Les Aventures

new year, strange times

2011-01-09T00:00:00.000-08:00

I step out of the door of our apartment with a yawn. The three of us walk down the street and it seems as if she'd been right, the city felt a bit dead. A metro ride later and we find ourselves in what seems to be an older district. I see kids playing in the streets, people walking around, Christmas decorations in the streets. We find the "fancy" restaurant that we will be spending our new years; seems pretty boring. It's a nice place place but there aren't too many people there. We each get a glass of champagne, find our table, eat a little bit and wait for our other friends to arrive. I did enjoy the open bar however; before midnight, I had two gin and tonics, a caipirinha (not even close to as good as Brazilians), a glass of champagne and a glass of wine. When the others arrive, we all sit down and eat. Then before we know it, it's midnight. Almost missing it (there was no countdown), we give each other hugs, kisses, and handshakes. My mind is on Brazil. I feel a bit out of place; this seems a bit too chique for me. It's too quiet but I suppose that I'll just make the best of it. Because the open bar closes at 12:30, I procede to take three shots of whiskey with my father while all the time sipping on my third gin and tonic. At around 1:00a.m., the party starts to die a bit (not that it was to lively to begin with...). Once again, I find myself board at a party. I'm playing with the little girl because she's the only one that seems to want to party hardy. We pop ballons and toss them in the air. Around two in the morning, Dan, Christin's nephew, decides that he's going to take off to a party. So him, Christin, my father and I go on to see if there's anything else going on. "Well that was kind of lame" I think to myself, "Maybe this kid knows of something better, he does have friends here after all..."

A slightly blurry subway ride later, we emerge from the underground on a harbor. I see two buildings towering above me, the Mediterranean in the back ground, the beach on my right, a mall on my left, and in front of me, probably around 10,000 people dancing. A smile comes to my face, "Finally". My energy comes back with a bang and I'm ready to see the sun rise seven hours from now. We sit on the edge to see what exactly is going on. While my father leaves to get beer, I see that there's actually multiple DJs with large groups of people in front of each. Then, if that's not enough, the building next to them is lined with clubs. We go down to find my father and he hands me a half liter of beer. I have never seen a cup of beer so big! We walk around from DJ to DJ, checking them all out, seeing what's good. I can see that Dan's getting anxious; he doesn't want to walk around looking at the people, he wants to BE the people. I agree. "You want to go get a shot in one of the clubs?", "Let's do it!". Club one: shot of tequila each, not to much happening other-wise. We leave with the excuse that we need another shot. Club 2: tequila round two, club is a little better, we stay and dance for a song. Club 3: Whiskey for some change but the club sucks so we leave. We decide to take a break and go outside for a bit. Dancing all over the place, my vision gets fuzzy, but I'm lovin it! In the chaos, we go for our third tequila and start our "adventures" of the night. Our first mission was to find illicit substances. Kind of fun just going person to person asking as if you wanted a cigarette. It must of been around five in the morning when I found myself on the beech with Dan. We play in the sand and water and decide, time for mission part two: water. Dancing from club to club, it's one of the most simplistic yet fun adventures I've had in a while. The state of constantly forgetting what you want and being distracted by everything you come in contact with can make for some interesting times.

I don't remember the details of the rest of the night but I do know that we made it home about an hour after the sun had risin. I do remember however seeing a family walking when we were entering our apartment. It didn't really mean anything to me right then and there (for obvious reasons) but the next day, it made me acknowledge that parties here don't start until two in the morning, for the entire family, and end when the sun rises. Something I had been told yet didn't really believe until now.

A small clip of the party we were at at the harbor:

recap

2011-01-04T01:26:00.000-08:00

It’s Monday, January the 3rd, 4:46p.m. We’re currently in a city called Cerbere, France. Hmm, actually, I don’t think I’d really call this a city, more like an international train-yard. I see a few houses but there aren’t suiting the landscape at all. It looks like it could be a beautiful Mediterranean paradise but for some strange reason, it looks like a dump. I walked outside of the train station for a minute, only to see more train tracks, broken down apartments, and it was almost completely deserted. I don’t understand how some parts of a country can be so wonderful and other parts, well, aren’t… So, why am I here? Now there’s a story… I believe that I left off on Christmas Day last time. Heh, seems like an eternity ago…

The majority of my day after Christmas, I did close to nothing. Sore and tired from the previous days’ adventure left me wanting to stay inside and play video games. That night however, I found out that my dad had a decent camera and lens package so on the 27th, I went on a bit of a photo shoot. I walked Montreux for around six hours, taking pictures of everything:

On the 28th, I had a deja vu of Christmas; waking up at 6a.m. to be on a train by 7a.m. This time was a little different though. After the hour long morning train, instead of buying a ski pass, we bought boat passes. We took a little ferry from Lausanne to Evian. When we arrived, we walked the town a little bit and ended up at his friends house. We had a delicious lunch with this couple and their four kids. Afterwards, we went to see a photography expo on animals. Although some photos were interesting, overall I thought it was boring show; many of the pictures I felt lacked creativity and feeling. It was nice going out in the town though, it was also nice going out with people my age interested in the same kind of things. Only problem was the language; not as fluent as I wish I could be. We took the boat back, followed by the train, the walk, and pretty much called it a night.

Thursday, Dec, 30, started off much the same. 6am: wake up, 7am: train, then, with the wonderful choice in transportation there is in Europe, we decided to go by plane. Off to Barcelona, Spain we went. Arriving at the airport, we waited for our third companion to show, Cristina. she was another friend of my fathers’ and we would be spending the next few days including New Years with her and her family. When she arrived from Palma, we first got on a bus to leave the airport to go to the city. Once dropped off, we took a cab to an apartment. We were pretty much renting out a flat in downtown Barcelona. We dropped off our stuff and then continued on to buy the next few days’ necessities. Once our grocery shopping was done, we cooked a little dinner and because as I came to understand it, it was siesta time, we just hung out until around 10pm. Then, about to fall asleep, she tells us it’s time to go and party a little. We take a metro downtown, walk around gawking at the tourist attractions and meet up with her sister, nephew, and nice. We walked around a little more finally coming to a wine bar where we spent the night sipping champagne and getting to know our new friends. Going to sleep at around three in the morning, I had no idea what to expect for New Years.
I woke up a little late on the 31st; the bed I was sleeping in was super comfy. We didn’t do too much during the day; a few errands, went to a few cafes, not to exciting. Then like the day before, around nine I start getting tired. Cristina has been telling us that new years here isn’t that special and people don’t really do anything for it here but that we’d go out to some fancy place and spend it there with some friends and her sister. I felt a little disappointed yet not fully trusting her lack of enthusiasm. Once again, at around ten, we took off to the streets…

Christmas

2010-12-28T08:12:00.000-08:00

"Shit, did I miss my alarm? was I dreaming that I missed my alarm? Did I even set it last night? Yeah, of course I set it, I remember seeing that it would go off in four hours. But I think I missed it anyway. Maybe I should check, then I could set it right if it was wrong and can see what time it is now." I open my eyes. It's dark, there's no sound except for my father's snoring. I reach around for my phone and see that it's currently 4:13a.m. "Well I didn't sleep through it, and well, it's set for

6:30a.m. I must have been dreaming, I guess I can go back to sleep for a couple hours..." I close my eyes, relax, and my mind goes blank.

4:30a.m. "Fuck, can't get back to sleep"

4:45a.m. "I wonder what the snow is going to be like over there."

5:00a.m. "I suppose I could pass the time with some phone games if sleep isn't going to happen"

5:30a.m. "God I'm bored, what time was he planning on waking up? isn't this his normal time to be up by now?"

6:00a.m. "Fuck it, I'm taking a shower." I get up quietly, go to the bathroom, and as soon as I'm in the shower, I hear my father get up. Once out of the shower, I sit down at the table with my dad and we sip tea in the dark silence of Christmas morning.

6:45a.m. Two shirts, a sweater, a ski jacket, boxers, a pair of shorts, a pair of ripped up pants, a pair off not ripped pants, belt, bandana (spare in the pocket), goggles, two gloves, two over-sized socks, two shoes. I don't know the conditions out there nor have I even been on a board for two years but hopefully this costume of mine will suffice.

7:10a.m. Panattoni in my mouth, we leave the house. It's dark, it's cold, it's snowing. No one except an occasional snow plow is in the streets. We get to the train station as we begin to see the first signs of dawn. After a complicated exchange involving a 'pain ou chocolat', we finally get our tickets and go wait for our train.

7:41a.m. We board the train, the excitement grows, the snow stops but the temperature remains much to low for comfort.

7:51a.m. We arrive in Aigle. It almost feels like it's getting colder. Less than ten minutes later and we're in the next train.

8:24a.m. Leysin: our destination of the day. A small ski resort town that seems to of forgotten to advertise themselves. We walk the empty streets looking for the ski station. Finding it on the other side of the town, the first thing I see is -6ºC on a nearby billboard. I get my rental board, the boots, the card, and I'm set to go up.

9:30a.m. I slide my card through the machine, walk through the gate, walk up the stairs, and pick a gondala to take me up to the first run. No lines of people; I sit alone for the fifteen minute ride to the top. Looking out the window, I see nothing. I am in a cloud with a visibility of a few feet at best. Then, like god put on his defrosters, I could see everywhere. Below me was a cloud, above me was a cloud, but all around me was miles and miles of snow-covered trees, empty ski slopes, powder.

The second layer of clouds doesn't seem to be as bad as the first. When I leave the gondala, I can see maybe around twenty feet. Irrelevant however, the second I'm on my board going down, I can see my destination, the next lift, but inbetween is a depth-less white plane. I bounce up and down, take drops when least expected, and slow down to dreadful crawls for no apperent reason. I could of closed my eyes and still have gotten the same effect. I manage however to make it to the second lift alive (only three hundread yards away). The second lift isn't as plesent as the first. As I climb higher and higher in altitude, the temperature drops and the humidity increases. The vision stays about the same: if it's not white, I can see it, if it is, it looks flat. 2205 meters high, I am at the top of Chaux de Mont. I look around hoping to get some kind of glimpse of a nice view but all I see is white with the ski lift trailing off into the void. There are no trees, there are no shadows, there's only a cliff to my left and one neon orange stake in the ground to show the boundary. In front all I see is VERY bright white gradating into a darker white which is the sky, there is no seeing the intersection.

"Made it to the top... Well, the only way to relearn is to try right?" I cautiously approach the beginning of what I think is the run."Well, it's been snowing all night last night so at least if I fall it should be powder, not to mention, I shouldn't have to worry about ice or choppy tracks since I'm probably one of the first people to go down today. ...Alright..... Okay.... and go." I point the tip of my board in what seems to be the direction downward. Powder, it feels amazing, I cut through it so easily, the snow flies above my head, I'm in heaven, I hit a chunk of crusted ice, my face hits the ground, I'm back on my feet, I don't care. About halfway down the first run I realize that I'm actually on what seems to be a black (hardest difficulty of ski run), I slow down a little from my speed high and start carving the moguls; it's hell on my knees but the serotonin rushing to my brain says "it's okay, just go." I make it to the mid-mountain lift, I want to go all the way to the bottom. I take greens and blues the rest of the way. I cut in and out of forested trails and wide open valleies. It may have taken a good thirty minutes of ski lifts to get where I was but it was well worth it. I have never been on a run that lasted more than 5-10 minutes; these runs never ended. I finally reach the bottom. Mentally lost in the snow, I dismount my board and go through what had just happened in my mind. The smile on my face is un-concealable, I feel like a four-year-old on Christmas morning. "Heh, it is Christmas." I think to myself.

I spend seven hours in a winter wonderland taking the occasional coffee break to warm up. My last run, exhausted from my day, I decide to mimic my first for good spirt. I have a coffee, get in the gondola, ride to the middle of the mountain, board the 300 yard run to the second lift, and decide, "meh, good enough, i´ll just go down from here." In the last mile strench, I feel as if I am about to collapse. I have completly and efficently used every ounce of my energy. I have a quick flashback to the last time I skied; the hot tub that followed. Unfortunatly there was no hotel we were returning to, two trains and our feet back to the apparment. At least I could catch a little sleep hopefully. I drop off the gear at the equipment shop, notice that the temperature has gone down a degree from our arrival and we start our treck back across the city. When we arrive at the train station, a guy calls us over. "Vin chaud?!?" he says with a smile. We stand around a couldren full of wine and fruit heated by a fire as we wait until the next train. #
"Wish this could happen in the states... Only in Switzerland can you find a guy running around yelling at people to give them free hot wine while they wait for their train."

The trip home becomes a bit of a blur from the combination of fatigue, wine, and the peace of mind from being back on a board. We arrive at the apartment, eat dinner, open presents, and I collapse into my dream-world for the following ten hours.

Montreux

2010-12-26T06:29:00.000-08:00

As we took the train to Montreux, I continued thinking about the past 72 hours. The sitting in El Paso for 27 hours, the plane to georgia, then Paris, the geneva. I thought about the UN and the complete change of how people acted here. I thought about the snow-covered mountains that now surround me. I thought about what was to come next. I thought about how good sleep sounded.

(not sure why but the resolution looks like crap until you click on it to full size it, SO CLICK ON IT!)

It was already night time when we arrived in Montreux, but having slept half and hour, I was wide awake. The first stop was the apartment where I could drop off my stuff. Almost every block I would recognize something new. I haven't been to Switzerland in over ten years yet I felt that I had already lived my entire life there. I recognized the tree at the park I used to play in, the school that I'd walk by and wonder who those kids were, the escalators in the market, path full of stairs on the way to the lake, and of course the hundreds of animal shrubs lining the lake. After a quick reminder of where things were in the city, we bought some food, some wine, and some cheese, went home, and ate the first real meal I'd had in about a week.
The first two days weren't too eventful; I walked the town relearning all of it's secrets and enjoyed the wonderful flavors of the food, wine and coffee here. On Thursday, we visited the Château de Chillon, a nearby castle on the lake:

Christmas Eve, was spent figuring out Christmas day. We bought food for three days because nothing would be open and went to the midnight mass and a local cathedral (god I missed that smell). Following the ceremony, we walked home as it began to snow and drank a bottle of champagne (from Champagne) and ate Panattoni going to sleep around two in the morning, impatient for the following day to begin.

Progress

2010-12-26T06:09:00.000-08:00

I've never been a fan of politics. I see that it is needed but I find it far from perfect. But that is a reality that we must live in. I felt a bit ignorant in my history when I entered the UN in Geneva. I had learned all of my middle and high school history lessons but felt as if it hadn't been enough. This never occurred to me for some reason until I entered this campus of international politics. Sure, I hadn't slept well in a few days not to mention traveling is always tiring but for some reason, for the first time in my life, I felt as if what had and is still happening today, was for the betterment and advancement of the human race. It seemed a little touristy to walk around reading the little history slates around and checking out the museum and gift store but by the end our small tour, as we sat and had coffee in the lounge, I felt reassured that regardless of mankind's flaws, we are generally good people looking towards the future. Leaving the United Nations of Geneva, I already felt a little more at home in Europe. I felt that it was okay to say "good morning" to total strangers and just to make a nice conversation ask them how they were doing that day.

My father showed me a little bit around downtown Geneva and we soon continued onward to Montreux.

Ça Commence

2010-12-23T01:53:00.000-08:00

Dec. 20, 6:52 a.m., Paris, France
It’s snowing. I can’t remember the last time I saw it snow, must have been at least a year and a half, two years. It feels good being back in Europe, cold as hell, but good.
Time is a funny thing. When flying through time zones, if timed tight, you can start thinking the sun no longer exists. You get five hour days and twenty five hour nights. It’s seven in the morning local time, shouldn’t it start getting light out at least by now? If the phenomenon of jet-lag were to ever effect me, it would be because of that; living on the moons terms for a day, and maybe the sun’s for a night. I’m not yet at my final destination, but, j’ai déjà commencé à penser en français. Ca me fait du bien de savoir que je n'ai pas tout perdu.

Dec. 21, 12:00p.m., Montreux, Switzerland
I’ve made it to Montreux. After finishing my last entry, I got on the plane to Geneva. Half an hour after I sit down in the plane, the pilot gets on the intercom stating that the Paris airport just closed due to snow and we have a minimum of an hour to wait. Two hours delayed, we finally depart. One hour later, I pick up my suitcase and walk out to the streets of Geneva. After meeting up with my father, he tells me that we’re going to first eat lunch at the UN.

El Paso, flying to, El Paso

2010-12-22T07:19:00.000-08:00

Once again I find myself writing about adventuring outside of the states. Has it really just been six months since Brazil? Maybe I should look into some kind of career for all of this.
It's currently 6:00p.m., December 18th. I am in the El Paso Airport; I have been for about fifteen hours. I still have eleven more hours to go before any kind of change in scenery. It's interesting living in an airport. Some aspects are kind of cool; I think it could make some good anthropological research… I find it amusing that people tend to have their family reunions here; you can't wait twenty more minutes to get everyone home? I can imagine the fear and insecurity of sending your boy off to the war but do you really need to welcome them back with twenty 10-to-16-year-old kids in the middle of an airport?
So so far, my journey has been uneventful. It started last night drinking and playing games. Because of the assumed time of departure, we stopped at around eleven and just sat down to watch some semi-boring TV show. Next thing I know, my alarm is going off. it's two in the morning and I'm slightly intoxicated, so i finish packing and wake up my roommate. We get to El Paso around 3:30a.m., say our farewells and I walk in. Uninhabitated by the usual chaos that is an airport, I see that I'm three hours early for the first flight of the day. I set my alarm for 4:30 and uncomfortably doze off to the sounds of pandora
4:30a.m.
open one eye, "still empty", reset alarm
5:30a.m.
open one eye, "what the hell?" open other eye.
The place is packed. Almost every airline company has a line of at least thirty people. I get up, get a drink, smoke a cigarette, and file into place awaiting my turn. When the time comes, I give the lady my passport, she swipes it, only to reveal that I am not on the roaster. I tell her my plans, I give her my info, nothing. Eventually, she finds me. Seems like i forgot to check to check the date change when Expedia sent me those emails. I had the time right, just the day wrong, I was 24 hours early. I proceed straight back to a chair and fall back asleep. At 7:00, I decide to find a much more comfy place to rest; carpeted ground in the back of the airport. By 10:00, the commotion of reuniting families becomes too much to sleep through so I get up and ready myself for the coming day. I spend a good seven hours surfing the web on my phone with the occasional cigarette and Starbucks breaks.

The airport population seems to be dissipating, maybe I can catch a few more hours of sleep. I see a girl next to me already taking over the floor.

Foz do Iguaçu

2010-07-23T12:02:00.000-07:00

It was eight in the morning, grey and rainy, and we had no idea where the hell we were or where to go from there. yes, we were in Foz do Iguaçu, but little did we know that that was the equivalent to El Paso with a Juarez on the Argentinian side and on the Paraguayan side. it was a three way international intersection and to think, I just thought it was some quaint small, tourist city… Well, what does one do when they first enter a strange and foreign city wanting to do only tourist activities? TOURISM OFFICE! We actually just asked them for a map of the city and the name of some of the cheapest hostels/hotels in the city. A taxi cab later and we were being welcomed into a small yet nice hostel. We were told that we could each get a bed for R$24 a person, dinner for $10 and a ride to the Iguaçu falls for R$40. sounded good to me so we took it. First things first however, shower time… Half an hour after arriving at the Hostel and saying we wanted two beds however, they told us that someone just canceled and we could have a regular room at a price a little more so we went with that. As we were planning our day (because sufficient sleep is never an option) we met two guys from the Netherlands who also had just arrived. The four of us decided to do the Brazilian side of the waterfalls. So the hostel can us transport there and we were off into what is most likely to be one of the most beautiful places known to man. We paid for our ticket into the park, bought ourselves raincoats (not that it mattered) and got onto the first bus available. We sat on the second story of a double decker bus as we entered the freezing cold and rainy park. After what seemed to be the first part of the Jurassic Park tour, we decided to go it alone by foot for a while. We started along this trail that pretty much went along a cliffside; think forest to our left, hundreds of monstrous waterfalls to our right and wild animals picking at the remains of tourist snacks. When I think of big waterfalls, I think of those movies with Niagara falls in them; extremely tall, lots of water and well, the ability to see them all from one place. This was not the case… When we first saw them, well it seemed surreal they way they were leveled. It seemed as if there were waterfalls stretching for miles all around an island of waterfalls themselves, not to sure how to explain it but it just didn't seem real… As we continued along this trail, we saw different angles of the falls, each showing a new set or a different MC Esher portrayal of them. At the end of the trail, There was a catwalk pretty much into the middle of a giant set of waterfalls. Going out on it was wetter than taking a shower. Surround on all sides by waterfalls, the R$5 trench coat I bought at the entrance of the park started showing it's R$5-ness. I could over bare about 10 minutes out there before deciding to come back out, completely drenched. As the four of us took in all we could of one of these natural modern wonders, I'm sure we all knew that beating this, was not going to ever be an easy task. We took the "Panoramic" elevator to the top for a last angle of the falls and decided to eat lunch. After lunch, we took one final quick look and got back on a bus to head back to the entrance of the park. After getting back to the hostel, the first logical idea was steaming hot shower followed closely by a beer and a smoke. As sleep was running a bit hard to find these days, Susan took a nap while I played around on the internet for a little bit. At around 8p.m. dinner was ready, a nice little, almost family like barbecue. After eating out fill, Susan and I decided to watch Alice in Wonderland and then to no surprise, the party began. I played pool, watched them play soccer on the PS3, drank beer and caipirinhas, and told tales of our adventures around the world. As a first time backpacker staying in a hostel, I couldn't of dreamt of a better way to spend my time, this is truly what a vacation should be for me. As three rolled around, the party started to die, so I went back to the room and watched some South Park until five with Susan.

It's Sunday, the 18th when I wake up around 10a.m. Susan is still sleeping as I let myself our of the room to go get some breakfast. At 11 I wake her up so that we can check out of the hostel. Realizing that all of our cloths are either soaking wet or already dirty, our money is starting to run low and our energy lower, we decide to start on our way back to São João. So, like any journey, we start at the bus station. The people at the hostel gave us a ride there and then we bought our tickets to São Paulo which was leaving about 30min later. So we sit down, drink a coffee, play some cards and then head to the bus when it arrives. This was precisely the moment that i realized that here in Brazil, no matter how well planned out you trip is, or how good your intentions may be, you can always expect the unexpected. They bus driver didn't let me on the bus because I didn't have a visa. Inside I laughed a little at the irony, it would of been too easy and too perfect a trip without getting mugged or loosing luggage or at least being delayed a day in some random city… So here I am, on the border of three South American countries and there telling me I'm an illegal immigrant. Well, on the bright, they didn't deport me on the spot, they just told me that I couldn't get on the bus. After getting our money back for the bus ticket (Susan was nice enough to stay with me) we did a little bit of quick thinking. It was a Sunday afternoon so everything was closed or was closing, including the federal police office. There was no American consulate in the city, so with a little help from a taxi driver, we headed for Paraguay. Right as we were about to cross the bridge and head into Paraguay, we took a right turn and headed to the police station. The idea was to get the police on the border crossing to eater give me a visa or temporary residency to get me at least back to São João. So after an hour of waiting and expelling my situation, they pretty much just wrote a note on a pice of paper telling me to show this to the bus driver and anyone else that asked until i could get to quiz de fora to get the actual visa papers. Because I've gotten used to this whole "always expect to be at least three hours late for everything", I had the bus times written down for the next 12 hours. The next one didn't come for another four hours so we went to the mall. Susan, being the woman that she is, loved it and went on a shopping spree while I drank an espresso. When it was getting to be that time, we headed back to the bus station, bought our tickets and headed to São Paulo (showing my 'super formal' note from the police to the bus driver this time) So we got to Sao paulo around 9am after a good 15 hours of bus, none of which i slept for.we got into Sao Paulo and tried finding when the next bus to Sao Joao was but to no avail. after like half an hour of searching the bus station, I began to notice something strange, none of the busses there were even going to Minas (the state in which Sao Joao is in). So I asked information where I could get the tickets. they told me to go to the other bus station in the city. two metros later, we found ourselves in another huge bus station. At least they had tickets to Sao Joao, we just had to wait seven hours for the next bus. This time however, it was my turn to go on the shopping spree. Across the highway from the bus station, there was a nice 6 story mall and so to kill a little time, we went there. I got a few extra souvenirs, some sandals and some more coffee and before we knew it, back on the bus, the last one of our adventure, back to Sao Joao. seven hours later, we arrived. Called a taxi for Susan and I walked home, getting there at around 330am. I checked my email, and went to bed.

Passos

2010-07-19T23:47:00.000-07:00

We arrived about forty-five minutes late, nothing new… As we stood up in the bus to file out of the bus, we saw what seemed to be our welcoming party; Pedro, Pedrinho and a few other people I didn't know. We all got into his car and took off to his place which was only about ten minutes away. It was about one in the morning when we got to his place. Both Susan and myself were very ready for bed seeing how we'd been up since 630 in the morning, partly with a hangover from the night before, and the daily drinking routine of the what I've come to understand as the Brazilian lifestyle. Unfortunately (or fortunately) however, when we arrived, there were probably about thirty people parting at his house. Pedro said that they were commemorating his birthday that night because He wasn't going to be in town the day he actually turned 23. And so, as I've become so accustomed to this, the first thing I did was drop off my backpack and grab a beer. Like most parties with Pedro, the bulk of it consisted of playing songs on the guitar and everyone singing for hours on end. We finally went to bed around 3:30 in the morning as I could barley stay awake any longer.

The following day was easy enough, especially because of the wonderful nine hours of sleep. We woke up, ate some leftovers from the night before and took off. After the usual errands we needed to do like checking times of busses to the next location and pulling out money from the bank, we headed downtown. We walked around a little and went to a nice little cafe. As we walked the streets, we soon noticed that our friend Pedro pretty much knew half the population of this 130,000 habitant city. Making many stops to talk to old friends, Susan decided that she wanted to go off shopping so Pedro and I went to a bar for some beer while Susan shopped there downtown. Later that evening, we went to Pedro's godmother's house for some of the best meat I've had here in Brazil. This, of course, was shortly proceeded by going out to the bars. Getting home around four a.m., we went to bed with plans to wake up early.

I awoke to a bang on the door and the word: "WAKE!" in that familiar Brazilian accent around 1 in the afternoon. Coming out of the room I noticed a big spread of food on the table so I quickly woke Susan up to come eat. We ate(yet another wonderful meal in Passos), we had our coffee, and we decided what our plans were going to be for the day. Pitching R$10 each for gas money, we set off on a kind of mini-road trip within our road trip. 45 minuets from the city is a giant lake and around this lake there are many waterfalls. So we spent a few hours at one; putting out feet in the crystal clear water, rock climbing, skipping stones, and enjoying the general serenity of the place. following our day in the sun and water, we checked the dam. Damn, pretty massive I thought, I think it was probably the first dam I'd ever seen actually. We went to both sides, taking lots of pictures along the way and after the sun had set, we headed back to town. The nights' festivities included playing pool at a kind of trashy yet entertaining place where I learned how to play pool the way Brazilians do it. We went to bed relatively early (3:00a.m.) because we needed to wake up super early the following day. At 6:30a.m., I was already up, clothed, and drinking coffee. We had a kind of last breakfast with Pedro, his brother, and his dad while we packed up our stuff to go to the next place. At 7, we were at the bus station shaking hands and going our separate ways. Pedro was going back to São João for "Inverno Cultural" and Susan and I were heading to Foz do Iguaçu. At 7:10, the bus was off and we were on our way for our little than over 24 hour bus ride there.

The first stop was in Ribeirão Preto, São Paulo, arriving there around noon. We then waited in the bus station for about three hours for the bus to Iguaçu, sipping espresso and playing cards patiently. Then at three in the afternoon, we got on the bus for the longest bus trip I'd ever taken. kilometer after kilometer, mile after mile, hour after hour, we pressed on. Passing through who knows how many cities, taking breaks maybe once every four hours to stretch our feet and maybe have a snack. it was only after the sun had set and risen again that we had made it to our final destination.

Arcos

2010-07-18T07:49:00.000-07:00

So the way I'm going to be posting these blogs is one post per city because the term day or night no longer has any meaning...

It's 7:10p.m. when the bus to Arcos arrives. We get on the bus armed with a backpack, a suitcase and enough cash to get us anywhere in a 1000 km radius in Brazil by bus. After the 5 hour bus ride, we finally arrive and are greeted by Jose in his small 30k people city. As we walk down what seemed to be there main street, he tells us that we won't be able to stay at his place for lack of furnishings and suggests a hotel for us to stay in. As we get settled in, we find that we need a bottle opener so Jose goes to his place (15min away) while Susan and I walk in the opposite direction(15min away) to buy another bottle of wine, some chips, and a bottle of water. It's around 1:30a.m. When we all finally get back to the hotel with all of our party supplies. We drink good (and bad) wine as we talk about the perks and downsides of being an American in Brazil. We talk about funny experiences, shitty times, plans for the future and how peach wine has too much sugar in it and that gas stations need better wine selections. At around 330 in the morning, Jose takes off to his place for the night seeing how we were all going to wake up quite early the following day.

The alarm sounded at around 745 in the morning, not fun when you stayed up until 3 drinking wine the previous night. I quickly smoke a cigarette as fast as possible so that the nicotine will at least sustain my consciousness until I can get my hands on some coffee or some other kind of natural or artificial stimulant. At about 830 in the morning, Jose joins us for breakfast telling us how his first class of the day was. We eat a feast of breads, cheeses, juices, coffees, hams, and I almost ate an entire papaya. The first item on the schedule was to figure out how we were going to get to the next city. So we head to the bus station and get an idea of when the busses were and there cost. We then go to CCAA, the place where Jose teaches English. We meet the staff and hold a conversation class with one of the students. Susan and I leave a little early because we need to check out of our hotel,(regardless of weather or not we stayed another night didn't matter, we were going to at the very least change hotels) on the way, we see Nayara, one of our friends from São João. We "command" her to join us to the hotel for check out. We pack our bags, pay the bill and head back uptown. We meet up with Jose and the four of us go out for lunch. After lunch, we go to the gas station to start drinking (yes, in the middle of the day) We go through something like 10 beers or something and then head back to the bus station to get everything down for sure. We end up buying our ticket for that night to a city called Formiga and then from Formiga, we would go to Passos, the city where my friend Pedro lives. After getting everything set and paid for, Nayara leaves to go back home and Jose, Susan and I start heading in the direction of Jose's place. Along the way, we buy another two bottles of wine, some bread, some cheese, and I stop at a LAN house(almost an internet cafe) to send pedro an email that we would most likely be there around midnight or one in the morning that night. We get to Jose's place, pop open a bottle and start munchin, reading quotes from On The Road. How fitting I thought to myself… We then head back to the bus station and wait to catch our bus. So the way that this bus trip was going to work was a bit awkward… We were to take the first bus and get off about an hour later at this gas station outside of the city of Formiga and wait for about 2 hours for the next bus to come. When it came, we were supposed to flag it down or else it wouldn't stop and then it would take us directly to Passos. Well, unfortunately, as any human being would be, we were a bit tired from having drank all afternoon and only getting a few hours of sleep the night before and so we fell asleep on the bus. Even though I told the bus driver twice that we needed to get off at that stop, apparently we missed it and ended up the middle of Formiga at 9 at night. One of the things I will defiantly miss about Brazil is how friendly and helping the people are here. As I wake up in the bus and ask where we were and if we had gone too far, two other people realized my situation, after I got done talking to the bus driver, they told me that all I would need to do is to wait for one of the city buses named for that place and it would take me there before my second bus. One of them decided that she would wait with us to make sure that we get the right one. As we waited, she told me that she was a law major and she had been visiting a Japanese friend of here's in Arcos. She also talked about the best places in the south of Brazil were to go if we had the time to check them out. So we got on the bus, got to this extremely remote gas station, waited for another hour, flagged down the bus and we were off to Passos.

Preparation

2010-07-17T05:45:00.000-07:00

It's been some time since I last wrote… There's many things that have happened in the past few months… I've finished school, two new americans have come to São João, and I've decided to tour Brazil one last time before I go back to the states. I find it interesting that overtime that I preemptively write for my blog, I'm sitting in a bus between some town in one place and an exotic city in another; today, I'm on my way to Iguaçu. I guess maybe, like the rest of my blogs, I'll start at the beginning, I'll start from São joão.

it's a Friday night tonight. Most Friday nights are full of parties and going to the bar or drinking in the streets, especially these days as the two new Americans (Kayla and David) have come to stay in the same house as me. This Friday night however is a little different, I decide to try to keep it quite for the next 432 hours of my life will be almost excessively intense (Not to mention I have to stay up until 4:30 a.m. to pick up yet another American(Jose) format he bus station). David, Diego, and I go out for a few drinks at the bar but after a few hours they realize that drinking and staying up just wasn't going to happen for them: they crash out, I watch the first half of Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. When I arrive at the bus station (4:45 a.m. July 17) I find it, well I guess after being here a year, not surprisingly weird anymore. The crazy woman outside talking to herself and walking in circles, the taxi guys kind of snickering to themselves about who knows what. You see some families half asleep eater waiting for there bus to go home or waiting for loved ones to return; I take a seat and begin to ponder how long Jose will be late this morning or if he had already come and just walked to my place. After a good 45 minutes of sitting, standing, walking around, smoking, breathing, and waiting, he finally arrives. With a goofy grin on his face, we set off back to my place by foot. We catch up, talking politics and social life. At around 6ish, when the sun is starting to rise, we go to bed to await the following day.

I wake up to Jose introducing himself to David in the room next to mine. Like usual, the first thing that they want to do is go out to eat and so we take off to Pantanal, one of my personal favorite restaurants in the city. Afterwards, they decide to watch the soccer game, I go see Susan. We all meet back up around 6 to commence the festivities of the night. First things first, clean the kitchen, followed closely by the purchase of 24 600ml beers, Set up table, align cups, pop bottles, and our beer pong night had commenced! For the second time playing beer pong in Brazil, i thought I did decently, Jose and I won the first round, David and Kayla won the second. Pong was then proceeded by some kings, and then by some asshole. As I'm sure you can imagine, we were flying through the beer. we got to one bottle left when David decided to go to bed, so the rest of us (now including Diego) went out to a bar. Had a shot of cachaça, a beer and a burger and called it a night.

Sunday
Woke up, went out to Açai with an english teacher that I've been teaching, and then went to the bar to meet with Jose and Kayla. It was the World cup final and Jose was also leaving today right after the game.
This is where I'm going to stop and take a little brake to explain some things.
today is the 11th of July, Susan and I leave the 27th of July back to the states. that gives us a little over three weeks to do everything that we possibly can in Brazil. So far what had been planed was we would leave a few days early to Rio with Susan's host family and then they would take us to the airport from there. Also, it turned out that Jose was going to be in Rio that preceding week also so if possible, we and/or I would go a little early to stay with him and the hang out in the city some more. So that took care of the last week, we had two more weeks to plan for. For the past two or three months, I'd been scoping out cities, beaches, attractions, contacts with whom I could stay with or a kind of list of events that I'd like to participate in before I go. a kind of road trip if you will. Well it was a Sunday and Jose was leaving back to his home town in Arcos and I was adventure thirsty so I figured, fuck it, this end of year escapade could start today.
So, back to where I was before, I meet up with Kayla and Jose at about 330 when the game is starting, they tell me David is on his way and asked where Susan was. I tell them I'll go find her. I grab the first mototaxi I find and book over to the other side of town. I tell Susan that We should take advantage of Jose leaving tonight and go with him to his town for the night, after a little encouragement, she agrees. I leave her to pack and finish the things she was doing to go back to the game. I get to the bar at the end of the first half. I order a beer and a soup which don't get served to me until overtime. I end up leaving a little early because I haven't packed yet and we're leaving in about an hour. I get home and as time ticks away, Susan and I come to realize that a few hours of preparation for a 2 week long trip just isn't enough so we decide to go exactly 24 hours later. the "American click" comes back format the bar, Jose grabs his stuff and says goodbye to everyone and I take him to the bus station. I tell him I'll see him the following day the be prepared to party hardy. I head back to the house, make some popcorn, watch some movies and call it a night.

Monday

The first thing that I feel like doing is some 3D so pretty much immediately after waking up, I head to a nearby cafe, set up my computer, order the usual(medium expresso & orange juice) and work on creating wind and gravity dynamics for a project that I'd been working on for the past few weeks. At around 4 in the PM, I head home to start packing and at about 530ish, I actually start packing. Talking to Susan over Skype the entire time, we coordinate whose bringing what and what we need to be able to wake up in a different city everyday for the next two weeks. at 6, I leave the house, buy a bottle of wine and head to the bus station. I buy the tickets, meet with Susan, we grab some food, hop on to the bus, and the adventure commences.

The days are long...

2010-05-15T16:14:00.000-07:00

It's currently, 5:00p.m., May 13th. The internet is being a real piece of crap so here I am writing a blog for the first time in months… I've been writing a paper for the last three hours and had six hours of class before that. The paper I'm writing is about this disagreement between Apple and Adobe; how the ipod, iphone, and ipad are unable to run Flash. This I'm doing for my international journalism class. As for my first three classes of today, I had game design, english, and portuguese. I spent the majority of my game design class modeling one of the cities that I'm going to use in my next Flash game(The first game I'll post at the end). This coming game is going to be a first person shooter based on the Philippine-American War. Then I was off to the english class where I help the teacher with her doubts about the english language and pronunciations. But today was a little different, she needed help in digitizing and organizing all of her CD's and tapes. Then back to the learning side, I had my portuguese as a second language class where we learned more about "Café com leite" politics and it's influence in Brazil in the early 1900's… It's strange to think that today is actually one of my easier days because i get a nice long break between 230 to 9pm to get all of my homework done!

Other than retarded amounts of school work, not to much else is happening in my world. I did go to a bar the other night that made for an interesting adventure… I'd describe the night but my 'english' vocabulary isn't THAT big. The place was, for lack of better words, insane. All I know is when I woke up the following morning, I was completely amnesiac; I didn't know where I was, who I was, or what language I spoke. The recipient of my first conversation that morning could confirm that I'm sure. Must of been that damn absinthe...

Anyway, here's the link for the game I just finished for Mother's day:
http://sk8peace.deviantart.com/art/Escape-164171121
It's an Escape game where you try to get out of the room. Pretty much you click on things, pick things up, play mini-games, and solve the puzzle to do so. Good luck and have fun, let me know what you think, this being my first game I've ever created in Flash.

First Weeks of School

2010-03-27T15:34:00.000-07:00

First weeks of Classes

Been a while since I last wrote, a lot has happened and I've been busy…
Firstly, all of my room mates moved back in including three new guys; Pedro, Gustavo, and Jean Paulo ("vegano"). So already the house is a nonstop party. The first week of them all arriving here we pretty much drank every night telling each other tales of the holidays.

Then there's school, this is now the third week back, and the first chance I'm able to sit down a write something. Here's the schedule:

Monday:
Teorieas de Radio Journalismo 7:00p.m. - 8:30p.m.

Tuesday:
Communicação Politica: 5:00p.m. - 6:30p.m.
Teorias de Radio Journalismo 7:00p.m. - 8:30 p.m.
Journalsimo Internacional: 9:00 p.m. - 10:30 p.m.

Wednesday:
Communicação Politica: 5:00p.m. - 6:30p.m.
Linguagem Potographica: 7:00p.m. - 8:30p.m.
Officinas de Journal-Laboratorio: 9:00p.m. - 10:30 p.m.

Thursday:
Journalsimo Internacional: 9:00 p.m. - 10:30 p.m.

Friday:
Discoursivas Practicas 7:00p.m. - 8:30p.m.
Officinas de Journal-Laboratorio: 9:00p.m. - 10:30 p.m.

(This comes out to be about 18 NMSU credit hours)

I also picked up some kind of game design workshop/class as of yesterday so that will be Tuesdays and Fridays from 8-10a.m. Yuck, early, but it should be good, we'll be using C++, Blender, and Flash from what I understand…

So if that's not enough, there's more! I've been contracted by the university to translate their website. So I've got probably around 200-400 pages to translate over the next couple months. And finally, I've also been hired to teach english. A woman who has her own english school here in São João, sought me out and asked me if I could teach her a private class, have some of her students for a conversation class, and maybe do more. So far I'm teaching wednesdays from 10:00a.m. to 1:00p.m. and Fridays from 3:00p.m. to 5:00p.m. So that's all of the "scheduled" things for this coming semester. I do plan to make a few trips around to continue sight seeing Brazil (I'm sure I'll need the vacations). One maybe for Easter and another right before I come back to the states.

Carnaval

2010-02-24T01:22:00.000-08:00

Took a bit but I wanted to make sure the video was good to go... So I guess I'll start off by explaining what Carnaval is. Carnaval is the South American celebration for Mardi Gras. But, this is the land down south, you don't just have one crazy night, you get an entire week, and in my city specifically, you get two weeks. Here's how it happened to me: Every since I'd arrived in Brazil, people aways talked about Carnaval and how the entire country completely shuts down for one week to party. Being the naive American that I was, I figured you'd go to the club three or four times that week and there was like a concert or something on Fat Tuesday. Heh, to put it simply, I've never been wronger in my life! So it's about two and a half weeks before Carnaval when it seems like the general ambience of the city was just growing in anticipation. You could smell it in the air, see it people's faces, hear premature fireworks from the ones who couldn't wait any longer. I remember my first night seeing Carnaval. I was sitting at home, working on the computer, it was around probably 11-12 at night and I decided that I wanted some espresso to keep me awake because I was working on some project. So I went to the only place in the city that might have coffee. I leave my house, the city is empty, it's very quite. As I approach the cafe however, I could hear the sound of music and people yelling growing. Normally, I wouldn't think twice about this, in São João on the weekends, it's always like that, it's the downtown of the city. But tonight, something was different. It wasn't until I had my coffee in hand and was watching this parade of people with different instruments pacing by that: "Wait a second, today's Tuesday" Carnaval has started! Two days later, turns out I could no longer procrastinate the festivities, Carnaval was now knocking on my front door. There were maybe 2000 people dancing, drinking, laughing, yelling, up and down my street. So a few friends of mine and I drank on our balcony for a few hours enjoying the music and commotion that the street down below was bringing. Every once in a while, we would go down into the sea of people to grab something eat or the talk to people. I thought to myself that night, doesn't this "week of Carnaval" start in two days? And so that's how it went, everyday a different place, a different party. Halfway through the week, a friend of mine from the States came to stay with me to partake in the festivities. To be honest, he was a real pain in the ass! He would wake up maybe around 10 in the morning with a beer in hand to go start parting! There were, what's called a "Block party", What these were were just giant gathering of thousands of people going crazy in different places around town. So party from 11-3 at one, take a quick one hour break for food and sleep and then 4-9, next party, each one getting progressively routyer than the one before it. then at around 11 in the middle of downtown, start the "escolas de Samba" which I now know first hand is just a hell of a lot of people dressing up as extravagantly as possible, dancing samba, in a parade-esc form down main street. If you ever got board of any of these parties or escolas or block parties, there was also a 24 hour party on the other side of the downtown area, which of course you'd always end up at in between all the other parties. Hmm, I think my definition of party has changed since I lived here, let me define for you what a party here is. It is not 50 people in a house, it is not 100 people in a club, and it is not 2000 people at a concert, no, it is 2000-8000 people dancing and drinking wherever they feel like it. There are stands selling B-B-Qed meat, beer, caipirinha, shots straight from the bottle, hamburgers, lights that flash, whatever you can dream of having at a party! And so yes, This was the life style for one-one and a half weeks. Now as I am very human like most of us, this can be very tasking on the body. That is why I decided to create a "Post-Carnaval recovery week". Hence the reason I'm not writing this sooner. After a diet of eggs, bread, beer, and hard alcohol on 5 to 6 hour maximum amount of sleep for a week, I needed to take it easy; Susan and I watched the Harry Potter series, two movies a day, three days in a row. I slept about 10-12 hours a day and now I am fine! Alright, well, enough boring stuff, onto the video!!!!!!

This was shot by Jose (American friend), Susan and I.
Music: Desabafo by Marcelo D2
Cast: THE ENTIRE CITY!!! (...and lots of people from other parts of the state.)

Mostra Tiradentes

2010-02-01T17:05:00.000-08:00

So last week in Tiradents, there was a little film festival. Lots of activities, lots of films, and lots of people actually. Although I didn't watch every single movie or go to any of the workshops or conferences, I thought it would be nice to share what I thought about some of the films I saw.

Wednesday, 27

DOIS MUNDOS
DIRECTOR(S): THEREZA JESSOUROUN
Documentary of people who were once deaf but had some kind of medical procedure to be able to hear again and what it's like adapting to sound and learning how to speak. I thought that the idea was kind of cool but it was pretty slow-paced and it lost my attention after the first interview.

C.E.A.S.A
DIRECTOR(S): ARNALDO BELOTTO
It was labeled as a documentary of this food warehouse. Umm, well, it was just random, trying-to-be creative shots of people walking around a warehouse. No point, no plot, no information, no speech, ambient audio for some but not all. Not impressed, maybe I just didn't get it?

OS INOCENTES
DIRECTOR(S): DAVI KOLB
Just like the film before, just set at a beach. This time I think they had a plot or a story but it wasn't very well conveyed. At least the water was pretty.

AVACA
DIRECTOR(S): GUSTAVO ROSA DE MOURA
Labeled "experimental" and that is exactly what it was. It was a film shown in backward time about the slaughter of a cow. It starts with 2 men walking(backwards) into a room and hanging up two big chucks of meat. It then proceeds to show the entire process of cutting away the skin, muscle, organs, bones, everything not wanted, all backwards, until you see a full, intact, but dead, cow laying on the floor. Although shot with different angles at different times, it all takes place in one room with the same two men. I personally thought it was vulgar and kind of disgusting, but also artful and interesting. They get a thumbs up from me!

REVERSO
DIRECTOR(S): FRANCISCO COLOMBO
This one was impressive. A short fiction all shot on one take. It's the story of one man, getting mugged, and then being forced to kill another man. For the first time in Brazil, I saw good acting and good cinematography. Although the story was a bit strange and awkward, the actors played it well and for one take, they handled it beautifully.

O PLANO DO CACHORRO
DIRECTOR(S): ARTHUR LINS AND ELY MARQUES
This film? Not so good, theres a guy dead in the street and another guy watching him. after a series of events pertaining to the one alive trying to do funny things to the one dead, turns out the dead one isn't dead, so he starts chasing him. you get a 5 min. chase scene ending in a dirt field where they beat each other up and then walk off there separate ways...

Friday, 29

SKATE OR DIE
DIRECTOR(S): VICTOR RIBEIRO
guy skates around, sees an x-girlfriend, then skates off into the sunset kind of story. although the story wasn't to great, I thought that the editing team did a good job, good direction.

ENQUANTO ISSO
DIRECTOR(S): VITOR LEITE
A story of a partially deaf guy and a girl hooking up during school during 9-11. The story was well played and the setting was surreal due to my memory of those events. It was a very, kids your dismissed, kind of idea but because they wanted to know, they all gathered to watch the news. Very different from what happened to me... I enjoyed it but it wasn't the best film...

MAIS UMA NOITE
DIRECTOR(S): LUÍS EDUARDO AMARAL E PEDRO MORELLI
Two people meet in a club. The guy is egged to try to get her to kiss her by his friends while she is looking for something more romantic. Cliche idea in an cliche place. Everything completely predictable... Thumbs down.

A DISTRAÇÃO DE IVAN
DIRECTOR(S): CAVI BORGES E GUSTAVO MELO
A cute little story about a small child. At first, a soccer ball goes over the wall at his house and his mom pops it, yelling at the guys playing. Later, he's playing with his friends and the guy whose soccer ball was popped, destroys his ball starting a yelling fight between the kids and this one guy. After, the child leaves and goes on a bike ride to think about the passing events. Nice story, enjoyable.

PASTOREIO
DIRECTOR(S): ALEXANDRE R. GARCIA
This film totally hit me by surprise. It's a documentary of an urban shepherd. It's just shots of him and his sheep traversing across a town. The police stop traffic so he can lead them across the street, he hangs out with the sheep in a park with people playing sports, takes a lunch break, and he's back at it. I know when I think of shepherds, you think out in the countryside, but no, not this guy, downtown with a flock of sheep is his pasture.

FOME DE BOLA
DIRECTOR(S): ISAAC CHUEKE
Being completely biased due to an overdose of soccer here in Brazil, I thought this was quite a boring and uneventful film. A documentary about some game that some team is in. apparently this team was on a loosing streak and well, they lost again. Pointless if you asked me, at least it was well made though. Good shots and decent editing...

HOMEM DOIM
DIRECTOR(S): FAUSTO JUNIOR
Heh heh, a short animation of peanuts in the form of people dancing around. Pretty stupid but fun.

PESCARIA DE MERDA
DIRECTOR(S): COLETIVO SANTA MADEIRA
A documentary of some people who fish out lots of garbage out a polluted river. They clean it up and then put it on display in there shop with a sign saying "Lost & Found". Good concept, nice.

ALGUÉM TEM QUE HONRAR ESSA DERROTA!
DIRECTOR(S): LEONARDO ESTEVES
Apparently this film was shot at random during a day of Carnival (Mardi Gras) script-less, they try to create a story out of close to random shots. They almost succeeded, it wasn't too bad.

Saturday, 30

VIDA VERTIGINOSA
DIRECTOR(S): LUIZ CARLOS LACERDA
An actress tells her counterparts stories that have occurred to her in the past. Bad cinematography, good editing, invisible direction, good acting, bad story. I actually really didn't like the film...

OURO BRANCO
DIRECTOR(S): ELZA CATALDO
I'd tell you about this film but I almost fell asleep during it. Probably one of the most boring films I've seen. Good cinematography and compositing though. Live actors half the time put onto animated backgrounds, mostly on different layers so at least that was nice... Other wise, thumbs down.

ELVIS E MADONA
DIRECTOR(S): MARCELO LAFFITTE
Best film of the festival! The story of a transvestite(male) and a lesbian woman who fall in love. Extremely funny film, the girl gets pregnant and decides to bring her 'boyfriend' to meet her parents so he has to act and look like a guy for what seems to be the first time in his life. A very strange, switching of girlfriend/boyfriend, roles. Wonderful acting, good cinematography, editing, direction and the script was amazing. Hilarious, two thumbs and a big tow up!

Over all, the film festival was pretty good, lots of good films aside from the horrible ones. They were very hit or miss here. A pleasant experience.

Back to Brazil (week 3)

2010-01-24T12:48:00.000-08:00

Wednesday, December 30, 2009
We arrived in Rio late, around 11 at night. We got a cab and told him to go to our unknown hotel in our unknown location. He looked at the address and told us he knew about where it was so we took off. After a nice hour long cab drive through the industrial side of rio, around the bay, downtown rio, and finally up a steep, curvy path up to the top of a hill, we arrived to our "hotel". There were no signs, nothing looking hotel-like, just looked like somebody's house. We rang the doorbell of the house that was supposed to be our hotel. A few minutes later, a man appeared saying: "You must be Jean!" So we went in… We learned that this was the right spot; a very nice, tucked-away, bed & breakfast. We had a drink with the owner and he showed us to our 'house?' It was across the street and we had a full kitchen, two bedrooms, two bathrooms, living room, the works… We later learned that this place wasn't a regular place to be rented out, it's just the people that lived there were away and wanted to make some extra money. So after unpacking and checking out the beautiful view, we went to bed.

Thursday, New Years Eve
The first order of business today was getting Susan at the bus station. two busses and a few hours of waiting later, we found each other. We went straight back so that she could drop off her stuff. At around 5ish, we went across the street to the main hotel to have champagne with the other tenants and just hang out talking about what our plans were for the night. Two hours later, we left on our adventure to Copacabana; one of the most crowed places in the world for new years. Step one was to get food. Well the only thing we found was this little asian restaurant. We were the only people there. Then we proceeded to the nearest subway to go to Copa. Packed crowded and uncomfortable, we got there only to find that we needed to walk about 10 blocks to get to the beach. Even that far away though, it was super crowded. After shuffling through ridiculous amounts of people we got there. I heard later on that there were two million people just on the beach that night. I think they understated. We walked around for a while until we finally found a nice spot the watch the fireworks. Little did we know we were pretty much dead center for the show. It was a wonderful show; imagine a fire work show, thats what came out of one boat in Rio, and there were I think around five of them. Now imagine the biggest sporting event you've gone to, what we heard was like a goal or a touchdown in the main event, but for 3 miles wide.

(A few little snippets of what the fireworks were like...)

After the show, we didn't really stick around so we just headed back to the hotel to drink with whoever else had come back from there escapades. We were the first ones home to everyone else's surprise who showed up later saying they'd lost a shoe or the subway line was horrible. Not for us, we kind of cut the entire line, weaved through people, and that was that. After having a few drinks, we went to bed.

Friday
Having gone to bed pretty late the privies night, we also woke up late. Didn't really do anything during the day except go to the pool and hang out in there garden/jungle. Later that night though, the hotel owners invited us to go to a party with them. What a strange concept… So there's this guy who owns a chain of jazz clubs in Rio, what makes him famous and his clubs successful is there location. Honestly, the drinks were mediocre and the food could barley pass as edible. But the view? The way to get there? Just the general idea? Impressed… So we left the hotel in two sets of cabs and met at the bottom of this other mountain in Rio. We then took an unmarked white bus up this slope of Rio ghetto also know as a fovea. Aside from the sketchy-ness of the place, it was actually quite interesting. Then when we got out of the bus, we had to walk the last few blocks because the alleys were to small for any kind of car. Although the insides of the houses looked decent, the outsides were dirty, falling apart, and crowded. We get to the place to find out it's called "The Maze". At first I thought they just called it that because it was like a maze to get here but then I learned that this place, the owners house, is itself a maze to some extent. It was a very "alice in wonderland" kind of place with disproportionate rooms, dead-ends, and secret corders. We stayed for a while but then took off cause it was actually kind of boring. We left with this other couple and decided that we should go get some food before going home. So we ate as much as we could and went to the hotel.

Saturday
Today was check out Rio day. We planed to go around and check out downtown, the beaches, and the malls. So we started by taking a tram down our mountain to the center of the city. We then walked around a deserted downtown seeing how it was the week end. Ate lunch and headed for the beach. We walked along the one of the beaches and then a boardwalk around Flamenco. Then one of those things that you never expect, never prepare you happened to us. Strangely enough, the beginning happened to me as if through a slideshow. Slide one: I am smiling, enjoying the ridiculous heat but I am looking at my mother and behind her, there is a six inch blade behind her. "hmmm, there's something wrong with this picture." Slide two: my thoughts are: "I will teach you how to defend against knives but when it comes down to it, your life is never worth a camera or a few bucks, give them what they want and leave." (Jay Elson, my jujitsu teacher when I was around 15 years old) My vision is that off this guy with knife in his left hand down and his right hand holding on to my mom's purse, my mom at the other end holding on to the other end of her already cut strap testing her courage against a blade. Slide three: my thoughts are now calm and collected, I understand the situation, I know only to just be aware and go with whatever this guy wants. My sight reveals Him walking towards Susan and her just holding out her purse for him. Slide four: He's crossing the street and a slow sprint, Susan to my left and my mother in front yelling. All I think is that could of gone worse, good, we're alive and well. But that's not what was on my mom's mind. She wanted her stuff back, and she wanted it bad. As she was starting to go after him I realized that I had two choices, I could either try to convince my mom not to go even though she was quite determined or I could go after the guy myself. I immediately knew that if they went without me going first, it could turn to disaster real quick. So I sprinted after the guy. I crossed three busy streets trying to gain as much distance on the guy and loose Susan and my mom as much as possible. Maybe I read to many books on war strategy but my plan was not to confront him face to face but to take him on his flank, use surprise, as he did, to my advantage to at least disarm the guy. I wasn't angry with him, I just wanted to get the stuff back so my mom would quit bitchin. So after a few failed flanking maneuvers and a good ten minutes of dead running after the guy. He now understood that if he wanted to get away, he would have to something drastic to loose us. he crossed back over the streets and when I caught up to him on the other side, he was in the water. A few minutes later, mom and Susan caught up. We watched him swim, along with a steadily growing group of locals. Everyone shouting at him different things in different languages. After the police were called, all we could do is watch while he was swimming further and further away. We decided that I would stay and wait for the police and keep an eye on him while my mom and susan went back to see if they could retrieve anything he may have dropped or thrown away. I watched the guy slowly swim to a boat, take a raft from it and start rafting to the other side of the shore. The police arrived and well, I wasn't to reassured by there presence. The place where he was heading looked about a mile away and he was getting closer. When he was about five minutes out, the cops speed around to try to get there before he did, I looked around, and knew what I had to do. The police were going to be to slow, and the people over there didn't know what was going on so I told one of the guys next to me: "hey, I'm running there, tell my mom." And then I ran. Assuming it was a mile, my high school gym teacher would of been proud running it in under six minutes. I was the first there arriving as he was coming to shore. He saw me and started going behind the boat, 3.4 seconds later, two police officers arrive running. One shoots a round into the ground as the other is yelling: "Get the fuck over here!" He knew it was over, and so he slowly waded through the water over to us. One officer grabbed his right arm while the other officer smacked him in the head with the butt of his gun taking him down to the ground. They handcuffed him while another local arrived screaming with rage about how he was such a disgrace to Rio and Brazil and what not. Once he was handcuffed, the local smacked him again in the head knocking him out for a few seconds and you could see a small smile on the police officers faces. We brought him to the neighborhood police station only to find out that we needed to go to the tourist police station. After arriving there we filled out paperwork for a good five hours but at least the cops offered us a ride home. Lights and sirens blaring, they took us home. Back at the hotel, we then proceeded to drink a lot of booze and try to make the best of what had happened. We were all safe and got all of our stuff back, wet and mostly ruined but we were safe. Guess we did see Rio at it's best; one bad apple for every fifty good and helpful ones.

Sunday
Unfortunately, today we were leaving after not to much sightseeing in Rio but at least it was to go to a super nice place. We spent a good four hours in the bus station because we didn't know when the next bus to Búzios. It was a nice trip there and on arriving in a confusing location, walked to our hotel. We unpacked our stuff and walked out to the marina to find a place to eat. We ate pizza and drank Sangria watching a cruise ship come close by to check us out and leave. Went back and went to bed.

Monday
I woke up at 5 in the morning to video tape the sunrise like I did in Arraial but when I got outside, it was cloudy and misty.

So I decided to walk around a bit since I was awake. On my journey around the marina, I ran into some leftovers from the night before. Two guys drunk and high, still drinking and smoking, trying to sell me some weed. I did however see some cool sights regardless of clouds. When I went back, I found Susan and we went and ate breakfast. When we came back up, we woke my mom up to start the day. Because we didn't have any time, Susan and I went swimming while mom went around to check out the neighborhood. After a while, we went back to the room and packed our stuff. After a long 2 hour confrontation between my mom and the manager debating prices, she finally told Susan and I that we were going to wait for a rental car and just drive back to São João. We did have like 3 hours to wait though so we decided to at least go see one of the beaches. They were all pretty nice but kind of crowded. After going back to the hotel, we took a cab to the rental car place and drove all the way back to São João. After dropping Susan off at her place, my mother and I drove back to mine only to be welcomed by one of the most obnoxious and loud sounds I've ever heard. It was late, maybe around 1 in the mooring but god damn, that alarm for my house is loud. Hell, I didn't even know that the alarm system worked. After being scared shitless and Angela turning it off, we finally got all of our stuff in.

Tuesday
We started off the day by buying our bus tickets to Belo the following day. Then we dropped off the car and walked to Susan's house. We hung out there for a little bit and then left back to my place because my mom had packing to do. That night we went out to a cafe and had dinner and went to bed relatively early that night.

Wednesday, January 6, 2010
Woke up early, got a cab to the bus station, got on the bus to Belo Horizonte. got to the bus station, got on another bus to the airport, said our fair-wells, and I hoped on a bus back to the bus station forty five minutes later. Got to the bus station, got another bus to São João, and walked home. She left Brazil around 10 that night and returned to the States well.

Nosotros en la Argentina (semana 2)

2010-01-11T08:26:00.000-08:00

Wednesday December 23, 2009
We arrived in Buenos Aires a little after sunset. We were supposed to be met by someone so we kind of hung around until we were. He drove us from the airport to our cousins house, Katie. Interesting how we communicated, we spoke in French. We came to Argentina to speak in French? I don't know, but because it'd been about four years since I'd spoken, I most defiantly was a little rusty. We just spent the night catching up with each other, eating good cooking and drinking good wine.

Thursday
So, we didn't have to much to do today, so my mother and I decided to go check out downtown. We got on a train and headed that way. We walked around a bit until we found the main touristy road; Avineda Florida. It was about a two mile stretch of a pedestrian road filled with malls. You go in one place and then you realize that you just walked into the biggest mall you've ever been in, then you go across the street and same thing. Go down a block, different malls with the same expanse of things to buy. So of course, the first order of business was starbucks which wasn't actually to hard, it was in one of the first mall we went to. Then we proceeded to buy our cloths for that night's festivities and the cousins'. We walked pretty much the whole stretch, sat down and ate and then walked back without destroying out check books too badly. We took the train back to Katie's house and I took a nap, being tired from all the walking(I'm not used to shopping).

Later that night, we headed over to my other cousins', Veronicas', house. Beautiful place, which I later learned she did the architecture for. So this being Christmas eve in South America, apparently the thing to do is have a giant outdoor party; lots of food, lots of drinks, lots of games, and of course, lots of fireworks? I spent most of the night playing fooseball with my little cousins and there friends. At midnight, we launched off the fireworks, huh, it was better than the forth of July in Los Alamos. It's nice being in a place where your allowed to do what you want when you want instead of "No, fireworks are illegal. No, drinking is illegal. No, Parties are illegal. And you must be quiet for heavens sake!" It sounded like the entire city of Buenos Aires was partying that night.

Friday
I was one of the first to wake up that day, it was me and the second youngest one. We spent the morning trying to find a common interest in things to do. He liked soccer games, I like shooting games… Once every one was up and about, we opened presents. I got a nice wallet, belt, shirt, and a CD. We then proceeded to eat a huge "left-over from the night before" lunch at around 3 in the afternoon. Afterwards, we alkyd around the neighborhood. It felt super strange to be skating in the 80 degree heat on christmas, normally it's snowboarding in the back yard in the cold. It was a very relaxing day and at the end of it, my mom and I went back to Katie's house.

Saturday
Today we woke up, packed our things, and headed to the airport. We were off to Neuquén in Patagonia. When we landed, we walked out of the airplane to there one baggage claim. we then met Anna outside and she drove us to her sisters place to drop off all our stuff. Later that night, we met with the parents and went out to a pretty nice restaurant where I pretty much ate an entire goat with a chocolate fondue for dessert. Afterwards, Anna, her friend, my mom, and I went out to a fancy bar for some drinks.

Sunday
We got up somewhere around 11 and started our day by going to eat lunch with Anna's parents at a nearby vineyard. Real nice place, good food, good wine. Then of course, we went on the tour of the factory (all in Spanish) and bought some wine there. From the vineyard, we went to there summer house on the lake, about an hour drive away. We walked around the lake for a little bit and just relaxed in the sun. After the lake, we went back to the house to wind down for a little bit before the aside. The parents that night hosted a giant family feast/birthday party. An asada is pretty much a giant barbecue with tons of different kinds of meat. We ate fillet mignon, steak, cow intestine, blood sausage, and tons of other different kinds of meats. After dinner, we sang happy birthday to Anna and ate cake and drank this champagne, lemon fizzy drink. My mom and I were tired afterwards so we just went home but apparently, Anna went with some of her cousins to a party until 730 the following morning.

Monday
Because Anna had partied all night, we didn't do to much today. We did a little shopping in town where I got a few shot glasses and cigars(Cuban) and my mom got some presents for her friends back in the states. We ate dinner at the parents house and drank cocktails.

Tuesday
We woke up early and hit the road. We were driving from her city, back to Buenos Aires, about a ten hour drive or so. We arrived somewhere around 8-9 at night, dropped of our stuff in a hotel and went to check out a tango show. Although we sat way in the back, it was still fun. We drank decent wine while talking in French to a couple from Reunion, a little island of the coast of Africa.

Wednesday
Was our last day in Argentina and we had some last minute shopping to do so we had Anna take us back to the main touristy part of town. We walked around for another few hours checking out the downtown and buying a few things. We then headed of to the airport once more to take off for Rio for the new year.

This is a little video of some of the sights we saw while in Argentina. The sound is from a video that I recorded of a street performer while in Buenos Aires

Mãe no Brasil (semana 1)

2010-01-08T07:13:00.000-08:00

Thursday, December 17, 2009
…We gave each other hugs, talked for a little bit, and we were off on our journey to my place. First thing we did was grab a bus back to the bus station, simple enough. When we get there though, we found that we just missed the last bus to São João. No worries, we found ourself a nice little hotel and went out for a drink across the street. I made sure that the first thing she tried here was the cachaça. She loved it but couldn't finish her drink. we later retired…

Friday
Next morning we got up and to my mothers pleasant surprise, had a giant feast for breakfast full of all the normal/exotic Brazilian goodies. Packed our stuff, grabbed a cab to the bus station, and got on a bus to São João del-Rei where we would be staying for the next week. We gave her the regular tour, she unpacked, and we began the welcoming festivities; going to the bar! It was Lucas, his boyfriend, my mother and I. We got some beer, some food, and later on Susan joined us. It started raining so we just picked up our drinks and headed for the entrance of the bar. After a good few hours of drinking at the bar, Lucas and mom decided that they wanted to go dance so we started heading to DOMO, a nightclub nearby. Susan left before we got there seeing how she needed to grab a moto-taxi home. Too bad to, she missed a fun show; my mom and Lucas (a bit drunk) dancing ridiculously together. Lucas's boyfriend and I just kind of sitting there trying not to laugh to much. All and all, I think she had a really fun time for her first night here.

Saturday
…Well seeing how we had gone to bed pretty late and a little intoxicated, we didn't wake up to early or really feel like doing anything to active and so we decided that it would a great time for MEXICAN NIGHT!!! WOOT WOOT! it's been about six months since Susan or I have had green chile so it we defiantly went all out with it. We probably spent a good three or four hours preparing everything; I was in charge of the guacamole, Lucas and Susan making crepes(we weren't able to get any tortillas), mom making the chicken and beef, and Angela opening the cans of green chile(we all tried and she was the only one successful…) It was a glorious meal; there were eight of us at the table eating everything that we could. It was the first time for the Brazilians eating anything like this before and for the most part, they loved it. I also found out that I have a commonality with my host mother: she loves spicy food, probably the first Brazilian that I've met who does. After our feast, none of us where to able to move so we pretty much just went to bed.

Sunday
Today was a day for adventuring. We went to Tiradents, a nearby "touristy" city. We spent the day walking around the small colonial village checking out churches, shops, and just the general streets of the town. I took her to the chocolate shop there where she ended up buying a six pack of mini chocolate + random alcohol shots which I never got to try :-( on our way back to SJDR, we decided to take the Maria Fumaça back, a train scenic train that goes from Tiradents to São João and back. It was my first time on the train to and it was a lot of fun; a lot of nice views.

Monday
Well, she had seen the streets of São João, she had seen Tiradents, and well I had work to do so today, we went to see my advisor. I need to renew my visa and she was helping me out on that. We spoke in english so that my mom could understand all that was going on. afterwards I showed her the rest of that campus and we pretty much spent the day just walking around seeing some more of the city.

Tuesday
Today we walked pretty much to the other side of town to show her the other two campuses and try to find Susan. First we went to the Dom Busco campus where she got to see a bit more of the "rain forest" side of town. Then we went to the CTan campus where she got to check out the "farm/countryside" side of town. Then we tried to go to Susan's house but she wasn't there so we just went across the street from her place to drink a beer. We found out later that Susan had been to some waterfalls with Lucas.

Wednesday
Today was the last day in São João for a while so we said our good-byes to Lucas and Angela and hopped on a bus at seven in the morning to Belo Horizonte. Followed by another bus to the airport, we got on the plane to leave for Argentina.

Mother's Arrival

2009-12-28T08:16:00.000-08:00

About one week later...
Many things have happened in the past week so I wasn’t able to/too lazy to finish my last entry. Things like my mother arriving, my computer breaking, getting a new computer, and dealing with a little cold...
But, first things first, the conclusion to the Rio trip. As I was saying, I grabbed a double shot and headed towards the consulate. I decided to walk because I still had about two hours before I needed to be there. After about an hour of walking, I started getting a bit tired. So I sat down, next to the peri, and started thinking to myself: wow, this now makes 24 hrs without sleep. Alright, after the consulate, find a place to sleep. And that’s what I did. The consulate wasn’t to eventful; I walked in, they gave me my new passport, I walked back out. I grabbed a bus and went to the bus station. I bought my ticket back to São João and found a quite place to catch a few Z’s. It was about 3:00 and at that time, I thought that my bus left at 7:00 so I slept in one of the most uncomfortable chairs ever created for about two and a half hours. After taking my little power nap, I went outside for a smoke. While doing so I double checked my ticket information. Turns out I was being a bit dyslexic or something because the actually left at 9 that night. “Ugg, two more hours of waiting...” So I can’t get back to sleep but I’m to tired to read or write anything. So now I have three hours to do nothing.. I sat there for probably about 15 minuets trying to figure out what to do until I just said fuck it, I’ll hit up Starbucks again! Hop on a bus(45min), get an expresso(10min), go outside to drink it and enjoy the night life of Rio(30min), get on a bus back to the station(45 min), and arrive having seen the city at night with an extra adventure to tell in about two hours. Shortly thereafter, I feel asleep on the bus and woke up in SJDR with a nasty little cold.

...The following week after that was a bit hectic. I had about three days to get over my cold because my mom was coming. I sat at home and drank ridiculous amounts of tea because as soon as my mother arrived, I knew I wouldn’t have any more time to rest. Unfortunately, that’s not quite what happened. The day I was supposed to pick up my mom, I slept in in way past my alarm; I missed the first two busses to Belo Horizonte. Finally after getting on one, there was a lot of traffic in Belo so the bus made me even later. So I’m at the bus station, my mom probably already waiting for me, and I still need to get to the airport. So I say screw, I’ll take a cab, it’ll be faster. Turns out that the airport is on the outskirts of the completely other side of town. So I gave the cab driver my arm and a leg and started franticly searching for my mother. After my first tour of the airport with no luck, I decide I should do this a bit more systematically. Good thing the airport wasn’t big or my one hour of searching could of turned to hell. After still no luck, I go to information to call her on the intercom. I wait, 5min, 10min, 20min... I think to myself: no way did she try to get to São João by herself, she’s either way late or stuck in São Paulo. Thinking that this was going to be a quick grab and go, I didn’t bring any of my things so I ended up paying R$5 to use the internet at an airport computer. Turns out that I received a message stating that she would be about five hours late. Well that was two hours ago so I had three more to go. I find another uncomfortable chair in a quite place in the airport and fall asleep. At about 6p.m., five hours after she left that message, I go back to the computer. Strange though, a two hour nap made me feel a world better in terms of my cold. Nothing new from my mom so I grab her flight number to see what I can find out about it. At information, they tell me that it had been cancelled and all the passengers were rescheduled for a different flight. When the flight came, no mother to be seen. I walked around looking, double checked the new flight number, nothing... I decided that I would wait until 9 and then just go home, what else could I do? But a good hour after her re-scheduled flight, she arrived.

Rio-epilogue part 1

2009-12-25T12:03:00.000-08:00

1:00 A.M.
running to catch a bus that’s makin a pit stop...

10:12 A.M.
Oh god! I think I’m in heaven! Heaven, for some people, mainly people completely addicted to coffee having suffered withdrawals to good kinds, is also known as Starbucks. For the first time in Brazil,I ordered coffee, knowing exactly what it was going to taste like. Even at 7:30 this morning as I passed the mall I knew the taste of that caramel frappachino. It’s almost sad to think that in a country who’s main exports include coffee, I fee; such an urge to drink american coffee. But it is nice to know that wherever you are in the world there are places that can make you feel a little closer to home.
...And so, the story of how I arrived here. At about 10:30 last night I left my house in SJDR to pick up passport in Rio. At about 11:00, I found out that the bus I was going to take didn’t have any vacancies and the next one left at 6 the following morning.. After looking distraught and confused for a minute, the bus attendant told me that there was a bus coming from Divinopolis that was going to stop here real fast on its way to Rio de Janeiro. It would be here between 12:20 to 1:00 for about 5min. So I left to go eat a burger and came back around 11:50p.m. to start waiting. And so I waived. And waited. Then it started raining so I waited some more. And finally, as I start thinking of leaving and going home, I see a bus. Only, it wasn’t going where I had expected it to go. So I sprinted around the bus station and ask if I can hitch a ride with them. Turns out that I can and I ended up paying close to half the price of a normal fare! We arrived in in Rio somewhere around 6:30a.m. This being my second time in Rio, I knew my around a little better so I hopped on a bus and headed for Flamenco, a district close to downtown Rio. I walked around with one goal in mind: Find Starbucks. After about a mile of walking around, I finally found the mall that the Starbucks was in. Just one problem: The mall didn’t open for another two and half hours. So I decided to find the world renown beach; Copacabana. So I headed South. Now here is the point of the story where I introduce a new character. Like my previous adventures, I met someone along the way. He wasn’t an angel or an american burnout, but an intriguing person none the less. By the end of out time together, I was certain that he was home-less, family-less, and also, friends-less. He spoke super fast with an un-enunciated accent so I barley understood anything that he said, but that didn’t stop him from talking about everything in the world.. He also carried around a stereo from the 70’s that probably didn’t work but he kept a gospel CD in there anyway. Although I didn’t understand a single thing that he said, he accompanied me for about two hours showing me different places with our final destination being Copacabana. He took me to a few different ‘touristy’ places and another beach before reaching Copa. Copa however, wasn’t as good as I had expected. The water was dirty, it was rainy, there was trash everywhere, and my vagabond friend kept showing me all of his possessions. I will say that it did have some decent waves. Probably some of the biggest I have ever seen actually, measuring around 15-20 feet tall. The landscape too was nice. So after watching the waves and my friend washing his shirt in them, I said ‘Adieu’ and took a bus back to the mall. And in almost perfect synchronization, as I walked up to the entrance and the line of people waiting outside, the mall opened. Three floors up, I found my golden treasure...
R$12.00 Grande Caramel frappachino, that’s what I’m talking about! I’ve now been sitting here for about an hour, slowly sipping down that frothy deliciousness and writing this blog. Now, I’m off to the consulate to pick up my passport. But first, another double shot!

The never ending adventure: Part 3

2009-12-03T16:02:00.000-08:00

12-02-09
6:24a.m.
The following day, yesterday as of now, was a bit intense. I had about 8 hours to study for a final and take it, print and fill out my passport application, and gather everything else that was needed to go to Rio. Despite unruly amounts of stress and impatience, everything turned out fine. I even think I did pretty good on my final. Although I’m still missing a few pieces of my application, I’m sure it’ll be okay. I still have about an hour and half before my meeting so I think I’ll watch the waves breaking on the rocks and the homeless being woken up by the police. After I finish my business, I’m going to try to find myself a starbucks.

12-02-09
11:30a.m.
...Sitting at the bus station waiting for my bus at 2:00 to go back to SJDR. Made it through the consulate alright. Funny, seems like there was only one American there and he was pretty much running the place. All the security, secretaries, and what not were all Brazilian. Not what I expected but that was fine. My final question to the guy when we were finished was: “Now where can I find myself a Starbucks?” He laughed. He told me where to find one and how to get there; the easiest way being by metro. So when I was outside, I started heading towards the nearest station. As I’m about to head down the stairs to catch a train, I hear, in English:”...And so we meet again!” It was a guy that I met in the consulate while waiting my turn. He told me that he’d been living in Rio for the past four years and when he heard that I was adventuring to a Starbucks, he told me “Man! You’re in Rio! You’ve got to try the coffee here, I know a real good spot; they pretty much invented the ‘cafezinho’, I’ll take you there...” And so we walked on. Strange character he was. He told me that he “taught english”, he came from Los Angeles, and his income came from a “family business”. He also told me he lived in a favela. He kind of looked like the main character in ‘Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas’ looked in real life twenty years later. One lazy eye, both eyelids halfway shut, bald wearing a black baret. The kind of guy who laughs at his own experiences thinking: ‘damn that was a crazy freaking time’. Although vacant and appearing unintelligent at first glance, he did, at times, produce little blurbs of evidence that the gears were working. Every once in a while, he would state some kind of historical fact about a specific building or the city of Rio but then proceeded to mindlessly rant about it. So after he got us lost a few times, we finally made it to that cafe. I was unimpressed. Although this was the first place I’d seen in Brazil that made coffee naturally, it still didn’t meet my standards. Fun anyway, even though the coffee was no good, the company was nice and seeing a new city is always fun. Afterwards, he showed me which bus to take to the bus station and bid me farewell. So now I’m here, waiting for my bus back home, at the end of this endless journey. Another seven hours and it’s back to finals week. woot!

12-03-09
Cyrille Gindreau

P.S. I have to go back to Rio in a few weeks to pic up my passport. Maybe I’ll see our gardian angel, or maybe the sketchy, burnt out American...

The never ending adventure: Part 2

2009-12-03T15:44:00.001-08:00

12-01-09
11:20p.m.
Ouf, crazy past 24 hours, got back to SJDR, crazy night with Susan, watched a movie, went to sleep, woke up five hours later, went to a meeting with my employer-to-be, ran around town doing errands, took a final, WAIT! I’m not finished with my last posting am I? I am now waiting for a bus back to Rio de Janeiro. Now, where was I? Right, Top of the world...
...It was wonderful. After promenading the top and the side of the mountain, I decided to check out the canyon that connected the back of the gulf and the main ocean. The gap in the land was only a mere 50 feet long, cliffs lining both sides with that impeccable turquoise-blue sea in between. Had I had the conhones, this seemed to be the perfect spot for cliff diving if you could get past looking down a 100 foot drop of rock and cacti. And so after absorbing as much beauty as we could, we started our decent back down to town. After a good mile down, we actually came across that restaurant we had been searching for earlier. A nice looking place, our stomachs decided to eat there. We ate shrimp and pasta on there back balcony over looking the marina and one of Arraial’s beaches. Good food, good alcohol, good view, couldn’t of asked for more for our two year anniversary.

12-01-09
11:54p.m.
Just got on the bus and am leaving for Rio...
And so after our little feast, we walked the rest of the way back to our hotel and went to bed. The following day, I made sure to set my alarm for 5:30a.m. to be able to go watch the sunrise on the beach but unfortunately, that wasn’t early enough. My first thought waking up was: “Fuck, it’s already light out.” So I grabbed my cloths and camera, booked out the door, down the stairs, and realizing that the hotel assistant was sleeping, scaled he front gate because it was locked. Two cigarettes later, I finally found the beach. Although it was safe to assume that the sun had risen above the water, it could not yet be seen from behind one of the islands. And so I watched the sun rise, on the beach, in Brazil.

Going home later that day was, well, interesting... Bus 1: Arraial to Cabo Frio. Piece of cake. Then, when we asked about getting to Barbacena, they told us that the bus only had one vacancy left and the next one wasn’t for another 12 hours. Thank god, we had our guardian angel with us. When we first arrived in Cabo Frio, he helped us find which bus to take to Arraial. Random guy, never even knew his name. But, with a bit of luck, we saw him again that day. We told him our situation and he simply suggested going to Rio first then taking a direct line to São João. Easy enough, and so we got ourselves tickets to Rio and headed there. Regardless of the size of the bus station, we eventually found our way around when we got there. We bought our tickets to SJDR and an hour later, we were off. Interestingly enough, as we waited for the bus, we saw our angel a third time, Coincidence? Maybe, but the rest of our journey went quite smoothly.

12-02-09
6:00a.m.
Sitting on a pier in Rio, watching the smog/fog starting to break around the surrounding mountains (insert clever metaphor). For a big city, sure is damn quite at 6 in the morning; the water quietly breaking over a small rock is the loudest thing around.
...And so as for my Cabo Frio story, that’s the conclusion. It was fun, interesting, beautiful, and relaxing. But, this is not the end of the adventure...

The never ending adventure: Part 1

2009-12-03T10:11:00.000-08:00

11-28-09
10:52a.m.
On our way to Cabo Frio
This is the second bus of today that we’ve taken. I woke up at 6:30 in the morning, took a shower, are breakfast and we left São João del-Rei at 8:00. Hour and a half later, we arrived in Barbacena. 1.5 hrs down, 6.5 hrs to go.

11-29-09
5:44a.m.
As I expected, I woke up an hour before my alarm went off.. Guess I’ll start writing from where I left off. We reached Cabo Frio, then took another bus to Arraial do Cabo (only like 10min). Nice little town, not what I expected but seemed fun. Walked around until we found a decent hotel at a decent price and dropped off our stuff. After getting comfortable, we went off to find the beach. Eventually, we found it; completely deserted and dark, it was night time by then. We took a nice nighttime stroll in the water and played a little in the sand. Susan kinda got stung by a tiny jellyfish, nothing serious. On our way back, we stopped at a nice little wood oven pizzeria to eat, then proceeded back to the hotel to go to bed. As for today? I’ll probably let Susan sleep for another hour or two before we set off on our adventure. Our plan is to go on this hike to what seems like a nice, secluded beach. All of this was planned off of Google Earth so no idea what we’re going to find...

11-29-09
7:21p.m.
Sippin a caipirinha on the beach.

11-30-09
5:37a.m.
Watching the sunrise.

11-30-09
9:44a.m.
Even though I’m writing this as I go in a journal, I still can’t keep up with this trip...
We’re on a bus now, waiting for it to leave to Rio de Janeiro. No, not Barbacena, not São João, but Rio. Why? Because we kind of missed our first bus... But, this isn’t what you want to read, you want to hear about yesterday. Well, again, I guess I’ll start from where I left off from last time. After finishing that that last entry, I went back up to the room to get a few more hours of sleep. After waking up a second time and getting ready, we took off for the beach. The first beach that we hit was nice but we were just using it as a landmark to get us to the real thing. And so we got our feet wet and walked on to our final destination. We walked probably around half the town before coming to the entrance of the mountain we needed to hike to get to our beach. After a nice, long, steep, hot, hike up the mountain, we finally got to see the other side of the mountain and oh what a site it was:

We walked around that side for a while until realizing that being out in this heat with no water and not knowing when the next time we could find shelter was not the greatest idea. And so we turned back to find something to drink. On our way back down, we noticed a a sign for a restaurant and decided to try to find it. Well after a about a mile of walking in the heat, we started thinking that maybe trying to find this place wasn’t such a good idea given the circumstances. So we started waving down cars to see if they knew anything or had any suggestions. After a while, one car did stop and ended up giving us a ride all the way to the beach. God, that AC felt nice, so did those water bottles we chugged when we got there, only problem was, there wasn’t a beach here. “So, where’s the beach?” “You walk down that path there.” said the man selling the water. “Right, okay” I thought to myself. The path looked quite treacherous. It was almost like rock climbing though a forest. Bot eventually, the forest thinned, and then, at last, we found it. I’m no professional writer but I’m sure even a person like Thoreu couldn’t describe the beauty of this place. And so:

Heh, even the picture doesn’t even do it justice... And so we swam here for a few hours, built a sand, wall? Took lots of pictures and video, and generally had a wonderful time. After having our fair share of fun in the sun, we decided to explore the rest of this little peninsula. So we hiked back up the mountain path and headed further along the dirt road. It was amazing, after every curve, it just seemed to get more and more beautiful. That was, until we hit the grand finale: The top of the world! From here, we could see the ocean on our left, the peninsula in front, the little ‘mini-gulf’ with our beach to our right, and an island to our backs...........

Crazy Days

2009-11-27T15:55:00.000-08:00

It's the end of the semester and everything, like back in the states, is getting super crazy... Yesterday, for example, I was told that I'm going to get job next semester translating the UFSJ website into english. Then was interviewed by some people doing a commercial for schools in Brazil, followed by classes. The entire time trying to buy and cook a turkey with Susan because Thanksgiving isn't a normal holiday here. Woke up at 9a.m., went to bed at 3a.m.(went to an end of school party) Today? ...Recovery day, tomorrow, travel for 10 hours to go to the beach!!!! woot woot! It's been way past due but I'm finally getting my chance to see the ocean! When I come back, I get a few days to catch up on work and then I'm going to Rio to renew my passport. The following week is pretty much finals week, and then my mother comes. Not to sure what that will entail but I foresee a lot of traveling around to place like: Tiradents, Varginha, Caxambú, Rio de Janeiro, and we're going to be spending Christmas in Argentina. Not to sure how much I'll be able to post seeing the congestion of the things to come but if worst comes to worst, I'll be keeping a journal on me to write it down in the bus to later post here. Should be fun!!!

Oh yea, and I haven't updated pics in a while because I've been rebuilding everything from the ground up, I've recreated the albums and all that needs to be done is some HTML coding and it'll be uploaded so watch for that to, not to mention the beautiful pictures from the beach that I'll be soon visiting!

Cyrille Gindreau

The "Rising Action" of the semester

2009-11-05T19:42:00.000-08:00

The days are getting long again, must be getting close to the end of the semester... Here was my day and what I did:

7:00a.m. Wake up & take a shower
7:30a.m Walk to cafe to have an expresso while I start to read this text on grammar and lexicon.
8:30a.m. Start walking back to my house and my alarm to wake up goes off.
8:45a.m. Get home, facebook apps and read news.
9:30a.m. Continue reading that same text (it's long, boring and full of words that I don't understand...)
10:30a.m. Go to campus Santo Antonio to speak with the exchange program coordinator; we talk about my passport renewal, visa renewal, picking up my permeant identity card (all of which need to be done within the next two months), classes that I may take next semester, and generally how I'm doing in Brazil. She also said that they were thinking of hiring me to do translations for there exchange program website next, might be fun...
11:30a.m. Get back home only to find that my room mate wants me to go to lunch with him (dammit, I need to study more...)
12:00p.m. Get home, run through the face book apps and the news and get back to reading my text.
1:28p.m. Finish reading the text only to realize that class starts in 17 min.
1:55p.m. Get to class only to find out I'm still the first one there (even before the teacher)
3:00p.m. Finish class, grab a coffee, and head to the library to type up the notes that I supposed to turn in on this text.
3:07p.m. Play starcraft
3:45p.m. Start taking the notes(in english) on the text)
6:30p.m. Grab some food and another starcraft break.
7:30p.m. Translate and type notes to be turned in
8:50p.m. Leave library, get coffee, print text, and head to class. Shit, no regular class, umm, okay, hey you, what's going on? presentation in the theater? Cool, sounds good...
9:00p.m. Attend a presentation my teacher is giving.
10:30p.m. Presentation ends, walk Susan to the bus, and walk home
11:30p.m. Facebook aps, news, starcraft
1:30 a.m. Cook dinner and watch a movie
3:30 a.m. Start writing this blog
3:45a.m. Lucas comes home plastered out of his mind and recounts events of that evening (very funny!)
4:15a.m. Three more roommates come home from a club, not hammered but definitely had a few drinks
4:40a.m. Finish this blog

All in all, a fun day with plenty of things to do right? All I have more to say is 'Thank God It's Friday'... I'm going to bed...
Cyrille Gindreau

Technology Me

2009-10-25T14:50:00.000-07:00

It has been 76 days since I have arrived in Brazil but it seems that it is having quite the reverse effect that what I initially thought it would have. Being in a country where not everybody has internet and the ones who do, it's slow and jolty, many would think that you learn to navigate away from facebook and google, and your computer in general... I am now living proof that this is not at all how it works. In the past 76 days, I have started reading news, blogs, twitters, the works. When the internets down, I work on 3-d animation, flash, or general html for my site. It seems that the more I'd like to get away from it all, the more I find to do on my computer, more sites to log into, more blogs to subscribe to and read...

(Here's the latest in maya)

Cyrille Gindreau

Caxambú

2009-10-20T19:24:00.000-07:00

Few days late but I wanted to create a video to go along with this blog...
So Susan and I decided: You know what? let's go on an adventure... We're comfortable enough with our knowledge of the language and the culture to be able to go somewhere on our own by now right? And so we did...
We of course had our handy friend Lucas to help us pick a place and he ended up suggesting Caxambú. And so the following day (Friday) we got on a bus and headed there. It was about a three hour bus ride from São João del-Rei. Trip there wasn't to bad, rained a little, had to stop in two other cities before we got there, but generally fun. Once we arrived in Caxambú, our main priorities were: food, shelter, and money. Well as we wondered around the town, we began to notice that this was obviously a tourist town full of fancy hotels and nice bars, the trick was to find a hotel that was a bit more affordable seeing how we're college students... Our first try was a semi-fancy hotel, but in the middle of town. Cost about 160 reals a night! No good... And so on we went, we found a bank where I would be able to get some money out of the atm(which I later found out I couldn't because they didn't have the right atms), found a nice little plaza/avenue area with a few bars and restaurants, and finally, after about two hours of walking around this strange, new place, we came across a hotel that seemed a lot more affordable and so we went in, checked it out, looked at one of the rooms, and got it(only 80 reals a night). For the price, I was actually surprised at the quality and service, we pretty much got a suite; main room(big), bathroom with separate bath and shower, and a little entrance hall room with a fridge. So we set our things down and took off to go find food seeing how it was now around 8 at night. We decided to go back to the plaza and go to a little pizzeria. Good food, great service, and a decent tab. We then proceeded to go back to the hotel and go to sleep.
We woke up around 8 the following morning to try to get a head start on the town. Our first order of business was to see how we were going to get back to São João del-Rei. Head to the bus station, check the times, the price, and that's fine. As we're leaving we see a "ski life" operating on the other side of the road. Lucas told us something about there being a "water park" here and so we went to check it out and ended up taking the life to the top of this huge mountain overlooking the city. There was also a statue of Jesus but it looked really funny because of all of the radio towers around it:

After enjoying the view for about an hour, we take the "ski lift" back down. On our was up and down the lift, we notice that what we are traveling over seems to be some kind of park so when we arrive at the bottom, we proceed to go into the park. Lucas's "water park" ended up being a nature park with mineral springs all over the place. Part of the park was like a childrens playground, another was full of monuments with the different springs dictating what this water was for. One of the springs, you washed your eyes with, another one was for gargling with. Another part of the park contained a lake where you could take swan boats out on, and part was full of tourist attractions and venders. After spending the day there, we decided to go back to the hotel and take a nap. Later that night, we ended up going to the same pizzareia for lack of creativity and energy. At the end of our meal, they asked us where we were from and asked us to sign there guest book. So if anyone goes to Caxambú, look for us in that guest book. We actually found someone from Rio Rancho, NM. small world right? The following day, we left the hotel at 7am, got on the bus and headed home. So far, Caxambú is deffently one of my favorite places to go, wonderful people, beutiful park, and the price wasn't to bad. overall spent 400 reals for the two of us for a three day trip, not bad at all... Here's a little video I put together on our trip:

Cyrille Gindreau

When it rains, it pours...

2009-10-08T19:36:00.000-07:00

Many of you are familiar with the expression: "When it rains, it pours" but chances are, you don't take it literally... For example, nothing to interesting is happening in your life, then all of a sudden, you wife leaves you, you get fired, and find out you have a warrant out for your arrest because you forgot to pay a few speeding tickets... Well, in Brazil, I'm not sure they have this expression BUT, when it rains it freaking pours!!!

This is a picture that I took from the balcony of my house of the road in the front... As you can plainly see, the city is quite flooded... At first I was quite surprised that this was actually quite an ordinary thing for it to rain this much, I was sitting at my computer when one of my room mates told me to come check it out. They later informed me that they weren't going to there classes on this accord. Today it happened for a second time, except I was at school at the time so of course, I walked home and started uploading pics of it... quite beautiful and tons of fun! Word of advise: best clothing to wear in these conditions, in my opinion, is sandals, shorts, and a jacket... The first time it rained this much, I did not wear this, and well, started wishing I had, couldn't wear my shoes for a week and my pants reeked! Today was much better... You can find the rest of the pictures that I took on my website: Adventures in Brazil.

Report (portuguese)

2009-10-01T19:50:00.000-07:00

aqui é meu reportagem em português

“Eu acho que é importante para todos os estudantes da universidade no Brasil, principalmente em meu curso, fazer um intercâmbio¹” disse Lucas quando questionado sobre o programa de intercâmbio. Lucas Oliveira, 24, estudante em São João del-Rei, disse que no próximo ano gostaria de estudar nos Estados Unidos por um semestre. UFSJ e New Mexico State University(NMSU) mantêm juntas um programa de intercâmbio de estudantes de uma universidade para outra. Com essa ligação direta, estudantes como Lucas têm uma oportunidade de ver o mundo, estudar coisas diferentes e aprender culturas novas.

Embora haja uma troca direta entre as duas universidades, não é tão simples fazer parte deste programa. Na UFSJ, para serem selecionados, os estudantes devem ter concluido 40% do curso, apresentando Coeficiente de Rendimento igual ou superior a 7,5 e ter o conhecimento da língua que é falada no país. Quando o estudante atende tais exigências, pode ser efetuado o intercâmbio. Uma vez aceito no processo de seleção, os estudantes serão entrevistados na língua do país de recepção para mostrar a facilidade e a habilidade de sucesso em seus estudos em uma outra língua.

Na NMSU não é muito diferente o processo seletivo. Os estudantes devem ter terminado 2 semestres do seu curso para tornar-se elegíveis, ou seja, devem mostrar a proeficiência no português ou espanhol e comprovar condição financeira, sendo pago a taxa de matrícula na NMSU. Uma vez aceito no programa, os estudantes devem trazer carta de recomendação, teste do “WebCT” e seguro de saúde de HTH. Assim, em entrevista por e-mail, recomenda Jose Francisco: “Aprenda tanto quanto possível sobre a cultura. Filmes, música, política, tudo que voce puder.²”, uma vez que ele é de NMSU e esteve em São João del-Rei por um semestre.

Então, o que um estudante faz depois que ele completa tudo isso? Eles registram os bilhetes aereos para o país de destino! Ao chegarem lá, começa a parte mais difícil. Ao chegar em São João del-Rei, os estudantes devem se matricular para as aulas, regularizarem-se com a polícia, atender às orientações dadas, e à outras coisas desta natureza, tudo em português. Embora muitas pessoas no escritório de intercâmbio falem o inglês, a orientação e o registro sao feitos em português.

Na NMSU, o processo começa com: “As escolas associadas nos notificam de seus candidatos, depois, eles preenchem o formulário de intercâmbio na NMSU, para eu rever,³” disse Dr. Huntsberger, “ Então eu trabalho com admissões internacionais para admiti-las como estudantes de “non-degree”. Então nós podemos emitir seus documentos do visto.³” Quando aceitos, nós arranjamos moradia para os estudantes que têm a opção de comprar um plano de alimentação. Quando chegam, os alunos vão á orientação de estudantes e, depois, registram-se para as aulas.

Então, por que ir se há tanto trabalho? Qual é o ganho? Não seria mais fácil estudar apenas no mesmo local? “Foi uma experiência única em minha vida.⁴” diz Fernando em uma outra entrevista de email, “Durante o tempo que passei lá conheci pessoas de várias nacionalidades, pratiquei o inglês, cursei matérias que não existem na grade curricular de meu curso no Brasil e conheci finalmente o país, cuja cultura esteve presente na minha formação desde que era criança.⁴” Fernando fez intercambio durante um semestre na NMSU. “Eu começaria dizendo dos ganhos acadêmicos em primeiro lugar, nao é?⁵” Segundo Adelaine, coordenador do intercâmbio da UFSJ “Quando você vai para um outro país, você aprende uma outra lingua. Isso já é um ganho e uma competencia que você vai adquirir.⁵” Por essa razão, o trabalho compensará para quaquer pessoa que participar de um programa de intercâmbio.

Report (english)

2009-10-01T19:49:00.000-07:00

Here is the report that I have created using the interviews in english...

“I think it's important to all the students in college in Brazil, mainly in my course, to make an exchange program” says Lucas when asked about exchange programs. Lucas Oliverira, 24, is a student at the Federal University of Sao Joao del-Rei(UFSJ). He says that in the next year, he would like to study abroad for a semester. UFSJ and New Mexico State University(NMSU) hold together a sister exchange program for students from either university to go to the other. With this direct link, students get an opportunity to see the world, study different things and learn new cultures.

Although there is a direct exchange between the two universities, it’s not just a walk in the park to be accepted into this program. At UFSJ, to be eligible, students must have already completed 40% of their major, present a transcript showing a GPA of 2.5 or better, and must have fluency of the language that is spoken in the country that they would like to go to. Once a student has completed such requirements, they may apply for the exchange. Once accepted in the application process, students will be interviewed in the language of the receiving country to show there fluency and ability to succeed in their studies in another language and country.

NMSU is much the same in their ways. Students must have already completed 2 semesters at NMSU to become eligible, must show proficiency in the portuguese or spanish, and must prove there financial ability; They will be charged NMSU tuition. Once Applied and accepted into the program, Students must bring letters of recommendation, take “Web CT” tests, and obtain HTH health insurance. “Learn as MUCH AS POSSIBLE about the culture. Movies, music, politics, everything you can.” Recommends Jose Francisco in an email interview. Jose is from NMSU and stayed in São João del-Rei for a semester.

So then what does a student do after they have completed all of this? They book plane tickets and get to there country! Once they have arrived, the most difficult part comes. When arriving in São João del-Rei, students must register for classes, register with the police, attend student orientation, and other things of this nature, all in portuguese. Although many people in the ‘intercambi’ office speak english, orientation and registration is all in portuguese.

At NMSU, the process starts with: “Partner schools notify us of their candidates, who then fill out the NMSU exchange application, which I review,” Starts Dr. Huntsberger, “ Then I work with international admissions to get them admitted as non-degree students. Then my office issues them their visa documents.” Once accepted, they are arranged into student housing and they have the option of buying a meal plan. They then arrive, goto orientation and sign up for classes.

Why go if it’s so much work? What is gained? isn’t it easier to just study in the same campus? “It was a unique experience in my life.” Starts Fernando in another email interview, “During the time that I passed there, I met different people, practiced english, took classes that didn’t exist in my university in Brazil and got to know a country’s culture that has been in my life since the time I was a child” Fernando has gone on a semester exchange to NMSU. Adeline stars “I’ll start by talking about academic gains... When you go to another country, you will learn it’s language. becoming competent in another language is a gain in itself.” Adeline is the exchange program coordinator for UFSJ. With so much reason to go, the work will become well worth it for anyone participating in an exchange program.

Interview with Ana Paula

2009-09-26T14:01:00.000-07:00

This is another interview that I did for my report. It is with Ana Paula, my portuguese teacher.

Cyrille Gindreau

Interview with Adelaine LaGuardia

2009-09-20T17:58:00.000-07:00

About two weeks ago, I was sitting in a car, next to my friend, going to his home town... I was looking out of the window thinking: 'what the hell? I'm in freaking Brazil! freaking crazy...' I was very happy with this thought, I just wanted to scream I was so thrilled, I wanted to show people what I was doing... And so then it came to me: why don't I show people?

I'm in journalism here, they want me making reports on things and what not... Well that was part 1 of the documentary idea that is being formulated... The assignment is to make a report on something going on in the city. So why not do it on the exchange program between NMSU and UFSJ? So I set out to start creating questions to interview people with but instead of just writing them down, I would film so that at the end of the year here, maybe I could put together a little documentary of my exchange program. So this past week, I have done two in person interviews and two email interviews. I plan to do another 2 more before I turn in my report which I will also post here when I am finished with it (portuguese and english versions). So here is one of the interviews; it is with Adelaine LaGuardia, the exchange program coordinator here at UFSJ. Although she does speak english, the final report must be in portuguese so I hope you all can understand!!!

Cyrille Gindreau 9-20-09

hitch hiking Brazil

2009-09-09T19:41:00.000-07:00

So there I am, sitting at a bar with Lucas, (room mate and best friend in Brazil) talking about life, women (and men(he's gay)), school and things to do in Brazil when he tells me he's going to his home town in Varginha. He tells me that there this party that he plans to go to with some friends. And then he asks me to go. Keep in mind, this is Thursday night and he wants to leave on Saturday, come back on Monday because it's a three day weekend. So I tell him sure, that sounds like fun, I'd love to go to another city in Brazil. So whatever, the night ends, we go back to the house and I go to bed.

I wake up like any other day on Friday, go down stairs to check my email; I sit down, turn on my computer, and in comes Lucas. "Get your stuff together, we're leaving soon!" 'Today?' "Yes, c'mon, let's go!" 'Umm, wha, umm, K...' My computer finishes turning just so I can shut it down... I pack my things together, run to the school to reschedule an appointment and run back to the bus station. As I walk up, here comes Lucas, we hop on the bus, sit down, and we start our journey. So here's where you start wondering: Bus? I thought you said hitch hiking? Well yes, we were on our way to go to Lucas's favorite place to start hitch hiking... We get there and there we were, holding a sign that said 'Lavras' holding our thumbs out. After about waiting for about half an hour, finally we get picked up... Nice enough couple going to Sao Paulo and Varginha was kind of on their way... I fell asleep in the car and woke up to Lucas sticking his finger up my nose. We arrive on the side of a freeway next to a gigantic statue of Pele, a Brazilian soccer player, and start walking for a little bit... We get to the other side of this interstate intersection and around the statue, stop, and start sticking out our thumbs again, this time with a sign that says Varginha... soon enough, some old guy picks us up and we get to the city. We walk to Lucas's house and I get to meet his mom... Nice enough woman, full of energy and the craziest stare I think I've ever seen. We don't do to much that night; go downtown, check out the place a bit, go to a bar, nothing special. It's Saturday and we leave the house to go looking for something that I wanted to buy; a tripod and lavaliere (fuck portuguese, try explaining what a lavaliere is to someone who knows nothing about video and sound in a language that you cannot communicate completely in) We found the tripod after checking like 7 stores but couldn't find the mic so we gave up and got coffee. afterwards, we went home to find some new developments in our plan... This is really where the story gets interesting, please, keep in mind that I am completely straight and had no idea what was to come of the next 48 hours... We come home to see that Lucas's boyfriend had arrived along with one of his friends. We hang out for a little bit and then go to some of Lucas's friends house. Turns out to be a lesbian couple and one of there friends. So we have a grill out from 7 till around 11. Somewhere between those hours, I remembered sitting at the bar with Lucas and him telling me that we were going to a party that night so around 11-1130ish, I start to think that we just aren't going so I settle down and knock back like 7 beers... haha, I was wrong, it's about midnight when we leave to drive about an hour and a half to some club in the middle of no where, which of course, turns out to be a gay club... It was a fun though, I enjoyed myself for the most part, loud techno music, fun people, good times... around 3 in the morning, Lucas and his boyfriend leave, leaving me with a lesbian couple, and two other people that I had met at the grill out early, so around the time of my third cocktail/second beer, I'm just sitting in the back, enjoying the music when this drunken gay man starts hitting on me. That was kind of awkward. I'm straight and don 't speak much portuguese. Well I actually led him on for a while, bought him a drink when he spilt his all over me, tried talking to him and after a while i got board so I just joined up with my other friends leaving him with the phrase: 'sorry, I'm straight, I'll see ya later' soon afterwards, we left and went back to the house. I wake up with a bit of a hangover, to find that we're going to a gay parade. So I down some Guarana, eat some pao de quijo, and we're off. We get there and there's actually only like 100 people, must of been early cause we decide to walk around a bit. After more people have joined, we find a nice spot to hang out and dance for about 3 hours to the pulsing techno music that is filling the streets of Varginha (gay parades in Brazil apparently consist of a truck in the town square blaring techno music as loud as possible and a bunch of people drinking, dancing and well, being gay. After a few hours, the truck starts moving around the town with everyone following it) So after 48 hours of dancing and being hit on, I think we all begin to get a bit tired so Lucas, his boyfriend, and I go back to his place and the rest of the weekend is much tamer... Eat good food, have some more good times and I found the most amazing cafe in the world; the first internet cafe I've seen since my arrival in Brazil, but it's Brazil so this isn't no ordinary internet cafe. sure they have the usual coffee drinks and what not but they also have and an entire menu for alcoholic coffee drinks so of course I get an Alexandra cocktail. It's now Monday night(we were supposed to leave today but Lucas decided to Tuesday morning and get back before classes start) and a friend of Lucas comes by to say hello. For anyone who knows Gerry, this guy was his Brazilian equivalent; totally right wing and the first person that I met who didn't like Lula(Brazilian president). He pretty much had no good points as far as I understood and was quite self centered in his reasons for not liking him but he was fun, very passionate... He leaves, we eat dinner, go to bed(which i didn't do till around 4 in the morning) and wake up at 530 to start hitch hiking back. The return trip was a bit more fun because it wasn't as easy even though it was faster... We take a bus to the outskirts of Varginha and start holding the sign. Get picked up after 20 min by quite a boring and non-talkative person, and are driven for about 20 min before we have to find another ride. Again, we wait for another 30 min and get picked up by a couple going to Belo Horizonte. A bit more interesting but not to much to tell. they drop us off at the entrance of Lavras. This time we only wait for about 5 min before this old fellow picks us up and says he can at least take us to the other side of the town where it would be easier to get a ride to Sao Joao. We get to the other side and wait for another 20 min and a very colorful character picks us up. After finding out that I'm from the states, he starts saying: "You like Brazil? You like the woman here?!? There very beautiful yes?!? You have lots of sex with them? You like to party? Get drunk a lot?"Very funny person, I liked him... Turns out he was going down our street in Sao Joao so he drooped us off right in front of our house... we got back around 11, leaving a day early, getting back a day late... I sleep for an hour and get prepared to go to class...

...First Weeks in Brazil

2009-08-21T09:39:00.000-07:00

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...)

The Arrival

2009-08-13T16:17:00.000-07:00

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

Intro to the Blog

2009-07-29T15:26:00.000-07:00

Hello, my name is Cyrille Gindreau and I am starting this blog to keep people I know updated about my progress in Brazil. As of now, I am not in Brazil but do plan to leave New Mexico on the 10th of Augest. I need to wait for a visa to come in so that I can leave the country. I'll keep everyone updated as to what's going on...