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 RIDEAs 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 DADSAnyway 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 MOMSAnd 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 HuhI 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 ArrivalUggh, 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.
