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.
No comments:
Post a Comment