fest, had arrived. I spoke in some portuguese. I did things like this. A few beers and sips of some flavored cachaça and we were off to a bar. In a car with Bel and another friend, we went to the first bar. It would not let one in because she did not have ID. To another bar, closing down. Another bar, closed. And finally we headed back to the apt. with no 'out' to have gone to.

Here some bottles of wine were opened, glasses filled and cheese consumed. Beers then after that. These are the nights I can't describe in any detail, because they are fleeting conversations. That said, these are the best nights. The ones I can't really describe, because I'm not thinking about it at the time.

Pt. III Ro Ro Ro the Bot

The next morning I woke up, lounged around for a bit and then made my way to the kitchen to finish off some ramen. In the kitchen a man resembling sean weatherspoon whom I'd met before, along with his roommate, a girl I think I'd met before, began trying to speak to me. The man's comments appeared to be in jest, including re-enacting how I eat. I giggle along like a fool, no one dislikes someone giggling like a fool. And we conversed enough with what little portuguese I know, and what little english they knew. And this was, to be sure, the most complete form of immersion I've had in Brazil. After implying we were to go shopping, I obliged. We walked to a christmas market, and he asked things like 'Do you like Mariah Carey' and...in an effort to seem likable, said I did. 'Do you like the Whitney Houston?' And in an effort to seem likable, I said I did. These things are painful at the time, but I'm confident I made the right moves.

It's not really important that you have anything in common with these relations, the mere excitement of understanding what the fuck they are saying is divine.

And then we went to the grocery store and I picked up aluminum foil and tape.

And we went back to the kitchen and the girl invited me to her hometown that next weekend. Though never intending to go, I did not know at the time how I really would not be able to go.

And then I took the bus over to their apt. Where I began on my costume. I taped a bunch of aluminum foil to my shirt. Made gloves of aluminum foil. Made a hat of aluminum foil. And I was a R$1.20 robot. Not bad. My costumes are always particularly awful, but honestly, this really wasn't that bad.

And then drinks and sips of cachaça and we were off to the costume party. Located on the hills of curitiba, in a house I suppose made for these types of events. Walking in, a cooler filled with beer and a table with spirits placed upon it. I made a stiff vodka-coke. Perhaps this was a mistake.

The following is in bits and pieces:
Eating fried cheese on a stick.
Hitting on the girl who passed out fried cheese on a stick.
Meeting the dude from Chicago who was perhaps the most boring person alive.
Doing some sort of robot as Bela was on a microphone screaming "Roboche, Roboche"
Trying to describe what song should be played next.
Being near some sort of chair.
Dancing with some sort of indian girl who was nice.
In some conversation where I offered to be some guys English teacher.

The following was relayed or asked of me:
Did you kiss that Indian girl?
Do you remember when we were dancing and I fell on my ass?

The following was on me when I woke up the next day:
All sorts of tomato.
All sorts of foil.
All sorts of some sort of beaded gems from an Indian dress.

I placed it together best I could. I didn't get up all of sunday. I ate all the white bread left in my drawer. The friends from the day before knocked on my door at 2 occasions: 2 p.m. and 7 p.m. and at both times I had to intimate that I was too tired still to leave. And I made a swigging motion.

Pt. IV When I started to realize how much I suck

On Monday I woke up knowing I had to go to the Policia Federal to re-up for 90 more days. It was here in the morning I realized my passport was not on me, but at the girls Apt. This was a big deal. Upon counting the days again, I realized that the next day was in fact the day I needed to go. This was a relief. I picked up my passport later that night.

Pt. V When I realized how much I suck

There is a certain assumption I had that people who tend to leave and travel for extended periods of time have a certain savvy about them. They have stories about how they jumped over tracks to make a train, convinced people of things, got out of robberies, got out of stuff.

I learned over the next two days I had none of that. I am the anti-savvy. But to my credit, I seem to find people willing to help. That may be of some consolation.

On Tuesday I woke up early. I looked up info on this process at the PF again. I realized I had only like half the stuff I needed, one being a return ticket. Freaking out at how stupid I was to leave this to the last minute - I did what I normally do, just sort of wallowed, letting the time pass where I could worry. Then I ran into the american I know. She told me that one time she just went to a travel agency and they printed out an itinerary saying I paid for a ticket. This was the savvy I speak of. This is where I have no skills. She took me to a travel agency and did all the leg work. Then all I had to do was go to the PF and all would be fine. I did not do this. I walked to where I thought the PF was, realized it was not the PF, then walked back. And then I thought, man, that was dumb.

Pt. VI I didn't really get deported, but still...

And I essentially had turned myself in. I went to the Policia Federal, and said "Eu gostaria meu passaporte estampar para 90 dias tambehn" which is incredibly broken portuguese filled with fake words and some words that might be close. The man looked at me and told me I was already illegal. "What?" I acted. "You are past the 90 days, theres nothing I can do" "Well, I just bought a ticket, please?" "I actually have to inform you that you must leave in 8 days, you have to sign a document saying that I told you" "LIke as a suggestion, or" ... He then took pity and told me that it wasn't like I had to return home, I merely had to leave the borders of brazil and return. He suggested Foz de Iguacu, the massive waterfalls on the border of Brazil, Argentina and Paraguay. A bus could take me over the border and back. Instead, if I had to waste money, I decided on Buenos Aires. I paid R$8.20 for my fine, took the letter, and bid him adieu.

Pt. VII Christmas dinner

They, the girls : Bela, Bel, Mari and Dani, picked me up for their Christmas dinner. Bel gave me chocolate, Mari gave me a candle. We went to an Indian restaurant. It was delicious. I got the spicy chili curry, which had strips of filet mignon. We gave toasts to our year, I saluted undoubtedly the greatest year of my life. And I informed them of my misfortune in having a temporary time limit on my stay. Bela told me she'd talk to Maxi. We spoke of new years and all sorts of goodies. And I ate my fill. And then they wrapped up the left overs all for me. And then they paid for my dinner. It was not cheap, and did I mention how though I'm not savvy, I tend to surround myself with people willing to help?

Pt. VIII Buenos Aires pt. I

that lunch was on Wednesday. On Thursday I looked at flights. All day at work I looked at flights. During an online class I looked at flights. I booked a flight for the next day. I went home. I booked a hostel. I called Bela, asking how to get to the airport. She gave me explicit directions on how not only to get to the airport at curitiba for R$8, but how to get from the airport in BsAs for cheap as well.

The next morning I woke up at 6 a.m. packed some shirts in a backpack and headed to the shopping estaçao, where a bus picked me up and took me to the airport. At the airport, I ordered a coffee and pão de queijo and I kid you not it was the best pão de quiejo I've had in Brazil. And I got on the plane and then got off. Went in circles in Porta Alegre. And then the moment of truth at that time, the international customs where they checked my passport. I looked as my plane was calling last call. The woman stared at my passport for 20 min. rechecking the letter of the fine paid, talking to her supervisor, before stamping and passing it back to me. Flight to Bs. As. Arrived.

Then as I get to Bs. As. I find the transport to the hostel in a little kiosk. She spoke english to my astonishment. I pay money. I found out where the bus was. And while on the bus to my hostel I thought how savvy I was. Then I remembered Bela had given me explicit directions on everything I must do in order to get where I was. And I still smiled. in less than 72 hrs, I had been nearly deported, booked a flight immediately, found transport and was in another South American country all by myself. Autonomy ftw.

Pt. VIIII Bs. As. pt. II

The bus gave way to a station. And the station had little cars transport us to the hostels. The car dropped me off and the bus driver pointed. I walked with my bag down Ave. Florida, which has to be the busiest street in Bs. As. (no cars, just walkers and counterfeit merch.) Went to the hostel and checked in. First floor was all rockin out with a bunch of american travelers and brazilians. Went to my room. Nice and clean. Own locker with lock. Put my stuff in and took a walk, went to the computer and then said "Now what?"

That would meet me in my room, a kid who spoke English, like, proper queen's english, was there. I asked him if he'd eaten, and off we went. (Prior to this, a Brazilian was in the bunk below, and now I had the pleasure of having in common that I lived in Brazil. And we communicated okay. And that was nice.) But the brit was for the rest of the trip what they might call a "mate." We walked along, finding a restaurant finally and had a beer. He had been traveling for 19 mos. in the likes of Australia, NZ, and Asia. He had saved up for 5 years for it. But I, shockingly, had all the knowledge of South America. I was able to communicate best with the waiter. It was nice. I, for once, was not helpless.

And for that dinner I had an empanada. Eggs, beef, spinach, tomato, cheese. Awesomeness. And a beer. The empanadas would only get better, but also overshadowed by steak. The steak here was cheap and huge and delicious. Fuck Texas.

Upon re-arrival at hostel, we decided to 'give it a go', found a bar in Lonely Planet travel guide. Which is bullshit. Among how it's written are things like "In Bs. As. looking FABULOUS is as important as anything! These people have style and aren't afraid to show it!" How is this informative? Anyways, for one of the clubs it advised "This is the hottest club in Bs. As, but the lines are LONG, be sure to grab a VIP pass." How is this helpful? Are the VIP passes baked into the empanadas? Or fried I guess? I could write better. But won't.

Oh, and of Buenos Aires? Absolutely wonderful. Maybe the best city I've ever traveled to. The perfect mix of old European-style architecture and mixing of modern architecture as well. Beautiful trees lining the streets, apt transportation, wonderful city planning. People were beautiful, truly beautiful. Tall as brazilians with the french body type. Music was all over the streets. They were much more politically active, and with the Falklands war with Britain, I feel Argentina has a certain amt. more street cred than Brazil.

The bar though, we were just walking for ages. And ages. And upon nearing to turn back the brit said "how bout this place", miraculously it was the exact bar we were looking for. A tiny pub my most opinions, it served a cold pint for cheap price. We sat ourselves in two leather chairs and admired the human scenery. They new we were gringos, but being a traveler now instead of a transplant, I kind of admired it. Novelty! On this chair I taught him spanish pronounciation, for which I know little. "And what are the numbers," he said. "Uno...d-dos...tres...quatorze" "You've got to be fucking kidding me," I said. "U2 really did that to you?" And we had a hearty laugh. And he exchanged stories of 19 mos. of travel. Ridiculous jungle trips in asia. How cheap Asia is. How he killed a kangaroo with a car.

And then we went to get something to eat. And we went to a steakhouse. And I got a big steak. And he got a big steak. And I got the wine, b/c I owed him a round, and b/c the wine here is 12 pesos for a nice malbec. That's about $4. And he discussed more about his trips and I, Brazil. How friendly the people are, which I've truly come to admire. The brazilians I asked said that Argentinians were a bit snobbish, but if you are to put Brazil as the standard for approachability, the world will seem cold and bitter in comparison.

The steak came out, gigantic, and french fries as a side. And I discussed how his language has problems. "What about aluminum" "What about it?" "There's no I after the N, it's not aluminium," "For fuck's sake it's our language, if we say it's aluminium it's because that's the way it's pronounced" And I suppose he won that one. I had a shameful tendency to use the word "proper" more often than I normally do.

Then we headed back to the hostel bar, proper wasted, and down below, a sort of cruiseline bar filled with tourists. We started talking to some swiss girls. And after being thoroughly bored by me, and I them, I thought of how they are banning minarets and wanted to really try their neutrality but alas I just bought tequila. And then I found some Brazilians, and they took me in, told me I am brazilian now. And they tried to teach me Portuguese. I began speaking to some women, and the brazilian came back and said "no, friend, they are ugly" and I thanked him. And the brit was lost at this time, it turned out he met a swedish girl in the lounge to some effect.

And the next day I woke up at about 5 p.m. We went to go find a restaurant at 6 p.m. on a saturday, and I kid you not the world was closed. After walking ages, we finally found one, and ate steak. And french fries. And he described how much he desired a sunday roast, which is like a roast with vegetables and potatos and gravy or something. I unno. I really wanted lots of soda with no refills. Same bar that night, few drinks. Retired.

The next morning I ventured off sightseeing. Went to the Plaza de Mayo. Went to a Botanical garden and Palermo. Took some truly awful pictures, which I will post tomorrow. Ate lunch by myself. Had a truly snotty waiter this time. I took the subway and all. Proper autonomy aye?

Pt. X Bs. As. Pt. III - The Departure

The next day I woke up early, took the shuttle to the airport, and got in the long line for TAM to Porto Alegre. She took my passport, looked at the mark from PF saying I had overstayed. She told me they might not let me back in. Then she said, one minute, I have to speak to Sao Paolo. And she was gone for 40 minutes. They made me stand aside. I waited. I thought about how I would have to find a flight to the U.S. Ship my stuff back. Notify everyone.

She came back flustered. It's all okay, she said, just show them this. She was an angel. I wouldn't wish going through that much brazilian bureaucracy on my worst enemies. I got some food, went on the plane. And, unfortunately I sat next to an old woman who I'm sure had pooped herself. And I covered my mouth the whole way. I was confident I'd have 2 hours between flights at Porto Alegre. So confident I discounted the fact that we boarded late. I discounted the fact that we were stuck on the runway forever. And when we arrived, I didn't mind that I was in line at customs for 30 min. I saw the clock 18:00, ahh, it's only 4 p.m. Because I'm retarded I can't tell time. I also forgot there was an hour difference between Bs. As. and Porto Alegre. And so I stepped up to the Policia Federal. She checked my passport, she made a call, and 10 minutes later, I was off. And I dillydallied, used the bathroom. Went to my gate, and ... wait, why is no one there yet. Okay, it says last call. What time is it...it's 630? My flight leaves at 605. The board? Changed to "taking off"

So I went to the TAM and got a new flight at 22:00. Got in at 23:10. Went to some people, asked in broken portuguese where the shuttle was. They laughed and pointed 3 ft. away. I got on the shuttle. He dropped me off in my place, and Here. I. Am.

And no doubt, no doubt, with Christmas with Ana's family and then New Years, there is plenty to look forward to.

Pictures to come.

wonderful

2009-12-04T03:28:00.001-08:00

Phoenix - 1901 - A Take Away Show from La Blogotheque on Vimeo.

today

2009-12-03T17:13:00.001-08:00

My ceilings are tall enough that I can scatter dolla bills on the mattress and jump up and down without hitting my head.

Problems...

2009-11-29T19:40:00.000-08:00

So, my initial hypothesis was wrong. Apparently, São Paolo has the third-highest Jewish population in the world. So why, then, are there no f'n bagels in this country?

A dude at the school told me this, and it was the first question I asked "Then why don't you have bagels?", and he thought I was being funny. But I wasn't.

I read the 7th Harry Potter book in a couple days this weekend. Worst pacing I've ever seen in a novel. I don't think she realized she was writing the defining book in her series for 300 pages and then scrambled for the next 300 to tie all the nonsense she was spouting in the first.

Better asteroid-disaster movie: Deep impact or Armageddon?

Wants: DVDs and BOOKS.

DISLIKES: long hair and lack of toothpaste.

One of the things I love about reading Glenn Greenwald is left-leaning blogs tendencies to link every time he goes after a right-wing hypocrisy, but ignoring the complete tenacity in his defending of his civil liberties values against the clear hypocrisy of the Obama Admin.

Here Greenwald goes up against Matthew Yglesias, to be sure one of the most reasonable and entertaining bloggers on foreign policy, about Yglesias' claim that Obama's disturbing record on civil liberties is understandable because that's how the executive branch works. This is a post that will not be linked.

However, a post like this will get linked like wildfire. Greenwald, of course, quite possibly could be short-sighted and underestimating the difficulties of governing in a time like this (and Yglesias' main point is probably correct), but it is quite refreshing to never see Greenwald back down from his values.

I'm losing my edge... but i was THERE

2009-11-28T13:29:00.000-08:00

I'm incredibly full right now. This was probably my first real created meal at the pensionato. Boiled up some tortellini and poured some tomato sauce on it. Considering the popularity of toasted ravioli I wonder if the same could be had for tortellini. Mix up some cheese tortellini and calamari for some real fun.

I can't really keep a room clean.

There was a work party last night. It was at a very nice house. They had little canoli's filled with potato salad instead of cream. A series of cheeses, breads, and wines. And potato and chicken salads. I ate my fill, two days in a row now. Hard as I tried to speak portuguese, most would rather speak English. And 3 months in I'm still about as awful.

I successfully mailed a letter, though, on Friday.

Thanksgiving was on Thursday. I celebrated by going grocery shopping. I decided I'd shop at a new market. This one is closer and a bit more comprehensive. However, they do not have any pre-packaged meat. This doesn't mean processed, rather, usually markets have sliced up some cold cuts and put 'em in plastic, same with cheeses. This has just the butcher. I'm doing good on pastas now, but should the fancy arrive, I think I'll write down the fraction and point. Also, I ate a chocolate cake, pretty much a whole chocolate cake in 2 days. It wasn't portillo's sized or anything, rather more like an entenmanns.

It appears I'm missing perhaps the best Hawks team of my lifetime, even though they got shut out last night. The circus trip is brutal on any number of hosts.

It really is summer here.

Two days ago whilst walking to work, it was raining. I have no umbrella because I forget every single trip that I make to the market to buy one. So anyways I'm walking to work in the rain, which happens about once a day, and listening to music. And so all the sudden to the right of me some guy rushes next to me and puts an umbrella over my head. For 4 blocks he just walks next to me so I can be under the umbrella. It's one of those nice things I can't see happening in the states. The resulting awkward thank you and half handshake-highfive, however, seem to follow me everywhere.

On Thanksgiving I had some especially awful internet. Which was inconvenient for the phone calls home. My brother asked if he could call my cell phone, but seeing as I have about $6 on it, I told them no. My father said "I'd like to think talking to your family is more important than your minutes," but the truth is, the process it takes to re-up for this chip, there isn't really anyone i'd recommend calling my phone.

Finally, I deleted Jay-Z's blueprint III. Pretty weak album. I don't even like the songs I thought I liked 3 mos. ago.

Bloodsuckers, bubble wrap and (b)samba

2009-11-22T11:19:00.000-08:00

Looking at my ceiling right now, there are 8 mosquitoes. This is troubling. Word has spread through their social circle. I'm easy pickins, a sitting duck. While during the day they don't bother me, they expect me to forget, at night they swoop down and leave open wounds. I cover up best I can, which means they get me in some odd places. Ever had a mosquito bite on your palm? It isn't the itchiest, but it's odd. Knuckle? Yeah. They get the feet a lot. And worst of all, they buzz right in my ear. Last night I killed three, and thought I was winning. But no, they've multiplied? The ceiling is so high, I don't know if I can do anything. I'm not even sure how so many make it up into this room, through my tiny window looking into a hallway.

Friday night before I went to bed I was out on the balcony. I heard some pops. Across the street, a homeless man was sleeping underneath awning. Wrapped in a tarp and sitting on bubble wrap. This bubble wrap was the only thing between him and the cement ground. Yet he couldn't help himself. He found popping the air bubbles so much fun he was willing to waste his comfortability. First he was popping one by one. Then, he began stomping his feet for an epic 'crack-crack-crack'x50. This, to me, seemed very short-sighted. But, I guess when life is that bad, popping bubble wrap must seem like Christmas. And boy, did he have a great Christmas.

The palm is itching now. UGh.

So, this weekend I've been going to a bunch of music acts with Dani and her friend. Her friend, through questions I've asked in PORTUGUESE, I've found out is from Rio de Jineiro, and is a lawyer. The first night we went to a small, hidden place, that when you walked in was an empty room and in the back was a make-shift bar and a piano. Samba bands played all night. Due to the intimate location, I did not attempt to dance. They were all very good at samba dancing, very good. Like a coordinated snoopy atop Linus' piano.

Especially an old man. In a fedora and blazer, he walked like he was 80. And then, it was like a scene I watched from my sister Jordynne's movie collection called "Tap." It was your typical dance movie, some dude get's out of jail, falls into the usual bad habits and meets with his old friends. Here comes trouble, right? Except his friends aren't drug dealers, they are TAP dancers, and his crime? It was innocent, non-violent, altruistic. But so anyways, his friends are all like 80, and they aren't allowed to dance anymore because of the doctors, who presumably are worried about the cardio activity on their heart. But they are unhappy, and it's a conundrum: should they dance and feel alive, or actually BE alive but feel dead? But seeing their old friend out of jail, it just causes them to dance. And these old men, who needed canes to walk, were suddenly doing crazy-legs!

And that's what this old man was like.

Ode to Cup'o'Noodles

2009-11-18T17:15:00.000-08:00

I love you. You keep my belly full when my wallet is famished. You teach me about different cultures. You're color-coded consistency keeps my language inadequacies from becoming a problem.

That one night we had, where I had no way to heat the water, so I used the mysterious tea pot to heat the water, while I eyed the security camera nervously, was so THRILLING. It brought us closer together, as I consumed you.

Carne, Frango, somethin someone told me was hillbilly chicken, they all ESSENTIALLY taste the same, yes, and the flavored cardboard you call meat is difficult to discern its authenticity, but my God how many lives have you saved? Jobs created? Jobs saved?

Shrimp. Hot n spicy.

It's a global treat, it would have been in the boxes during the berlin airlift.

I'm a proud owner.

Blogging for flogging's sake.

2009-11-12T16:51:00.000-08:00

I learned I could download albums.

The first one said it would take 216 days to download, a total more than my Visa lasts.

But, upon second try, a much more reasonable 21 minutes sufficed.

Surfer Blood - Astrocoast, is worth a few spins. While I don't normally do well with these things, I notice some very toned down Built to spill, a dead ringer for Shins vocals, and some Citay. Good album for summer in brazil if i had headphones.

Girls-album.girls. I've been waiting to download this since before I left, but I forgot too. While I do enjoy it, it wasn't quite as good as I wanted. Few spins.

Nonetheless I needed some new blood in my itunes. I've been burning through the same stuff.

Today I ate a whole jar of pickles, what did you do??????????

not much to say...

2009-11-09T18:10:00.001-08:00

You can point to some anybody on the street and it's likely they've had a more eventful 2 weeks than I.

I did move. I am here. 4 walls with a window into a hallway. A bed that on the first night was merely covered with towels and comfortable tshirts I felt comfortable sleeping on. The next night covered with old sheets a nice co-worker gave me.

And, almost mercifully, one of the walls in this 8 x 4 room is salmon. I can't handle anymore white walls. And no more living out of a suitcase.

But yet, no more free breakfasts. And those were important. On Saturday, which was a day of depressing bouts of nothing, absolute nothing, a day where boredom is something to do and everything else is numbness, I walked further than I needed to to get some groceries. Not enough for a week. Enough for a day. A day of eating cheetos. A day of cheese sandwiches. A week's worth of vodka. And a liter of coke. And plastic cups. 50% of each liquid into the cup. It wasn't particularly fun, it wasn't particularly helpful, but it was a task. It did give incentive to move, which was more than I normally had.

I had a 2-hr class at 8 am on Saturday morning with a Japanese student. When it became time to speak he grabbed his hair and smacked his face, looked up at the sky and torturous motions and kind of willed words out. His vocabulary is fine, he knew a lot of words, just in no coherent way. The words eeked out with no discernible pleasure, or any discernible fluidity. The vodka would've been helpful then, but it wasn't in play for hours later.

But the hours at the school are indeed the best. The only amounts of interaction I have. Going home, finishing, signifies the absolute end of the day, but I can lay in bed and stare at a salmon wall.

Can You Move To Brazil?

Hard to say my experience is an example. But how much do you like yourself? Enough to spend countless hours with it? Your meals will largely be alone. Your nights as well. Your mornings, absolutely. Your days, of course. Your weekends - those are tricky. The hostel gave the allusion that things could happen. And for the first weekend it was great. The second was made by Dani, there was no one at the hostel. The third nothing happened except for one night with a bottle of tequila, a bottle of vodka, and 2 Paolistanos and a Curitibano. That has a happy ending though.

And then the fourth here. And the fourth was brutal. Conversations in your head can only get you so far. My dreams even became boring. Probably due to self-induced hunger, I've had many dreams of merely eating. Just at a table eating. The unattainable climax is thinking about getting ice cream, but then I wake up...fuckml. I used to try and act like I had something to do when eating alone at a lanchonette, but I've resorted to just staring straight ahead. Staring up. Staring straight ahead. A conta. But then you have the walk back, and that's something.

And but then a few connections finally pull through, and things are able to turn around. But there is something awful about days just going by. They turn into months, and months, likely, is all I have. I just hope there isn't a point where someone asks me what Brazil was like and all I can muster is "It's kind of like being stuck 4x8 box with one salmon wall. But the food was great"

moving tomorrow.

2009-11-05T16:02:00.000-08:00

self explanatory.

Nothin else has happened.

and it comes to a screeching halt.

happy halloween

2009-10-31T17:02:00.000-07:00

It is sure to happen to anyone, let alone me. Especially since I'm not traveling much, especially since I'm alone for much of the week. Those small details that seem so exciting at first, (say, enchiladas on an airplane!?!) gradually just shift into what becomes your life. That's what is so great about dramatic change, especially change that involves moving to a different culture, each one is like a single bubble in a sheet of bubble wrap, each pop brings as much excitement as the last, until gradually one isn't enough, and you pop handfuls at a time until you're left with an unexciting sheet of plastic, that is now your life. But I'm not there yet. But it is tougher to think about ways of writing things that are exciting.

For instance last Saturday I went to a Brazilian country bar. Dani took me after a day of tourism that involved pictures I will include at the bottom of this post, Al Craven style. We drove up to this warehouse of a club with a line that wrapped around corners and more corners, reminiscent of a star wars opening night, without costumes. And we stood in line: Dani and 2 of her friends, and myself, after I had been waiting for an hour without a cell phone outside in front of the mall - where, after wondering for 30 minutes where this hideous smell was coming from (surely not the Brazilian people, right?!), found out that I was standing next to where a hobo had cleared his bowels. But 3 girls would not stand fit to stand in line, they got to go ahead. And eventually, I made it to the bar, after 40 minutes of waiting, standing in silence oogling the pretty brazilians around and wondering, they are older than 15, I hope. 19 is my new limit.

And in this bar we had fun, and I paid dearly for that fun with my greatest currency, which now, for the first time, is real currency. And it was crowded, when I made it in there was still hundreds behind me, and I had to squeeze through as soon as I made it to the door. There were several brazilian women I refer to as "Amazon women" due to their tremendous height, they seemed upwards of 12 ft tall but I suppose I'll settle for 6'5. Their legs seemed to end at my mouth...but I'll leave it there. They were enabled with both breasts, however, and that's where the name falls short. Nonetheless, these Amazos were a tremendous asset. Assembled hither and thither among the dense crowd, they served as booeys as I navigated the sea of people. Where are we? oohhh right by booey hoop earrings, and they were a stable reference point. I imagine girls like that don't need to go to the bar to get drinks, they can just reach from wherever they are.

And it was for the second time I was at a bar, recognized, by people of previous acquaintance. And this enabled tremendous success, along with my general gringo charm and pretty face.

But before that success was a time where I had another man put effort for me to achieve success. One of the girls friends, who asked me which girl he should go ask to talk to me. He pointed to one of the booeys, and I, I think out of respect for what they had meant to me, said yes. But so she spoke english and talked to me, then introduced me to her boyfriend. Who spoke to me, and after 10 minutes speaking to this man I thought, hey, cut your losses. This sucks.

And then all of sunday I slept and looked all around me. It was rainy then.

What do I say for the rest of the week then?

On Thursday walking to class a grouping of police cars were gathered, along with an ambulance, along the road way. I saw a group of gawkers gathered as well. In the corner of my eye I saw a tarp on the ground. At that point I knew the rest, and said "don't look" to myself. But I did look. Beneath the tarp a sea of blood spilled out from the lump being covered up. I remembered being a young journalist sent to a mcdonalds where a man had just been shot. The photographer raced there saying "I hope they didn't move the body, yet!" "Yeah...totally" and then when we got there I saw a bunch of blood in the middle of the parking lot and said "That must have been where he was ... shot." It was a tremendous observation. And both led me to feel awful. Awful gagging feelings. Brain completely distracted. blood is incredibly red, before it dries up. Distracted and cotton-mouthed, I walked to work. I nearly got hit by a car I was so out of it. I couldn't write on the blackboard without writing redrum.

And, reassuringly, the people at work told me how bad it's gotten. "oh you live across from Estacao, lots of drug deals in that park, very dangerous." "Yeah a student almost got robbed outside the school last night, but he was holding his iphone out in front of him" Idiot, I would never do ... oh wait I do that with my ipod all the time.

I ate a hot dog then, that night, with mustard.

And so then, last night, I hung out with some Americans here on a biology trip. I went to dinner, got a x-egg, a cheese eggy, a hamburger with ham on top, an egg on top of that, and lettuce tomato and cheese. Keep in mind not in American portions. And we exchanged books that we were tired of. And I have connections in different parts of Brazil. But that ended at 10 pm and I went to sleep.

And today, at halloween, with my friends all mostly gone, I did nothing. Nay, I went to Passeu Publico, a zoo of sorts. And I laughed at the rainbow-feathered parrots, who looked so embarrassed. "I bet they feel overdressed" I said to myself. And I laughed at this. Because, it's at that point where the dialogues in my head are more common than real live ones. And then I went to a lanchonette and got a x-frango and a cocacola and fell in love for the 100th time with the counter-lady.

And I read a book today. And spoke to friends.

And at 9 pm I spoke to an american here, who I spoke to the night previous. And she was going to Wonka bar. And when asked what I'm doing tonight, "not so much". "Yeah, if I was on your budget I'd understand. I'm glad I still think I'm on vacation." And so instead of making a small step to go along, I decided to ride this theory, that I wasn't planning on going anywhere because I was poor, as opposed to what it actually was - I had no one to go with. But if that sounds pathetic, she wasn't that attractive so I forgive myself.

And no I'm here. And Here are pictures.

the one on the right is who let me stay in her room for one month, muito obrigado Dani

taking suggestions...

2009-10-29T18:01:00.001-07:00

on how to solve my laundry problem.

Leave them in the comments box por favor.

fighting sickness...

2009-10-29T10:10:00.001-07:00

been kind of useless this week as I battle a sore throat and stuffiness. I have pictures from the weekend, and am aware the longer I wait the less interesting the writing gets, but so anyways. A volleyball club is at the hostel, which means about 70 teenagers are here. Earlier I watched them re-enact 'Single Ladies'. They think it's funny to say "Hello" to me and then giggle for 10 minutes. Hostel wearing out welcome.

ptarmigan

2009-10-26T11:34:00.000-07:00

At 1030 this morning, they moved me, again, from the 12 man dorm up three flights of narrow stairs where I carried my suitcase with forearm strength 2 ft. in front of me, to accommodate my legs, in to a 12 ft x 8 ft single room with white walls and a mirror, ceilings slanting starting at 2 feet and / up to 6 feet, so I crouch in 3/4s of this room to sit on my 5 ft. bed, where I jumped on too and exhaled. It is in this white, short, small-lapped room where I lay now, with roughly 3x the anxiety, remembering the 1 friend who could subtract it down to 0.

And it was then, 1 hour ago, to now, where I traveled through time and space, to the opening drones and haunting wails, a strum of guitar and plucks of a bass, to three years ago, barely standing by the north sea, my ancient friends...

Standing in some foreign apt in Indiana, there for little 500, to see a cousin, but ended up the first night, with one good friend’s girlfriend, and three that I knew by name and appearance and little else. Before those three bonded with 3-6, the discussion was less hood, more spiraling around stairs, which pavement album was the best, what to make of terror twilight, the shock of meeting a kid in fraternity listening to malkmus, the shock of meeting anyone who listens to pavement, the drinks that accumulated one by one to result in one singular embarrassing moment, whilst dreaming that a kitchen was a bathroom.

I will fight to expedite another lonesome winter

Forward, westward to Kirkwood, in a cramped kitchen at a wood table me and Stephen to meet ted to meet evan, fresh from the boat, after taking the plane thousands of miles, arriving in st. louis, from Scotland. A figure now with long hair and tanned narrow face, more confident and straightforward, remarking on the exactness of the pint, a glass there 3 ounces more than here. The Croatian women, he remarked, more than 3x more beautiful than the men, to whom he was roughly 2x as good looking. And for one hour he spoke of 5 months, and off to sleep, while we headed to Teds basement, to drink 2 xs, while we sat on the cement floor.

didn´t want you to go, if you die just let me know...

1 year from then, after 6 mos. of a group with a total sum so large from makeup of its respective parts it seems like a fluke,we sat on the cracked wooden porch on a shredded leather couch. Evan, in heightened anxiety due to the absence of Bess, and Me, in heightened anxiety for reasons I can’t rationally explain or disclose, sat in silence, only able to speak of how we felt restless and heavy. Each other compounding our anxieties. But the solution, of course, was a change of scenery, not company. And in the winding roads moving out of Columbia, with each exhale, the heaviness expelled through the cracked window, into the leaves of the looming trees, to be breathed in by the leaves, and exhaled and taken in by the blinding stars above. Far away from me for the night…

Continental drifting is so hard on me, to find out just where we’ll be…

Reverse nine mos. to the basement. The first practice after 5 mos of Peter being day away in Australia, evan hours away in Scotland. Behind the fish tank of a fish of particular lack of intelligence but strong will, surviving alcohol poisoning and malnutrition, began the first sounds of the music that would define the next year in all memories and importance, with continual peaks and no valleys, that could not even be described correctly as a plateau or rising mountain. We jumped from mountain top to mountain top and never looked below or ahead, to such success now it’s impossible to not, now, look behind.

And your face glows blue with the second hand light reflecting off the moon

And in the daylight of a bar usually avoided, one that plays evil dead on loop and what to make of it, a small group of us made it to watch the notes reflect in the sun, and with hours to go, a later rendezvouz to cap off a perfect day. A drive through the trees, where we parked, and hiked to the top of a bluff. And watched a house’s single light turn into a fire, and the fire turn into the moon.

Just sit on yer perch and watch everything collaaaapse

A message from peter in February outlining the many ptarmigan dates, to be circled on april 14, or 16^th, when the album would debut. It made the semester look as short as it was, but almost mercifully that night seemed the perfect length. ½ an hour of numbering cds individually, hands reached to the sky, 6 18 oz pbrs to be drunk before 1 4 hour show with 4 acts, respectfully. Of course, and a meet up of 6 close friends before entering into a sea of unknowns. The reward for years of service, the word was out, the hands were up, and no amount of hyperbole could match the elated feeling of all loosely involved…

And it’s been said, I don’t feel the same…

In late june the heat of the summer became oppressing in a 90 year old house with 0 circulation and the result was a general bitterness and shortness with everyone that, certainly, was on par with oxycontin withdrawal. This, was cured by caroline’s apt and cooling temperatures.

Where’s the wolf

1 walk down the 1 mile trail to see the meeting of 3 creeks was stopped short by the complete realignment of shore and water. And with that, Evan mortared some rocks with mud, and I looked through a myriad of them to find the perfect shape. And with that the water of a tiny stream was stopped, in hopes of washing away the excess of rocks preventing the numerous jumps one could take from one leaning tree into the water below…

I don’t care-a what the nurse says a pqrs p-q-r-s

And for one time, at the same creek, a breaking of the heavens left creeks and streams to be rivers. And with it, we packed our phones and keys under a log, and ventured with jimmy and Christina and Stephen and evan and Peter and I and we walked cautiously across a rapid, where some fell, turtles were saved, beer was forded across like Oregon trail and we made across to the soggy ground afore. And made it to the meeting, the swimming hole, where it was now a massive rapid. And the turtle, unfortunately, had to stay. But the beer was chucked, one by one, across, it was a matter of life or death. And Peter jumped first, off the tree, as far as he could make it before swimming frantically to the other side. And then Jimmy. And then Christina didn’t jump but bolted from the ground. And then Evan. And then I. And to get back, we all lay on our backs, projecting where the water would take us, before grabbing a tree branch and hoisting ourself up.

I am the interloper.

And as I opened my eyes I was here in the room, it was white now where there was trees and water before. Sometimes I look at the birds in the trees in the courtyard and try to mimmick the sounds, and it’s reassuring. And Ted’s effortless ability to connect with technology makes it easy. But the fact I haven’t talked to evan in 2 mo’s is something that can now, I found, be rectified with the press of one button, with one finger, and I can be in perpetual company, like the finger that rectifies the situation.

-to evan-

-from ben-

Conversation with Al (Girl Craven)

2009-10-23T15:01:00.000-07:00

Al Craven: um. i don't remember the rainbow fish very well.
Al Craven: just remember it was shiny!
Ben Magnuson: Yeah!
Ben Magnuson: well, she gives away all her shiny scales to other fish to make them happy
Ben Magnuson: but then at the end, she had no scales at all, and was ugly
Ben Magnuson: and ridiculed
Ben Magnuson: and drowned herself.
Al Craven: she did not drown herself.
Ben Magnuson: haha
Al Craven: a, that's horrible for children.
Ben Magnuson: oh al
8:00 PM
Ben Magnuson: she's a fish
Al Craven: and b, she's a fucking fish.
Ben Magnuson: hahahaha
Al Craven: yes.
Ben Magnuson: This is going up on the blog.
Al Craven: :)

A bit of bad news ...

2009-10-22T14:27:00.000-07:00

Today, whilst walking to class a bird shit on my head. I was walking at the park adjacent to my hostel, when I felt a rock land on my head. These things happen. I assumed it was one of those hard leaves. I used my hand to brush it off, but it seemed to just move a bit, and then I looked at my hand, covered in the brown, digested worm goo of a native bird. The wonders of Brazil. So I look down, and look up, and think 'No...' There are a couple of decisions:

• Keep walking with your hand hidden until you get to class and wash it off there
• Return to hostel to wash hands and hair
• Try to stand next to a hobo to seem comparatively cleaner
• Jump in front of a bus

So I walked back to the hostel with the high-level of self-consciousness that only comes when you know you have shit in your hair, but hope other people don't know.

And then I went to work.

And tomorrow represents an important day. It is a first day. And the phrase 'tomorrow is the first day for the rest of your life' is much less reassuring when you remember that first days are quite terrible. My first, first day, covered in goo screaming until sleep. My first day of school crying due to separation anxiety with my mother. First day of middle school, where it seemed overnight all my friends had girlfriends, and when they asked who I liked, it marked the first time "What am I gay?" worked against me. Loss of innocence. First day of classes suck. First day of work sucked. First day of post-graduate life was rad. First day of Brazil was average.

And so tomorrow is the first day of my Portugues lessons. Soon I will be able to order food, and understand how to pay for things. No more one meal a day. No more awkward fumblings. Soon I will be able to tell the hobos to 'get a job!'

That's not a name

2009-10-20T16:05:00.001-07:00

Looking back to where I last updated the blog is exhausting. I'm tired. But things have worked out well, this week, have planned portugues classes, have found cheap living, and had a good weekend. I can't type well right now, and I don't think I'll edit this even moderately.

And so Wednesday was inconsequential and boring. Thursday night was about to be the same. Bela's cable got downgraded so no Brazil's next top model, it was out. I was sitting on the bench about to go to bed, when an American named Chad walked up. 34 then, 35 now, He is the size of Steve Nash with the same hair cut only blonde, and looked like he was from Colorado, and he was.

He had originally come to Brazil for 3 weeks and was no here for three months. He was originally headed to Florionopolis the next day, which was postponed for each day of the weekend.

And so, he asked if I wanted to go out. I did. And we walked to Batel street, which was the street of the original bar I went to on my first weekend here. The Irish Bar, The Soviet Bar, The American Bar (it was American because it had neon lights and was called Yankee bar). We walk up the street, and then down the street, each bar less promising than the one before. I did want to go into the soviet bar due to Wayne's World. It had murals of VI Lenin in strength positions.

We walk across a bar with tinted windows but enough to see people in it and a band. He speaks in broken Portuguese to the bouncer. We walk in. When they get our IDs to create our tabs, he hands them a piece of paper with his name and date of birth on it. We get our tabs and order 2 legitimate pints. After two glasses of courage he walks up to a group of women dancing in front of the band. "How do you say happy birthday" he asks me. "Feliz Anniversario" I say. It's the one thing I know.

He walks up and I stay back, partly because I didn't care yet, partly because I'd have nothing to say. When he talks it looks like Slater from Dazed and Confused. He waves me over. Lord behold they were speaking English. "Wut is yr name?" "Ben" "Been?" "Ben" "Beh?" "Ben" "Bem?" "Ben" "Ben! Like Beer" "yes." and this continues like this. I speak, they make bad jokes, and as I stand, a man walks up to me and says "Do you like Jazz music?" "I love jazz music." "You. Come with me." And I grab Chad. And he introduces us to Rafael, from Rio. "You split taxi." So we split a taxi and it drove around for a while before dropping us off in front of a bar. The original man, who had slicked black hair and a soul patch along with a bludgeoned face, walks over and pats me on the shoulder three times.

We walk in and it was pretty great. All brick on the inside with low lighting and pictures of Ella Fitzgerald everywhere. We grab drinks and he introduces me to the band. "Chicago Boolls" Conversation about Curitiba. I spoke with the band about American Jazz, what I could muster, sometimes making names up to seem educated. Sometimes not. They excuse themselves and the band goes down to play and we follow. The basement is darker, the only lights coming from candles and the lights on the band. The band starts and was impressive. I speak with original man about Miles Davis and what his best album was. He makes drum motions with his hands sometimes and then plays the bass as well. And now the piano.

The music was really good. And people continued to come up and talk to us. It was kind of remarkable. Chad leaned over and worked on a girl unsuccessfully. And drinks kept coming. Rafael then started talking to me about Rio. A couple came up to me and asked me if I like the Stooges. " I love the Stooges" They are playing in Sao Paolo, they offered I come. We exchanged numbers/info. The woman was an english teacher and explained to me why Portuguese sucked. Rafael then started talking to me about politics. I made stuff up when it was convenient. A girl sat down next. Woman sat down next to me and Raf. She had been talking to original man. In mid sentence speaking to Raf about something with oil, she jumped over and kissed my cheek and then my eye. And my eye hurt. It was stinging like hell and I couldn't open it. So I looked pretty cool. "He does not want me to do that but I want to." she said.

Luckily she drove us home. And I woke up the next morning with an unbelievable hangover.

And so Friday, I had to switch rooms, and despite going to bed at 7 am, had to wake up at 11 to switch with a headache would cause zeus to take an axe to his head.

But in the room I moved to was Chad, and he was talking to a new American, Rich. Rich was 25, from new jersey, lived in spain for two years, went to university of chicago and just graduated law school from American university and had a job lined up with a firm after he spent 3 months in South America. So he was more accomplished than me. I slept late that day and then got a hot dog. At 9 I met up with Rich in the lobby and talked about Chicago. Then we went to go get sushi. He spoke Portuguese too. I'm quite the novelty just speaking English here. We go back and at 11 head to a bar after getting beers at a gas station and drinking on the walk along the way.

The bar was an American rock bar named Crossroads, named for the Eric Clapton version presumably, by the Clapton mural above the sign.

We head upstairs, and 1130 was still too early, the bar was fairly empty. I drink a couple to several beers as Rich worries that he'll end up with a hideous girl of Japanese descent in front of us.

Rich told me a story of hooking up with a girl in Florionopolis. After spending a day at the beach the girl invites him back to her place mid day. He asks if she wants dinner, and so instead insists they make dinner. Her apt. is 1 bedroom and her parents are there. Live there. They have a candle light dinner while her parents are adjacent, 2 feet away on a couch watching TV. She then starts making out with him...again...parents 2 feet away.

And so we move over to an area where the clear favorites in terms of attractiveness are. He goes up and asks if they are sisters, which, when you have our low level of vocabulary, is about as high class as we can get. I stand still looking cool. I am clearly the best looking man at this level, so no worries.

The one thing I keep hearing from the girls is translated as "you lie." She didn't believe he was American. Then that we were friends. She said that he was my father. I asked dad if he wanted a beer. Later she walks up to me and asks me what my name is... "Ben" "Be?" "Ben" "Bem" "Ben" "Ben?" "Sim." "That's not a name." And she walked away. Some 35 year old woman then started talking to me, and then explained to me how her boyfriend was from Los Angeles. He was a drunk. He was always away. I wanted no part of that.

The next set of girls were rather boring even by our low comprehension standards. One asked me if I like the Doors. "No" "They are the greatest American rock band" "Please" and I walked away. Rich talked to another. He was trying to convince her we were brothers. Again, our standards for entertainment are very low when compared to no comprehension at all. "You are trying to cheat on me!" she exclaimed. We laughed at her. She meant trick. I get to laugh at others' comprehension.

I think i'm going to make an authors edit on the rest of that night. It wasn't something mom should read.

So we get out of the bar at six. Someone was speaking german so I spoke to him. Man in his forties. Then he asks "so how do you know Chad?" I was like "WHo" he was at the American from Chicago's bbq i attended some time before. How bout that, I'm running into people who know me here.

And so we get back to seven and I sleep away. Lunch/dinner/sunday/monday/tuesday.

And I'm all caught up.

The Day of Tourism!

2009-10-14T12:36:00.000-07:00

I woke up today and it was the best day there has ever been in Curitiba. The sky was crystal clear, that never happens, and it was 70 degrees about, that never happens. After finishing having lunch with a man from Colorado and pondering whether to strike up conversation in German with the adjacent table, who were speaking it, I took out my damn tourist map and had myself a day.

First, I looked at what was close, and saw the historic district. Mari had told me on Sundays it's the place to be for shopping, and today was Wednesday and I wouldn't shop anyways but I'll be damned if it wasn't close.

So I took my camera, put on my back pack and I walked down Rua Branco and was to go to Sao Francisco. But it seemed to dead end so I took a left and then thought, a right seemed good here and then I dead ended again, so I took a right. The houses and shops looked very old, and I walked in the middle of a very wide cobblestone street. I reached the end of the street and looked at the sign and lo and behold that WAS Sao Francisco. One of those great moments in your life where you just kinda keep going forward and end up where you need to be. But so anyways I get back at 11 and decide, this day isn't close to done, I'm finding that damn Botanical garden. So I walked there, and here are the pictures. I laid around for a few hours and looked at the birds. Listened to music, felt very safe. Saw two horses just tied up to trees, which was odd. And then went to burger king for lunch. No 1 meal for me today!

This is the Jardim Botanica. It is pretty small in person but it looks lovely.
So this Tree is native to Southern Brazil. It's endangered so wherever a tree is, no development can cut it down, merely build around it. It's a pretty beautiful conifer tree.
South American skies thru American eyes. Much more distinctive in person, it looked like Bob Rossi was painting the sky.

-BM

Last day of sunshine before 6 days of rainnnnnn...

2009-10-14T11:54:00.000-07:00

On Saturday night I went to a prom at El Rancho...

But before that, during the day, I started crunching numbers. And I realized that I was going to be living a pauper's existence. There's the odd chance I could be a dead ringer for a prince and I would throw him out into the street as I took his throne, but for the most part, I'm getting used to a meal a day. The free breakfast. Gettin swoll, it happens.

The reality of a budget made my chest get tighter and my head hurt. Everything so far had gone according to plan, and then the crucial misstep of assuming I could afford it easily wasn't a smart one.

So I went out drinking.

Sitting at the Cafe Democrata with a Brahma cerveja in a chilled glass, I watched the reaction of Maxi, Bela's Argentinian boyfriend, as Argentina played Peru in the crucial World Cup Qualifier for them. My back was to the closest TV and I squinted to catch the action at the opposing end of the bar. Bela's Argentinian Spanish teacher showed up shortly thereafter, and a Colombian girl with him. It was a UN summit. They spoke in Spanish, occasionally stopping and asking if I got any of that and chose some of the words I knew to imply comprehension, meanwhile Max would grab his hair and throw his head forward screaming words I can only assume were not meant for children's ears. I did what I knew how to do, occasionally motion to the waiter to bring another one.

My spirits were improved after eating some food for the first meal of the day. Argentina went up 1-0 to the chagrin of the Brazilians at the bar, and to the delight of Maxi. I drank and watched and listened. And in the 88th minute, Peru scored sending cheers throughout the bar from antagonistic Brazilians and merciful jeers from Maxi, I assume.

And then, in the 92nd minute, a long distance kick from an Argentinian giving-it-a-go created a rebound and an open net. Max stood up and started screaming and pumping his fists, and then tore his shirt off and was probably saying something like "That's how we do it in Argentina! We are awesome! Go team!" And I was rooting for the Republic of Argentine so I put my fist in the air and let out an "Aw" but luckily no one was paying attention.

We moved downstairs and I followed the conversation much better as they were talking about how people say different words in Colombia, Argentina and Brazil. I was going to interject "in some states people say 'Pop' while others say 'Soda', but in the south, those people say 'Coke' for everything! Loco!" but I motioned to the tab and was quickly served another Brahma. This time Brahma black, which looks like a stout, acts like a stout, but brother, it ain't a stout. (Probably a black ale).

In the end my tab was very expensive.

But so towards the end before we paid, they said "do you want to go to a Latin party?" and I'm like, "yes".

So we walk into this doorway and there are christmas lights wrapped around the rafters, the walls are painted yellow, and the doors are archways, some jaundice-stricken women are painted on the walls, and the dance floor is surrounded by some tables. In the distance was a stage, which was just nearly finished up by the band featuring an old man in a fedora tickling the ivory, and he looked awesome. Then three microphones for horn/guitar players and the drummer and bassists tucked in the back. The occasional dude with the stick and the ...tubes he hits together. They were preparing their set that would feature enough pelvic thrusts to turn the toilet water clockwise.

I went to the bar and successfully ordered. I watched the dance floor as the many people filled in to dance to the live music. At it's best, Brazilians dancing is as fluid as the ocean's waves, and at it's worst it's something out of the '96 Republican Convention. So no matter, it's a hell of a show. I was preparing to do my dance called "Stand and Observe" which has a song to it that goes "STAND and OB se-e-RVE, STAND and OB se-e-rve." But as my body digested the alcohol it was only a matter of time before I showed Brazil what the show "So you think you can dance!" was all about.

And I did. "You don't need to be polite," I asked Colombian Maria, "How was my dancing." "You need to practice." And we did. And I could enjoy it, I see the attraction to these learned partner dances, but while dancing I'm concentrating so hard that as soon as she gets out of the routine to do that fun SPINNING I lose everything. I don't so much have two left feet as two stubs, and shopping cart wheels for hips.

I was very happy, though, and my thoughts from the day were erased, it would just take a little bit of effort to reduce the overhead costs, and I'd be doin' fine.

I'm not sure when we got back but I woke up at 1 p.m. the next day, napped again, went to the hostel to change, went to mcdonalds, came back. Then Bela said we were going to her Spanish teacher's house for some homemade pizza. I went there and spoke to a girl from NE Brazil from the night before, became friendly with another Argentinian...

ahh yes...on the way over Max referred to himself as Argentinian. I said "I'm glad you said that because my friends were always confused whether to say Argentine or Argentinian!" He responded " We are the Republic of Argentine, the country is Argentina, and I am Argentinian. End of debate."

And so the pizza's were great. Homemade crust, and slices of Mozzarella melted over sliced tomatoes, some pizzas with ham, some with onions, some with Arugula, all delicious. I ate my fill. I came back and went to sleep.

So, Monday was a holiday in Brazil celebrating some saint. I went back to the hostel at 3. I met the only other person now in the room with me, we never got each others' names, but he was from Maranau, pretty much in the rainforest, but a pretty well-known town. We made plans that night but I slept through them, when I woke up he had left. One of the few beautiful nights in Curitiba, we sat on the bench and chatted. A girl from California walked up. She went to school in São Paolo, and had taken a trip to Blumenau for Oktoberfest, a town in the south of Brazil with many German descendants.

I envied her Portuguese and her travels. She'd traveled all over. I'd done not nearly enough, but I was being shockingly responsible in my savings. "Well-behaved women rarely change history" I said to myself.

Sparse Internet = Blogging complications

2009-10-13T17:37:00.001-07:00

When I get a full charge on this badboy I'll give updates on a very busy weekend + Mon. + Tues.

As for now, love you all.

First Night in Hostel was Fail

2009-10-10T09:05:00.000-07:00

Yesterday at noon I packed up my things and went down to the sidewalk. Bela had gone to pick up Max, who had arrived from Buenes Aires, from the airport and come back to take me to the hostel. I had training at 2 p.m. and was too lazy to make anything to eat.

I got into the car and met Max, who speaks both English and Portuguese well in addition to his native Spanish...everyone does, and spoke some encouraging words that once I get a base level down it's going to snowball with the rest of the vocabulary. I hope so.

We arrive at the hostel and I check in. I had to go to the ATM because they have me pay up front and they don't take credit cards. R$10 in ATM fees again. So I get into the hostel room, with the lights off and someone sleeping. I go to a corner bed where there is just sheets and throw my bag under. The man wakes up, he's from Israel. Here touring South America. He leaves. I am now in a hurry, I leave and have to hop on the bus, get off at Peixoto and head on in. To teach us what it's like to learn, they brought in a teacher to give us a lesson in German. I had four years of German under my belt, and so this marks the first time in Brazil a foreign language (to me) was spoken that I felt comfortable and superior. Ja, das ist Deutschland und Deutschland is ein Land.

And so I walk home, saving myself the bus fare. Right in front of the hostel is a beautiful park with fountains, trees covered in Ivy and statues of men. Generally I stay away from these areas when it gets around this time, but, I saw little kids and families and I was like, I'm going to go see the fountain. As soon as I take the lead-in sidewalk to it's end, a woman comes up to me, a woman who from appearance I knew was not asking for directions. I start to walk away, a man comes up too. And then another man. As he is speaking loudly and in a seemingly intimidating manner, I checked to see in his flailing arms for any thing to bludgeon me.

I then looked at his pockets.

I then thought that if me Chase Daniel'd me, I'd have my lap top stolen. I looked around and the families seemed to not be there anymore, instead it was a swarm of hobos walking like neanderthals, and it was as if I'd been transformed into a b-level zombie movie. I walk faster.

The park seems much larger now, the trees and fountains look run down up close. But perhaps this perception shifts as you are getting swarmed and followed by dirty people screaming portuguese. What a novelty, Brazil!

Should I get punched, I may fall, but if not, surely my backpack has the weight to do some damage. But now, I was wondering whether to come out and say I don't speak Portuguese, or continue to act aloof, like, oh? I'm sorry I didn't see you, screaming man. So I took the mid-way route and started making signs with my hands as if I was deaf and this was sign language. No joke. I tersed my lips and angried my eyes and made the hand gestures like, please, I'm deaf, why are you hobos bothering me? This did nothing.

It's hard to communicate how big Michael Jackson is down here. 20 years from his height of relevance and 4 mos. removed from his death I still here his name every day. In movies such as Eurotrip and Almost Famous, the right song stops conflicts and brings harmony. My knees were shaking but my head was pretty clear, and I thought about singing Billy Jean in a deaf person's voice, and they would stop yelling and following and it would turn into one of those Indian Prison youtube dance montages. The absurdity of the situation, my first attempt to do anything local following in assault, seemed it would be cured by an equally absurd solution. But instead I just kept walking and made it to the hostel door.

Get in, Bela was to call me later for dinner. I hadn't eaten yet save a few crackers. I get wireless. I go back and all the lockers have locks on them. So I go back and get poorly communicated to about these lockers, thinking that my room key works on the locks, which is incredibly stupid. All the lockers were taken up. It's a holiday, and the room was full. So I'd be leaving my lap top and camera in an unlocked room. Not ideal. SO then I lay on the bed for a few hours thinking, this kind of sucks. And then everyone in the hostel gets back, all speaking portuguese, my Israeli buddy is not there. Apparently all the beds had been taken, now. So, since I was leaving, now it was 10, I was sure there would be no bed for me when I got back, no bed and an unlocked lap top. At this point I wasn't thrilled with my day, I was pretty pissed off. I was hungry. I was sick of portuguese. I was sick of hobos. And I was terrified that my first day away from the apt. would end up with all my shit stolen and a broken jaw.

I go to dinner. Mustang Sallys and the menu has English food titles but portuguese descriptions. Mari asked me if I wanted an English menu but I understood Jack Daniel's burger just fine. Halfway through the meal Bel and Mari sit down next to me and said "we have something to tell you" they say that Dani doesn't get back until Sunday, and I am gone until Monday, and that I can stay. At first, I didn't want to, but then, I did. They drop me off at the hostel, I grab my laptop bag, and the room smells hideous. I leave. I get in the car. I'm back in the apt.

And now I'm at the apt.

I would not survive Brazil without Ana's friends.

the eagles

2009-10-06T08:54:00.001-07:00

are such an awful, awful, awful band.

If you are counting, it's a month.

2009-10-05T18:02:00.000-07:00

One month.
1 week in Campinas + 3 weeks in Curitiba.

The math isn't exactly right, but for purely symbolic reasons, I accept it on this Monday, because it was the 4th weekend. Wednesday night, I'll move into the hostel. Wednesday afternoon is the first day of why I came. The next few weeks will be the real transition. But for the last 4 weeks, I'm deeply thankful it moved so smoothly.

And for that 4 weeks, not a single entertaining picture? Desculpe. I'm terrified of bringing my camera anywhere, and you can decide for yourself whether being so scared of having your camera stolen you don't take it anywhere and actually having your camera stolen are equivalent. For now, I choose to believe there will be an event, a perfect event, where I'll want my camera, and everyone will have a visible bulky camera like me, and everyone at the event was background checked as especially not a camera-stealer, and I run around like Ashton Kutcher in those canon(?) commercials I hate. I hope it's on a beach!

Last week I became overly sentimental, though I showed no physical signs. On Friday night, we were staying in. I drank a bottle of wine, watched Jumper with Mari, and then Be Kind, Rewind with Bela. While watching the latter it made me miss home. Oh the friends are like friends, and the video store is like 9th street, and the making movies is like going out. But Jack Black actually sucks, the video store is nothing like 9th street, and there were no parallels to my life. I remember, I was living in my father's house in 'White' Brook when I left.

On Saturday, I made coffee promptly after waking up. I stopped drinking the coffee Brazilian style, with half milk and sugar, and gulped down the coffee to perk my weary eyes. I remember why I love coffee now, it serves a purpose. Drinks are wonderful like that. For food, you satisfy Maslow's needs. For drinks, you satisfy your desires.

Mari proposed to get some real Brazilian food, the kind I'd shamefully avoided since my arrival. Rice, beans, etc, want it. Bela, Mari and I walk 200 ft. to the right of the building into a buffet. Earlier, I asked Mari the price range. She said "Well how much do you eat?" I didn't know what that meant, when people ask that at home I'll say 'a lot', but it was clear she had something specific in mind. "Because 1 kg is 18, but you probably won't eat a kilo, do you think you'll eat a kilo?" Regardless of the fact that I have absolutely no reference for how much a kilo is, I couldn't even figure out a way to think of how much I eat in terms of the familiar lbs. I thought about a half pound hamburger and fries. That was a pound. I think a pound is more than a kilo. I think a pound is less than a kilo. 1 kilo is 1000 grams.

"I don't know, but I'm sure it will be fine," I responded.

My plate was half a kilo. Pickles, cabbage, potato salad, rice, beans with beef, some beef, and chicken. 1/2 kg. They have the right idea, rice and beans fill you up. Bela waived down the waiter after I told her, yes, I would like a drink. The waiter arrived and was like "oaubefiasdlkfj" and Bela asked what I wanted, cocacola, and he was like "bousdfjsdflkaj" "bottle or can", Bottle, and he was like "Normal e light" I said Normal! and everyone was like YEAH, you understood Portuguese!

We left. We were initially going to get some sort of chocolate pie. We walked past a clothing store, and Mari and Bela walked in, they said they'd be 5 minutes. Normally I'd just go in as a sort of reminder to Wrap it Up, but something about looking at girls and clothes after eating makes me sleepy. I stood outside, leaning against the wall, crossed my left leg over my right, crossed my arms and did that think where I bite my cheek. I probably looked pretty cool.

When we left the restaurant, it was a rare sunny, warm day in Curitiba. As I waited outside the clothing store it went from sunny and warm to rainy and cloudy. You may think this is to illustrate how long I'd been waiting, but actually I'm showing you how f'd up Curitiba is weather-wise. They came out, Bela left, went to super market with Mari, then went to McDonalds for dessert. I successfully ordered a McFlurry, pronounced Mick-flor-ree, and it was delightful. Some airy chocolate. It was welcomed that they had some other toppings beside M&Ms and Oreos. I remember the days when they had 8 different Mcflurry toppings, and the scarcity of variety now is nothing less than a disgrace. America is all about options.

So, then the night occurs. Mari asks if I want pizza, I'm like YES! Jason had told me to get Pizza first, among everything else. She then says "Do you want pizza hut pizza?!" I'm thinking 'FUCK!', but yes, I did have Pizza Hut pizza with wine I bought at the super market. And it was good. 4 cheese, mozzarella, gorgonzola, cheddar and...i don't know, provolone or something. One, two, three, or all four of them were responsible for my stomach getting poked by knives for the next 3 hours.

Halfway through pizza-eating, Bela and Mari started snapping, which meant we were going out. We went to that Chicagoan's house whom I'd met at BOHEMIAFEST09 for his bbq. On second impression, he was nice, he'd only been there for 2 months longer than me, and spoke about 2 months more worth of Portuguese. Skol, Caipirinhas, etc. At one point a song comes on and all the girls do a coordinated dance to it. One thing I've noticed about Brazil is the improbable teen movie scene where everyone gets together at prom and does the same dance is not so improbable here.

When I am greeting or saying good bye to men in Curitiba I get fairly nervous. Even if someone were to tell me whether they were going to do a traditional handshake or where you do the sideways high five and make a fist like that famous symbol of racial unity, I don't know, it's the move you do before you pull each other close and pat each other's back like that dude hug. Yeah so even if someone told me if they were gonna give me a handshake or brofive I'd still get nervous because of their wild accuracy, and propensity to improvise with slapping my chest three times, or going for the arm. Each time I'm not sure if I'm supposed to lean into this gesture, stand still, or give them my whole chest, shoulders back and head looking up, as to avoid a scary situation.

Anyways so when I left and was shaking hands, I had a very familiar, not awkward goodbye handshake to fingertips thing with Chicago dude that I don't even really do at home, but it seemed welcome at the time. Like when I enjoyed hearing Pink at that one bar.

So hopped in the car, the three of us with an Argentine. Go to this first bar, line for miles. Pick up one of Bela's friends. 5 in the car. Have to pee unbelievably bad at this point. Then traffic arrives. And I'm in pain. Then we get out and go to the next bar, and there's a line. And while in the line I give up all worries of the appearance of grabbing my weiner violently, as I was hoping I could cut off circulation so thoroughly it would become numb, and I could merely feel the pain in my bladder. I was unsuccessful, and as I wondered how crippling it is socially in Brazil to piss yourself, we entered and I walked briskly to the bathroom.

When I came out a glass was handed to me and a bottle poured beer into it. I couldn't tell you much about this bar at all, looking back. Kind of looked like Tin Can without the awful paint job, a converted Italian restaurant, I suppose. We went downstairs, a band played. More bottles. We went upstairs, and more and more bottles. And Mari tried to teach me to dance. And it just doesn't happen. I'm fine with the whole step here and then step there thing but as soon as the 5'0" Mari steps back and twirls herself then directs me that I too follow up with a twirl, except the height difference is extraordinary and my arm is getting dragged down as I turn and my back has to arch...anyway there's no way to do this smoothly, Latin Americans. Frankly, i'd rather dance by myself, arms doing fun stuff, legs moving. But it appears this another thing I'm needing to be fluent in.

There wasn't much to Sunday or Today. I'm happy the bears won.

Bel is back. I move out soon. Good night.

Hypothetical Halloween (H)costume

2009-10-02T06:28:00.000-07:00

For if Brazil celebrated Halloween:

First thought, illegal immigrant:
Lame. Google image searches are only coming up with those clever "illegal alien" costumes with an alien mask and a jumpsuit. Those are for old people with no sense of humor.

Okay, so, then I thought, show some American pride, go as Barack Obama:

Etc.
Look at that FUPA. Ahh, I'm going to miss Halloween. T-minus 2.5 hours until Olympic bid gets announced.

What was carried out in our name...

2009-10-01T10:52:00.000-07:00

http://tinyurl.com/y96hz94

The failures of 2001-2008 are almost unbelievable, but the fact that info like this gets out with little recognition is too familiar. Fatigue, it's over, etc.

Thursday is a good day (quince?)

2009-10-01T09:29:00.000-07:00

Thursday is Brazil's Next Top Model day.

For the remainder of the next 5 days I will be doing online training. Which is as fun as it sounds. Need wine.

Most excellent news...

2009-09-30T06:03:00.001-07:00

The quest is complete. My good looks/charm won out, again.
Check the employed box for me.

A letter to Hana

2009-09-27T18:16:00.000-07:00

Dear Hana,

So, after getting some disappointing responses from schools last week, all citing december as the time for teacher hirings, Mari told me that one of her co-workers teaches English. She said she would ask.

The following morning (Friday), I get a call from Mari saying there is a school hiring English teachers. She gave me the address, told me my resume` looked great. I finish my coffee. Cough. Put some water on my face. Look in the mirror for 20 minutes. Put on a nice shirt. Waste more time.

I look up the address. Grab my bag and go. Hop on the bus. Get off at Jirdim. Walk north. See a Japanese Tea House. Walked north. Walked East. Saw a road that I recognized. Walked north. Checked Directions. See destination.

Cough. stand. Walk in. Go to reception. "Desculpa, não falo portugues. Eu estou procuranda Cara." She stared at me and the right half of her lip curled. "Eu não sei. uhh" I looked for my phrase book. She said "Do you speak English" "Yes" "Oh, I speak english" "Oh, sorry, I'm looking for Cara, I just moved here and I heard there is a position for an english teacher." "Okay... ... were you speaking Portuguese?" "Um...trying to" She laughed really hard. Then went upstairs.

A woman introduced herself to me. She had read over my CL and Resume`. She was first wondering how committed i was to staying there. I told her how I'd sold my car. I told her how i'd emptied my savings. I told her how I'd left the band I love(d). She seemed convinced. She then told me about the school. They don't even NEED to advertise, because they have a hold on businesses in the area who need to train their students. They are international. They have a major news organization giving them TV spots to analyze for their students. They have my favorite children's show as their sponsor.

Needless to say I was impressed. We set up a presentation time for 9:30 am on Monday. Afterwards, hopefully, an interview will be scheduled. Then, I find out. And it's a full-time gig. If I get this, it's like an affirmation that I'm not entirely stupid.

Hope Virginia treats you well.

Your friend,
Ben

Update of sorts...

2009-09-26T09:52:00.000-07:00

So, I'm going to write a longer post about this week, and I'm about to go hit up some tourist spots...

but come Monday I'm going to have some good or bad news. Hope for the former.

It's not test results or anything. :)

In case you were wondering...

2009-09-22T21:09:00.001-07:00

Karate Kid is just as good in Portuguese as in English.
-BM

And so Curitiba is illuminated...

2009-09-21T18:02:00.000-07:00

You have watched 72 minutes of video today.
Please wait 54 minutes or click unlimited use of megavideo...

And so it is, Megavideo. I have 54 minutes before I find out what happened in Mad Men. So I'll update this past weekend.

Surprisingly, there is more to Curitiba than the triangle pathway I've taken to the supermarket on most days. More to it than the Shop Curitiba! shopping mall.

Friday night, Bela and Mari get home. They work a lot. I work less than the homeless here. Studying Portuguese with free online Web sites and phrase books and dictionaries, it is what it is. But, this was the weekend, and that means whatever work you do do, you eliminate it and enjoy yourself.

Bela needed to go to the store to pick up food/beer for her friends coming in for I will describe later. I went with to get out of the house. Friday was abysmal. Rained for 6 hours straight before I stopped counting. Supermarket, 2 bottles of wine, 12 pack of Sol beer, bread, cheese, I'm rollin. We get back and make dinner, open up the bottle of wine. Mari assigned me homework, to watch the soap opera and find five words and use them in sentences. We were 40 minutes late. The entire show is incredibly slow flash backs. The show is on 6 times a week in prime time, so I guess they create that many episodes by this incredibly beautiful woman lead just having flash backs of twirling around in the ocean in Rio. It's a good business strategy.
One bottle of wine down.
Mari goes to bed because she's working on a Saturday. A Saturday.
2nd bottle opened.
We start watching Panico TV, a bunch of sketches, the best one being two Brazilian dudes trying to get autographs on their Brazil passports from the Argentina futeball team after they were defeated in the WC qualifiers.
2nd bottle finished.
At 12:30 am, or 00:30, her friends arrive. "Do you want to go out?" "Sim."
We get in the car and go, park, get out, okay, it's a strip of bars. Over there is the Irish Pub. Ahh, the American bar. A Japanese bar...and the one we were going to...I don't know.
I felt safe though because when we walked in they took a metal-detector wand to me. No guns in here! To the right of me was a bunch of...ticket booth things. Didn't think much of it. They handed me a sheet of graph paper. Didn't think much of it.
Walk in and it's crowded. This is a Lincoln Park bar, I quickly realize. No...no it isn't that bad, sorry. But I walk in, to the right side, separated, is a dance floor, stage with a live band. To the left is the bar, with the dozens of bottles of Johnny Walker. I'm introduced to several Kraft employees. Say my hellos and make my way to the bar. "Uma Bohemia por favor" NAILED it.

He then looks at me and says something. I repeat what I said. He makes a square thing with his hands. It's hard to explain how uncomfortable not understanding service people makes me in Brazil. It's the worst. I look around for something of a clue. Other people are handing him the graph paper. It's a tab. You pass them the tab and they mark it. I already had a 30 mark on it, because dudes were charged $30 reais. Sexism has not cured itself from Brazil, I see.

Then, I get introduced to more people and then Bela waves to follow her to the dance floor. I maneuver my way around. and follow what I think are people I know...and then we get to the part where all you have is a strobe light. Following people in a strobe light is bullshit. At first I thought it would be easier because it's like you are moving in slow motion, you know, but really everyone just looks like the crowd in NHL '94 and your mind can only process things in binary code.

Flash, flash, 1, band starts singing pink, look for heads, 27s, god dammit. Band starts singing No Doubt. god dammit. 110110101010101 I shield my eyes and just start repeating "excuse me" in Portuguese and back up into the light. I decide to just wait there. I'm not going back to that hell.
Bela finds me. More beer, this time, flawless. Then the bartender says thank you. In English. Bastard.
So then back to the dance floor. It's hard to explain just how much this cover band was like being in guitar hero. They were singing guitar hero songs, they had chosen the girl singer, the bald guitar player and the black bassist. The drummer was playing behind, plexiglass or something. The lighting was the same. The stage was the same. Uncanny. red blue blue green 100101101
I started talking to some dude from Rio who studied at UNC. We talked about how much I hated southern people. He didn't relate, but he did say they kept asking him where Brazil was in Africa. I then started talking like I knew something about the Baile Funk movement in Rio. I must've been convincing. He offered to take me to Rio and show me around. Plans are so much fun to make with people you'll never see again.
We left and were at that checkout ticket counter. Passed them my tab. $75 reais. I was miscalculating what he was saying because I don't know what the hell anyone is ever talking about. Because instead I watched Band of Brothers all summer. Which is a great series, perfectly cast.
And then we're driving and we stop and I'm so ready to sleep but hey hey were at a sushi restaurant. Except it was just raw fish in some like seaweed cone with rice. And I ate it. And then I sat there while people talked and couldn't even think. We get back as the sun rose.

When I woke up the room was spinning, and I wondered if it was spinning counter what it would in the US. I closed my eyes. I opened them and watched the TV drift away.

We had lunch at Habibis. It is a fast food chain here specializing in Arab food. The mascot was a very arab, very mustached man in a fez hat. I couldn't help but wonder how awesome this place would be to place next to a southern Baptist Church.

The ordering process was difficult because everyone was ordering more than one thing. I didn't bother with that. "Beirut, por favor" Unsuccessful. how do you miss pronounce Beirut? I don't know.

So then the reason for buying beer this Saturday was a festival being held by Bohemia beer, product of inBev, where they asked the bars to compete for who had the best food to eat with Bohemia. Think taste of Chicago for a one night launch, targeted to adults, on a smaller scale. That's the best I can come up with. It's kind of like something where there's music, beer and food. Something...

But so pregaming begins. And everyone is speaking Portuguese. For the first half hour I try to focus on words that I could learn, or expressions. Then I just started creating conversations for them based off of gestures. "I just caught a big fish! This big!" "Where's Francisco? There he is! Where's Francisco? There he is!" etc.

So then a cab ride and we're in a big warehouse lined with tiny food vendors, a huge stage with some ... Brazilian music acts. Go to a place where you give them money and they give you tickets that say $2 $3 $5...and if anyone can explain to me what his does, I'd really be pleased. Is it just to make sure things move faster at the actual vendors because they don't have to give change? Is it just a needless that one person did and then everyone copied for no reason?

I should mention that at this huge collection of people the reputation of Brazilian women, for me, was realized. Everyone was beautiful. And especially not homogenous. Blonde and brunette and tall and short. And medium. You could look anywhere and be entertained. Ordering anything was easy because every vendor had just one item. All I had to do was point. And point I did.

I spoke to a lot of people that night. One man was from Chicago. We had little in common. The conversation was short. I had women to look at, and this guy...was a man.

Mari translated some Samba songs for me...all I remember was "I am an only child, I have to go to my home and mind it" or something. It was Chris Martin quality.

I danced some dance with one of their friends. I was awful. In gym class in my youth they taught us some dances. The macarena was one. They were trying to teach us social skills. The electric slide. The waltz. None of these dances was this dance. U.S. public school fail :(

And then a couple more fried items I knew not what, a few more beers spilled on my shirt, and we are taking a cab ride home. And I slept.

And I woke up, and watched the TV drift away.

Oh...

2009-09-18T07:17:00.001-07:00

pre-sale for pavement tickets is already sold out. But, perhaps I shouldn't make plans of going to New York in over a year.

But while I have you, my friend Steve Targlione has a lit web site that has some great, oh, ALL great, stories and articles. I'd suggest it. Knee Jerk Mag

And my friend Hana wants you to send you 10 word stories for her blog tellmequick. But, she will put yours up there when you thought you were just ... well nevermind.
Tellmequick

Lastly, in case you were wondering "When does the next Value Voters Summit happen?", you might be too late, because it starts today. So, you might have to wait until next year to hear about how Christmas is trying to be silenced by Godless heathens (democrats), how illegal immigrants are stealing your jobs, how health care reform will leave you drowned in your own vomit dead in a ditch after you couldn't celebrate christmas and then lost your job to an illegal immigrant and then just needed some penicillin but it was rationed to illegal immigrants and welfare moms who just had an abortion, and finally, what's this new 21st century man look like? (Not married to another man, right?)

And, so what's going on in Brazil? THE WEEKEND!!! Wooo! Better pick out my outfits!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

It gets better...

2009-09-17T16:28:00.001-07:00

It's more than one and done...
Pavement world tour

How you holding up? etc.

2009-09-17T15:09:00.000-07:00

Realizing the majority of my posts have been about the 4 day excursion in Indaiatuba/Campinas, I feel a need to let you know what life is like in my semi-permanent home of Curitiba. But that's hard. Life slowed down a lot. The reality of what I'm doing pushed to the forefront. After getting picked up on Sunday at 6 am at the bus station, a lot of it has been at this computer. I wake. I use easyportuguese.com, a dictionary and a phrasebook and study. I write, I read, I talk to friends, and at dinner time my roommates come home and we talk and time passes and somehow another day is near.

So it's slowed down, but not a waste. I'm closer to autonomous now. I'm not hanging out with Carlos taking me around. I have about 18 free hours on my own. So I am building up my confidence. This isn't Europe. This is a big city, and obviously has some experience with tourists/foreigners, but not really. So the struggle is larger without the language, and it does get frustrating.

But it's nice. It's nice weather. It's got good transport. Things are still interesting, I mean, I haven't discovered everything yet. Today I was walking past a car repair shop and there was a donkey. This country is addicted to soap operas, which run in primetime, 6x a week.

And, so, this week is when I realized I was here, and it's not really a vacation. So, I guess it's success that I adjust so quick? Or does everyone. How long do you spend each day caring about where else you could be? I mean, this was remarkably easy. With quite a bit of help, granted, but, you can sell your valuables and move to a different country without falling into crippling depression. As I look out the window, there is a sky of lights, below a sky filled with lights, and it's not shocking.

Is it more fun? I don't know. Is it difficult? At times. The differences are just gimmicks. Milk is in cardboard and not refrigerated. The cups are small. So, Brazil as compared to America is incredibly interesting in the eyes of a food consumer.

But the people are very similar. Our personalities more alike than not. We are both loud, go out the way I think of it, these things.

The more you are prepared to shake things up the more likely you are to find it wasn't that extreme after all.

Views from the Window, etc.

2009-09-16T11:23:00.002-07:00

So, big deal. I have batteries. Took some pics of what it looks like outside the apartment.

Pretty cloudy, yeah? It stays pretty cool, as well, probably around high 60s/low 70s Fahrenheit. Something celsius. So, today was a good day. I wake up, check twitter, see rumblings of a pavement reunion, then it's confirmed.

In other news, blockbuster is closing 950 stores. And somehow, the AP still exists.
I'm about to take a Portuguese test I've created.
-BM

What it's like navigating through Curitiba

2009-09-15T11:32:00.000-07:00

-BM

Friday night cont'd, Saturday

2009-09-15T08:34:00.000-07:00

*I edited this story, Mari said not clubs, but clubs that play pop music*

So, I forgot some happenings from Friday nights return trip. We get in the car and start heading home, making our way onto the highway. Carlos points to a grouping of buildings ahead in the distance, and says “Over there is where lots of prossistutes …?”

“Prostitutes?” “Yes, prostitutes, that’s where they stand” “We call that our red light district,” I said. I thought that was that.

The car took the exit and I assumed he was going to the gas station. But when we again veered to the right, I found myself in a car driving through Campinas’ Whoreville. It was a series of clubs that looked like abandoned olive gardens and boardwalk tourist shops. Each one blared American pop music: Rihanna, Black Eyed Peas, and most fittingly, Lady Gaga (If you are into that stuff). Two days later, when having lunch with Mari, she mentioned how she hasn’t found clubs in Curitiba that play American pop music, and I stopped myself from asking if she’s checked its red light district.

In front of each club was a grouping of several courtesans, well, looking at the clientele, I guess strumpets fits better. Hos. Actually if there is ever a word to look up in Oxford English Thesaurus it’s prostitute: Tart, Moll, fille de joie, scarlet woman, camp follower (awesome), cocotte, trollop, woman of ill repute (which is usually best seen in reference to Andrew Jackson’s wife), and, finally, wench. I used to say wench a lot when I was little because of the movie “The Cable Guy.” It seems it was inappropriate.

If I were to rank these prostitutes attractiveness to those in HBO specials, I suppose I’d give the nod to Brazil. All are over-makeup’ed, covered in a minimal amount of leather (understandable) fashioned in a cowgirl fitting (inexplicable). I wondered if prostitute fashion in the cinema classic Pretty Woman was art imitating life, or if the movie set off a whole new wave of prostitute fashion.

It’s hard to gauge what I was feeling driving through. It seemed long. It was probably 7 or 8 minutes. Carlos pointed and laughed at them. I was scared to make eye contact, I was nervous about having my window halfway down, and any time we were stopped because of traffic, my heart started pounding. I don’t know Portuguese! If they come up to the window how will these trollops know I’m rejecting them? I should’ve brought my knife.

The buildings were eventually closer than they appeared, but alas were now in my side mirror.

“I don’t like prostitutes,” Carlos said.

I decided I didn’t either.

We hit the side road, those wonderful potholed roads in the middle of nowhere, as to avoid the insanely expensive tolls. Halfway through, Carlos pulls over, “I pee”. Great idea, I was about to burst. Let me say, you haven’t relieved yourself until you’ve relieved yourself on a dirt road in Brazil looking up at the sparkling sky. Zero light pollution. Satisfaction in peeing somewhere you’ve never peed before. What a country.

Saturday was now my last day in Indaiatuba. I woke up, and Ana’s mom was leaving for Campinas for the weekend. She said her good byes, told me this was my home and if I ever needed her to call her. Carlos took me to a bakery for breakfast. The coffee seemed like it was cappuccino. The bread was delicious. A crispy, toasted ham and cheese sandwich, bread and butter and pao de quiejo.

We then were going to head to Bracas, but I’ll double check the name. It was two hours away, and apparently very, very beautiful. I would confirm this later. Ana’s mother started fake hitting him because she was jealous she couldn’t go. I was excited. We first headed to Campinas and picked up his girlfriend. Then made our way. En route, I tried to think of the best way to describe inland Brazil. The strangest part is it always seems like at the tallest part. You can always see for miles, in a cool way. Not in the Kansas-I-can-see-for-30-miles-but-you-can’t-tell-the-difference way, but seeing many rolling hills, some of them covered in farmland, some covered in houses. Palm trees sprout up in collections, and the occasional orange grove is passed.

We entered Bracas, a really charming small town with cobblestone roads and many shops in it’s downtown. It seemed in a valley of a bunch of farmland. Carlos walked in to a shop. It was a nature adventure shop, I guess. Zip lining, rafting, and kayaking. He came out and asked if I wanted to go rafting. Of course I did. I mean, I was a bit nervous only because I’d been rafting before. A key component is the dialogue with the other raft-mates and river guide. I wasn’t going to be able to hear the story that follows “when did you start doing this” and the tour guide speaks of working a 9-5 job before giving it all up to get back to nature. I was going to be sitting in silence, like an asshole.

We get on the bus. It was rowdy, laughter and jokes, I assume, erupting from the back. Carlos was talking to one of the river guides. His girlfriend passed me the bug lotion. Thank God, looking back. Some of the pot holes this bus had to go over reminded me of the Simpsons monorail episode written by Conan O’Brien, where Marge wanted to fix up main st., and it cut to a scene of cars just driving into a gigantic never ending pit. But somehow only ¼ of the bus fell in every time.

I step off the bus and acknowledge a thick collection of forest west of me that is likely where the river is. The aforementioned rolling Brazilian hills surround me, but this time more pristine. These hills seem to take on different colors from the sky. An assorted mix of trees I’d never seen before. Shaped like conifers, instead of needles, puffs of tiny heart shaped leaves burst out of the branches.

The river guides went through a long speech on safety I didn’t understand. We then had 10 minutes of calisthenics. Not sure why. Then we got in the raft. It was beautiful. The water was clean, trees and vines hung over. As opposed to Colorado white water rafting, in the middle of mountains and with many rocks as obstacles. The rapids here were just tiny waterfalls, a quick drop off. Still fun.

The best was an area where the rapids were shallow; you could lay on your back and slide down through them. And we did. And then to the right of this was a large waterfall through the trees. And above the waterfall was a family of monkeys, you know, swinging through trees. And above them, toucans flew into the tree. It was overwhelming. Brazilian waterfall in the middle of a jungle with monkeys above that and then toucans appear. It thought King Louis might just jump out too! Hahahahahahahah

One somewhat creepy thing, was though we were seemingly in the middle of nowhere, twice there were just men crouched over on the riverbank staring blankly. One in a pair of Chinos and blue-and-white striped polo, the other in what appeared to be scrubs sponsored by Viagra.

They put up the rafts, and waiting for us was not only a sunset behind the hills, but a bottle of cachaça. Carlos’ girlfriend, who did a wonderful job translating for me on the raft, got me a tiny Dixie cup full of it. It was warm, and strong going down, but it tasted accomplished. There was something perfect about a ritual of a group of strangers coming together over a bottle after a trip down a river, in the middle of a sunset. We headed on the bus, the river guides refilled everyone’s cup. And the back of the bus sang, hit it:

Glory Glory Hallelujah

Dyah blah dyah dah bah vahhhh

(Scattered laughter)

Just for the record:

2009-09-14T18:42:00.001-07:00

I didn't mean to follow my own blog. But I can't figure out how not to. My mistake. Thought I was reciprocating following you all.
Wellp.

Thursday/Friday

2009-09-14T14:10:00.000-07:00

*A lot has happened over the weekend, and little time to get internet* *Also, camera is needing batteries, none seem to work*

Thursday was the day after Wednesday, the first day that I arrived in Indaiatuba. It was only one day.
I woke up late, when Ana’s mother was to leave. She’d gotten back at 9 am from the hospital, and had stayed up the entire time I was sleeping. It seemed she hadn’t slept the entire time I had gotten there. She made me a map of Indaiatuba and left me keys to get back into the house. After writing my first blog and then wasting time, I finally headed out. First, I was to go to the supermarket. Saopaolisto, I think. I wanted batteries for my camera. Walked out, made a right at the first street, saw it. Pretty standard. Walked in, found batteries, paid them, left. K. Walked back to the house, then to where she said downtown was.
Downtown was at the same street that the house was on. 6 blocks later, I was at what seemed to be downtown. Brazil isn’t so hard. Sure, when you cross the street, you’ll probably get hit by a car…actually I can’t justify that. Fun fact: red lights don’t necessarily mean you are gonna be stuck until green. You roll up to that red light, you look to your right and left, and you go through it if no one is coming. Better yet, you just go fast enough that no one will hit you.

That night, a meal of wonderful leftovers. Rice, chicken, Guarana, muito bom! Pao de Quiejo. Mmm… Carlos came over halfway through the meal. He asked me if I wanted to go out to a youth club. That sounded just fine. He asked if I wanted to drink, and that sounded just fine, too.

We head to Campinas in his Peugot, and everything feels so much faster when the speedometer reads 130, I don’t care if it’s in kmph. Now, when you arrive in Campinas, you're probably half way there. The city isn’t on any sort of logical grid. Every time I went through Campinas with Carlos, I thought he was just continually lost, but really, you need to take 4 lefts to do what going straight does in America. Millions of turns to get where you want to go.

Carlos gives me a cd of Nacao Zumbi, a band I had liked on the ride back from the airport. Obrigado. We pick up his friend. He doesn’t speak much English, and I say I don’t speak much Portuguese. He knows much more English than I do Portuguese. We drive to the gas station and get a beer while his other friend gets ready. In the gas station, we get two Pilsners in bottles. Open them up, hop in the car, drive away. Brazil. No consequences. We park in front of his friends apartment tower and finish the beers. A homeless man drinking cachaça walks up to us. Carlos and his friend speak to him for a while. They tell him I’m American. Onsi de Septembro? Bombo. He was telling me of September 11. It was the next day. Amanha. How could I forget! He then continues to ask if I was Iraqi. Carlos says I’m an Iraqi American.

He wanders off. Carlos tells me that these alcoholics, they have big hearts.

Off to the bar with his other friend. The beers are in what I imagine to be 22 oz. bottles and used like pitchers. 4 small glasses are divided up between us. In addition, we order cicaixu, sic. Essentially, in the middle of this ball ,of what I imagine to be corn meal, is, in our case, gorgonzola cheese and shredded chicken. It’s fried up, and is fairly large. You grab a napkin, grab the bottom (shape is reminiscent of a hershey’s kiss) and bite into it. Add some hot sauce. It’s heavenly, and perfect drinking food. They had probably 40 different varieties, with different cheeses, different meat.

His two friends get up and leave the table, shake my hand, say they’ll be back, they are going to meet a friend. ‘I don’t know why they said that, they are going to smoke up outside.’ Carlos said. He orders me a straight Cachaça of a name I don’t remember. It was malty. It was strong. I drank it. He orders one for himself. Cheers. He orders a second one, the first was dark, this was clear. Somehow I knew it was going to be vicious. He takes half of it, passes it to me. No flavor, all burn. Now, food. Fried up fish. Fresh and all, shaped like a stick, obviously it was great.

His friends come back. “Chicago Boolls!” “yeah Michael Jordan” This lasts for a while. And, it’s just amazing what a little English, a lot of alcohol, and a sports icon can do for stunted conversation.

Friday.
I don’t wake up hungover and question if I ever did get drunk. I’m drinking about ¼ of a pint, and that 22 oz bottle? It’s split among 4 people. So, ¼ of a 22 oz bottle is less than a bottle of beer, so, even if it seemed like there was a lot of bottles last night…I don’t know. This day, a more reasonable wake up time of 9:30. The house is empty. I make a glass of milk and a cup of instant coffee. Butter spread on bread. An hour later, Carlos comes in, he had washed his car. “Are you hungry?” “No, it’s fine. I just ate” “We go to Campinas, we play tennis and then we’ll Portuguese and then we’ll barbecue, you like?” “I like Barbecue.” We drive to Campinas and go to his apartment that he shares with his father, Ana’s father. It was a short introduction, more was to come. And into the car, zooming in circles like a penny in a funnel game. The club is out of town a ways, in a town that in many ways reminds me of the Italian village in the special episode of Everybody loves Raymond, where they go to Italy. We walk in, tropical plants, trees, clay tennis courts. Futeball field. Pool. Place for parties. And rows upon rows of grills and picnic tables. It was here I met Antonio.

Antonio, Carlos’s friend, introduces himself saying he doesn’t speak much English, but unlike me, and unlike the others I’ve met, it doesn’t stop him from trying to converse, be it in any language. He’s starting the grill. At the bottom, an opening where they place wood charcoal. A number of slots with handles you can place on different levels. They’d bought picanha, a large slab of beef I’d say is likely a tenderloin cut in America. Shishkabobs of beef cuts, garlic bread (pao de onho), coke and guarana. And bacon, cut really, really thick.

To season the meat, it’s just a light coating of coarse sea salt. The fire started and the meat placed on it. Over 4 hours, different meats would finish, and we’d constantly be eating. When it would be a while before meat, the pao de onho would be put on the grill.

I liked Antonio. He was 23, a computer programmer going back to school. He walked me to the pool. He said he had a girlfriend but showed me a ring on his ring finger. I asked if it was his fiancé, and he just put his hands to his throat and made choking sounds, spitting out Portuguese phrases that I assume meant he would not get engaged. He paused, waved me over, and showed me this gigantic bird I imagine is a duck. A black head with an orange beak, the black spreads like a Rorschach test on it’s otherwise white coat. “I don’t know if, eggs” he said. He then described with his hands, expressions and some English how much he liked the river adjacent to us, the trees, etc.

It’s worth noting here, Brazil has many otherwise beautiful places that are incredibly polluted. Not stinking and miscolored only, but filled with trash. Waterfalls foaming from chemicals as it stirs a cocktail of trash in a whirlpool below. This place was clean, and beautiful.

Antonio asks me where I’m going. I tell him Curitiba and I want to visit Florionopolis. Florionopolis is a beautiful coastal town. His response was almost a dance of violent pelvic thrusts, wild hand motions of blowing kisses and then curling up all together and croaching before he springs up again. “Oi man the women (kiss) there are so beautiful oh my god!” Everytime I would mention Florionopolis from here on out the same reaction, same speech, would be delivered.

Antonio liked history, he went on a long speech in Portuguese directed at me of everything he liked. I could only gather Machu Pichu and the sphinx, but it was 15 minutes long, so I assume the other 5 wonders, or 6, or 7, not sure what the wonders of the world are, were mentioned. The best discussion was on the BoP of Rio. They are the SWAT of the favelas. But seeing as how the favela’s are armed like a fortress, they are essentially marines. “I believe in my heart of hearts,” Antonio said, “That Swat could not control favelas like Bop” I guess I tend to agree. To bring you into the conversation, SWAT is used to precarious situations of a man or group of men who are holding something that must be kept safe. A hostage, holed up in a building. They typically aren’t going into, say, Davidian compounds. And in the movie SWAT, when they were ambushed by the gangs fully armed, they got destroyed.

But anyway, Antonio was essentially the Brazilian me. He described why I didn’t want to work in all hand gestures and gibberish. “Hey man blah blah blah” he mimmicks typing “oh and blahawofslk” he mimmicks handing things “Man fuck that.” Exactly.

He described how he just wanted to camp, be in nature and barbecue all day. And after tasting the barbecue, I don’t know how anyone could do anything else here.

We parted ways. I went with Carlos back to his apartment. “Mr. Ben,” Mr. Giampetro said. He then showed me how to work the shower. I’m not sure why. But anyways, I started watching TV with him. “Now you met the family. Me, her mother, her brother and my daughter,” he said. I realized how that was pretty cool. It has to be strange to have your only daughter going to different country to marry. And to know the family she’ll be around more I’m sure is comforting. As I pondered, he says “Brazil is good at two things, Soap Operas and athletics.” Now, I didn’t need to ponder that, that’s just fucking true.

We went to the bar and met Carlos’ girlfriend and her three friends. One spoke perfect English and had me sit near, the other spoke good English as well. There was a happy hour deal, $18 reais for all you can eat at the buffet of brazilian appetizer food and all you can drink of the beer. The one who speaks perfect English had went to Miami. She says she lived in Miami and elsewhere, Florida. She tells me how when she went to the beach in Miami, she realized she needed a swimsuit that covered up more, because they don’t wear those types of bathing suits in Brazil. Too tiny. For Miami. I realized I needed to find a beach.

She told me to go up to the buffet and try some of this food. They pickle a lot of things and it’s often delicious. Lots of bread, sausages. I come back with a plate of one or two of what I found interesting. The plate wasn’t full. “Oh, he’s trying to be polite” one said. They roared laughing. “You on a diet, aHEHEHEH” By not stocking the plate high, it was a sign of some form of femininity, I assume. “Is that your plate” one asked, 4 minutes later. “I think it’s hers.”

Desculpe, acabou

2009-09-10T09:25:00.000-07:00

It was four days ago now that I woke up in a panic in the king-sized bed I’ve been staying in at my father’s house. After many months of more telling people I was going than actually planning it, my flight to São Paolo Brasil was in 18 hours. My hands shook and my stomach had made room for my heart that had dropped from under the breast plate. And then I had breakfast.

I am actually surprised how that feeling didn’t hit me again on Tuesday morning, the actual day of the flight. But I was busy dealing with paying off final debts and catching the plane to actually think about where that plane was taking me. At the airport it was just unconsciously placing one foot in front of the other, taking the shoes off the foot, placing it in a bin, and then one foot in front of the other.

I flew AeroMexico, an airline I’d heard nothing about, except that it was about one grand cheaper than any other. So I expected something below southwest. But it was great. It had a free bar. No joke. Never been on a plane with a free bar before. I finished Yiddish Policeman’s Union on that flight and tried to sleep.

I arrived in Mexico City feeling sick. I’d started feeling sick in Chicago, actually, but being in Mexico City immediately meant that I’d been infected with swine flu. I walked back and forth through the terminals. The Mexico City Airport could easily be mistaken for one in America if not for all the Mexicans. Chilis, starbucks, etc. I ate dinner at a Chili’s watching Nadal face off against some dude. Nadal lost the first set after falling behind four games to one. I don’t know how the match ended up, but I left with the feeling that his opponent was eventually going to wear down and missing these ridiculous angles he’s found so far.

They deliver me a burger and a corona. Christina Aguilera’s ‘Dirty’ is playing in the background. There is lettuce and tomato on the burger. Being a responsible traveler, I scrape the lettuce and tomato off the bun. I probably did not get all the lettuce, but my body usually respects me when I don’t act willfully naïve. And so was here. No food poisoning. When it came time for the check it appeared the waiters were done with me. There was no food on my table, no drink. I was sitting, looking around at them for about 30 minutes. The table next to me who had ordered as I finished was now getting their check. I wondered to myself whether this is what it’s like to be a Mexican in America, but then he came over and we quickly sealed the deal. 180 pesos, I have no idea how much that is.

At 23:45, my flight from Mexico City to São Paolo took off. The plane was huge, where we each had our own tv’s with a remote in our arm rest. At this point I was feeling fairly sick and could barely open up my eyes. Ana told me to make friends on this flight so that they might help me when I get there. But everyone was either speaking Spanish, or looked like losers, and I wasn’t about to get off to a bad start in Brazil. Being an overnight plane, I spent all my time trying to sleep. My arm had accidentally hit the remote and the movie Australia was playing on my TV. At 10 a.m., with my throat at its worst, they served breakfast. I ate the fruit slowly, enjoying its coolness on my swollen, hot esophagus. I opened up the dish they served and it was enchiladas. Spicy enchiladas at that. And why I decided to eat them I do not know. Any good that the fruit did, I ruined with these. Then I drank coffee to destroy any comfort I once had.
And we arrived.
It was raining.
I had not filled out any of the forms for lack of pen. When we get to customs, I had 4 forms to fill out, and rustled a pen out of my back pack. At one point it asks for a phone number to be reached, so I pull out the phone that Ana had given me, loaded with minutes, and turned it on. As soon as I turned it on I’m bombarded with phone calls.

At this point my plan was to take the shuttle bus to the bus station (rodoviaria a tiete) and take a bus to Indaiatuba. Phone rings again, I’m filling out the forms – caller ID ‘Ana’s mom’. Hello! “Hello Ben this is Ana’s mom. My son Carlos is coming to pick you up.” “That’s great” (filling out forms) “You can call him, do you have a pen” I grab a pen and paper Okay! “His number is 87564534(not really his number), do you speak any Portugues?” Sorry, no “That’s okay, do you speak Spanish” Sorry No “That’s okay, you can call him and say Alo! Eu Ben” Eu Ben “Ehuh Ben” Ehuh Ben “(indiscernible) essentially for five minutes in the middle of the crowded table I’m saying EOU BEN over and over.

I walk through customs, change some Reals, and call Ana. She tells me her brother is picking me up and should have a sign with my name on it. I walk through the arrivals and don’t see him. I walk to the door and then text him. “Hi this is ben. I’m by the flores” I saw the word flores. Apparently he took that to mean I was standing with flowers. After walking back around I see him standing and looking with the sign and we shake hands.

After being prefaced that Carlos knows very little English, he knew quite enough to converse. I was once again embarrassed to be the only one unable to communicate. We step into his little Fiat and off off we go to the highways of Sao Paolo. Sao Paolo is just massive, with no organization, just sprawl. Four story buildings and housing units just everywhere. I realized I made the correct decision, as I was going to stay there originally. I wouldn’t have been able to find shit. While you are driving, motorcyclists just weave between you speeding through. A policia comes from behind, and there is no shoulder, so cars make enough room as the police speeds through, honks, and has a policeman hanging out the window waving his arms to move over and giving devil stairs.

Carlos points to the left. “This is one of our mighty rivers, the Cheetah.” He gives a look I can understand. “it’s very polluted,” I say. “Yes, very polluted, very disgusting.” The river runs through the middle of the city, is brown with trash just riddled throughout. Me and Carlos speak about music. I say the Brazilian bands I know: Os Mutantes, Gilberto Gil, Seu Jorge, Jorge Ben, the Diplo Favela remixes. He goes through how he likes Led Zeppelin and Metallica. Apparently Seu Jorge lived on the streets. He describes the band we are listening to, I’ve already forgotten their name, but they were quite good.

Past Sao Paolo we go, where the hillsides stop being Favelas and start being hillsides. Carlos points out the Eucalyptus trees. We travel on. He’s coming to America next year, thinking about Los Angeles or California in general. He points out the Wet n Wild he used to work at. He tries to describe something I figured meant detour, but in fact essentially means we are going off roading to Indaiatuba. I thought the roads were just fucked up.

The driving was admirable. There are so many potholes on this road its like driving on the moon, and you just have to pick the best one, and he’s still zooming through. It was beautiful; the road was Georgia clay red, surrounded by that hung over the road creating a canopy. A fruit stand abandoned with the colorful, rotting fruits just laying in piles being eaten by strays. We come up to a part where water covers 6/7s of the road across, Carlos picks the left side, we dip into about 3 feet of water. “Wash,” Carlos says. We pass dozens of farms growing fruit. We eventually make our way onto paved road, and here we were in Indaiatuba. We circle around a soccer stadium and he pulls in to a drive way. We open a gate and the door to the home is open, as are all other doors in the home. Everything stays open and just outside the door are some plants, grass, waterfalls, fish ponds. We make plans for tomorrow that will ultimately not come true, and I say goodbye to Carlos. Ana’s mom shows me around and tells me to make myself comfortable. She has to leave for the hospital.

I take the bed and fall asleep for 7 hours. Busy day.

My blog is better than your blog, sing it

2009-09-09T17:33:00.000-07:00

Though, yes, currently stationed in Indaiatuba, Brazil with little to do, this first post will just be a placeholder to say, be ready.

Tomorrow, or amanha, I will go into the details of eating at a Chili´s in Mexico City listening to ´my humps`, arriving in Sao Paolo, my off roading trip with Ana´s brother Carlos, and subsequent 6 hour nap being assaulted by Frido the cat. But Wednesdays are a day of rest. Ask Frido, on my lap.

Boa noite