Friday, August 21, 2009

...First Weeks in Brazil

It's now been 10 days since the time that I have arrived in Brazil. I have started school, gone site-seeing around the nearby towns, and faced the everlasting challenge on communication in a foreign country.
My first week of school was surprisingly uneventful... Monday, I had Portuguese as a second language(PSL); it lasted 15 min. Just an intro I guess. Tuesday I had PSL for the second time for a little longer; we studied advertisements and how to read them. Super basic but I guess it helps right? later on, I had 'various linguistics' it started 8:55, the teacher arrived at 9:20 and was boring as all hell... Wednesday, again had PSL; nothing eventful. Then I had graphic design and technical journalism. Well when I showed up to the campus, I learned that both teachers were gone and class was cancelled for the day. Amazing... Thursday I had 'various linguists' again, still boring... So a very uneventful week :(
As for the town, I am learning fast my way around, it's actually a pretty small town. Susan and I also went Tiradents. It's a small tourist town resembling toas about 20 min from where I live. I really enjoyed the place, very pretty but I definitely did not like the cost, like any tourist town I suppose...
Not to much else has happened, I've just been exploring the city and meeting hundreds of Brazilians... I've gotten a lot closer to my 6 other room mates, especially one named Lucas. He has helped me a lot here because he is the only one who speaks english. Every once in a while, we'll go bar hopping just so that I can practice my portuguese and he his english. I've really enjoyed my stay so far but as I start my classes I realize that it will be quite difficult to keep up; I'm in classes with a bunch on natives and they themselves have hard times but at least the can understand... Oh well, should be fun, we'll see what happens...
Cyrille Gindreau 7-21-2009

P.S. Pictures for Sao Joao and Tiadents soon to come! (working on the site for them...)

Thursday, August 13, 2009

The Arrival

Alright, okay, finally... I left Los Alamos on Sunday, five days ago... Tonight is the first time I've had a chance to sit down and write something. And so here you go, the journey...
Day 1: Nothing to special happened actually, just left Los Alamos and went to stay the night at my dad's in Santa Fe; easy...
Day 2: Here's where things get a bit more interesting... Leave Santa Fe and arrive at ABQ: Albuquerque's Sunport. Leave there at about one in the afternoon to fly to Atlanta, Georgia. Not to bad of a flight, no problems. I was sitting next to a baby but he was very well behaved thank god... I've always know babies to be a hell of a pain in the ass whenever your next to them in airplanes, unfortunately, my luck ran out pretty fast... I arrive in Atlanta, wait for four hours, then get on the plane to go to Rio de Jeniro. Once again, next to a baby... At first, nothing bad was happening, just boarding the plane as usual, start to pull out of the runway, and wait to get onto the runway. pretty normal right? no... As everyone kept waiting to take off, some of us realized that something kinda funny was happening as all of the stuarts were kind of running around... As I looked around I noticed that there were three of them huddled around one of the passengers. I later saw one get up and get a med kit of sorts. Then after about 45 min of waiting, we're told that someone on the plan has some kind of medical problem and that we need to go back to the gate to get him off the plan. And so we do so... we see a bunch of paramedics come onto the plane and get the guy off... So there we are, an hour late already and we get another announcement: while taking the man off of the plane, one of the crew members got hurt. We now have to wait for another to come fill the position What the hell? really? ridiculous... So another half hour passes and we get a new crew member arrives, along with two more passengers. So, once again, we are leaving the gate, watching the safety movie for the second time, and everything is apparently fine. Well, in terms of flight? yes, we took off and all was well. Well of course the screaming baby sitting next to me the second the plane started moving was a bit obnoxious but all the same, we were finally leaving...
Day 3: So we land! I am now in Rio de janeiro! pouring rain, hour and a half late, it feels nice to be in Brazil at long last! ...Well, the way my itinerary was set up was that I had about four hours to get from one airport to another, check in, and then get to the airplane. Now I only have about two and a half hours to do this so I start to go through customs and that takes a hour in itself but finally get out to take a taxi. Grab the first one I see and I'm off. takes about half an hour to get through to the other airport but it was a very interesting ride. My first taste of Brazil was incredible, I'm not exactly sure what part of town i was in but it seemed to be the "favelas" the ghetto. Broken down homes, factories, the works... and of course, driving at about 70MPH through the equivalent of LA traffic. I get to the airport, check in which was interesting seeing how I don't really know portuguese that well yet, and get to the plane. Had the plane been on time, I'd of gotten there with about five minutes to spare but that plane too was about 45 min late so no worries, everything worked out. Got on that plane, flew to Belo Horizonte, and met the student ambassador. Fortunately, he spoke very good english so the drive to Sao Joao, was very pleasant, aside from the driving at about 100MPH and narrow, curvy roads with no lane distinctions. I arrive at my house after about a three hour drive. I meet my first three room mates there and the ambassador leaves and says we'll meet up later that evening. Little did I know, none of the roommates there knew any english. So for about four hours, we sat around in the kitchen trying to communicate; throwing around a dictionary, me speaking very little portuguese, and them speaking very little english. Then we go to meet the ambassador and Susan at the school. Ended up being a fun night, got a quick tour of one of the campuses and returned home to try communicating some more with the roommates. Later that evening, we go down to the bar(which is actually directly below my house) and have a few beers. I tried cassas which is a Brazilian liquor derived from sugar cane. I thought it was alright, but not the best thing I've ever tried... And I meet two more of my roommates, one of which, speaks english... So, turns out that I have six roommates, one of which speaks english, and a host mother.
Not to much more to update on, yesterday I spent the day walking around town getting to know the city. Very nice, but very different. Today I pretty much did the same. I also signed up for classes; I'm taking graphic design, technical journalism, portuguese as a second language, and some other kind of portuguese grammar class. interestingly enough, classes start at about 5:00p.m. and finish around 11:00. Very different culture here but should be fun eh? bye for now
Cyrille Gindreau 7-13-2009