Museu de Futebol

June 25th
I woke up to lots of honking today because the excessive amounts of rain that we have been reciving ended up causing a tree to fall over onto our road toady backing up traffic. It only affected the side street so there were not any problems getting to school. Today our Portuguese class spent most of our time reading and discussing an essay by Sergio Buarque de Hollanda (Chico Buarque’s father) that was on the perception of cordiality in Brazil by outsiders verses what he saw as the intimacy of the Brazilian people. One important thing to note is that today I finally found where the non-sugary juice is on campus! Everything that the Brazilians season is either very sugary or salty but today I discovered the fresh juice kiosk, yay sem azucar!!
        Today was a bit unusual in that we had two periods with our Portuguese teacher rather than an afternoon cultural class. After our regular class period we had lunch as normal and then met up with the rest of our class in front of the school to go to the Museu de Futebol which is located under the municipal stadium only a 15 min walk from PUC.  The museum itself is very interesting in its layout and exhibition. The museum is extremely interactive and attempts to make the visitor feel as if they are part of a game. The first room you enter is very dramatic in that it has large plexi glass screes hanging from the ceiling all over the darkened room which rotate images of the famous Brazilian players, it’s called the hall of heroes. The following rooms have interactive information about major events in Brazilian futebol narrated by past commentators, facts about the sport and a practice kicking area (at which I failed). The other three rooms with themes are very interesting in their appearance. The first is an unfinished space under the stadium seats which is overwhelmingly loud with crowd sounds from actual games accompanied by several of the plexi glass screens which are showing actual crowds. The idea is to give the visitor the feeling of being immersed in a crowd of fans at an actual game. It was a really neat idea, but definitely not for sensitive people. The following room by contrast was much quieter and was made entirely of rotating picture frames that were supposed to tell the story of futebol’s beginnings in Brazil in the early 1900s. These pictures of early Brazil were my favorite part of the museum. The final room I have nicknamed the room of sadness. When you enter you only hear a heartbeat sound track and a film begins to tell you about the Brazilian hosted world cup in the 1950s in which they tragically lost to Uruguay in the finals in a game they were supposed to have won. It was very clear that this loss was still very upsetting to Brazilian futebol fans…
         After we finished our visit to the museum in the early afternoon we had just enough time to walk back towards the university and go in to a local bar to watch the Brazil and Uruguay in the FIFA cup. Speaking from the my two game experience in watching futebol games this one was not the most exciting, there was much less scoring than in the Sunday game and no real drama. After the game on the way home our bus had to take a bit of a detour from the normal route on Paulista for a scheduled protest demanding better healthcare options. Luckily the protest was just beginning and the bus was able to pass them from a parallel road. The protest was moving slow and it was small so most people just went about their business on the road and walked on the other side of the road. I was able to beat them home by about two blocks!

Me at the Stadium/museum of futebol

The little protest that I managed to get ahead of on my way home, it kind of looks like a lot of people here but there were really only about 150-200. The people on the sidewalk were not in the protest, just the regular crowd on Avenida Paulista

Modernismo and São Paulo

June 24th
Today it was pouring rain again, not a fun way to start off the day considering that my umbrella unceremoniously quit on me yesterday…Classes went well, it was the subjunctive and reading comprehension in Portuguese today but our afternoon class was dedicated to an excursion to the Museu Lazar Segall who was a modernist painter of German origins who spent most of his life in Brazil. After class we all hurried off to get to the museum (traveling across the city at lunch time does take some time). It was about 40 min to get across town via bus-metro-metro. We lost parts of our group along the way but everyone made it out to the museum. My group was the first there and we had stopped at a Lunchonete (street lunch restaurant) to get pão de queijo (cheesy bread) and then proceeded to eat our packed lunches in the covered lobby/patio of the Casa de Lazar Segall.
After everyone arrived we began our tour. Our guide was Jorge Schwartz,  the museum director and leading expert on the modernists and Vanguard movements in Southern Latin America. He gave us an amazing tour, explaining all of the works of art in the museum and the building itself which was the home of Lazar Segall. Segall was a German born and trained artist (mostly of the expressionist style) who was the leading artist in Brazil during the Modernist movement of the 1900-1930s. The have selection on display in the museum that demonstrates the chronological trends in Segalls work from impressionist to expressionist to abstract. The museum is also very active in the current art culture of São Paulo through their rotating exhibition space and their open art studio and facility spaces as well as their cinema. The tour was amazingly informative, and I really enjoyed how I could relate some of the works to a prior history class that I took on Germany from 1900-1940. One of the paintings featured in the collection was actually located in the German modern art museums under Hitler and was a part of the exhibition of degenerate art!
After the museu Lazar Segall we continued on down the street to visit the Casa Modernista which was the first house designed in modern architectural style in São Paulo. A Russian Jew named Gregori Warchavchik migrated to Brazil with his family prior to the first world war. He was trained in the Bauhaus style and began to build modernist homes in São Paulo. We visited his home which was in the neighborhood of Vila Mariana (where Angelika and I stayed our first night), he also built many other homes in the area. His house is very interesting in that it is an ideal prototype that attempted to meet all the daily necessities of the family though design. The house is rather large and honestly is very well laid out. It had an abundance of storage and natural light. Almost every room had access to a terrace with large glass sliding doors.
On the main, public, floor all of the rooms were linked in an open floor plan that we would see in homes today. The house also had a large grounds and pool with many patios. The bathrooms were all much larger than those typical of the era as was the kitchen and he utilized the kitchen heat source as a way to keep water warm for the indoor plumbing. The house also had some strange quirks that were particular to the owners. Since the architect was a strict Jew there were many special religious conveniences such as sinks for purification in the rooms for his daughter and wife (she had a separate bedroom for her ‘impure’ times of the month…). He also built a separate area for meat storage apart from the other food in the kitchen. He was also a bit particular about the distinction between private and public space in the house and it was designed so that visitors were not immediately let into the intimate family spaces of the house, and no front facing windows on the upper level apart from the watch room (he felt that the home was a space to promote family unity and intimacy). Prior to WWII, Warchavchik had the house retrofitted with security devices due to his fear over the local reaction against Jews, so all the windows on the lower levels have bars built in over them and the lower terrace doors all close and have a retractable, large chain link gate that goes over them. The house was very fascinating in its novel style and in the particularities of the designer himself.
         After the class ended close to five several of us decided to go to the traditional Japanese immigrant neighborhood, Liberdade, which has good sushi and traditional noodle shops. Allison, Aileisha, Angelika, Roxanne, Isaiah, Genevieve and I all took the metro back towards the city center and walked to a specific noodle shop that was recommended by our professor because they still made their own noodles. Even with getting a bit lost (a typical experience even with explicit directions and an iphone map in São Paulo, we arrived at the restaurant at 5:30 and it did not open till 6:00. We decided to go to the corner Lanche/bar to get drinks and an appetizer before dinner. The Lanche actually had very good deals on drinks and food! We ended up staying there for 40 minutes before we walked back to the noodle restaurant (called Asha). When we walked back over (20 min after they opened) there was already a bit of a line! Apparently it is a very popular hole-in-the-wall type place, but even then we only had to wait about 10 min which we passed at the nearby banca (newspaper stand). Giving them our name was actually very interesting because they were not sure how to pronounce them…Mine ended up being the closest one they could get but we were still not exactly sure what they called out for our group when we went in…The menus were a bit hard to decipher because they were in Japanese translated in to Portuguese that we were trying to translate to English. I decided to give up trying to figure out what the food was and just ordered at random. It turned out to be a good idea! I’m not sure exactly what I got but it was good! The noodles were very fresh and had a completely different flavor than normal. Everyone really enjoyed what they got! After our meal (it was a quick in quick out type place) we all walked back to the metro together and it was a quick train ride home and back to homework!

The curator, Jorge Schwartz, explaining one of the paintings

This is the painting that was in the Exhibition of Degenerate Art in Hitler's Germany

This is the backside of the Casa Modernista, it looks better in person but it was getting dark and it was rainy outside... it does show some of the security features that the architect put in during WWII.

Its Promo Time

June 24
Today was another regular day of classes. In Portuguese we had language evaluations so that the professors can track our progress. It consisted of the professor calling our name out and giving us a topic to talk about for two minutes. I got sports so it was not that bad, but being put on the spot meant that I was mostly babbling for the two minutes. After class we got lunch on campus, no one wanted to venture out because the winter rains have begun here in São Paulo. I have been getting the fixed lunches they serve which change every day. Today it was your choice of meats, beans, rice, the Brazilian equivalent of grits and a juice all for $5.50!
At lunch Mari (our Brazilian TA) and several of us discussed plans to go see one of the cheesy Brazilian movies next week. On all forms of public transport there are tvs which advertise for these cheesy looking local films that are a cross between a novella and a comedy. We think it would be great to just go for the experience! After lunch we had an actual class meeting instead of an excursion for our Brazilian culture course. We spent all of the class, and then some, talking about the Brazilian modernist movement in art and literature. Tomorrow our class meeting will be an outing to and tour of the Museu Lasar Segall. We are very lucky in that our tour guide will be Jorge Schwartz one of the premier authors on the Brazilian modernist movement.
Since class got out late we ended up getting caught in the early rush hour traffic (and it was raining…) so it took about 40 min to get home on the bus, which still was not that bad. Once we got off the bus the Paulista group and our professor decided to stop in at our local bar/restaurant on Avenida Paulista to see if the rain would let up before our walks home. It did not, so we just braved the rain to stop by the Promo Center which is one of the locations of the grey market in São Paulo to get a new battery for Allison’s cell phone. It was amazing!! The whole place was full of knock offs of varying degrees of quality. Almost all consumer goods in Brazil are significantly more expensive than in the US, that’s why many Brazilians take shopping trips to Florida to buy what they need (it’s also why Brazil is the only country in Latin America where you can take two checked bags for free on most airlines). However, at the market I got a really cool Michael Kors lookalike watch for $20 and I saw about ten leather purses that I wanted too! This particular promo center is directly off of Paulista only a few blocks from the really expensive stores on the street. The market is almost completely run by Japanese and Korean immigrants to Brazil, as was with the Mercadão. I’m definitely going to go back before I leave!

A Sunday in the Park

June 23rd
Today was a very nice, tranquil example of a Sunday in Latin America. I got to sleep in (yay!) then I made plans to meet Jenike (a girl in my program) for lunch and to walk to the parque Ibirapuera which is a very large park in São Paulo that is their version of central park that has a planetarium, modern art museum, playing fields, Japanese garden and two lakes. We are getting very used to walking around the city and it only took us about 45 min to walk all the way to the park. The park was a great place to people watch on a Sunday. There were lots of people out enjoying the (typical) grey São Paulo weather by picnicking, walking their dogs, riding bikes, skateboarding and playing. Right as we arrived at the park something very interesting happened, what looked like two tour buses pulled up and lots of people got off and began to give out little pamphlets about their church, Igreja Universal, which is a very popular Pentecostal church here in Brazil. The entire pamphlet was based on the idea of the prosperity gospel it was very interesting to read the stories that it highlighted from their members.
We spent a few pleasant hours walking around the park, buying snacks from the food cart vendors. The only thing that complicated this bucolic afternoon were the bikers and skateboarders who had very little regard for the pedestrians ambling through the park, but we managed to make it through with no injuries, although there were some close calls! The park also had some really interesting, and good, live music. While walking we ran into a very hipster music group that consisted of a banjo, bass, washboard and kazoo, they were even called the Moustache Band. It was strange to see instruments right out of the Appalachian mountains in Brazil but the group was actually really good! They were doing a mixture of scat and bluegrass that was unexpected but fun!
After we finished our partial lap though the park we decided head back towards Avenida Paulista which meant a walk back up the steep hills that are all over the city. We are definitely keeping fit! Jenike went back to her apartment to work on our readings and homework but I had made plans to meet up with Roxanne and Ailesha to meet at our fruit bar to get an Açaí. Since I was on such a roll I decided to walk all the way up Paulista from the park. On the way I saw a crazy group of cars with banners on them honking their way down the road. When I got to the MASP (another art museum right near my apartment building which has a large open space convenient for protests) I saw that about 100 people had gathered for a “protest” but it was really unclear what in the world they were actually doing there. I’m pretty sure that it was a religious thing since a lot of them had posters and banners with a cross or Jesus-like figure on it but some people were also in weird attention grabbing, carnival like costumes. I asked another guy who was watching them and he said that he thought it was about gasoline, but that at this point the people were creating a culture of protest since they felt they were gaining positive outcomes from the other demonstrations. There were not very many and since they seemed more religiously/emotionally charged more than anything, they did not have a big effect on the traffic of the street. Taking into account the earlier event in the park where the buses dropped off the men to give out the religious pamphlets I think that today might have been a type of crusade for the Igreja Universal, a large Pentecostal church here in São Paulo.

Once I got down to the fruit juice shop I met up with Roxanne and Ailesha and we talked and ate tons of Açaí. When I walked back home afterwards the “protesters” were already gone!

A view of the city from the park

The Mustache Band

Açaí!! YUM!

Festa Junina

June 22nd
Today was the first real Saturday we had to explore the city. Roxanne (an MA from New Mexico) and I decided that we wanted to explore one of the popular weekend feiras in the city. We decided to go to the feira, or market, at the Praça Benedito Calixto in Pinheiros which is a well-known flea/antique market. It was pretty close to where we live, only two stops on the metro, and a 10 min walk. I wrote down the directions from google exactly and we decided to meet outside of the Consolacao metro station, a bit of a daunting thing when you do not have a cell phone. We actually did manage to find each other fairly easily at the station and, for the most part, our directions were correct to get to the praça. It was definitely one of the more successful outings that I’ve had in São Paulo so far! The market was very cool! It was much more upscale than I was expecting, almost like an outdoor antique store. There was lots of mid-century furniture, old books, jewelry, artisanal products (leather, beads, and clothes) as well as silver tea sets and glassware. In the center of the market were the food stands. There was actually quite a variety of foods; natural/organic, Italian, Japanese, from the Northeast, food from Bahia and lots of local sweets. Roxanne and I ran into others from our group at the food tents and we all decided to try something different. I went for the natural food place and got an amazing chicken stew empanada type thing and fresh passion fruit juice. Roxanne was more adventurous and she got the food from Bahia which has a strong African-Nigerian influence; a cornbread/manioc base with ochre sauce, and another sauce I didn’t recognize topped with shrimp. It was very interesting to try, but I really am not even sure what it was! In the desert category we tried a super sweet banana fruit pie topped with dolce de leche and jam, and we got some fried coconut covered in raw sugar. The coconut was my favorite, it was crunch and warm and the sugar still had a lot of the molasses flavor in it.
After lunch several members of our group returned home to take naps and prepare for their all night dance-a-thon in a town two hours away. It’s called a Jongo and it’s the traditional Afro-Brazilian celebrations of the second biggest holiday here which is the Festa Junina. I had decided dancing from midnight to 6AM then riding a two hour bus back was not for me, and that I would just attend a traditional Festa Junina in São Paulo that night. After they left the remained of our group went to one of the many relaxed outdoor bars surrounding the market since it was such a nice day. While we were looking around I heard someone playing the song “Wagon Wheel” in English at the market and I immediately began singing along, sort of freaking out the people around me… after the musical excitement we found a neat bar that had very cool mosaics walls and live music. We stayed and listened to a few sets before going to watch the Brazil-Italy futbol game at Rozanne’s apartment; Brazil won!!
In the evening we returned to the Praça Benedito Calixto to go to the Festa Junina at the local catholic church. For the church the festival was their main fundraiser and they went all out on the decorations. Those of us who went attended the festival with our Portuguese professors so we did not have to pay the entry fee only for our food and drinks inside. The Festa was very popular and it was packed with people. One of the first things we did was go to the vino quenche booth to get the festival drink of hot spiced fruit wine (quintão is another typical drink of hot sugared and spiced cachaca). After we were set up with our amazing drinks we looked around for food. The festa had many options, food from Bahia, Portugal, Italy and fair foods (roasted nuts, corn, sweets). I got an Italian meat pastry and chocolate covered strawberries. While we were eating our food we watched the quadrilla and listened to the live music that was doing an odd mix of 1960s/70s American music and Brazilian Forró music. We left the festival around 10:30 to go home but it was still going strong and people were still in line to enter even as we left!

This is part of the mosaics that were in the music bar near the market

This man is pouring the vinho quente in a traditional fashion

This picture is looking down at part of the crowd from the cathedral steps

A Fin de Semana!

June 21st
Today marked the end of our first week in Brazil! We have been getting into a good routine with our classes and  I really appreciate the low student-professor ration in our language class (about 10 students with a professor and two TAs). One of the TAs in our class, Mari, is very nice and she usually hangs out with us after class for lunch and helps us get off in the right direction for our excursions. At the end of class today we all went to eat a real lunch (only the second this week!!) in the cafeteria, before meeting up with our professors to walk to the Afro-Brazilian cultural center located in the neighborhood. We went there to learn more about Afro-Brazilian dance, one important one is happening tomorrow in town a few hours away as part of the Festa Juniha activities. It begins at midnight and goes until eight in the morning, not my cup of tea, but about half the people in our group are going to trek out there for the event! Today at the center we watched a documentary that the group had made about the community and listened to their lecture on the meaning of the rituals. It was a very interesting event, but unfortunately it was also located in a warm dark room after lunch…therefore it was very hard to pay attention to all of the lecture and stay awake! However, at the end of the lecture we all got up to practice the dance, called Jongo, that the community will be doing tomorrow. It was actually very hard! The steps were a bit complicated and the whole thing, music and movements, are based on the idea of competing rhythms, which for me was extremely difficult. I’m sure that you can all imagine me trying to keep up to fast steps with two drum rhythms in the background, while trying to clap my hands to yet another beat… it was fun but it was a mess.
At the end of the class our group milled around for a bit as everyone tried to figure out what people were doing that night and over the weekend. Our group is still in the early stages where everyone is very polite and wants to go with the majority, the only problem is that the groups lacks direction and it takes us a long time to get anywhere or do anything together. As is becoming a pattern, we split up by neighborhood (Perdizes and non-Perdizes) to head out. I went with Allison, Roxanne, and Genevieve to a good açaí place near Avenida Paulista and Consolação. Açaí is a Brazilian super fruit that comes from the Amazon. Here it is very popular in the form of a thick juice or like a frozen yogurt typically topped with banana slices, granola condensed milk or powdered milk (the last two very typical of the Brazilian desert palate which is very sweet!). Afterwards we walked home and decided to have a relaxed evening in the apartment.

Here is an example of some traditional Afro-Brazilian craft-work from the center

O Jardim Botânico

June 20th
            Today was a very long day. Classes began with the normal with 3 ½ hours of Portuguese grammar, composition and discussion. After our first class we had to quickly grab lunch from the cafeteria and catch a bus to a metro to a bus to get to the Jardim Botanico on the outskirts of the city to meet our professors to tour the gardens for our afternoon cultural classes. Being a large, obviously foreign group was actually helpful yesterday when several bus passengers stopped us from getting off the bus about 20 minutes too early!
The topic was particularly interesting for me as it addressed the history of the Brazilian environmental movement and how the city Paulistas have thought about nature and national identity which are aligned with my research interests. The gardens themselves are very beautiful, although since its winter here they are not in bloom. The gardens are part of a large nature preserve that is actually the second largest stand of the original Atlantic forest that is left in the country. It was fascinating to see the contrast between the current concrete jungle and the green jungle that covered the original area of the city. We had a guest professor from Emory (a specialist in Brazilian environmental history) come and lecture to us about the garden and environmental policy in Brazil. After the lecture we were able to walk around the park and see the orchadium (somewhat disappointing since there were no flowers) the native forests, streams and sculpted gardens. My group spent most of the time looking for the source of the historically important Tietê River which currently flows underneath the city (causing major problems with flooding as with other large cities that simply build over there rivers). We followed both signs and spoken directions and it took us over and hour and a lot of hiking to reach the ‘source’ of the river which was really just a little puddle on the ground…But on the way we were able to take in some green organic life after being somewhat starved of nature in the mega-city.
                We were in the gardens until they closed at 5:00. At closing the professors decided that we should all just go straight to the restaurant were we would be having our group dinner that night (it was rush hour and it didn’t make sense to go home and then come back). So we began our long trek back into the central areas of the city. We took one bus and two metros, and it was an experience. The first metro was not very full when we got on but we were packed in like sardines as we moved closer into town. When it came time to exit the train we had a hard time getting off because the people who were staying on the train did not want to get pushed off so they planted their feet and stayed put. I was able to punch my way through the crowd but I thought I was going to be by myself because the other three girls in my group could not get off! Luckily the whole mass of people on the train bowed out allowing them to get off. We made our transfer down to the red line (the most busy at that time of day) and lined up on the platform. Looking at the group of people we guessed it would be three trains before we would be able to get on…little did we know that Brazil subscribes to the Japanese form of loading metros. When the next train stopped we were swept up in the crowd and propelled in to the train, squashed in even tighter than sardines! We were able to stay together and no one was mean, they just all wanted to get home on THAT train. We had a somewhat long ride, but we were able to get off with relative ease (now that we knew the strategy, grab hands and punch through the gaps) at our stop. Once we had regrouped with the rest of the students we began the long trek to the Italian pizzeria where we were going to have dinner.

                Due to the large protests planned for that night (over 1 million people all around Brazil) we had to get off at a further stop and walk around the protest rather than end up in the middle of it. It ended up being quite a walk to the restaurant and at this point we were hungry, tired and had been on our feet for more than 5 hours. At the restaurant our group took over the tables on the veranda overlooking the Parque de Buenos Aires. The food was amazing!! The restaurant had many great examples of the fusion of immigrants in the city; Italian pizzas with Japanese mushrooms is one of the city specialties. We ordered several different pizzas which circulated around the table so that everyone got to try everything. The restaurant also had made great caipirinhas (the national drink of Brazil), juices and chopps (draft beers, pronounced shoppe). Our group spent a really enjoyable evening with rounds of pizza and drinks, most of us just glad to be off our feet for a few hours! At the end of the night we broke back into our neighborhood groups to travel home. We were actually only a 15 min walk from our apartment so we were able to get back rather quickly, and fell asleep almost as soon as we got there! 

A very cool bamboo tunnel at the gardens

Part of the formal gardens 

The Clash Between Old and New São Paulo

June 19th
                Today was another normal day of classes at PUC. Our Portuguese class was broken in to sections where we focused on grammar, vocabulary and reading comprehension with all of the topics aimed at the graduate audience which means our discussions (while they may be at an elementary level grammatically) are interesting on a collegiate level.  During the last portion of class our Portuguese professors took us to the Mercadão, the old central market in downtown São Paulo. It was a bit of a job to get all 30 of us down to the market. We walked to the closest metro stop and then took two different lines to arrive at Rua Vinte Cinco de Março which is one of the busiest shopping streets in the city. It’s just as busy as Avenida Paulista but for a completely different reason, Paulista is known for expensive stores and a classy shopping atmosphere, but Rua Vinte Cinco de Março is the street in town where you can find anything you want for less than 20 dollars, it is knock off city for purses and clothes and the district also sells all the makings of an amazing Carnival costume year round!
                After pushing our way through the rather steep, bustling streets we arrived at the Mercadão an early 20th century building that reflects the economic boom of the coffee barons during the 19th century. The architecture of the building was an effort to consolidate and institutionalized the physical structure and space of the city into a very European type model. The building itself is gorgeous with a strong French influence, stained glass windows, skylights and soaring ceilings. It reminded me of an old train station, full of glass, iron and smooth stone. Inside the building are the regulated permanent market stalls, most of which have been run by Japanese immigrant families since the early years of the market. They sell almost any type of fruit, vegetable or meat that you could think of an once a week there is a flower market early in the morning. In addition to all of the wholesale goods there are many little restaurants which are famous for their deli sandwiches. Due to an unfortunate overlapping of schedules (the Tulane professors we were meeting there thought we had already eaten, and the Portuguese professors thought we were going to eat there) lunch was written out of the schedule, so we ended up spending most of or exploration time waiting in lines to get food from the restaurants on the second floor. Marcus, Angelika and I each got fresh juices and cheese or meat pastries for lunch rather than the amazingly large sandwiches. By the time we had gotten and eaten our food it was time to meet up with our professors for our afternoon cultural class which would take a tour of the old central town. Since we did not have much time to explore we decided that we would have to go back another day!
                If traveling to the market with our class was difficult then traveling around the old center with and obviously foreign tour group was worse. It’s impossible not to attract attention with a group that large and out of place even if we were speaking Portuguese. Our tour of the downtown attracted both friendly and annoyed Paulistas. We stuck mainly to the pedestrian streets around the old banking center and the main cathedral. We attempted to go by the Pátio do Colégio and the Monastery of São Bento the fictional foundations of the city in the 16th century, however when we turned on to the street directly adjacent we saw that it was completely surrounded by the military police in anticipation of the protest that was supposed to gather in the area later on (part of the free pass movement). While we were discussing the significance of starting the protest at this location two young people on their way home from work came up to us to see if we were going to start the protest that day, and they were a bit disappointed when we said we were not. Here the protests are something very exciting and a flexing of new political muscles for civil society, which are for the most part very peaceful.
            After ending our tour at the main cathedral (another important location for citizens to speak their grievances) we all began to disperse back to our respective parts of the city. The professors headed off quickly to go catch the end of the Brazil-Mexico qualifying game for the world cup next year. After a failed attempt to organize the group to go to watch the game closer to our homestays, Justin, Allison and I headed back to our local bar on Avenida Paulista (on the Praia Paulista) to catch the last quarter of the game. It was very exciting (speaking as someone whose never watched a futbol game before) and even more so than normal because Brazil won! The game also meant that there was a smaller protest than usual since so many were caught up in the longtime Brazilian passion for futbol! After the game we returned to our house to work on our homework and get some rest for the next day.

One of the fruit vendor stalls in the Mercadao

The Pátio do Colégio surrounded by the military police

The main cathedral next to the Praca da Se

Tudo Bem em Portuguese!

June 16^th

Today Miguel, Allison, Justin and I decided to make plans to meet up with the rest of our group that is living in Perdizes. We ate a typical Brazilian breakfast of bread, cold cuts, cake and fruit with our host mom Alessandra. Afterwards we sent out a Facebook message telling everyone that we would meet at the corner of the university to go get lunch and cell phones. My roommates and I decided that we would test walking to the university (since traffic is so legendarily bad here). It was supposed to be a simple walk with only two turns, and that would have been true if the actual roads all looked like they did on the map. The walk to Perdizes was not that bad, we passed two really cool large cemeteries, a flower market and many stores and offices, however, once we got into the neighborhood the hills began. It was straight up and down the rest of the way into the university and we got turned around a few times… In all it took about an hour and a half to walk to the university. Needless to say we decided to try the bus on Monday.

We arrived at the university and met up with about half of our program. We walked around the university but we couldn’t go in because it is closed on Sunday. It turns out that most of Sao Paulo is closed on Sunday, particularly in the Perdizes area because it is so residential. We couldn’t find anywhere close that was open, except for a Brazilian Arab fast food chain called Habibs. They actually have a surprisingly wide variety of food and it was very nice for a fast food place. We were seated by a host and given menus and they waited on us. Another way they differed from an American fast food restaurant is that they served beer, several people at the table took advantage of that and ordered the special; two beers and a plate of fries for 5.50! I got a sort of Arab-ish mini pizzas (cheese and chicken) fries and fresh mango juice. It was all really good, and they even had vegetarian options for Angelika! The hard part of lunch came at the end of the meal when we had to do some fun math to get everyone’s large cash bills to fit the one check. Typically here most restaurants only do one check per-table which makes it fun for everyone to scrounge up exact change…

After lunch we all to a bus back to our neighborhood to look for an open shopping center to get cell phones. The bus ride back to our stop, with no traffic, was only about 10 min. After we got off, four of us girls decided to check out the weekly antique and flea market under the modern art museum (the museum is elevated), while the other half of the group walked on to the puppy bar. The market had lots of really interesting items, silver, clothing, collectables, figurines, jewelry and more! I know that mom and GG would love this place. The four of us, Jenike, Angelika, Molly and I also walked to the back of the museum where there is an open patio (where the free pass movement held its protest the other day…) and had a great view on to the lower level apartment buildings, mine included. Afterwards, we walked a few blocks to meet the others at Puppy Bar only to find that it was closed and that they had been waiting for us! Luckily it hadn’t been too long and we were able to walk on to the bars collectively called the “Praia Paulista” or Paulista Beach. We went to a different one than yesterday and all were able to share some drinks and get to know each other. Everyone seemed really cool and I’m looking forward to spending more time with them!

After drinks we parted ways, my roommates and I walking home while the others took a bus back to Perdizes. Once we got home we had a snack with Alessandra and talked about our days. We also got to hear some of her ideas on Brazil and how the country has changed politically and socially which was fascinating! She also talked about some challenges that remain like the issue of race, poverty and corruption. Tonight we are all going to bed early since we have to be at school at 8:30 for our language placements and we are not sure how traffic will be! 

Sunday in São Paulo

June 16^th

Today Miguel, Allison, Justin and I decided to make plans to meet up with the rest of our group that is living in Perdizes. We ate a typical Brazilian breakfast of bread, cold cuts, cake and fruit with our host mom Alessandra. Afterwards we sent out a Facebook message telling everyone that we would meet at the corner of the university to go get lunch and cell phones. My roommates and I decided that we would test walking to the university (since traffic is so legendarily bad here). It was supposed to be a simple walk with only two turns, and that would have been true if the actual roads all looked like they did on the map. The walk to Perdizes was not that bad, we passed two really cool large cemeteries, a flower market and many stores and offices, however, once we got into the neighborhood the hills began. It was straight up and down the rest of the way into the university and we got turned around a few times… In all it took about an hour and a half to walk to the university. Needless to say we decided to try the bus on Monday.

We arrived at the university and met up with about half of our program. We walked around the university but we couldn’t go in because it is closed on Sunday. It turns out that most of Sao Paulo is closed on Sunday, particularly in the Perdizes area because it is so residential. We couldn’t find anywhere close that was open, except for a Brazilian Arab fast food chain called Habibs. They actually have a surprisingly wide variety of food and it was very nice for a fast food place. We were seated by a host and given menus and they waited on us. Another way they differed from an American fast food restaurant is that they served beer, several people at the table took advantage of that and ordered the special; two beers and a plate of fries for 5.50! I got a sort of Arab-ish mini pizzas (cheese and chicken) fries and fresh mango juice. It was all really good, and they even had vegetarian options for Angelika! The hard part of lunch came at the end of the meal when we had to do some fun math to get everyone’s large cash bills to fit the one check. Typically here most restaurants only do one check per-table which makes it fun for everyone to scrounge up exact change…

After lunch we all to a bus back to our neighborhood to look for an open shopping center to get cell phones. The bus ride back to our stop, with no traffic, was only about 10 min. After we got off, four of us girls decided to check out the weekly antique and flea market under the modern art museum (the museum is elevated), while the other half of the group walked on to the puppy bar. The market had lots of really interesting items, silver, clothing, collectables, figurines, jewelry and more! I know that mom and GG would love this place. The four of us, Jenike, Angelika, Molly and I also walked to the back of the museum where there is an open patio (where the free pass movement held its protest the other day…) and had a great view on to the lower level apartment buildings, mine included. Afterwards, we walked a few blocks to meet the others at Puppy Bar only to find that it was closed and that they had been waiting for us! Luckily it had not been too long and we were able to walk on to the bars collectively called the “Praia Paulista” or Paulista Beach. We went to a different one than yesterday and all were able to share some drinks and get to know each other. Everyone seemed really cool and I’m looking forward to spending more time with them!

After drinks we parted ways, my roommates and I walking home while the others took a bus back to Perdizes. Once we got home we had a snack with Alessandra and talked about our days. We also got to hear some of her ideas on Brazil and how the country has changed politically and socially which was fascinating! She also talked about some challenges that remain like the issue of race, poverty and corruption. Tonight we are all going to bed early since we have to be at school at 8:30 for our language placements and we are not sure how traffic will be! 

Flower market on the way to school

the Sao Paulo art museum near my apartment. This is also the location of the market and the student meeting center for the movements in Brazil currently.

Summer Classes...

June 18^th

Today was the first day of real classes at PUC. They decided to split our group into two language classes, but since there were not any real distinguishable levels in the group they split us in half by our interest in Portuguese, basically in to a grad vs undergrad group. I really like our teacher, she is the right amount of excited and enthusiastic but without being condescending and she understands that even though our level of Portuguese may not be collegiate we want to discuss things in academic terms. They also have planned several trips as part of the language learning part of class which is very appreciated in a 4 hour language class! For example yesterday we went to the local feira, or farmers market that comes to Perdizes every Tuesday. We toured the market with our professor and she explained the different used of the fruits and veggies in Brazil and showed us many that we had never seen before!

                At the end of the class we had a break so that we could eat lunch, most of us decided to stay at the market and get food from the local food trucks. I got coxinha, a type of fried Brazilian dumpling that you can get with several different types of filling; chicken, cheese, meat. One of the other favorite foods is fried pastry dough with cheese in the middle! It’s been very hard living in the land of fried meats, perpetual bread, and with everything covered in cheese… the Brazilian taste buds lean toward the very sweet and salty foods.

After lunch several of us went to the central courtyard to work on the readings and relax before our second class. At 1:30 our second class, taught by professors from Tulane and Emory, began. This class is also going to be taught in Portuguese and we are learning about a variety of themes in Brazilian history and culture and music, and for most of the classes we will be actually going around the city to see everything in person.  However, yesterday we were just in class discussing the readings, but tomorrow we are going to the old center of São Paulo! We got a late start leaving from the university so we ended up in rush hour traffic, but even with the extra traffic it still did not take that long to get home, only about 40 min rather than 20, which is a relief since the traffic here can be legendary!

We got home at about 6:00 and decided to rest a bit before going out to get dinner at a local bar where they were having a part for the Couch Surfing network (a site that connects travelers with people who are willing to host them) so that foreigners could meet local Brazilians in the neighborhood. The party was only about 8 blocks from our apartment but it was a bit complicated because the ongoing protests in Brazil led by the youth movement and an activist group called the Free Pass Movement (they are advocating for lower transportation costs but are more interested in larger changes in the path of the nation (the debt and changes being prioritized for the World Cup and Olympics) and are concerned that the voice of the young people are not being heard).There have been protests every night since last Thursday and they have been mostly peaceful with a few troublemaker anarchist protesters and some edgy riot police (here called the tropas choque). We saw the protesters coming back on Avenida Paulistas on Monday and they were very relaxed (and worn out from walking) as it was the end of the protest. Tuesday, however, the protest was much larger and more enthusiasitic than the night before and they began much closer to our area of the avenue. The road was closed in preparation for the protest and there were many people marching with banners and talking in groups as we walked to the restaurant but everything was very civil and the police were staying out of the way, although they had set up mobile police posts and vans, and we got to the restaurant without problems. At the party Allison, Justin and I met a lot of cool Brazilians and fellow visitors. It turned out to be a very good way to meet people and practice Portuguese outside of class. As the main protest ended more of the regular Brazilians arrived at the restaurant and we were able to talk with them and learn how excited they were by the idea of free protest in their country and the idea that their actions could cause the political change they were hoping to inspire. At the end of the party we were able to walk home on Avenida Paulista the same way we had come without any trouble and the protesters were almost completely gone.

My Forgotten Castle in Lego Land

June 15, 2013

Today we met our host families! Our day started off by sleeping in at the hostel  followed by slowly waking up and getting our things together. Angelika and I enjoyed another lovely outdoor breakfast of fruit, toast, cheese and coffee on the patio before checking out of the hotel (the amazing staff helped us carry our bags down to the lobby)!. We decided to hang out in the hostel lounge rooms since we did not have much time before we were expected by our host families. We were able to share a cab since my house was on the way to Angelika’s. It was only about a 15 min taxi to my new neighborhood. The area is gorgeous! As expected with a mega city everything in the vicinity is apartment towers or large office buildings, but surprisingly the area actually has a lot of trees and there are two forested parks nearby. My building is in a classic, some-what Italian, style from the 1950s (complete with bomb shelter!). At the gate I mentioned my host mom’s name and was buzzed in and shown up to the eighth floor. My host mom Alessandra opened the door and welcomed me into her home. The building is full of very nice classical apartments and it really reminds me of the older style European apartments in the layout and attention to detail.

Our set up is a bit non-traditional in that the apartment in very large but with only a few actual, separated rooms. You come in through the kitchen, which has the old maids quarters off to the right along with the laundry. To the left is the informal dining room with a mini-kitchen for our use, then you come into the formal dining room and the large living room (all with beautiful old mosaic tiles or parquet hardwood floors. The ceilings are high with a detailed crown molding and chandeliers. Off of the living room is a sizable terrace which overlooks the main tree lined street. The whole apartment has the atmosphere of an abandoned castle from a fairytale, wide open bright spaces with classical features but absolutely no clutter, and in the formal dining room there is an overly large classic table and a huge indoor vine that is climbing up the wall. The back side of the informal dining room is another terrace which connects to Alessandra’s family quarters (for her and her children when they visit). Alessandra is divorced and her teenage son and daughter stay with her every other week.

For dinner the four of us staying at Alessandra’s house decided to go find somewhere to eat on Avenida Paulista. All of the bars were packed with Brazilians watching the Japan-Brazil cup game so we walked for a while before we found the one bar that lacked large tvs and we were able to get a table. Laughably it was called the Puppy Bar, but sadly there were not puppies… we ordered Brazilian beer and sat on the patio facing Avenida Paulista people watching and enjoying the sunset. After the game ended and the crowded thinned out, we walked back to the cool looking bars/restaurants to get some dinner. We ended back up at the apartment early since we were tired from traveling/moving. Tomorrow we are going to try and meet up with more people from the program and get cell phones!

The apartment is large and in a great location; near shops restaurants bars and cultural sites, it only has two downsides, that it is a 45 min commute from the university and that it lacks true bedrooms, so we have each claimed a corner of one of the large rooms. Miguel is in the informal dining room, Justin is in the formal dining room, Allison is in the office (off of the living room) and I’m in the living room next to the terrace. So far Alessandra seems to be very nice and hospitable and she is really encouraging our Portuguese development but I am a bit worried that since the English speakers outnumber the Portuguese ones we will laps in to English frequently. 

This is the view from the terrace by my bed

This is the really cool indoor vine that is in the formal dining room

This is the terrace right next to where I sleep

Exploring São Paulo

June 14^th

If today’s weather holds out for the rest of our trip I’m going to have to change my blog title! Today it was a balmy 70 degrees and sunny outside. After a good breakfast on our hostel’s patio Angelika and I decided to explore the central city in the morning. We got a map and direction to some points of interest in the area and we were off! We took a 15 min walk to the metro stop and rode the line into town. As you emerge from the Se metro stop the main Cathedral is immediately to your right. We walked around the building taking tons of touristy pictures and peeked in on the mass. Apparently today was some kind of military service mass because the entire cathedral was packed with different police and military branches receiving a benediction. After we left the cathedral we walked in the direction that we thought was towards the Banco do Brasil Centro Cultural which has free art expositions and public installations. However, it was not until we reached the Liberdade (little Japan) metro stop (one prior to Se) that we realized that we had been walking in the wrong direction for about 15 min. Once we retraced our steps and re-consulted the map we were able to find the cultural center located off of several cute pedestrian only streets. There were three expositions going on that were coordinated by the artist Cai. Cai did a four story gunpowder painting of the flowers and birds of Brazil and he brought in two Chinese artists, one whose designed and built robot artists and another who built planes and submarines from scrap. Elements of both collections were hung as an installation around the exterior of the building over the pedestrian road. The building itself was gorgeous mix of baroque and art deco elements and the exhibits were really interesting.

After we left the cultural center we headed off to the large market, once again sure that we were walking in the right direction… Several wanderings later we were crossing a large pedestrian bridge that took us to another pretty church, however, this was not where we were trying to go. After retracing our steps again and consulting the maps we could not match any of the street names with the ones on our map around the same location. At this point we were hungry and tired of walking so we decided to ditch the market and head to Avenida Paulista to get lunch and see the famous shopping district. We took the metro again and successfully made all of our transfers (finding out in the process that you do not have to pay for additional metro line transfers!) and looked around for somewhere to eat. The stretch of Avenida Paulista that we were on was mainly shopping complexes so we ended up in a food court. It was not the ideal lunch location for our first day in Brazil (being non-original and over-priced) but it was sustenance and we were fading fast. We were caught in the tail end of the lunch break rush so getting food took a while, but on the other hand it was an interesting time to people watch. After refueling we went back out and looked at some more shops, but we didn’t manage to find the picturesque shops we were looking for. Angelika and I decided that there must be some rule about walking around and getting lost on your first day in town. We also decided that since we’d already had our day of this we would be ahead of everyone else when they arrive tomorrow! This evening were going out for dinner in the Vila Madalena neighborhood where will hopefully meet up with the two other Vandy students here!

Our hostel from the street! 

The main cathedral downtown

Four story canvas of Brazilian birds and flowers applied through gun powder explosions 

Part of the airplane and submarine installation on the building

Travel and Arrival in SP

June 13^th 2013

I left Charlotte for Miami early Monday morning, durring the dark monsoon, and I stayed with my good friend, and prior roommate, Ally, her husband Matt and her daughter Lailyn at their apartment in Key Biscayne. It was a great trip, and so nice to see Ally again! We swam in the pool, went to the beach and generally enjoyed life in paradise with Lailyn! It was a great transition period to have.

This morning at 11:00 our plane took off for Brazil! Angelika and I are traveling together to Sao Paulo, a day and a half before the program starts. We will go to our host families on Saturday and meet the rest of the group on Monday for classes. Airport check in went smoothly: we were able to print our boarding passes, check bags and get through security in a timely manner. In all, I feel that airports have really improved the TSA security apparatus and made remote check in more available reducing wait times (although I am writing this on the plane and have not yet seen if these improvements extend to the SP airport, the site five years ago of a five hour delay on our flight leaving us stuck in the freezing basement of the airport waiting….) We shall see…

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I am happy to report that my Sao Paulo airport experience was much better this time around!! Our plane arrived on time, and it was smooth flying. My movie veg out on the plane was all centered around successful travel adventures to set my mental state for this trip; Argo, Midnight in Paris and the Best Exotic Marigold Hotel (and if you haven’t seen any or those movies you should check them all out!!). After we landed Angelika and I made it through customs before the rest of our plane and the flight from Montevideo that arrived at the same time. We booked it over to baggage claim where we promptly hit a wall. It took a good 45 min to an hour to get all our bags… but at least everything made it here! After customs we wasted a good bit of time walking around the terminals in a failed attempt to find an ATM that would take my visa bank card. After the third attempt we broke down and asked for help, it turns out you can get rusty in a language after a month and a half, but hopefully our skills will kick back in soon!  We found out that there is only one ATM brand that works with visa bank cards. After successfully hitting up my bank account we got a taxi (the approved ones!) and within 30-40 min we were at our hostel. Our taxi driver was quiet but very nice and considerate; he helped us carry our giant bags all the way up to the hostel door! The hostel check in went smoothly and it looked just as cool as the pictures! It’s a converted 1920s mansion with amazing original wood and plaster work. It has both a garden and a patio (where breakfast is served) and two modern common room areas. It’s in a nice quiet residential area, but also near transportation options so that we can do some exploring tomorrow. Now off to plan our day!

Step One: Getting the Visa

As with all great adventures this one began with a slow bureaucracy and endless paper work…  The first step to traveling to Brazil for any length of time is to get a visa, for me the process to get my visa was extended and mildly stressful to say the least. Getting paperwork from abroad is difficult and lengthy in the best of circumstances; add a less than effective institutional medium and it’s a recipe for a last min rush. To illustrate, I am leaving for Brazil on the 13^th of June, I was not able to get my visa until the 7^th of June and of course I was my usual stress-free self the whole time!

Basically, I didn’t receive the paperwork in time to mail my visa application to the Brazilian Consulate in Washington (my jurisdiction), luckily I had made a backup appointment at the Brazilian Consulate in Atlanta (the only one that does same day visa appointments, and allows people from outside of their jurisdiction to apply there). My mom and I ended up making a short trip out of it, going down on Thursday (in a monsoon no less) staying with one of her friends, then going to the consulate for my appointment on Friday. The consulate was located in a Buckhead office building and was extremely efficiently run, they deserved all their good reviews on Yelp! My appointment was at 10:00, and the check in illustrated exactly why you should always print confirmation pages and bring them with you, because the consulate didn’t have my appointment listed, but the neurotically prepared person I am I had brought two types of confirmation letters, so they added me on! I was called in early to my appointment, escorted by security to a separate office where they do the visa interviews, and stripped of electronics.  With traditional Brazilian nonchalance, the visa lady dismissed all the extra documentation that I had brought detailing how good of a citizen I was, took my basic paperwork and gave me a slip to return with at 3:00 for my visa and passport.

 My mom’s friend Kim was a great hostess. She chauffeured us around town and gave a pretty great tour of downtown Atlanta where she grew up. We also hit such recognizable spots at the Varsity, Grant Park and Zoo Atlanta (to see the pandas of course!), and Buckhead. Despite my sinking feeling that for some reason the Consulate would decide not to give me a visa, it turned out to be a great day on the town! At 3:00 we returned to the consulate and were able to pick up my visa without any problems! We left almost directly afterwards in an attempt to avoid traffic, and we were lucky in that we actually didn’t hit that much of the legendary traffic (we were heading out of town at 4:00 on a Friday), and made it most of the way back to charlotte without incident, except for an evil Nissan Altima and The Return of The Monsoon.