final thoughts

eu tenho que esperar por treis horas no aeropuerto. sigh.

i have to wait for about three hours in the airport before i leave for the US.
i can't believe i am going home. my life is still in transistion. while i will cherish the memories of the last two months, i ain't looking back.

my experience here has healed and rejuvenated my spirit. with this abundance of energy i am ready to move forward.

a few things i have learned about myself:

1. i can adapt to change

2. i am somebody (a la jesse jackson)

3. i am not afraid of the dark. i like the dark. makes you curiouser.

4. i am cute (especially in skirts)

5. i need ME time.

6. i can and should say "no" to people soaking up my energy; to wanting to buy thing just cause they are cheap; to hot boys (at least some of them). lol.

7. i can go anywhere i want to go

8. the further away i go the more i love the place from which i came.

meu deus! this place has been soooo good to me. it truly has. but i do not feel like i have to make brasil mine. brasil will never belong to me. it belongs to the brasilians. i think many people (including me) tend to want to make a city or a country there's becuase they had such a good time/experience when they were in that place.

i have been to several places that i wanted to make mine- london, den haag, paris, etc. but all this isn't necessary. i now believe that when you go to other places you can shake up your definitions of things, expand your boundaries. then embrace the new/modified realities you take back home with you and simply continue moving forward.

and that's exactly what i plan to do. :)

stay tuned for info on my foto album. if anybody knows how i can publish a bunch of photos for free online please let me know.

a few words on sao paolo

erica and lili, my brasilian amigas back home, did not recommend sao paolo even though they are from here.

but i have enjoyed my little bit of time here. my ideas of things have definately been shaken up and stirred.

first of all the icy cold weather challenges the ideas i had about south america which had been synonmous with HOT. it's like forty freakin' degrees here. whew! i have seen photos of the ice-capped mountains and people in furs, but somehow i did not did not include these in my understanding of this continent.

so when i arrived here on monday evening i was shocked (and frost-bitten) to say the least. ok. i am exagerrating but the 40 degree weather is hurtin a sister.

nonetheless, i openly accepted the coolness as it seems appropriate in this very concrete-made city. to my knowledge sao paolo is a city's city. there is not a tourist element to it at all. all the guide books (lonely planet, fodor's, etc) say "why would you ever go to sao paolo." jk. they don't say that but they don't provide much help at all in finding things to do here.

paulostinos are very handsome. again, though, my ideas of south america (well, brasil) and its inhabitants, were challenged. here you see much more fair skin, dark brown hair (and some red and blonde hair). there are lots of tall people including women. like really tall (i have seen women 6'1 or more). this is not to say that i think most people from south america are short. i know that i, at 5'11, am pretty much a giant anywhere i go on this planet. it was just odd for me to be in a place where the average height is more than 5'4. maybe like 5'7 or 5'8 which is a big difference.

it was also interesting to see so many asians who were clearly brasilian identified. a couple of years ago i saw a movie about a group of people living in japan who were descendents of japanese who had moved to brasil for work but later returned "home." hard to explain. but the point is i knew there was big population of japanese and other asians here in brasil, especially sao paolo. but actually being here experiencing their presence so to speak made me actually consider that the US is not the only "melting pot" in the world. in fact, we are not nearly as diverse as many other places.

i feel like the paulostinos are friendly- on the whole. most descriptions from erica, lili, the guidebooks say that these people are cold and unaffected. but i have had many people greet me with a smile or even a bit of conversation. the only coldness i felt besides the brisk winds was on the metro where the masses move like somber heards of cattle. this is like the 3rd largest city in the world.

a couple of hours before we were to leave i went out on my own to do some last minute guilt shopping. i happened upon this tiny jewelry store, luna accessories. totally my type of jewelry, eclectic and cheap!

the curly redhead was very cool. she let me try on everything and was cool when i bought like 1/8th of it (still a lot) . she was sad that i was leaving. in portuguese she said to me, "why did you come so late and leave so soon? you must return to sao paolo so we can go dancing. here's my card."

how can you not love this place!?!

rio II

8-8-04

ah rio. on friday me and O went to meet her professor. he is getting paid to be in rio and write a paper. must be nice. he is writing about neighborhoods that are inclusive vs. exclusive. it is apparently a very big subject in cities like rio and probably places like new york, london, etc. yawn.

he and his family are nice though. another history professor joined us for "ice cold" beer at this well known spot, Cervantes. me and history professors. well, the wife is a fellow attorney. so, that helped a lot, even though she was often occupied with their five month old baby. and the conversation actually focused on me. these people that study old stuff were completely fascinated by the on-line mediation work that i do. it was soooooo weird having people listen to me and ask all kinds of thoughtful questions. talk about the tables being turned.

that night my crew (me, o, and j) enjoyed a dinner at this fancy french restaurant, Olympé. in a word, OHMYGOD!!! it was freaking amazin!

we had such good food. parmesan scallops, escargot something or other, chocolate cake, banana tart, my favorie red wine (amarone), and lots of caipirinhas. holla! if you ever good to rio, please eat at Olympé. it ain't cheap. but it is so worth it.

afterwards, the now tipsy crew went to Lapa, which is another area of rio. i have no clue where it is geographically. but it is the area for going out. or so they say.

there were, in fact, lots of people out. but we couldn't seem to connect with the local energy. a lot of people were either really young/silly or just boring. nuthin like the snoop dogg video.

saturday was pretty uneventful. i worked for a couple of hours in a cold but cool (lol) bookstore. and i hung out with jason in barra. he bravely took the really long walk with me in search of harley davidson. man, we walked a long ass time. we finally found it, but it was closed. just closed thought. so that means i had to put my sweet talking in effect. it worked. the heavily armed hired security guy open the gates and let us in. it was kinda funny seeing the tan brown versions of my cousins and parents talking harley talk (i guess) in portugeuse. my mission was to purchase some harley rio t-shirts for my mother, daddy, cousin myrtle and cousin wilbert. no luck. the shirts they had wouldn't fit my finger. hopefully i will have luck in sao paolo. keep your fingers crossed! that night we had dinner at the copacabana hotel. very victorian. very old fashioned. afterwards we stood outside of HELP. this is a very, very famous club where anyone who wants to get their freak on in rio must go. we saw soooooooo many johns and their "dates." i am not drawing conclusions either. it was very obvious what was going on. i wish we woulda went in.

sunday i worked so more. then we went to the museum of contemporary art. or modern art. the kind that is hard to figure out. it was actually pretty neat though. the building looked like slabs of concrete in the shape of a long tee-pee. afterwards we went to the mall.

you know you are american if you going to another country and seek refuge (or at least a good time) in the mall. lol. we saw stepford wives. it's actually pretty funny.

when we returned to the hotel there were some american guys standing outside. we introduced ourselves and chatted a bit. one of the guys runs tours for this art gallery, http://www.octobergallery.com/.

it's was pretty funny exchanging salvador stories with them. we went our seperate ways, but then decided to follow them (without their knowledge). can you say high school? it was actually pretty funny and they were ok with our impromptu stalking. we went out for drinks and talked the most random things from music. i liked one of the guys and he lives in atl. but of course i don't have any game. so, i didn't give him my info when we said our goodbyes. oh well.

tomorrow we leave for sao paolo.

rio I

this entry (and all those after this) were written a long time ago. i had obstacles to gain access to the internet while in rio and sao paolo. then i got lazy. lol. but finally i am posting them.

August 7, 2004-- we (O and i) arrived in rio on thursday morning. i had no desire to come here. however, jason (my buddy from law school) wanted to visit me and he insisted that we meet in rio.

my initial plan was to travel down to rio solo. but somehow my inquiry for info on rio turned into an invitation to O. i am still trying to figure that one out. normally i am comfortable facilitating connections between friends from different groups. but i think it is usually a good idea not to do so when travelling. but O was travelling to Rio and she was very excited about joining me.

sidenote: i like O. she is a very smart person. she is also a closet freak, which makes her fun at times. but she is not a "fun" leader. meaning her lack of "fun" energy puts the burden on me to find the fun. does this make any sense? anyway.

the cab driver from the airport ripped us off. he charged the "normal" set fee. which came out to about $30!!! meu deus. he also tried to bait us into going to a different hotel. now already i am paranoid about rio. i mean i didn't see that movie "city of god", but i have heard about some crazy things going on here. just like any big city. cab guy told us that our hotel was next to a favela. a favela is like a big community of homemade homes. they have a bad rap in brasil. but they are plentiful indeed. so i told him that were lived in salvador for the past two months and were very familiar with favelas. which is true.

when he dropped us off at he failed to point out the favela. big fat liar!!!

we had reservations at mar ipanema in the muito famous area of ipanema. the hotel is pretty standard. no frills. very small living quarters. but whatever. it is only $45 a night each. after unpacking we took a very scenic cab ride up to barra de tijuca where jason's hotel is. the road out to barra reminds me of the blue ridge parkway (which is a scenic road through the blue ridge mountains in virginia, nc, tennessee, and georgia.) very, very beautiful. you can see the big blue ocean with white waves crashing against the often rocky coast line. there's all sorts of little oddly shaped mountains in the ocean and on land. not as many people out on the beach as i imagined. in fact. the beaches were virtually empty. but it is winter.

barra is a very wealthy area of rio. it kinda jolted me to see modern, fancy homes and hotels as you don't see this in salvador.

jason's hotel is very nice and modern. it has been two years since i last saw him (law school graduation). but we usually keep in touch all the time and i feel like we had no feelings of awkwardness. for O it was love at first sight. but that is all guys.

we ate lunch in the restaurant in jason's hotel. then took a walk along the beach. rio's beaches are very wide with lots of sand. then there is a big wide sidewalk between the road and the beach. this is for pedestrians and folks on bicycles. pretty cool.

later in the afternoon we went up Pao de Acucar. better known by gringos as sugarloaf mountain. it was pretty damn scary going up in a heavy cart on a light string. but at least it was quick. lol.

from the top you can see a lot of rio. copacabana. ipanema. tons of favelas. the marina. the sun was setting and the water appeared golden. jesus (the statue of) was way across the city on top of an even taller mountain. even with my super zoom (10x) i was only able to get a small version of him along with some radio towers that are located to his left. lol.