Back in the US!

August 5th
      We arrived in Miami at 7:10 in the morning and were able to get off of our plane and to passport control very quickly. Our flight was the only one there and the American citizens’ line was very short, then it was on to baggage claim. Once we had our bags we were able to (almost) walk right through customs and, once we figured out how to get out of the airport (the Miami airport is horrible…), Angelika’s brother and mom picked us up from the airport. Since my flight to Charlotte was not until 3:00 they had kindly offered to let me keep my things in their apartment while Angelika gave me a quick tour of downtown Miami.
      We grabbed a quick snack and re-hydrated (the airplane air had turned us into jerky) before we walked around Bay Front Park and the port. We also stopped by a historic cathedral and both of Angelika’s family’s jewelry stores. At her parent’s jewelry store I had a really great time trying on some beautiful vintage jewelry! Angelika and I got lunch at a Peruvian restaurant where I tried Ceviche for the first time and it was delicious! For others who have not tried this before, Ceviche is a raw fish or seafood dish that has been marinated in highly acidic lemon juices for several hours which renders the food safe to eat and very tasty! I am so glad that I had the opportunity to try and see so many new things in Miami! It was the best layover ever, thanks again Albaladejo family!
       Angelika and her younger brother drove me back to the airport where I was able to check in with relative ease, although security was moving somewhat slow since there was a heightened alert. Once I finally made it out of security and to my gate, I found out that my flight had also been randomly selected for an additional TSA inspection of bags and IDs. I have to hand it to them though, the TSA was efficient and our plane only left 15 min behind schedule.
      Around 5:20 I finally touched back down in Charlotte after almost two amazing months spent in Brazil. Just as with the last time I studied abroad, this experience has been fantastic and completely worth all of the classes, applications, and stress of planning and executing international travels. I am so grateful to the FLAS program that I was able to have this experience. I know that I will be back in Brazil in the future, and I hope that my next visit will be as wonderful as this experience has been!

My Final Day in Brazil!

August 4th
       Today was my last day in Brazil. It was really bittersweet because I was really looking forward to going back to the US to see my family and friends, but I have had such an amazing time in São Paulo and become more comfortable here than I had ever thought possible.
      I spent most of the morning trying to get my things organized for my flight later in the evening, but I had made lunch plans to meet up with Mari at Shopping 3 on Paulista. It was somewhat poetic, eating again in the large mall, because this was the same mall that Angelika and I had eaten at on our first day in São Paulo before I even knew this would be my neighborhood in Brazil. Ordering food in Portuguese was much more successful than that first day, and Mari and I had a good time catching up on what we had been doing for the last week.
       After lunch we walked around Paulista and I tried to drink everything in, the beautiful sunny day, all the different people out enjoying what the city had to offer, and the foods. We went back to the Livraria Cultural to check out some of their specialty bookstores (literally about half of the shopping center is the various departments and sub-stores of the Livraria Cultural), before we met up with Allison in the Artisan market to pick up some Brazilian candies and get our last Açai at the Fruitaria Paulista in Consolação. By the time we had finished it was almost 4:00 and Mari had to leave, regretfully I had to say goodbye to a really good Brazilian friend!
      As I walked back to our apartment I tried once more to engrave the image of Avenida Paulista at sunset in my mind; the road is lined up perfectly with the setting sun and all of the buildings are bathed in golden light making the city seem to actually be city of dreams that immigrants have always hoped it would be. Back in the apartment and Allison and I worked out the last of our travel details with Angelika. Allison, Angelika and I all had flights leaving at 11:30/12:00 from the international airport and had decided to take a taxi together from Angelika’s homestay. By the time we had packed up and said goodbye to Alessandra it was almost 6:30. Getting our bags out of the building and to the ponto de taxi (only a half block from our house) was rather difficult. Allison and I had particular trouble getting in and out of our apartments quarantine box type entry, much to the amusement of our friendly doorman. Of course, being São Paulo at 6:30 there was a lot of traffic and it took us almost an hour to get to Carminha’s (Angelika’s host mom) apartment in Perdizes. We were, however able to successfully get our taxi driver to take an alternative route to their apartment as he was perfectly willing to sit in standstill traffic and watch his car tv while we waited... Allison and I put the kibosh on that.
     We arrived at Carminha’s apartment around 7:20 and she immediately welcomed us into her home and tried to feed us and get us to stay awhile. She was just so kind and generous! I wish we had had time to stay but we were a bit worried about how long it would take us to get to the airport. Carminha had called one of her personal taxi drivers to take us to the airport, and the three of us, plus 6 suitcases were able to squeeze into the taxi for the 45 min drive to the airport. The taxi driver was very friendly and was so helpful when we were unloading, he made sure we all had carts, loaded our suitcases and then pointed us in the right direction for check in. Allison had to check-in with American while Angelika and I were flying Tam. It did not take long to check-in at all, but we waited at security to see if Allison would be meeting us there or at our gate (it was not clear if her terminal was connected to ours behind security). I tried to call her on my phone while we were sitting at a table waiting and, somehow, the person before us had left a Brazilian cell phone that was identical to mine, and without knowing it I picked it up and put it in my pocket.
      After we decided to go through the security line to look for Allison at the gate, while in the line, I realize that I had two of the same phones and had to climb (literally) back out of the security line and run the phone back to the little coffee shop, run back and then duck under the dividers, with the security employees laughing the whole way! Then, once I was finally actually going through the metal detectors my bag was flagged because they thought I had juice…I had to unpack everything only to discover that the ‘juice’ was all of the Bis candy I had stuffed in my bag to take home, this also elicited laughter from the security agents. When we finally arrived at our gate we found Allison sitting at a table waiting for us.
      Since we were still hungry, we all decided that we would spend the rest of our reais (most of which was in change) on the overpriced airport food. Between the three of us we scrapped together 21 reais (almost entirely in coins) to by our last salgados (savory pastries). After we finished our snacks Allison informed us that she was flying business class and had access to the American Airlines lounge that was between our gates and we decided to go check it out. It was a very successful mission! Angelika and I were not allowed in, but Allison brought us each some bottled waters and muffins while we sat in the corridor and used their open wifi! Once Allison had taken advantage of all of her perks we walked her to her gate where they were about to board. It was sad to say goodbye to Allison, we’ve gotten to be good friends and roommates over the past two months, but we have decided that we need to meet up again in New Orleans for Marti Gras!
       After we watched Allison march past the people in steerage with her magic business class ticked to board the plane (right behind the Brazilian women’s volleyball team) Angelika and I headed back to our gate to start boarding. I have decided that I prefer the daytime flights to Brazil over the nighttime ones since you can watch movies and you get frequent snacks. On the overnight flight Tam feeds you dinner (at midnight, although to be fair it was really good) and only turns the lights out after everyone has eaten, then you get a few hours of sleep before they wake you up again at 5:15 to feed you breakfast (which was honestly not that good). I managed to get a few good hours but naps will be needed!

Return to São Paulo

August 3rd
      Today was the beginning of our great trek back to the US! Brazil has been an amazing experience and I would not trade my time her for anything. I still cannot believe how much I was able to see and do! However, I think I am ready to go back to the US and see my family and puppy! Today was the Salvador- São Paulo leg of the journey. Angelika and I had a flight out of Salvador at 8:40 in the morning so we were up at 5:30 and out the door by 6:00. We had decided to take the city bus to the airport (as we had on the way in) so that we did not have to spend quite as much money on taxis to distant airports in two days. We ended up cutting it a bit close because the bus arrived at 6:30 (they do not start running until 6:00AM) and it takes an hour to get to the airport. Luckily we were able to get through the baggage check relatively fast (it did not feel that way at the time) and run to ‘security’ where there was no a line, throw our stuff though and after a few min… Angelika got caught by her necklace and had to get double checked… took off for our gate and hit the boarding line. Our flight was actually rather inefficient about getting people onto the plane and in their seats, but we somehow still made it to the runway by 8:40! Now that I will not jinx it, I feel the need to acknowledge mine and Angelika’s successful navigation and use of public transport in for our whole time in Salvador. We took buses everywhere and not once got lost (thanks to the help of many kind fellow transit goers) or had the bus just not come, even without google maps (which does not work at all in Salvador)! It was a much better experience than our transit mishaps in Rio.
     On our flight we both napped and ate our little Brazilian breakfast packs that Tam gave us (Tam is one of the few airlines I have ever flown which gives and actual meal on every flight over 2 hours). The breakfast was the favorite little Brazilian toast crackers, a laughing cow type cheese, jam and a fruit bar. It was actually really good as far as airplane food goes! We arrived in São Paulo at 11:30 and were relived to find out that our bags had also made it on the plane with us! From baggage claim we did another successful public transportation trip taking a city bus from the airport to the metro, then the metro back to our respective neighborhoods.
     Since I had been having issues with my planned return stay with my host, Alessandra, and could not get into my apartment until 6:00, I spent most of my day in a really awesome bookstore called Liveria Cultural. It is the same chain as the one I visited in Shopping Bourbon, but the one on Paulista is three stories, with a café and movie theater. After figuring out how to get inside, as there is only one entrance but windows everywhere taunting you as you drag all your stuff back and forth, I went straight to the café and treated myself to a really delicious bagel sandwich (the first bagel I have seen here..) and some strawberry cake as I settled in to read and take advantage of the wifi. It was actually a really nice way to spend the day. I split my time between the café and a reading chair, both of which I was lucky to get. I think this was the fullest and busiest I have ever seen a book store; people were sitting on the floor reading everywhere all day, it was definitely a destination for a Saturday on Paulista. Around 6:15 I decided to pick up some food and head over to Alessandra’s house to eat, repack my suitcases and write.

Salvador Day 6

August 2nd
     Today was our last day in Salvador! Angelika and I decided to continue the easier pace of our travels and we decided to go to an art museum in Graca and to meet up with our friend Jessica from Vanderbilt who has been in a study abroad program here in Salvador. The museum we went to was called Palacete das Artes, and it is a small cultural center and art exhibition space that is in a beautiful old mansion on a tree lined street that made me feel like I was in New Orleans or Charleston. In fact, you really understand how similar the colonial south and colonial areas of Latin America were in their city structures and economic bases. The museum is an interesting combination of tradition, in that the original features and rooms of the house have been preserved, and modernism though the abstract and contemporary art that fills the rooms. The house had three floors of sculpture and photography as well as a sculpture garden, a restaurant in the back and another contemporary exhibition space which was showing and interesting exhibit on video and soccer.
      At 2:00 we met up with Jessica to go by a local bakery known for its cakes (you know you are in Brazil when you only have to walk a few feet and you can find three desert places). I also got a little lunch and we sat on the terrace and talked about our different experiences with the two language programs. I decided that their program was better about giving students a Brazilian host family experience, and our program had better classes, location and exploration of multiple sides of Brazilian culture and history. Our discussion really made me value my time in São Paulo and all of the things we were able to do there so much more!
     Our original plan was that, after we met with Jessica we would go to the Modern Art Museum of Salvador which is supposed to have amazing sunset views. However, by the time we finished our visit it was already rush hour was beginning and we would have needed to take a bus through the center, so we changed the plan. Instead, we decided to go to the historic light house, Farol de Barra that also had a nautical museum of Salvador’s maritime history. We were able to catch the sunset from the top of the lighthouse and got some really great shots and views of Salvador.
      After the sun set we went back down to check out the museum, which actually had some really neat information about underwater archaeology recoveries that have been done on the many early colonial ship wrecks that dot the coastline. They also had some interesting information on slavery and ‘diversity’ in Brazil. It was really interesting to read the panels after having discussed identity and race so much in our culture class. The indigenous placard waxed poetic about the noble savage, and how the children between the Portuguese sailors and the indigenous women were the first true Brazilians. The whole text had a tone of ownership and incorporation, while the text on the ‘African Contribution’ was written as if this group was separate, something that was done to Bahia and Salvador, not something that was incorporated into Brazil and positively diversified the culture. The text spoke about the ‘African Contribution’ as Africa transplanted, not a proud expression of Brazilianized afro-cultural production (the stance the indigenous panel seemed to take) from almost four hundred years of slavery. The museum also had a room that contained old-fashioned lighthouse equipment (I finally get how the lenses work!) and a cartography room that compared maps of the bay from different periods of time.

The Palacete das Artes

Looking through the interior of the first floor of the Palacete

 

The view from the lighthouse

Our final sunset in Salvador!

Praia do Forte

August 1st
     Today Angelika and I got up early to catch a bus to go to Praia do Forte. Praia do Forte is a beach about two hours north of Salvador which is more remote (although still touristy, but in a good way in my opinion). We got up early and caught a city bus to the rodoviaria de Salvador where we got a charter bus (for 8.00 dollars round trip) to take us to Praia do Forte. Once we arrived at the rodoviaria, about 9:50, we were able to buy our tickets for the 10:30 bus to Praia do Forte, so we did not have a long wait. We grabbed some beach snacks from the grocery store (they have a full grocery store in the bus station) and then hit the road. Our bus was not direct and there were many other stops along the way, but luckily there were two other groups that were also getting off at the praia and we were able to ask the bus driver to let us know when we were close. We arrived at Praia do Forte around 12:30. We were warned by several people; our hostel owner, the bus ticket vendor, and the bus driver, to make sure that we knew the last bus returning to Salvador would pass though Praia do Forte around 6:00 and to make sure we did not miss it.
      From the bus stop you walk through a quaint little tourist town to get to the beach. This area most closely resembled a beach town trips that I have taken in the US. The pedestrian street was lines with little hostels and pousadas, restaurants and nice shops. Although it was very touristy, it was a nice, and safer, side of tourism than we had seen in Salvador. Granted the town we visited was much smaller, but there was not the same division between the population and tourist generated business and the people who lived in the town. All of the side streets were lined with local schools and houses, kids were playing soccer in the main pedestrian Avenida. Praia do Forte just had the relaxed, sleepy beach town feel that we needed at this point in our stay.
      After about a 20 min stroll down the pedestrian Avenida we arrived at the historical igreja and the principal beach. In striking contrast to all of the other beaches we have visited in Brazil Praia do Forte was remote, with hardly any people out, and no pushy vendors at all. We walked down the coastline until it bent into a bay where several local fishermen’s boats were anchored,and we decided to walk back about halfway the beach and set up for the day along the palm trees in our own private section of the beach.  We spent about three hours lounging in the sun and enjoying the sheer tranquility of the beach and the lack of people. Now I am, for the most part, a fan of the beach vendors; they bring you a variety of cheap snacks and you do not have to even get up, but the vendors can also be pushy. The busy beaches that we have been to are all full of life and fun activities, but they are more stressful because you have to be aware of your surroundings at all times. It was really nice to have this beach as a contrast to the other beaches we have enjoyed in Brazil.
      Around 3:45 we decided to get up and walk around the area a bit more. Right behind the church is Projecto Tamar which is a sea turtle rescue and support organization which you can pay a fee to visit and feed turtles and tour their facility. Angelika and I walked around the project but decided not to go in since we would not be able to see much before they closed. We decided to change gears and look for some snacks. Ironically for a tourist town we were able to get some great light food, inexpensively, at a little bakery. We both got little sandwiches and freshly blended juice and then decided to split a guava sonho, or ‘dream,’ donut like pastry for desert; all for about 5 dollars each. After we refueled we decided to wander back through the little town and catch the 5:00 bus back to Salvador.
     As we approached the bus stop to wait for the next bus back we were immediately shouted at by 5 different taxi/ private drivers for hire telling us not to get on the bus, that it was not going to come and that it would be much better (and 20 times more expensive) to let them drive us the two and a half hours back to Salvador. I am sure that these guys must make a lot of money off of the people who missed the last bus at 6:00! However, we knew that we were early and so we decided to just wait the 20 min and only pay 3.50 for our trip back, and I think we got the better and more professional deal. On the way back the bus was very full, but it made fewer stops so we arrived back in Salvador around 7:00. On the way we saw the best sunset of all week! From the Rodoviaria we were able to a city bus back to Barra and walk to our hostel. We ended up making dinner and watching a movie since Angelika was still not feeling well and we had been out in the sun all day.

The colonial church on the edge of the beach

Praia do Forte

The view from my beach towel

One of the tourist pedestrian roads in town where we got lunch

Salvador Day 5

July 31st
 Today was our last day together with our São Paulo friends. We decided to go to the Igreja do Bomfim which is a famous historic cathedral in Salvador that is renowned for its healing miracles. The church is located further north on the peninsula, past the city center. We took the bus with Molly (we were meeting Daniel and Olivia there) from Shopping Barra, but since it is a distant area of the city we had to wait almost 30 min for the bus to arrive and it was about a 40 min bus ride to arrive at Bonfim. Luckily, we have had good luck about getting bus directions from people at the stops and the bus ticket clerks have been helpful at letting us know the right stop. Once we finally arrived it was just a short walk up the hill to visit the church.
      The church is not particularly large, and the sanctuary, in both lay out and size, actually reminded me very much of the old church that we had seen in the historic center just days before. However, this church is special because of the many miracles that have blessed those who have petitioned for them there. Like the Basilica that I visited in Costa Rica, this church had a whole room where religious pilgrims would place pictures of the ill or miniatures of their injured area to represent the person that they prayed to be healed. The church is also well known for the ribbon lembrancas, or mementos, that are sold on the steps and tied to the gate (or wrist) with three knots to represent the wishes of the pilgrim. When the ribbon falls off (of the rail or a person’s wrist) it is supposed to mean that their wish has been granted.
      After we visited the church and little square we decided to get one last lunch together at a lunchonete before Molly had to head out to the airport. Afterwards we all said our goodbyes to Molly and sent her off in a taxi to the airport. Then, since it was still early in the afternoon, Daniel, Olivia, Angelika and I decided to go to the Mercado Modelo and the Elevador, two other important landmarks in the old city. We caught a bus that dropped us off only a block from the Mercado plaza. The Mercado was once the commercial center due to its strategic location right next to the marina, but today it is a tourist market. In that way the Mercado was a bit overwhelming. It was full of vendors trying to sell you all sorts of beach-y souvenirs. We walked through the stalls pretty quickly and decided that we wanted to go up the Elevador to take in the sea view.
    The Elevador is a series of elevators which carry people up from the ciudade baixo (the marina area) to the ciudade alto (the Pelourhino). The ride up costs 15 centavos and is not for those who are claustrophobic. Once at the top you have pretty good views of the marina, Mercado and the ocean. Since it was a somewhat dreary day, and we were all feeling run down, we did not stay too long and caught a bus back to our hostel to watch a movie since it was raining. We opted for a classic and watched Casa Blanca, which Angelika had not seen before. At the end of the evening we said our good byes to Olivia and Daniel who were leaving the next morning for Rio, their last stop before returning to the US.

   

Igreja do Senhor do Bonfim da Bahia

the Lembranca wish ribbons tied to the church gate

The room in the cathedral where miniatures and pictures are left as part of the pilgramage

The surrounding mercado and the Elevador

Salvador Day 4

July 30th
    Last night Daniel had gotten some information from his hostel about doing an island cruise around the bay of All Saints, just like the one we all enjoyed so much in Paraty! It turns out that they are pretty affordable here, only 30.00 dollars, so we reserved spaces for Olivia, Angelika, Daniel and I to take the cruise in the morning, with a pick-up from Daniel’s hostel. The pick-up time was set for 8:00, so Angelika and I woke up early to get ready and walk over to Daniel’s, with a pit stop for snacks at the grocery store. Of course we were the only ones early, everyone else (including Daniel) was running on Brazilian time, and our pick up did not arrive until 8:30. However, the later start time did allow for us to see several little monkey-squirrels running across the telephone lines!
     The transport was very nice, an air-conditioned mini-bus, and we were the only pick up on this side of town so we were able to get quickly to the marina meet up point where we only had a short wait before our boat was ready. We walked out onto the pier and joined with the other groups who would be on our boat tour, about 45 in all. Our cruise would ferry us out to two different islands in All Saints Bay, Ilha dos Frades and Itaparica.  The bay is actually very large, and it took us about an hour and a half to get out to the first island, Ilha dos Frades, which was named after all of the friars and priests who arrived there as part of the missionary efforts to Christianize the New World.
      I think that of the two this was my favorite island. It is much smaller, with only 70 full time inhabitants, and it is more of a lounging beach than Itaparica. The beaches there were soft white sand with clear turquoise waters and little construction, it was paradise. We stayed on that beach for almost two hours enjoying the unexpected sun (the forecast, like all this week, had predicted a significant chance of rain, but we out ran the rain clouds on the sail!).
       After the boat sounded the horn for us to leave (I did not want to!) we packed up our things and got back on the boat for another 30-40 min to sail over to the next island. Along the way we listened to the onboard band play samba and bahian-ized Brazilian music until we arrived. Itaparica is the largest island in the bay, and it has a population of 70,000. We stopped at Ponta de Areia beach where there was the options of a buffet lunch on the beach, hiking, a city tour, and horseback riding or more sunbathing. We decided to just get lunch and hang out on the beach some more. There were a few clouds rolling in but it was still pretty nice on the beach. The water was more sheltered by the bay in Itaparica and it was smooth as glass and good for swimming.
     Around 3:40 our boat began to board to head back to Salvador. On the way back the band played again and it would have been another relaxing boat ride back except that the water was very choppy and even with the splash guards down we were all getting soaked! We arrived back in the marina at 5:20 and after forgetting the name of our tour company, and having to back track to find our transport guy (we walked right past him), we made it into the van right as it began to pour.
      Angelika and I could not really avoid walking back to our hostel (stopping to get some dinner supplies from the grocery store along the way) in the rain, but once we showered we felt so much better! After a low-key dinner we decided not to go to the street music festa in Pelourinho that nice due to the rain and the fact that after almost two months we are pretty run down, and so we spent the evening reading and resting.

Ready to set sail!

At sea

My new favorite beach

working on getting rid of my double winter pallor 

Salvador Day 3

July 29th
     Today we decided to explore the old city of Salvador, called the Pelourinho, which is located higher up a plateau on the peninsula. We had a larger group today as three more of our friends arrived in town for a few days, Roxanne, Paul (her boyfriend) and Molly. We all met up at Olivia, Molly and Daniel’s hostel which is only a few blocks over from ours and then caught a bus going to the old city/ciudade alta.
      The entire historic center is a UNESCO world heritage site and is one of the largest collections of baroque buildings in the Americas. The area itself is absolutely gorgeous and full of history, but it is also a major tourist destination and is therefore somewhere that you need to be alert for pickpockets and swindlers. Right as we got off the bus one such person approached us to give us “free” ribbon bracelets (that he had taken from the igreja do Bonfim which gives them out for free…). Angelika had been looking for one so she made a “donation” to pay for the bracelet, Daniel also got one but when he tried to pay the guy went crazy and grabbed all his money and started fighting with him saying that they owed him more. They guy was a pro swindler and also ordered coconut waters for random people walking by and then said that they owed him way more than the waters were worth, even when the passers-by did not take them and tried to walk away. Daniel got his money back, but the experience (common to many areas where tourism is a central livelihood and one that is not evenly shared by the inhabitants) really opened our eyes to the realities of tourism in Salvador where the culture of the city is very commodified for tourists.
      The historic center is really very gorgeous and definetly worth the visit. It has multiple beautiful cathedrals, cobblestone streets, and rows and rows of brightly colored baroque homes and buildings that are now stores and galleries. We also visited the Praça da Se which was especially nice because they still had decorations up from the festa Juninas. While we were wandering around the streets we saw several women who were dressed up as baianas, a traditional costume for street vendors of African descent in the city. We also saw the crazy swindler from the bus stop trying to get money from other visitors by giving them directions (or yelling it at them whether they had asked for help or not) and then claiming that they owed him. Once we got to a street which had a larger security presence he scampered off...
       We toured a large and beautiful, but forgotten, cathedral and rectory from the 17th century on one of the side streets that was very interesting. It is one of the cathedrals which sponsors the holy festivals and the parades of religious icons through the streets. The church is in possession of some of very old and important religious icons for these festivals. The most important is a wood carving of Jesus at the crucifixion, which uses hundreds of rubies as blood drops and leads the religious parade on Good Friday as part of the Easter celebrations. The church also featured some amazing frescos and an original division of space within the rectory. It was an interesting building, but it had a sort of abandoned feel to it.
      After we toured the church we decided to get lunch together at a vegan restaurant we had passed on one of the side streets. For a country that does not seem to have many healthy options for people who eat out, they actually had really good vegan food! This restaurant was a little hole-in-the-wall place that had a set menu for every day with a few tables in a hippy back room overlooking the ciudade baixo and the ocean. It was a perfect place to eat lunch. It was calm, a great value (6 dollars for a ton of food and a fresh juice!) and it was cool on a hot and busy day. After lunch we decided that since it was so nice and sunny out we would head back towards our hostels and change into our swim suits to hit the beach.
       We decided to change and meet back up at three so we could walk to the second good beach near us called Porto da Barra (on the right side of the lighthouse). The beach was only a few blocks from our hostel and it was a nice place to spend the afternoon, but, honestly, I think I liked the beach, Forol da Barra (left side of the lighthouse), that we went to on Saturday better. Porto da Barra was dramatic in that it directly faced the sunset, but it was also smaller and a bit pushier than the other beach. However, we were there to enjoy it at sunset, its best time! We hung out on the beach and played in the waves until the sun went down and then we returned to our hostels to clean up for dinner.
      We decided to go to a different restaurant to get more moqueca. We ordered two moquecas of shrimp and one of fish as well as fried manioc and sangria! It was a delicious meal. As we were leaving we realized once again that the pattern here seems to be a long, late dinner and then straight home. Most of the restaurants and bars we passed along the way back were already shutting down at 10:00. It’s a very different beach atmosphere here than in Rio or Sao Paulo!

Houses in the Pelourhino

A cobblestone street (a baiana was peeking out!)

Leftover Festa Junina decorations

Frescos in the church

The Christ icon that is uses in the Good Friday celebrations

Salvador Day 2

July 28th

     Today everyone decided to sleep in a bit, but Angelika and I decided to make sure that we got up in time to go to breakfast. Our hostel, Open House Barra, has a really fabulous breakfast! We got two fruits each, mango and mamao, toast with guava jam, fresh juice, coffee and homemade oat pancakes. It was heaven after my São Paulo breakfast, and we spent time savoring it before meeting up with Olivia (Daniel slept in) to go to the beach. Since it was a Sunday, Porto da Barra, the smaller beach (on the right side of the point) was packed with locals trying to get some sun. We decided to go on the beach on the left side of the lighthouse, called Farol da Barra, which was really nice (minus the sunset views) and wider with hardly any people on it. We sat near the lighthouse and enjoyed the general splendor of the dramatic water color, rocky tide pools and historic surroundings while we lounged in the sun.

      We only changed spots once during the day and, as is typical of Brazil, we did not need to get to up to find anything, it all came to us. It was not in the same quantities and varieties as in Rio, but I was able to get a veggie avocado sandwich, chips and an agua de coco! In the afternoon Daniel wandered out to the beach and we were also able to meet up with Chelsea and Rebecca who are in our program at Vanderbilt with us! 

It was great to get together and exchange stories, as they have also been doing a summer language program here in Salvador, but with different experiences and results than we have had in São Paulo. I think Salvador is a much harder city to do a study abroad in because, although it is large, it is not very cosmopolitan and the central areas and beaches are extremely touristy. The tourism industry here has complicated their ability to be accepted and involved with Brazilian culture in Salvador (as parts of the culture here are produced for the tourism industry), and it has also led to more inter-cultural problems between them and the service industry (who is often frustrated by tourists). The city here also shuts down fairly early, by around 10 almost everyone has gone home. 

       As the sun started to go down Daniel, Angelika and I walked up to the light house and climbed up the grass hill to watch the sun set. After the sun went down we walked back to our hostels to take showers and then go to dinner at a nearby restaurant. Daniel and Angelika got a local shrimp moqueca (stew) and Olivia and I opted for the more simple beans, rice and meat option. However, we all decided to go in together on desert and we ordered a volcano cake, a flan, and ice cream and brownie to share between the four of us! 

Farol da Barra

Olivia and I 

The historic lighthouse on the point of Barra

The view overlooking the sea at sunset!

Salvador Day 1

July 27th
       Today was the first day of our vacation in Salvador de Bahia! Angelika and I had a flight out of the smallest of São Paulo’s three airports at 3:15. We decided to get to the airport fairly early since we were not familiar with the Brazilian airport regulations and line wait times. Angelika took a cab over to my apartment where there was a regular city bus that left from Nove de Julho and went straight passed the airport. We left at 11:50 and had a short wait, 10 min, for the bus to arrive and it was a super easy ride to the airport (thank goodness…I was due some good transit luck!). The money taker on the bus was able to show us the right stop and all we had to do was walk on the pedestrian bridge to get to the right side of the road. From the outside the airport looks a bit Podunk. However, on the inside it had all the essentials and it was actually super efficient, with almost no lines to get our boarding passes and check our bags! Once we were in we still had plenty of time before our flight so we did a quick ATM run and then got lunch and a sweet snack at a bakery on the mini-concourse. Alessandra had sweetly made me a lunch before I left so I just invested in a treat that looked strikingly similar to the Arenal Lava cake that I loved in Costa Rica. It was not exactly the same but it was still pretty good!
       Once we passed through security (again no line!) we waited at our gate for another hour before our flight was ready to board. Since it was a small airport we actually took a bust to the plane and then walked on board. Our flight was only about 2 hours and I was able to nap most of the time. We arrived in Salvador at 5:15 and were able to collect our bags and get to the buses to head towards our hostel in Barra. It took us a min to find the bus stop as they were not listed on any of the signs in the airport, but we asked the nice police officers where they were and they pointed us in the right direction and said that they were across the road on the right. We took that to mean all the way across the road which put us in the parking deck. While we were walking around looking lost, a guy working in one of the food stands stopped us and put us back on the median between the two roads to catch the bus.
     Once we finally made it to the right place, we did not have too long of a wait before the local bus picked us up and we road down the coast for about 40 min to arrive (the airport is a good ways out of the main point)…near our hostel. We got off the bus at the right location but since it was getting dark and we had luggage we caught a cab with the help of a valet parker to go the remaining few blocks to our hostel. The hostel is located on a small street so that our cab driver did not recognize so we had to make a few circles looking for the road before we found it. Our hostel is a very interesting place. It is in an old house that has been converted into a small hostel that is run by a group of artists as a co-op to support their NGO which produces documentaries on cultural movements in Brazil.
      Once we were settled we met up with Olivia and Daniel, who were staying in a hostel two blocks away, for dinner at a local restaurant. We kept it simple and just had a late dinner and then came back to our hostel to chat with the other patrons and take advantage of the movie room before going to bed.

Transit Misadventures

July 26th
       Today I slept in since we did not have classes. I had originally planned on going to do a guided tour at the teatro municipal, but I realized that I really needed more time to pack and get my things in order for our trip to Salvador the following day.  In the afternoon I made plans to meet up with Mari and Molly at Shopping Bourbon to see Monsters University. To get there you take the 875H-10 bus from Paulista that goes down Sumare, there are also an 875P-10 and an 875M-10 that go down the same road but to different places. Normally, the 875H-10 comes by every 10-15 min, however, today I waited 45 min for the first bus to come. It turns out that the other bus was broken, so by the time is reached our stop it was already packed with people who had backed up the line waiting, but I was determined to get on the bus and make it to the movies! I teamed up with a nice guy who normally takes the route and asked him to help me find the right stop (since I got off at the wrong one the last time that I tried to get to Shopping Bourbon). I became fast friends with many people on the bus since we were in such close quarters. We had to gang up and fight with the bus driver to get him to quit stopping at all of the stops since there was no way that anyone else was going to fit.
       Once we were finally on our way and got on to Sumare, the nice guy, a girl and I all started to work our way through the people to get to the scanner/turnstile and get through to the back of the bus where the door to get off was. It took a good five stops to get the 10 feet from the front of the bus to the turnstile, and once I got there I got separated from my guides so I asked people on the back of the bus if they were going to shopping Bourbon and I was overwhelmed by four people all trying to give me direction at once. It basically became a team effort to get the lost American girl off at the right stop, but it was a success and I said goodbye to all my new friends from the steps of Shopping Bourbon!
      Once inside I was able to quickly meet up with Molly and Mari at the theater and we got tickets to the movie before it sold out. This time we got popcorn (the do not do buttered/salted popcorn here, you can do sweet or plain and then salt it yourself) and waited outside of our theater. The tickets this time were more affordable because we talked the ticket lady into accepting our US student IDs, even without expiration dates, (to get the half off the regular price!) and we only paid us 7.50 for a 3D movie. The movie itself was dubbed, but they got good voice actors who were able to fit the roles of the characters well and it was not much of an issue for me aesthetically. Granted it was a children’s movie, but Molly and I were both pleased with how well we understood all of the dialogue and jokes in the movie, it was so much easier than the comedy we watched a few weeks ago!
      After the movie we decided to get a quick dinner at the por quilo place (Mari was not sneezed on this time thank goodness!) and we experimented with McFlurries afterwards (we had to see if they were the same you know, for scientific reasons…) Mari and I got a simple soft serve cones in a normal portion/non-American size for .75 cents. Molly went all out and tried the McFlurry with minibis (Bis is a popular chocolate wafer candy here, so yummy!) which was also good and rationally sized. We called it an early night and Mari’s mom offered to drive us all home.
      We made it to Molly’s house fine but when we headed towards Paulista the traffic slowed to almost a stop. It took us almost an hour to get to MASP, and it is normally a 10 min drive at that time of night (9:30). It turns out that there was a small, but destructive protest on Paulista that was held by about 30 members of the radical anti-government anarchist group. They vandalized and almost destroyed about five of the banks on Paulista and the mobile police unit trailer. All the broken glass in the road was the reason that Paulista had been closed down, causing the traffic backups. Overall this type of demonstration has been very rare and there did not seem to be any clear objective to the events. On the bright side, I did finally get a picture of the armored truck of the Tropas de Choque!

Farewells and Forro

July 25th
Day three: (the worst) of the arctic chill. Today was our last day of classes. We spent our Portuguese class talking about different types of regional food in Brazil that we would be trying later that night as a part of our final PUC dinner at a restaurant called Minas, a Brazilian buffet that specialized in foods from the interior of Minas Gerais. After we were sufficiently hungry we broke early for lunch. Allison and I had decided that we would go back to the federal police today to pay our fines so that we would not have any future problems when we tried to come back into Brazil. So, during our long lunch break we went back to the bank in PUC to pay our fines. It was another quick trip (with unnecessary restrictions of space and security) to pay more money to the federal police, and in the bank we ran into Molly and Justin doing the same thing and we made plans to return together after our final culture class. For lunch we decided to do something different and went to a por quilo place that was on the same block as the campus which was very good, but like most buildings in São Paulo, does not have a strict division between the indoors and the outdoors (no insulation, windows that you do not close) so it was absolutely freezing in there…
In our final afternoon culture class we had a concluding discussion which wrapped up all of the things we had seen and discussed in the past six weeks. It was bitter sweet to be in the last class. It was really nice to have a last opportunity to talk with everyone and with Jeff, but it was also sad to think that I will not see most of these people in the future since we all live in different parts of the US.
After our final class Allison, Justin, Molly and I all got back on the bus and took another 30 min ride to the Federal Police headquarters to turn in our paperwork and have our fines removed from our passports. We were able to go directly up to the fourth floor after we checked in with the front desk. This time when we arrived in the little fines room it was packed with people who had been there for hours (the length of the process varies a lot depending on the day of the week). One of those trapped in the little bureaucratic torture room was Daniel. Yesterday Daniel had forgotten his original passport but went home to get it and then met back up with us at the police station. However, after he finally got into the interview he realized that he had lost his original form that the consulate in the US gave him to give to the federal police, and they do not accept copies, so he had to go home and come back the next day. When we ran in to him today he had been at the federal police for five hours…The immigration officer (king of the holding pen) remembered us and our dancing antics from the day before and seemed genuinely happy to help us. Since we were just paying the fine and not waiting to get anything processed we only had to wait 15 min and then we were able to leave. Unfortunately, we had to leave Daniel there to wait.
We took the same route back as we had yesterday, bus to metro to metro, and we tried to minimize the time we spent outside as it was cold and rainy, it was a triple layer day. To reward/cheer ourselves up after our second federal police visit Allison and I stopped by our local bakery and got éclairs then went home to bundle up more and take a nap before meeting our Portuguese professors for dinner at the restaurant Minas in Jardims.
Dinner was a really fun experience. The restaurant was really nice and had a wide variety of foods from different parts of Brazil. I attempted to try as many foods as possible so I only took a bite of each item. That was definitely the way to go since the foods were all delicious and so different from one another. The restaurant also had a selection of cachaças made in Minas for us to try, and really great deserts (dark chocolate fondue with Brazilian fruits!). At the end of the dinner the professors gave us certificates for completing our Portuguese classes and wished us well with our future studies.  The dinner was a really nice send off, but the only downside was that we were not all sitting together so we you could not really talk to everyone before people began to split up and head home. Most of our group was leaving the next day to go back to the US, although a few of us would be staying longer and traveling (yay Salvador!).
        As part of our last night out in São Paulo a group of us decided to go forro dancing again. We checked the website and it said that they would open at 10 and have the live band on at 11, so a group of us decided to go; Isaiah, Allison, Elliott, Molly, Roxanne and her boyfriend, Christa, Simon, Daniel, and I. It turns out that we do not have good luck with this place, last time we were late, and this time we were early. We got there about 10:30 and we were part of the first wave of entrants. We also found out once we were inside that the band would probably not go on till 12:30 or 1:00, but we decided to make the best of it and we got some tables and vinho quente and chatted. After some couples started to fill the floor we began to work on our dance skills. I have decided that in forro there is no standard or regularized dance steps, everyone has their own style, and once you think you have got a handle on the steps and rhythm you change partners and the next one dances with different steps.  However, I think that overall our group improved in their dancing skills, and it was also fun to watch the really good dancers float around the floor. The band came on about 1:00 and we stayed for another 40 min before sharing a taxi home.

THE Policia Federal

July 24th
        Day two of the Arctic Chill…Today we finished up the last of our Portuguese presentations and reviewed our exams and answered any lingering grammatical questions we had as this was our last functional Portuguese class of the program. We only had a short break for lunch (I got yakisoba) since our final culture class was meeting at 1:00 in an attempt to get all of our 3 min paper presentations in before the majority of our group (me included) left to go to the Policia Federal. The presentations were fun and went by really fast as our professor was enforcing the 3 min rule to a T. I talked about my paper topic which is looking at nature in the city in the form of the city parks. I will be researching the history of the parks (why they were put in that location and designed by whom) to better understand who the intended users of these parks were and what forms and representations of nature and culture are acceptable in these spaces.
     We finished our presentations right on time and everyone (except Angelika and Naomi, who’s appointments were last week, and Aileisha and Roxanne who went rouge (with a better outcomes)) met up at the international office so that Herbert (our coordinator) and Joao (international office employee) could take us to the Federal Police department via bus to register as foreign students studying in the country; on the second to last day of our program…The police headquarters is in Lapa, about a 10 min walk to a 30 min bus ride from PUC. The building is tall, grey and modern in appearance. Inside a visitor must walk though security and then give their ids to the waiting receptionists to register who has entered the building and if they are a walk in or an appointment. Our whole group had appointments (arranged by Herbert) and we went straight up to the third floor where a bank of about 30 women at desks (I think they must only employ women there, except for the security guards and the two immigration officers we met, there were no men employees) were waiting to do our interviews to get our paperwork filed. The setup is very similar to the DMV, except that in Brazil personal relationships and the temperament of the person you work with have much stronger effects on the success of your petition.
      Since our entire group had appointments we were able to walk almost directly back to the interview desks to get our paperwork checked. This was the point where the situation got a little tense and frustrating…My lady was friendly, but once she in-put my information she told me that I had a multa, or a fine to pay, since I was over my 30 day grace period for registration with the police. I told her that my appointment had been made weeks ago and she said that it did not matter, and that their website noted that if your computer generated appointment is after your expiration date that you are supposed to do a walk in appointment, and that July is their busy season. She called Herbert over and told him the same thing and then he threw us all under the bus by saying, ‘I know, they all have fines.’ My lady’s supervisor then immediately located everyone in our group and gave everyone a fine (if we had not been identified together at least some of us might have gotten through like Angelika did when she and Naomi went last week, because it is all up to the mood and temperament of your person with regards to if the fine is enforced.
       However, once we had all been identified there was nothing we could do and we all got fines. Once we got out of the interview process we were all given a number and told to wait for that number to be called so that we could go get finger printed. While we waited resentment against Herbert grew, because he made our appointments past our 30 days and told us that it would be ok, even though he knew that it was a gamble and that we could have all done walk-in appointments weeks ago. (he also screwed over Aileisha who decided to come on her own (because her PUC appointment was set for the day she left town) by not telling her that he had some extra paperwork that she needed for the appointment, so when she got there they declined her interview and sent her to the bank to buy a new form for 30 dollars.)
     More confusion erupted when the finger printing process began and Olivia got her passport handed back to her while they kept the others. It turned out that somewhere in walking the passport over to the finger printing room her fine notation fell off so they forgot to charge her. At this point our group had caused enough trouble to get the immigration officer to come out of his office to see what the fuss was about and he began to argue with Herbert over the fees. Honestly, the people who worked there were relatively efficient and were just doing their job, the reason it took so long was because Herbert had caused problems and tried to mess with the system, and the immigration officer was very annoyed with Herbert’s behavior. One our group got moving again I finally got called to go into the finger printing room where they took my picture and got two finger prints of each finger, they were very thorough.
     After everyone had been finger printed we all went up to the fourth floor with the immigration officer, via their network of back doors and tunnels (normally for transporting the documents to the various offices), to the multas office where another immigration officer and two women were calculating our fines; 8.00 reais for each day we were over our 30 day limit. This room was another long wait as the calculated the fines and drew up the paperwork. The frustration with the whole process and anger at Herbert had worn us all out and we were acting pretty silly by this point, someone was playing music on their iphone and we were dancing around the little room. I am pretty sure that this endeared us to the, frankly jovial, immigration officer. By some stroke of luck my fine was the first one processed (by this point it is about 6:00 and we got there at 3:00) only I did not understand my name when he called it. Caitlin is a very hard name to pronounce her, and I had no idea that he was calling me until I heard ‘Rose-y Pat-to’ but he had to call it a good 3 or 4 times before I even thought it was me. My fee was 90.00 reais and it had to be paid by money order and brought back to the federal police the next day for them to remove the ‘fine’ stamp in my passport. I waited around for the next three people to get their passports (Allison, Elliott and Justin), and we decided to go ahead and leave as we were also having our Tulane final dinner that night at a Chinese restaurant (where they make their own noodles) as a conclusion for the Tulane portion of our program.
     We had originally intended to go back to the apartment and drop off our passport and backpacks before going to dinner in Liberdade, but by the time we had taken the bus to the metro it was already 7:00 (the time that the dinner was supposed to begin) so we just took our bags and went straight to dinner. Or tried to… it turns out that we could not remember the name of the restaurant (we had planned on looking it up from our email’s at our apartment when we dropped our bags off)  and we did not know the exact street, just that it was in the vicinity of the Chopperia Liberdade. After walking down two blocks on either side of the Chpoperia, we stopped at a Lunchonete to ask for directions, the only problem was we did not know the address or name of the restaurant (only that it started with an R) so we asked them if they knew of any Chinese resturants that made noodles nearby. As we were in the Japanese immigrant neighborhood they asked us if we were sure it was Chinese, we said yes and that it started with an ‘R’ they said the only one they knew of was called Massa Chinesa. We decided to walk by there anyways and it actually turned out to be the right restaurant! Our professor had given us the Chinese name, but all the Portuguese speakers call it Massa Chinesa (Chinese noodles).
      When we arrived we ended up being one of the first people there outside of our professor and Roxanne, even the other lucky people; Victoria, Isabel and Simon (who had gotten the cheaper and hassle free tourist visas) were not there yet. Sitting at a table behind us was a funny and talkative older Japanese immigrant lady who was convinced that we were all from the south of Brazil. As people began trickling in to the restaurant we began ordering food. I am not really sure what all of the dishes we got were but they were delicious! I think the dumplings were my favorite, this is a recent immigrant run restaurant and all the food is made in house and is very fresh. They even have a little window where you can watch the noodles (that you are about to eat) being made. It was so neat! And I immediately thought that it was ironic that I had seen this noodle making skill before in a video that Garrett had sent Devon from his study abroad in China!
After we were completely stuffed with Chinese food several of us decided to do a Karaoke repeat night as we were only a block and a half from the Chopperia Liberdade. Roxanne, Melissa, Elliott, Andrew, Allison, Molly, Naomi, Aileisha and I all sang/danced our hearts out for the rest of the night!

The Pinacoteca and the Memorial da Resistencia

July 23rd
Today our Portuguese class continued our presentations. I did mine today, and I think it went pretty well, although it is hard to say since we never got a rubric or syllabus. Afterwards we did some more advanced work with the future subjunctive which was pretty frustrating for most people in the class (since the whole concept is strictly Portuguese and does not really have an equivalent in Spanish or English). For lunch we ate at the street feira by the school, today has been the coldest day that we have had in São Paulo thus far and rainy, but the pastel vendors were out and having a warm savory pastry to eat really made up for the chill! After lunch Aileisha, Angelika and I walked to the Barra Funda metro/train station to make our way to Luz and the front of the Museu da Lingua Portuguesa to begin our walk through the immigrant neighborhood of Bom Retiro which was where the movie we saw yesterday was filmed. We stopped by several of the landmarks in the film, Parque da Luz, the Yiddish theater, and an old Hungarian Jewish synagogue. The neighborhood has passed though many phases of immigration, Arab, Jewish, Korean, and now Bolivian and Peruvian and it was interesting to see the physical evidence of these groups on the landscapes and names of buildings. Today, the area is known for its small clothing factories and fabric stores, and the area is where most stores in other areas of São Paulo and Brazil come to buy stock for their stores (marking up prices along the way). For example, I saw dresses and blouses in the shop windows that I have seen on Paulista for three times as much.
      At the end of our walk we went to the Memorial da Resistencia de São Paulo which is partially located in the old secret police detention center where leftists and anti-government organizers were brought during the dictatorship. However, we discussed how the use of the building (only half is the memorial, the other part is a regular art museum) and the presentation of the information really reflects the Brazilian attitude towards the military period and the abuses committed under it; that it is better left forgotten. Brazil has only in the last five years set up a truth commission to really address the political violence and oppression that occurred, and this has been an unpopular move in some areas of the political arena.
       The museum itself is bright open and refurbished. You feel as if you are walking into a chic apartment building or office space. The memorial is also small, with two information rooms about the building’s history and technological surveillance and another with a timeline of ‘memory’ (not history) of repression and resistance from the 1890s on wards. Then you can walk into three brightly lit and refurbished cells (with more of a boutique hostel feel) that fail to give the viewer an accurate sense of what it would be like to be living in a dark cell for months with maybe 10 other people, and to have people coming and going from interrogation and torture sessions. We also learned that due to issues of formalized/official space and the functioning military justice system (in which if a person got their case before the military courts and proved that they had been tortured they would be let go since torture was illegal in Brazil), most of the violent tortures took place across the street from the headquarters in what is today a residential apartment building.
     After we left the Memorial, we walked back towards the Luz train station where most of our group left to return home, while a few of us (Andrew, Jenike, Molly, Genevieve and I) stayed to go to the Pinacoteca which is a really neat, large art museum. The museum houses a wide range of art, from historical portraits and landscapes to modern sculpture and installations all in a really neat old building. We spent about two hours wandering around the museum before it closed and saw a lot of really great work by Brazilian artists and a visiting exposition of 16th century Chinese paintings. The museum really was eclectic and had something for every type of art lover. After the museum closed our group split up and went home to warm up from the cold rain, as the museum did not have heating so we were a bit chilled!

The cell in the Memorial da Resistencia

This is a picture of arrests from the invasion of PUC by the military police for housing leftist professors and student organizations

A sculpture from the museum

A contemporary Brazilian artist

The Luz train station at night

Movie Mondays

July 22nd
Today in our Portuguese class we found out, yet again, that there had been a communication failure between our program and PUC when our professor informed us that we would be starting our final 10 min presentations since there were three days left in class. Now, we knew about the presentation days, but we had been counting from a different day than the professors (our Tulane syllabus said that the final lunch would be on Friday, while the Portuguese professors had it scheduled for Thursday). Needless to say we were a bit surprised…but the presentations were very informal (no power point or standing up in front of the class) and four brave souls volunteered to go yesterday, Jenike, Roxanne, Andrew, and Elliott each talking about their research interests. After the presentations we worked on our understanding of the Future Subjunctive (a grammatical beast in my opinion) and then went to lunch. At lunch I learned about more of the potential hassles to get our paperwork with the federal police straightened out…Naomi had done hers last week and was charged an extra fine of 8.00 reais a day that she was over her 30 day limit (the registration grace period) even though her appointment for that day (made by PUC) was set several weeks ago.  However, Angelika was not charged the fine; apparently it is completely up to the interviewer’s mood to decide if they charge the fine or not. A fun Brazilian bureaucratic experience to look forward to on Wednesday when the rest of our group descends on the federal police.
After lunch our afternoon cultural class met up in the small library auditorium room to watch a 2006 Brazilian movie, nominated for best foreign film, called “O Ano em que Meus Pais Saíram de Férias” or “The Year my Parents Went on Vacation.” Under the military dictatorship in Brazil ‘going on vacation’ was a euphemism for members of the left or anti-military movements who were forced underground. In the story, the parents who are anti-government organizers, are forced underground, but first they drop their eight year old son off at his grandfather’s building in São Paulo. However, the parents do not know that just that day the grandfather has had a heart attack and died, so their son is left to be cared for by the grandfather’s Jewish immigrant community until his parents return. I will not say anymore and spoil the story, but it is really good and not just a depressing (but usually rightfully so) Latin American dictatorship movie.
After the movie ended, Allison and I rushed right next door to get to the bank before it closed at 4:00 so that we could get our money orders for our federal police visit on Wednesday. We were lucky and made it in just before the bank doors were closed to new customers. It was a somewhat complicated effort to get into the bank as you are not allowed to carry in bags of any kind and must stow them in a locker outside the bank (you even have to put your electronics and papers or keys into a little clear double sided box in the wall before you can go into the revolving security door. However, there was only one locker left and I was actually able to successfully negotiate with the security guards to let me bring my bag through the revolving security doors and leave it in a corner while I went to the clerk. Luckily, since it was so late in the day, there was no line, and I was able to get my money orders quickly and pleasantly I was even able to make bank small-talk with the teller! (literally the ‘money order’ was the clerk taking my money and printing some numbers on the paper for my request for the police and returning it to me). To celebrate our Brazilian banking success, Allison and I stopped by our acai/vitamina place on the way home, for one last cold treat before the cold front moved in later on in the evening.

Feiras and Forro

July 21st
This morning Allison and I slept in before packing up and heading out for our shopping morning/lunch, the Sunday special. We met up with Angelika and Olivia under the MASP museum to explore the antique fair there as well as the artisan fair across the street and another local market further down in Brigadeiro. I had much more luck at this feira than at last weekends! The vendors had such cool things, and I am continually surprised that such valuable watches, jewelry, art and figurines are out in the open in booths! After hourly checking out the vendors we crossed the street to look at the more kitschy market that consisted of a lot of handmade goods and food stalls. I had to stop a the sweets vendor and get some chocolate covered strawberries! I’m really going to miss the easy access to chocolate covered strawberries once I am back in the US.
      Storm clouds rolled in about 3:00 and we decided to get some late lunch at a lanchonete and wait to see if it passed over (we did not want to repeat Friday’s rain soaked excursion up Paulista on our way to the next market). I got a simple chicken/egg sandwich and a vitamina. I am not entirely sure what the vitamina is, but it’s tasty! I’m pretty sure that it consists of fruit, milk, vitamin powders, and ice all blended together. It is most likely not healthy, but leave it to the Brazilians to name what is essentially a smoothie/shake into a healthy sounding beverage. After lunch we decided to skip out on the third market since we had all cleaned up so good and we had work to do for our final projects that we would be presenting this week. I decided to walk around for a bit more and check out the Marisa store (brazil’s version of Forever 21) that we pass everyday on Paulista (it is interesting to note that there are about 4 on Paulista alone..). The store turned out to be somewhat bland and still too expensive to be tempting. I also decided to walk around the Parque Trianon to get some pictures and experiences recorded for my final paper for my Brazilian culture class which will examine city parks and representations of nature in the city. While I was walking around the park I began to hear music and sure enough as I turned the corner I stumbled upon one a group of wandering troubadours of the catholic church (part of the celebrations for world youth day this week). The group was very interesting (the were international visitors with the event’s Brazilian guides) and the music/singers were really pretty good, they attracted the attention of lots of people in the park, one woman commented to me that it was nice to see young people so dedicated to something important.
        After I arrived back at the apartment I worked on research for my final paper for several hours before Allsion and I left to meet Daniel and Isaiah for Forro dancing! Forro, pronounced fo-ho, is a type of country dance (like zydeco) that is popular in the northeast of Brazil. The last time that I was in Brazil, in the northeast in Recife, we danced forro a lot, and it was super fun so I was looking forward to this night. We arrived a bit late, thank you google maps, but we jumped right in…and I quickly found out that my forro skills had been significantly dependent on the fact that my partners were all experts. Although we really did not know what we were doing Daniel and I decided to watch dancers and just attempt to copy what they were doing, and with the help of a sympathetic bystander, we were actually doing pretty well! The live music was good and it was fun to act ridiculous and just try to dance the best we could without caring how silly we looked. Since it was a Sunday the place closed early, and since the evening rains had come back, Allison, Daniel and I split a cab home.

On the bridge between the two preserved sections of the Atlantic forest in Parque Trianon

The European styled gardens on the corner of Parque Trianon

The Catholic troubadours singing in the park.

Samba Saturdays and Catholic Cemeteries

July 20th
       Today both Allison and I slept in till about 10:30. We decided not to rush the morning and set our first plans of the day for getting lunch with some of the Perdizes group (Isaiah, Olivia, Angelika and Tanya) at a Samba restaurant that had an all-day Saturday feijoada and live samba special. We planned to meet there at one, as their website advertised a special price to people who came before 2 which included food, the music cover and a drink. However, once we arrived we realized that there had been a bit of misinformation on the website because the restaurant did not open till 1:30 and the live music did not begin until 3:00 but since we were all there and hungry we decided to try it anyways, and the buffet was pretty good, although we were the only people in the restaurant until about 3:00. We made it fun and it worked for our group, but it was a bit of a disappointment. Close to 3:00 Christa and Simon joined us and we decided to wait and see if the music would begin soon. Unfortunately, the band still had to put all of their instruments together and do the sound checks, so the music did not begin until around 3:40. At this point there were several other groups in the restaurant and it became livelier. There was one really cute little girl at the table next to us who was dancing her version of a little samba the entire time. She also came over to our table and hammed it up, trying to get our attention. Around 5:00 our group decided to head back to our apartments.
      Since there was still light out I decided to stop by one of the old Catholic cemeteries (Cemitario Municipal) that we pass on our way to school every day on the bus. The light was perfect and I got some really cool pictures of the extremely ornate mausoleums and monuments in the cemetery. It was a very peaceful place, once you were though the gates the noises from the street just faded away and allowed for peace of mind. There were a lot of people in the cemetery visiting family plots, strolling and enjoying the beautiful sunset. The cemetery closed at 6:00 and I got back on the bus headed toward Paulista, and my apartment, with a pit stop at the Pão de Azucar to get some groceries. Later on tonight our group is meeting up in Vila Madalena to bar hop though the hipster neighborhood.
     Our group, Angelika, Isaiah, Olivia, Victoria, Isabel, Allison and I met up at a bar called Salve Jorge which has a cool atmosphere with great food. The only downside of the night was that the rains had rolled in so it was just messy. From Salve Jorge we walked to a place called the Matrix that specialized in alternative music. Allison and I decided to keep it an earlier night and we left the group to continue their bar hop.

A view of the cemetery down the hill

One of the gorgeous family mausoleums