Mid March 'Til Today

So as I said, I wanted to post a megapost with lots of stuff about the last couple months. I just went through my photos since mid-March to pick out a choice few to include with this post...but I ended up picking out almost 60. So this post might end up being a couple posts, just because my internet really isn't that fast so it will take a while (and I'll lose motivation) to post 60 photos. BUT I WILL TRY. Starting now:

One Saturday towards the end of March, a couple of my American friends here invited me to go on a hike with them on the Morro da Urca (The Hill of Urca). This is the hill next to the famous Pão de Açúcar (Sugar Loaf), which is one of the iconic images of Rio. The Morro da Urca is accessible by the same gondola that goes up to the top of the Sugar Loaf, but it's also accessible by a fairly reasonable hiking trail. So I got up bright and early (around 6 am I think) and went out to Urca.

This is the Peugeot Building in Botafogo, which I pass most days on the bus, and I walked by that day to get to the hike.

This is Praia Vermelha, a small, less-frequented beach next to the Sugar Loaf.

And this is Praia Vermelha from above.

And this is a nasty little marmoset on the top of the hill.

This is a view of Botafogo, with Cristo Redentor to the right and the Pedra da Gávea to the left.

So yeah. Morro da Urca. Nice hike. At the very beginning of April, I had a feriado from school (aka a vacation), and so I decided to go to São Paulo with Brazilian friends. As it turns out, there are lots and lots of feriados from school, and if you include the fact that I don't have to go to school on days Brazil is playing in the World Cup, I have just way too many days off. But it's cool. So São Paulo was cool, in terms of being a giant city. I saw a lot of museums and nice cultural things and I liked that, and all the people I met were really cool and nice. And the Paulista accent is a lot easier to understand than the Carioca accent, albeit kind of not as cool sounding. So all in all, I like São Paulo. But definitely I prefer Rio in terms of scenery/nature etc.

A cool work of graffiti in SP

São Paulo is home to the largest population of Japanese people outside of Japan, in a neighborhood called Liberdade. All the street lights and stuff there are Japanese themed, and I went to a couple of Asian markets there (bought some Sriracha! Yum!)

Avenida Paulista, the main drag in SP.

A/The train station in SP.

An Orthodox cathedral that I could see out my hotel window.

A Catholic cathedral (On Easter Sunday maybe?)

Same cathedral.

After SP weekend came my birthday week, which normally would have been a big deal but for a couple things: one, 21st birthdays don't really matter in a country where everyone drinks from age 15 or so on. And two, on my actual birthday, and the days following, Rio experienced the worst rain/flooding it's experienced in 40 years. I'm talking I was stuck in my apartment and neighborhood, the government was telling people not to leave their houses, etc. Kind of a downer. But oh well, makes for a good story I guess..

The view out my window (flooded street)

A couple views of the closest major intersection to me (this was not at the peak of the flooding, obviously).

Getting worse

So as I predicted, the post is taking a long time, and I have tired of waiting for pictures to upload, so I'm gonna cut this off here. Which really only brought us up to April 6, aka LONG WAY TO GO. So look forward to more pictures/old news soon!

I KNOW I totally didn't blog faithfully at all. SORRY.

That being said, I have about a month and a half left here and I would like that month and a half to be recorded on this blog. Right now I should be asleep, but I wanted to just write this to motivate myself to actually write a post tomorrow. It will summarize my last 2 months...

A Photo Post

A variety of pictures that have not been previously displayed anywhere, including Facebook.

Remember I mentioned that they film a soap opera at my place? This is a terrible picture of this giant light they were using to film. It looked like a giant Chinese paper lantern and it was suspended above my road, like a little baby moon. Unfortunately, by the time I ran to get my camera and got back, the light was turned off.

This is inside the CCBB (Centro Cultural do Banco do Brasil) in Centro, a really cool (and free!) museum I went to. The big silver ball was a planetariumesque exhibition they had set up.

This is the Largo do Machado, which is a big plaza which has the closest metro stop to my house.

My street during Carnaval

Leblon, with Ipanema in the distance

Leblon, near Posto 12

My street again

My street, again

Week 9.5

I'm beginning to realize that my original plan of posting a blog every Sunday was a little ambitious (at least for me). But I will still valiantly continue with my efforts to keep the world up to date on my daily (weekly? biweekly? monthly?) comings and goings here in Rio.

Classes started (finally!) last week! My schedule hasn't been finalized yet, though, for a variety of reasons. For example, I was originally planning to take a History of Brazil class, a Volleyball class, a Portuguese class, and a Literature/Culture of Brazil class. But I was feeling like that wasn't really enough, and I wanted to add another course. Luckily, due to some scheduling changes, I was able to add a Hydrology class, which so far has been great. However, due to irreconcilable differences between the history professor and me (i.e. he speaks WAY TOO QUIETLY and I can't understand his Portuguese), I have been forced to drop the history class. I can't say I am too upset, though, because as of now my schedule is as follows: Mondays–Volleyball from 3-5; Tuesdays–Hydrology 11-1, Literature/Culture 3-5, Portuguese 5-7; Wednesdays–NADA!; Thursdays–same as Tuesdays; and Fridays–Volleyball from 3-5. I also am trying to take soccer from 7-8 on Tuesdays and Thursdays, and maybe some art class or something before volleyball on Fridays. I know it looks like I'm just screwing around here, but Portuguese and Literature/Culture should both transfer over for my major, and I get credit for everything I am taking here. In fact, if I add soccer, I will have a total of 16 units this semester, which is not even slacking off.

An interesting tidbit about my schedule: the reason for the aforementioned scheduling change that allowed me to add hydrology was...drumroll...I got moved up a level in Portuguese! Apparently spending February hanging out with Brazilians (for the most part) has helped my Portuguese enough that they decided I need to be in the highest level. I don't want to brag...well, actually, who am I kidding. I totally want to brag! I feel really proud and satisfied and accomplished and blah blah blah that my Portuguese is improving faster than I thought it was.

Summarizing my classes:

Volleyball is my favorite class (obviously). Most opportunities to make new Brazilian friends (although there are plenty of intercâmbio kids in the class with me too).

Hydrology is taught by a lady named Adrianna (which was my Portuguese professor's name during the ILP, and is my new Portuguese professor's name...). She's very Brazilian and relaxed, but she definitely knows what she's talking about. It is just an intro course, and based on the syllabus I will enjoy the topic. Plus...we get to go on hikes! Fun!

Literature/Culture...on my first day of class, I accidentally went to the class next-door. Which happened to be Brazilian Literature also. I realized about an hour into the two hour lecture that I was in the wrong place, so I "went to the bathroom," which is to say that I went next-door and told my actual teacher that I felt like an idiot and blah blah blah. She laughed, told me she's done the same thing, and gave me the syllabus, sending me back to the other class by saying "Now I just hope that this other class isn't better than mine!" It wasn't. I much prefer the class I was supposed to be in. The only downside is that, like volleyball, it's full of intercâmbio students, which probably won't help me in my search for integration into Brazilian society.

My new Portuguese class is kind of along the lines of my old Portuguese class except now instead of being confident because I knew I was pretty good at Portuguese, I am now timid because I know I am the worst in the class. Everyone else in the class has either studied here for at least a semester already, or is a native Portuguese speaker (think Brazilian-American, Cabo Veridean-American, Portuguese-American etc.). But it's ok…it will force me to get better, I guess.

Besides classes, not too much has changed around here...the weather has finally cooled down, and we just had about a week of rain, which is kind of a drag when all the cool stuff to do is outdoors. The other night, I was tricked by the weather, actually. I thought it had finally stopped raining (I mean, it had), and so I went out without my umbrella (20 reais courtesy of a department store here). Sadly, as soon as I was on the bus headed away from my apartment, I started to notice the lightning. And then the sky opened up and another really Brazilian storm hit. This one was bad enough that when I finally gave up trying to get a taxi after trying for an hour, I took a bus home and it took 2 more hours because a bunch of the streets had severely flooded. http://twitpic.com/171by6 That's one of the less dramatic ones, but it came right out of my neighborhood, so I thought it's a good one to share. Luckily I live up a hill a bit, so my road wasn't flooded.

On a side note, speaking of my road, I would like to tell my readers that apparently my neighborhood, especially my street, and my building even, are quite popular locations for filming major films and TV series. A major soap opera has been filming here on and off since February, and so once in a while I come home and have to wait because they're using our front gate or something. Also, the other day they used my road to film a kidnapping scene from the movie Tropa de Elite 2 which is a sequel to a film with a similar name...duh. But they're pretty big films here in Brazil, so I thought that was kind of exciting.

Anyway, I have class in the morning, so I must retire for the night. But I feel accomplished now that I've updated cyberspace.

Beijos.

Week 7/7.5

Rodrigo, Esther, me, and Thomas in front of Cascatona in Parque Natural de Caraças

I've been slacking on the blogging, I know.

It's just that I am ALWAYS doing something here. Today is the first day in many, many days that I haven't left the house (which isn't to say that I won't be leaving the house this evening). I've been going to museums, traveling to other states, partying in the streets during Carnaval...in some ways it's overwhelming! So today I stayed in and did nothing.

I have approximately 25 bug bites right now: one is on my right hand, and alllll the others are on my ankles and feet. I still am not sure if they're from bed bugs or what, but I don't get them every night, and I still haven't seen any of the "evidence" you're supposed to see from bed bugs, so hopefully it's just some other annoying Brazilian bug.

I was supposed to go to Foz do Iguaçu this week, but plans didn't work out, so I am spending my last week of vacation here before classes relaxing in Rio. It's supposed to start raining tonight, so no beach for me for the rest of the week.

I am starting to understand Portuguese a lot better, and I think I am speaking it a little better...maybe just wishful thinking though.

I have a little bit of a cold, which is kind of lame, but expected, based on how weird my sleeping pattern was for a couple weeks (i.e. I stayed up all the time).

This is really a terrible blog post. But I felt guilty for not posting in a long time, so I forced this one out. Classes start next week, so I'll be able to talk about those in my next post. Look forward to that.

Até logo.

Weeks 5 and 6

I OWE TWO BLOG POSTS! SORRY! I went to Minas Gerais, which is a state next door to Rio de Janeiro state, and visited a national park and blah blah blah it was amazing but Carnaval has started so with those two things happening I really don't have time or energy to blog. But believe me, when Carnaval ends, I will have PLENTY to write about.

Week 4

Believe it or not (because I know I can't), as of Tuesday, I will have been here for four full weeks! They seriously just fly by; I don't think I've ever lived through a faster month in my entire life. I keep telling myself that this month just went by super quickly because it's the first month–but in reality, I'm pretty sure most of the next five months (not six anymore?!) are going to go just as quickly. February is going to be a month of solid activities: This Friday (or maybe Saturday), I'm planning to take a bus to Minas Gerais. One of the girls in the program with me has a friend there near (or in? not sure) Belo Horizonte, which is the capital of Minas. I'll be going with four or five other friends, and the friend in Minas is letting us stay in his apartment for free, which is awesome. We'll probably explore some cities over there, and I'm looking forward to seeing some of the national parks. After that, I return to Rio for the week or so of Carnaval on the 12th. I don't really have my plans solidified yet (but I don't really need to, as something will be going on somewhere 24 hours a day for that week). THEN (yep, there's more), after Carnaval I think I am going to be taking my bigger trip, which is going to be down to the Foz do Iguaçu. We will probably bus down there too, since it's cheaper, and we have a little more time (about a week and a half in between Carnaval and school starting up again). After Iguaçu, we're thinking about trying to get to the Pantanal, but that may be overly ambitious. And actually, all of these things are overly ambitious for me right now, seeing as my financial aid check has still not arrived, so I can't buy tickets (bus or airplane or otherwise). But that should happen soon, I hope.

March will probably go by pretty quick, being the first month of real classes at PUC. And April will probably go by quick, having my birthday, having Erica visit, and going to Minas again with the University of California students (they pay for us to have a weekend trip there, in Ouro Preto). So I guess if there's going to be a slow month, it will be May…but to be honest, I think that every month is just gonna slip through my fingers.

I should probably have already blogged this week, because I am having a hard time remembering everything I did! I wanted to devote a whole post to the awesome (read: terrible) day I had on Thursday, registering with the Federal Police. But I also wanted to devote a whole post to what I did yesterday! And I still have homework to do for tomorrow! What a dilemma! Not really, but I swear that these things are worth writing about…I guess I'll just do my best and then round out the post with some pictures, which I know are always crowd-pleasers.

So Thursday was the day I had to go to the international airport to register with the Federal Police. Brazilians are definitely all about bureaucracy. The Federal Police registration is mandatory for anyone visiting Brazil for over a month; if you don't register within thirty days of arrival, you end up paying a fee for every day you were illegally in Brazil. But they don't make it easy for you to register! Each day, the police only accept 60 people to register with them. Maybe this wouldn't be such a hassle at another time of year, but right now, lots of foreigners are arriving with the intention of staying through February for Carnaval, etc. and so 60 people a day is not very much. One group of international students in my program went on Monday and actually got there too late, and had to return on Tuesday. This might not seem so bad, but keep in mind that they left the university at 7 AM on Monday, and since that wasn't early enough, every subsequent group had to leave at 6 AM. For me, that meant getting up at 5 AM on Thursday. It was remarkably easy to get up, and I got to see another one of those giant hummingbirds (Swallow-Tailed Hummingbird) perched on the fence outside my building. The rest of the day was a lot less satisfying. We got to the airport before 7 and had to wait around for them to open the doors to the office; then we we got in, we had to wait to get in line to take numbers. Then, we finally had our numbers, and we had to wait for them to be called. The actual process of granting the registration is REALLY SIMPLE. They look at your visa, your passport, and this other form you have to fill out, and then they stamp some stuff and you're done. But for some reason, it isn't that easy for some people. So we ended up being there until about 4 PM. It was basically like being at the DMV. I haven't decided which one I hate more.

Yesterday, I got to go on a "boat tour" of the Guanabara Bay (which is the bay that Rio is next to). It was essentially just a party boat cruise all afternoon, though: open bar (sponsored by the University of California?), a DJ, barbecue, and swimming. We were meant to go meet at PUC in order to take a tour bus from there to the Marina da Gloria, where we were getting on the boat. I had a sneaking suspicion that I was going to have to be going in circles, because so far, most of the times I've had to meet at PUC, the bus or whatever that takes us to our end destination passes Laranjeiras. But I got up and waited for the bus to go to PUC anyway, instead of asking about where the Marina was. This proved to be a mistake. First of all, I really don't understand the buses here. You have to flag them down, first of all, which seems easy, except that they don't always stop for you. This happened yesterday. Then, they seem to have no set schedule. For example, the bus I take to school will sometimes come like, three in 15 minutes, and sometimes have gaps of about 40 minutes. This is just like the 51 in Berkeley, so it isn't like it's something unheard of, but it's still really annoying and it makes it hard for me to ever be on time or predict when I'll get somewhere. So this basically happened yesterday, and even though I got up around 10 in the morning, and even though Laranjeiras is at most about 30 minutes away from school on the bus, I still didn't get to PUC until about 12:20. Thomas called me and told me that they were going to leave without me, so when I jumped off the bus I ran the rest of the way. Which sucked. Please imagine running in dumb rubber flip flops up hill in 90 degree heat. Yep. So then, we finally get going. And lo and behold, we are taking the route my bus takes for me to get home; however, I figured we would just pass the exit to my road. I figured wrong. We didn't just go back in the direction I had just come from, we actually went RIGHT BY THE BUS STOP THAT I HAD WAITED AT FOR 40 MINUTES. I was remarkably un-upset, because it had sort of been a stressful time getting there. But I definitely whined and complained about it to everyone who'd listen, including the directors of the program and the UC study center director. Haha. Oh well. I deserved to get to complain a little.

It was definitely worth the annoying driving around in circles, in the end. The boat trip was awesome. I saw dolphins, crazy fish jumping out of the water, a lot of cool sea birds, I think I saw a sea turtle, and we got to go swimming in the ocean. Major downside though? Major seasickness. I have never gotten seasick (or motion sick at all!) in my whole life, but yesterday I guess all my complaining about the bus gave me some bad karma or something. After going swimming for a little bit, I climbed back in the boat, and just felt like I wanted to die. I tried to just wait for the feeling to pass for about 30 minutes, but in the end, there was really only one solution: Chamar Raoul. "Chamar Raoul" is the phrase Brazilians use to say vomit. It literally means "to call out Raoul." The thinking behind this is that when you vomit, the noise you make sounds like the name Raoul, roughly pronounced in Portuguese "Khaa-ooow." So I threw up (in a trashcan, though, because I'm a considerate person and didn't want to ruin the swimming for everyone). The CCCI director got to witness my awesome display, and then she teased me a little bit because, just as whenever I vomit otherwise, this outburst was LOUD. But karma got her too, because a while later she threw up off the side of the boat. So ha. After throwing up I felt much better, albeit embarrassed, but other people ended up getting seasick too, so I don't feel too bad. The rest of the boat ride was great; everyone else was drinking a lot, so they were all really fun to be around, dancing and whatnot. We went under the bridge that goes between Niteroi and Rio, and I got to see awesome views of both cities, including of the MAC (the Contemporary Art Museum in Niteroi that looks like a flying saucer). I was planning on visiting Niteroi today, actually, but didn't end up going. Soon enough!

One last thing before I post a few pictures: I got a haircut here! It was 17 reais for a haircut and a shampoo (which is about nine USD right now, thanks to the ever improving exchange rate), and it also came with a little cup of coffee. It's not my favorite haircut I've ever had, but I also survived the barrier of not really being able to tell the barber how I wanted my hair to look. I ended up telling him (in Portuguese) that I wanted it to be medium length, and more Brazilian looking; to be real, anything is more Brazilian looking than the hairstyle I had before, so whatever. Anyway, I will probably go back to that place, it was full of friendly people and I came out satisfied! Good job, Brazil.

I still have to read a story and write a mini essay about it, and I wanted to get to bed within the next hour and a half, so I am going to close the post with some pictures now! Até mais!

The one on the right is the boat we took!

This is...some fort or something. Haha.

This is a view of Niteroi, with the MAC on the left.

This is a view of Rio. The point thing just right of center is the Corcovado, and if you squint you might be able to see Cristo Redentor. The kind of flat rectangular mountain in the middle is the Pedro da Gávea.

I don't know what this is, but it looks so Brazilian.

Niteroi

Niteroi and the MAC again.