Apparently, I'm a dumbass. Tamara's family has gone to Tigre, a nearby pretty place, for the weekend, so on Saturday, I had to leave and find somewhere else to go. I chose a hostel downtown. I took a light rail train downtown, then the subway. Once I got out of my first train in the subway, I reached back to my backpack to assure that the outside pocket was closed, as I always do, and it wasn't! I looked inside, and I had put various things there. My passport, credit card, some cash, MP3 player, maybe my camera.... I could not find the passport! Strangely though, everything else was there! I am almost certain I put my passport there, and I have no darn clue why. I think for some reason I've internalized that things are safer in a bag than in my pockets because in a crowd, someone can pick your pockets, but a bag has to be opened. However, an easily accessible pocket on a backpack that is fully on my back, is easy as pie to pick! So I got somber, lost some of the pride I'd had on coming into the city myself, full of glee that here I was in the majestic city of Buenos Aires.
I went to the hostel I'd planned on, told my sob story, and settled in, puttign things in my locker, when the cute guy who showed me my room, Christian, told me that I couldn't stay in that hostel without my original passport. An issue of security, of course. I had a copy though! Turns out that my Pennsylvania State ID would have worked, but I didn't think about that when I was still there, and when I remembered, a few blocks from the hostel, and I called from a pay phone, they told me that a large group of Brazilians had JUST came in and there was no longer any space. So I walked to the V&S hostel, which was in my guide book I'd bought in Salvador, and have been there since.
That evening I went to the police nearby, to make a report, as I would need it when I go to get a new passport. The police told me I needed to go to the special subway police, so I did, 2 trains away. All this time I was accompanied by Adriano, a Brazilian I met in the hostel, and who agreed to come with me. Turns out he's gay, and we eneded up going to a club that night. As cute as he is, we've been friends, which I think is better -- a gay friend is more useful than a hookup - more reliable, trustworthy, and well, friendlier.
At the subway (Subte) police, I filed a denúncia.
Yesterday, I made copies of that denúncia. And today, I bought passport pictures, and went to the American Embassy, and wonderfully managed to get a new passport reissued, and it's in my hands as we speak! So I'm fine for being in Argentina, and getting back into the US, the problem is, I'm going through Brazil! And as you may know, a visa is required for American citizens to go into Brazil - I had a student visa when I came here. Of course, that visa was in my old passport, which is now either in the subte trash, or on its way to being sold to some happy Argentinean. (Mind you, I did call the lost and found of the subte this morning, as the subte police recommended I do, and that hadn't found anything, but they did take down my name, email, and the phone number of the hostel.) For that, I needed to go to the Brazilian Consulate.
I managed to get my passport at 12:30 and get over to the Brazilian Consulate before their schedule closed at 1pm. They told me though, that I should get a tourist visa, as to have my old visa reissued, even though I have a fotocopy, and it's undoubtedly in computer systems somewhere between the US and Brazil, I would need authorization from Brasília, and that could take god-knows-how-long. I didn't have time to do a tourist visa anyway (this was around 1:05, and the woman to whom I´d go for tourist visas had left), nor the desire, as it would cost 331 Argentine pesos, or about $100.
So I decided to call UFMG, and see if they had any advice on contacting whoever in Brasília, and they did! I got 2 phone numbers for some people there, and I just called them, and after emailing my details and the JPEG image of my visa I scanned in January (that was of my own accord), they say I should have a response by the end of the day, and the guy seemed pretty confident I could have a visa emitted in Buenos Aires before leaving on Friday! So for now I'm happy.
I suppose that for my having been in South America for 6 months, and the only thing to happen to me be the robbery of my passport, that's not really so bad. It wasn't a camera, souvenirs, something sentimental (aside from the cute lil stamps in it), and I wasn't assalted or hurt or anything. And, hey, I got to see both the American Embassy and the Brazilian Consulate, from the inside! Living in Brazil has made me quite chill, hasn't it?
04 August 2007
Upperclass
I'm in Buenos Aires right now, in the upperscale neighborhood of La Lucila at my friend Tamara's house. I met Tamara during a metropolitan studies class we had together, while she studied at NYU. She graduated (or basically has, still has to turn in a paper) and has returned to her family's house in Argentina. She has two other brothers, one who will be a junior at RPI in upstate NY, and the other will start Rochester this year. The 3 of them went to American School since pre-K, they tell me, so it was sort of always instilled in them that they would go to college in the US. I find it so odd, to be here with them. I mainly speak English with all of them, including the parents, because the parents, like most people in Argentina, learn English in school, and at this point, their English is better than my Spanish. They occupy a place in life that I certainly don't - even though our paths cross at Americanism, to be an Argentine on the track to go to school in the US, I think you have to be quite well off. Tamara's dad rents properties, and that seems to be his job, including the requisite maintenance, etc. Tamara tells me he deals with his money smartly, hence their comfort. Her mom was a dentist for a few years before the kids were born, but stopped she says, because she didn't have the patience, that special attitude to deal with people. It shows in the way she acts towards me - she seems somewhat cold, but Tamara says her attitude of late is simply related to some concerns about Tamara. By the way, the family is Jewish, with the last name Taub. Tamara's greatgrandparents, like mine, migrated from Europe: Russia, Poland, etc.
All I've done so far is go to UniCenter, one of the biggest malls in Latin America, which is actually only a 15 minute drive away from us. It was dizzying, full of stores of all kinds, and people of all beauties. It's without a doubt one of the most upscale shopping centers as well. Part of our reason to go there was for me to get a sense of the coats out there, so that when I go downtown, to areas such as Once, where you can find cheaper coats (everyone in Brazil spoke wonders of the cheapness of coats in Argentina), I know what I like. I took a small look in a store, but the immensity of the mall really frazzled me. Tamara and I sat and shared a portion of fries and free seltzer water. (4,90 pesos, or about $1.60, a good deal cheaper than in Brazil even).
Coming from the airport last night, I really felt like I was in the US - the street didnt have potholes like it would in Brazil, the signs were crisp and clear, and there were all sorts of advanced-looking buildings on the way. Most residences I've seen so far, though, are still behind gates, though not walls like they are in Brazil, so the city's a bit prettier - i.e. you get to see the houses, even if through gates. I did notice myself marvelling at any house I'd pass without a visible gate.
tomorrow I'm planning to do the tourist rounds downtown - today I basically slept all afternoon, and took advantage of Tamara's mom's breakfast, lunch, and dinner (cereal and stale roll pieces; fried steak - a la milanesa or schnitzel, we might call it - with some egg and a salad; soup of corn, rice, and some kind of green leafy vegetable) with crackers and dulce de leche in between. I also was watching some music videos, getting a sense of Argentine music I might like to download.
I'm probably going to fly to Tucumán Tuesday and return Friday (to fly back to Belo Horizonte on Friday), as 4 girls I studied with at UFMG are from Tucumán and will be there. It doesn't seem like I'll really get to know Buenos Aires incredibly well being here at Tamara's, since she's not really a super social person, and won't be going out so much. She has however agreed to go out with me sometime - I'll see what I feel like doing. I'd probably have more fun if I stayed in a hostel, but I'm kinda sick of hostels, after staying in them in Salvador and Morro de Sao Paulo.
All I've done so far is go to UniCenter, one of the biggest malls in Latin America, which is actually only a 15 minute drive away from us. It was dizzying, full of stores of all kinds, and people of all beauties. It's without a doubt one of the most upscale shopping centers as well. Part of our reason to go there was for me to get a sense of the coats out there, so that when I go downtown, to areas such as Once, where you can find cheaper coats (everyone in Brazil spoke wonders of the cheapness of coats in Argentina), I know what I like. I took a small look in a store, but the immensity of the mall really frazzled me. Tamara and I sat and shared a portion of fries and free seltzer water. (4,90 pesos, or about $1.60, a good deal cheaper than in Brazil even).
Coming from the airport last night, I really felt like I was in the US - the street didnt have potholes like it would in Brazil, the signs were crisp and clear, and there were all sorts of advanced-looking buildings on the way. Most residences I've seen so far, though, are still behind gates, though not walls like they are in Brazil, so the city's a bit prettier - i.e. you get to see the houses, even if through gates. I did notice myself marvelling at any house I'd pass without a visible gate.
tomorrow I'm planning to do the tourist rounds downtown - today I basically slept all afternoon, and took advantage of Tamara's mom's breakfast, lunch, and dinner (cereal and stale roll pieces; fried steak - a la milanesa or schnitzel, we might call it - with some egg and a salad; soup of corn, rice, and some kind of green leafy vegetable) with crackers and dulce de leche in between. I also was watching some music videos, getting a sense of Argentine music I might like to download.
I'm probably going to fly to Tucumán Tuesday and return Friday (to fly back to Belo Horizonte on Friday), as 4 girls I studied with at UFMG are from Tucumán and will be there. It doesn't seem like I'll really get to know Buenos Aires incredibly well being here at Tamara's, since she's not really a super social person, and won't be going out so much. She has however agreed to go out with me sometime - I'll see what I feel like doing. I'd probably have more fun if I stayed in a hostel, but I'm kinda sick of hostels, after staying in them in Salvador and Morro de Sao Paulo.
20 July 2007
More fotos (click to see them full size)
At the party I had on July 7th in my house, for exchange student friends and Brazilian friends -->
At the cafeteria (bandejão) at UFMG -->
Visiting the area around a social project where Talles (leftmost in the cafeteria pic) works; probably the most I've been in a favela-type setting.
Dressed up as an indian for a costume party -->
A photo exhibit in my school at UFMG-->
Waiting for the internal bus with Flora, Valentina and Laura, returning from capoeira, to go to class -->
Andrea, Silvio, and Claudia watching Raquel prepare for her contortionism show at Confessionário -->
The staff of UFMG has been on strike for months, so libraries have been closed, and there are postings like these illustrating how their salaries haven't risen in years -->
The Brazilian equivalent of a dollar store
At a festa junina (like a country fair) with Silvio, Jimmy, and a friend of theirs -->
At the parade in São Paulo19 July 2007
Ready to go home?
The Festival MIX Brasil in the Palácio das Artes. I got a poster for it! -->
I finished school on Friday, July 7th, so since then, I've been going out with friends, especially Katrina and others who make up the group of Americans taking the intensive Portuguese program at UFMG - some of them will stay to study for the semester, others, like Katrina, simply return next Monday. There was a Sexual Diversity film festival (MIX Brasil) at the Palácio das Artes, and I saw about 4 feature films and 4 sets of short movies, all for free. Since my last posting in late April, I've gone to Florianópolis and São Paulo in early May. I thought I'd be spending 6 days in Florianópolis, but I met an American girl in the hostel there who was studying in São Paulo, and she implied I'd be able to stay at her house were I to come there. That impelled me to visit, as I also have a good friend, Arian, there, who I hadn't seen in 4 years - I met him when he was finishing up high school in the US and then moved back to Brazil in 2003. I changed my flight back to Belo Horizonte, and spent 3 days in São Paulo. I loved it. It really was what I was needing, after 2.5 months here in Belo Horizonte, what many people call the roça, or countryside, I needed some citylife. My last night in São Paulo, there was a Virada Cultural, a day of programming from 6pm to 6pm, going all night; I went to the museum of the Portuguese Language, saw some musical performances, a mural making, and got my groove on. Like in most cities, we ended the night at a McDonalds.
At the gay parade in São Paulo: "Kiss our friend" and "Kiss me, only women" are the signs held up. -->
Then I spent the next month here in Belo Horizonte, working away at school - writing my first big paper towards the end of May, which was due in like April. We had another short vacation, Corpus Christi, around June 7th, so I went to São Paulo for the Gay parade, and it was splendid. I mean, lots of gay guys + lots of Brazilians = lots of Brazilian gay guys - what could be any better. Interestingly enough, the day before the parade I saw a rally against the Israeli occupation, in the same place (Avenida Paulista), and there was a Palestinian woman dancing, and a play to sort of reenact the formation of Israeli, and the occupation. I got a sticker from there, so I'm happy. I went to a club the night before the parade, Danger, and met a guy with whom I made out extensively; we exchanged numbers and emails, and he didn't respond to any of my calls the next day to hang out, as I'd be going out the next night. However, about a week ago, he finally said hi on MSN, saying he was without Internet access for a while. He's from Florianópolis, so it's not really worth pursuing anyway, only a 22 hour bus ride away!
My American friend Mindy, with whom I made palha italiana, a chocolate cookie type thing, which ended up being mean to me since it got really hard and so to take pieces of it, I had to use a knife. Since I'm a dumbass, I was cutting, cutting, and drove the knife into my hand. For the last week, I haven't really been able to move my left ring finger independently of the others. --->
I'd say the biggest development has been that I've been dating a couple, starting in late May. One of them had seen me on the internal bus at UFMG, and then later on Orkut in a gay community there. When we started talking on MSN, he said that what caught his attention was that I was awkward (atrapilhado), lacking the swagger of the Brazilian, and, in sum, that I was different. He and his boyfriend have had a relationship for 2 years, being open in a way, to them hooking up with other guys. So the 2nd time I met him, we hooked up in the bathrooms at the university. Afterwards, he had told his boyfriend about me, and I started talking with him. Slowly we developed a discourse on polyamory and developing a relationship of 3 ways, being more than simply a menage. They affirmed that they'd been looking for something new in their relationship, and here I was! To date, we've collectively hooked up (sex) only twice, and hung out maybe 10 times. This weekend, we're going to Ouro Preto for the weekend, staying in the house of a cousin of a friend of theirs. Recently, though, my temper flared with one of them, and it really surprised him. He later said that I'd have the remainder of my time here to reconquistar him, redoing in 2 weeks what I'd done in 2 months. On one hand, I try to defend myself, explain that my temper flares from time to time. (All that simply happened was that I was talking about our trip together, and he didn't understand. When he didn't understand, I got a little irate. He then put his hand on me and asked me not to get mad. It was precisely at that moment that I got mad, pulling his hand off of me, and then making a kicking motion with my knee at the level of his stomach. I didn't hurt him or anything. But, my attitude was certainly a flared one, one that shattered the image he may of had of me being sweet and docile.) On the other hand, I have a total of 10 days left around Belo Horizonte, as I'm travelling for 2.5 weeks starting next week -- therefore, I feel it's not really worth overthinking too much. That's been my attitude while I've been going out with them; it's better to keep things light so I don't get in over my head and then go nuts when I leave.
Claudia, my Argentinean friend, getting ready at the dorms as we go to Confessionário, a gay club (2 of the 3 times I've gone, I ended up taking a guy home) -->
In general, Brazilian gay guys are pretty flaky. And it's still even hard to develop something with the two of them. Of course, the fact that they have been together for 2 years significantly changes the dynamic. They're both quite busy boys, working and going to school, so the schedules don't always sync up for us to always hang out, and during the last month of school, I was pretty busy too, so even the hour-long dinners I had done at times with one of them proved difficult to arrange.
Whatever. I'm mostly looking forward to being back in the US with a new head, as my friend Lucas says. I want to be back with people I know, and people i don't know, and treat them better, be more outgoing, warm - I don't know - simply apply the lessons I've learned on interpersonal relationships. I'm also looking forward to my upcoming travels, and the inevitable hookups that should result should I go into bars or really just about anywhere.
My travels are going to happen after the gay parade here in Belo Horizonte, which I've been looking forward to for months. I'm going to Salvador, Bahia, in the NE of the Brazil next Tuesday, and I stay til the following Tuesday. I have a friend, Roberta, who I met in the hostel in Rio, who is now working in a hostel in Morro de São Paulo, and I plan to either stay with a friend of hers for a few days, or stay in her hostel at a discount she'll give me.
Then the following Tuesday, 31/7, I fly to Buenos Aires, where I'll be until Thursday, 9/8. I have two friends there, and another who will pass through from 2-4/8. Also, a bunch of exchange students are from Tucumán, in the north of Argentina - only 18 hours by bus away from BA! - and I'd like to go there for a couple days.
Andrea in the stripes, Argentinean, at an exhibit of her and others' artwork at the UFMG Cultural Center -->
I deliberately scheduled my return to BH for a Thursday, so that that weekend I can have fun with my friends and the next semester of exchange students. Friday and Monday, also, there will probably be capoeira training, and I'd like to go to it, like I did last night for the first time in 2 weeks. (I'm not sure if I'll continue capoeira when I get back in the US, it's been sort of a pastime, and not something that I really fell in love with.)
Then I finally leave the roça on Wednesday, August 15th. I want to go to dinner in Philly on Friday, August 17th, and then see Elayne, my foster mom, in the hosptial after she enters for surgery on the 20th to remove a growth in her spine which is making her left hand weak. I do hope she doesn't become a something-plegic. :( Then I start training for my 3rd year of helping out with NYU's Welcome Weeks (freshmen orientation) on Wednesday the 22nd.
I.e., I feel like it's already September, as I already have every morsel of the rest of my summer planned out.
You're probably wondering (as I am myself) what I've gotten out of my time here. The principal lesson would be that people are really the same all over the world, the same desires, hopes, failings, vices. Of course, people do have their differences. In Brazil, I would agree that the people have more fun, and are more friendly towards other people. Here, if you're eating something, and don't offer it to someone around you, it's seen as a lack of education, so everyone always offers what they're eating or drinking to others ("aceita?") - I'll definitely try to do more of that in the states, though I'm sure it'll freak some people out. People touch each other more, and I don't mean just like in the private parts, I mean when I'm talking with someone, they put their hand on my shoulder. I do that, but usually only with like boyfriends, not with just anyone. I'm starting to loosen up though. In general, people seem to be more flaky. I think when cell phone service is absurdly expensive, it comes from that. People just don't put as much emphasis on, well, any sort of time-related committment, which is somewhat admirable. However, people throughout Brazil see the inhabitant of São Paulo as overworking and hurried, the same vision Americans have of New Yorkers. I think most differences in the US and Brazil can be linked to a rural-urban distinction. It's just interesting that here in Belo Horizonte, it's a big city, but with quite a rural sensibility. I often think BH has a lot in common with Philadelphia.
I'll try to update more throughout my upcoming trips to Salvador and Buenos Aires.
Beijos!
27 April 2007
and thus I am adapted
** there are lots of pix below, sorry though for the screwed-up order of them - blame Blogger **
Yeah, I disappeared...e daí? (so what?) I've been busy abrasileirando-me. It's been an interesting month. I went to Rio with the exchange students in the beginning of April, and I'll be going to Florianópolis, a city in the south, where there are 2 students at NYU (Laura and Jimmy) studying at the Federal University there. Unfortunately, Laura was going to be able to put me up, but there's some drama with the building's landlady, so I currently have no where to stay - I'm possibly thinking in cancelling and going to a city in the interior of Minas where I have a friend, but I should take advantage of the fact that I already bought the ticket, and that I miss travelling alone. As you can imagine, traveling with 12 other students and staying in a hostel in Rio can be a bit difficult at times.
The first night, I went to a soccer game at the Maracanã stadium. I never saw people set off fireworks in a stadium, but aside from that, it didn't seem too unexpected or crazy. It might have felt that way since I was among a group of foreigners, and we were surrounded with people from this one company named something like "Don't be a gringo!" Still, in front and behind me were some actual real live Brasilians (no shit!) and hearing the kids launch all kinds of curses at the field was kinda funny. Sure, our kids do it too, but hearing kids curse curses that you learned as a sort of essentialization of the banalities of Portuguese is different. Vai tomar no cú! was a standard (take it in the ass!) - when I got back to the hostel, Roberta, the girl who was working there, and who now has transferred to work at a hostel in Bahia, told me someone told her they heard a kid say Vai tomar no cú até sair feijão! - Take it in the ass until beans come out! I use that with some of my friends now. Quaint, huh?
We went on the trolley that goes through Santa Tereza, a neighborhood full of beautiful houses, and also makes certain routes that provide wonderful views of the valley. That felt typcially Brazilian - it was completely full when we went there, and so maybe 3 of us (not me for long, since I'm kinda of a wussy), were hanging on the outside, along with 30 other people, aside from the 40 or 50 people seated within the trolley. Certain stretches of the ride had no railings or anything on the bridge/overpass - it definitely makes the Brazilians more agile. I also remember seeing here in Belo Horizonte, a kid hop on the backend of the bus I was on, and put his arm in the door to hold on, while staying on the outside, and he rode for about 10 blocks, sneaking inside when the bus would stop so the change-man (who looks back to make sure everyone's gotten off and then tells the driver to close the doors) wouldn't see him. I couldn't stop smiling when I saw that, but noone else seemed especially amused nor pissed. The Brazilian, I'm told, is accustomed to being passive, and that's why even amidst such grave social disparities and governmental corruption, popular mobiliziation is minimal. Brazilians have been told that they shouldn't complain, and that Brazil is tranquil, with samba, and beautiful women, and beautiful beaches, so just chill - ever since the colonial period - this is what a friend in History tells me. I'll return to protest later.
We went to Copacabana beach that first day, and I surely proceeded to burn myself, as I put on SPF 15 only, and then laid about 2 hours on both sides - thankfully mostly on my stomach, so my back is what got roasted. Walking around shirtless in the hostel for the next few days was a trip, as everyone felt my pain on seeing me, especially the other whities from say, Australia, the US, the UK. I got some blisters on my shoulder, and Lucas, my friend I made from Araxá, in the interior of Minas, who was staying at the hostel, went with me to buy a cream to help them heal. By the end of our stay there (about 5 days), they had almost all healed.
I walked around the Lapa neighborhood alot, and on Saturday, it was just with Claudia, my friend from Argentina, who last week was among the group of people with whom I went to a gay club here in BH. Lapa is full of 1800's buildings, and quite beautiful. Claudia and I found a spectacular street fair full of antiques and retro things. One man passing by a stand was a casting agent, and gave me his card, thinking I'd be a good actor, so if I ever find myself in Rio again, and with the intention to get into acting, I have who to call. I think he gave a card to Claudia too.
Of course, we saw the Cristo Redentor (Christ Redeemer) on Corcovado Hill - see the correlating pictures..
One day we were all together, we went to a pizzaria, and summarily got sickened by the tomato-sauce-less pizza. Apparently, the base of pizzas here is just cheese, not sauce and cheese as we Americans, and also my Italiana friends, are used to. Benoit, from France, is a bit lactose-intolerant, so he asked for a certain pizza (chicken and mushroom, I think), and told the waiter he can't eat cheese. Benoit asked, can you make it without cheese? / No, that's how the pizzas are made, but sure, you can take it off with your hand, it's not that much. Bullshit - it must have been a half inch thick of cheese on the entire pizza. So Benoit complained, and the manager agreed to make a special serving of pizza without cheese for him, which was very nice, and Benoit liked his special pizza. As he was still hungry, he went to the nearby McDonalds, where we had all considered going if we hadn't been able to find another restaurant. I ended up wanting to try an apple pie, so I did - it was probably R$2.25, about $1, for aone pie (for Brazilians, it's quite expensive, whereas for us Americans, it's the cheapest of the dreck). It tasted just about the same, and a few days ago, when I mentioned my having bought an apple pie, the person I was talking to recoiled, considering it kinda slimy. But I liked it. :)
Near that McDonalds (yes we're still in Rio), I bought a Charlie Chaplin-type straw hat, from an Uruguayan artisan, for R$10. After that, we went to the Museu da República, where a large part of the exhibits are devoted to former president Getúlio Vargas, who was almost a cult figure in the 40s and 50s. He committed suicide, and the gun he used, the shirt he was wearing, and even the bullet that found itself in his body, are on display. The building itself was formerly the Presidential Residence, until Rio ceased to be the capital in 1960 (giving way to Brasília), so the room he slept in is there too. IT was a bit eerie. My camera was dying, so I only managed to take one picture of the shirt and gun.
Orlando and Alan, who I had befriended here in UFMG, as they were working for Itaú, a credit card company, selling student cards, visited me in the hostel - they had wanted to travel, so they decided to come to Rio and stay in the exact same hostel where I was staying (with my help telling them where it was, and that iwas cheap of course - this wasn't exactly a surprise. Nevertheless, it was quite refreshing to wake up Friday morning and see them in the living room of the hostel. Story behind them: a few weeks earlier, I was in UFMG, and with Leandro, a friend of a friend- this was the first night I'd met him. The boys stopped him in the Letras cantina, and I was sticking around cuz I had nothing better to do, and I wanted to continue to be around cute boys. Alan, Leandro, and myself went outside, continuing the conversation. Alan said that if Leandro filled out a form (they have a certain quota of forms to get filled, even if someone doesn't want a card), he could kiss their friend, Wiverson, who was sitting at the table. Leandro, who was becoming late for some dance class I think, eventually ceded way once Alan invited Wiverson outside. The two of them went up a staircase to a nook outside the building, and invited me, so I figured I'd go along. At that moment, Orlando, who had also been sitting at the table, and also works for Itaú, appeared - until that point, I hadn't really seen him or thought of him much. Leandro and Wiverson started making out, and so did myself and Orlando. Brazil is fun.
Orlando, Alan, and myself, realized that in the hostel, there were some other gay guys, so we created our own little gang of homos. Jack (Jacolino), Luiz, and Lucas were the others. Later that night, we went to Le Boy, apparently the most well-known gay bar in all of Rio, and for good reason. It's just like the club in Queer as Folk, huge, and pulsating to the beat of silly gay electronica and Madonna, etc. (or bate-cabelo as they call it, hairbanger, technically). I met another guy there, Carlos, who lives in Juiz de Fora, a town in Minas about 3 hours from BH, in the direction of Rio. He hasn't returned my messages though. Go figure.
So that's Rio. The bus ride was 7 hours. For Florianópolis, there's a trip from UFMG that's going, for some library sciences conference, but they're going by bus, and I don't think I can handle 20+ hours each way, though I'm sure it'd be an adventure. I'm taking an airplane, with a total flight time of about 2.5 hours, and a cost of R$550 roundtrip ($275), whih I hear is typical. There was an offer going around of GOL giving yo ua flight to Floripa for $50 each way, but it's nowhere to be found on the website. I was going to be accompanied by Mindy, from Wisconsin, but she had trouble buying the ticket with her credit card (as did I, but thankfully, I have an American Express, just about the only card the website accepts that's foreign).
I went out with Orlando about 2 weeks ago, and he was supposed to call me to invite me to a handball game he was playing at, but he never did, and I asked Alan about it, who told me the game wasn't gonna happen. I've called Alan (Orlando's phone is on the fritz), emailed and left Orkut messages for Orlando, but to no avail. Pooey. Also, about a month ago, I went to COnfessionário, a club here in BH, for the birthday of André, one of the guys I met the first time I went out at night in February. There, I met Oziel, who André referred to as, oh, you're taking advantage of the sabor da terra, huh? (Flavor of the earth), just cuz he's quite dark. I thought Oziel was maybe 21, 23, 25 - turns out he's 33. Brazilians conserve themselves well here - I joked with Oziel that it mut rain formaldehyde here. I've been seeing him every once in a while. Still, I'd prefer Orlando get back in touch with me. It helps that he's 19, more my age range, and more my life stage.
Everyone says I speak Portuguese so well, and when they ask how long I've been here - 2 months, I tell them - they are amazed -- and you can speak Portuguese so well? Well, I tell them, I took classes in the US. They have Portuguese classes in the US? Noone thinks that anyone learns Portuguese outside of Brazil, which isnt a totally invalid assumption. I think I'm almost fluent - I often find myself talking faster than I'm thinking, not really realizing that i t happens to be Portuguese the language I'm speaking. Last night, Natália, a friend who studies English at UFMG, invited me to an English phonology class, sayig the the teacher says wrong things sometimes. (She has the right to comment as she went to an English international high school in Saudi Arabia for 4 years.) Heert for heart, cayterpillar for caterpillar, but it wasnt like that. I wasn't able to mess with her like some friends said I might be able to, especially if the teacher were Thaïs, an especially disliked teacher for being so pompous about her English prowess. Still, it was interesting,and at times a bit over my head since they use the International Phonetic Alphabet, which I learned a bit in my one linguistics class at NYU, but still it's all IPA to me. Most of the pronunciation was correct, or at least as correct as Brazilians can speak it with their accent, which I must say, is a cute accent. :)
So that's my life here. I'm putting off writing some papers that I need to do - one for my Criminality class, about the Subculture theory of why crime happens - one for my Political Resistance class on how uprisings in the UK in the 1700s over the price of grain relates to the economic situation - and another on some articles for my Sociology of Education class.
Speaking of Political Resistance, there's a movement at UFMG to try to lower the price of entry into the cafeteria. For me entry is R$2.50, as it is anyone who doesnt have the economically disadvantaged student card (or the poorcard as my friend Vinícius calls it), while for the lowest level it's only $0.75. The movement wants the price for everyone to be $0.75, since eating lunch and dinner at the cafeteria (bandejão) can become expensive once done everyday, and may mean that some have to go hungry, or spend less on other things (like the damn expensive copies that you have to get constantly here). So a group of students decided to jump the turnstiles at the cafeteria, as their pleas for the administration to bargain with them were ignored. Of course, the univ says they offered to bargain, but the students continued being intrasigent (the word used here, which even in english i dont entirely understand). Last Friday, they closed the cafeteria. The posters affixed by the movement say that the univ refused to bargain. Each side says shit about the other side, as usual. The cafeteria was reopened on Tuesday, but the movement is still continuing, trying to get the administration to talk with them about lowering the entrance fee. Wednesday during my afternoon class, there was a truck going around with a loudspeaker, making announcements to rally up students. There have been protests, but they keep happening when I have capoeira at noon. Oh yeah, speaking of which, I went to a berimbau workshop on Sunday - that's the instrument used in capoeira - it looks like an archery bow with a gourd towards the bottom, and you hit it with a stick, while holding a little rock to and away from the wire. So I made one, though with a lot of help from Meque, my teacher, since the workshop actually started Saturday, but I didn't get there since Friday night, I went to Confessionário with all of my gay friends and faghags (including Claudia, as previously mentioned), and we didn't get back to the dorms until 6am. And, no, I didn't pick up any guys. :-P
The berimbau will be an interesting thing to bring back to the States. Probably customs'll think it's a weapon, but other people say that they must be accustomed to tourists coming back from Brazil with strange things. I probably can't bring back a cute boy though.
So I really like this atmosphere of protest at UFMG, though a lot of people are fed up with the political drama nature of it. I'm fed up with the fact that there are so many other things that students could be caring about in society, but neveryheless, the limited timespan of university studies (all over the world) makes students think, oh, I don't have to complain or protest, since I'll be out of here soon, so I'll just accomodate myself to it. Meh. Nevertheless, it's certainly fascinating.
OK it's 3am and my papers are due, like, last week, so I should get to work.
Raquel, during her contortionism show at Confessionário
Getúlio Vargas' shirt, gun, and bullet of his suicide
On Ipanema Beach during our last night there - we would end up spelling Ipanema with our bodies - Andreas (Greek) has a picture - after having realized that there's no samba in Ipanema, no matter what someone was told
On Ipanema Beach during our last day there
Sambaing with Carla and others at a party at UFMG
Jimmy and Silvio in the dorms before we went to Confessionário
Back: John (from São Paulo), Claudia (Argentinean) , Alan, me, Orlando
Front: Andrea (Argentinean), Luiz, Jack, some Chilean guy
Claudia, me, Florent, Fabien, Benoit (all French), Laura (Italian), Nico (Fr.), Valeria (Uruguayan) at Corcovado
Claudia taking pix at the Cristo
Hmm, take a guess
McDonalds in Lapa
El Misti Hostel - note they do favela tours - how disgusting...
At a jogo in the Maraca stadium
Walking in downtown Rio
Walking in Lapa
The Santa Tereza bonde (trolley)
Below: Getting to Rio, seeing a woman wearing fio dental (buttfloss), and the subway in Rio
Yeah, I disappeared...e daí? (so what?) I've been busy abrasileirando-me. It's been an interesting month. I went to Rio with the exchange students in the beginning of April, and I'll be going to Florianópolis, a city in the south, where there are 2 students at NYU (Laura and Jimmy) studying at the Federal University there. Unfortunately, Laura was going to be able to put me up, but there's some drama with the building's landlady, so I currently have no where to stay - I'm possibly thinking in cancelling and going to a city in the interior of Minas where I have a friend, but I should take advantage of the fact that I already bought the ticket, and that I miss travelling alone. As you can imagine, traveling with 12 other students and staying in a hostel in Rio can be a bit difficult at times.
The first night, I went to a soccer game at the Maracanã stadium. I never saw people set off fireworks in a stadium, but aside from that, it didn't seem too unexpected or crazy. It might have felt that way since I was among a group of foreigners, and we were surrounded with people from this one company named something like "Don't be a gringo!" Still, in front and behind me were some actual real live Brasilians (no shit!) and hearing the kids launch all kinds of curses at the field was kinda funny. Sure, our kids do it too, but hearing kids curse curses that you learned as a sort of essentialization of the banalities of Portuguese is different. Vai tomar no cú! was a standard (take it in the ass!) - when I got back to the hostel, Roberta, the girl who was working there, and who now has transferred to work at a hostel in Bahia, told me someone told her they heard a kid say Vai tomar no cú até sair feijão! - Take it in the ass until beans come out! I use that with some of my friends now. Quaint, huh?
We went on the trolley that goes through Santa Tereza, a neighborhood full of beautiful houses, and also makes certain routes that provide wonderful views of the valley. That felt typcially Brazilian - it was completely full when we went there, and so maybe 3 of us (not me for long, since I'm kinda of a wussy), were hanging on the outside, along with 30 other people, aside from the 40 or 50 people seated within the trolley. Certain stretches of the ride had no railings or anything on the bridge/overpass - it definitely makes the Brazilians more agile. I also remember seeing here in Belo Horizonte, a kid hop on the backend of the bus I was on, and put his arm in the door to hold on, while staying on the outside, and he rode for about 10 blocks, sneaking inside when the bus would stop so the change-man (who looks back to make sure everyone's gotten off and then tells the driver to close the doors) wouldn't see him. I couldn't stop smiling when I saw that, but noone else seemed especially amused nor pissed. The Brazilian, I'm told, is accustomed to being passive, and that's why even amidst such grave social disparities and governmental corruption, popular mobiliziation is minimal. Brazilians have been told that they shouldn't complain, and that Brazil is tranquil, with samba, and beautiful women, and beautiful beaches, so just chill - ever since the colonial period - this is what a friend in History tells me. I'll return to protest later.
We went to Copacabana beach that first day, and I surely proceeded to burn myself, as I put on SPF 15 only, and then laid about 2 hours on both sides - thankfully mostly on my stomach, so my back is what got roasted. Walking around shirtless in the hostel for the next few days was a trip, as everyone felt my pain on seeing me, especially the other whities from say, Australia, the US, the UK. I got some blisters on my shoulder, and Lucas, my friend I made from Araxá, in the interior of Minas, who was staying at the hostel, went with me to buy a cream to help them heal. By the end of our stay there (about 5 days), they had almost all healed.
I walked around the Lapa neighborhood alot, and on Saturday, it was just with Claudia, my friend from Argentina, who last week was among the group of people with whom I went to a gay club here in BH. Lapa is full of 1800's buildings, and quite beautiful. Claudia and I found a spectacular street fair full of antiques and retro things. One man passing by a stand was a casting agent, and gave me his card, thinking I'd be a good actor, so if I ever find myself in Rio again, and with the intention to get into acting, I have who to call. I think he gave a card to Claudia too.
Of course, we saw the Cristo Redentor (Christ Redeemer) on Corcovado Hill - see the correlating pictures..
One day we were all together, we went to a pizzaria, and summarily got sickened by the tomato-sauce-less pizza. Apparently, the base of pizzas here is just cheese, not sauce and cheese as we Americans, and also my Italiana friends, are used to. Benoit, from France, is a bit lactose-intolerant, so he asked for a certain pizza (chicken and mushroom, I think), and told the waiter he can't eat cheese. Benoit asked, can you make it without cheese? / No, that's how the pizzas are made, but sure, you can take it off with your hand, it's not that much. Bullshit - it must have been a half inch thick of cheese on the entire pizza. So Benoit complained, and the manager agreed to make a special serving of pizza without cheese for him, which was very nice, and Benoit liked his special pizza. As he was still hungry, he went to the nearby McDonalds, where we had all considered going if we hadn't been able to find another restaurant. I ended up wanting to try an apple pie, so I did - it was probably R$2.25, about $1, for aone pie (for Brazilians, it's quite expensive, whereas for us Americans, it's the cheapest of the dreck). It tasted just about the same, and a few days ago, when I mentioned my having bought an apple pie, the person I was talking to recoiled, considering it kinda slimy. But I liked it. :)
Near that McDonalds (yes we're still in Rio), I bought a Charlie Chaplin-type straw hat, from an Uruguayan artisan, for R$10. After that, we went to the Museu da República, where a large part of the exhibits are devoted to former president Getúlio Vargas, who was almost a cult figure in the 40s and 50s. He committed suicide, and the gun he used, the shirt he was wearing, and even the bullet that found itself in his body, are on display. The building itself was formerly the Presidential Residence, until Rio ceased to be the capital in 1960 (giving way to Brasília), so the room he slept in is there too. IT was a bit eerie. My camera was dying, so I only managed to take one picture of the shirt and gun.
Orlando and Alan, who I had befriended here in UFMG, as they were working for Itaú, a credit card company, selling student cards, visited me in the hostel - they had wanted to travel, so they decided to come to Rio and stay in the exact same hostel where I was staying (with my help telling them where it was, and that iwas cheap of course - this wasn't exactly a surprise. Nevertheless, it was quite refreshing to wake up Friday morning and see them in the living room of the hostel. Story behind them: a few weeks earlier, I was in UFMG, and with Leandro, a friend of a friend- this was the first night I'd met him. The boys stopped him in the Letras cantina, and I was sticking around cuz I had nothing better to do, and I wanted to continue to be around cute boys. Alan, Leandro, and myself went outside, continuing the conversation. Alan said that if Leandro filled out a form (they have a certain quota of forms to get filled, even if someone doesn't want a card), he could kiss their friend, Wiverson, who was sitting at the table. Leandro, who was becoming late for some dance class I think, eventually ceded way once Alan invited Wiverson outside. The two of them went up a staircase to a nook outside the building, and invited me, so I figured I'd go along. At that moment, Orlando, who had also been sitting at the table, and also works for Itaú, appeared - until that point, I hadn't really seen him or thought of him much. Leandro and Wiverson started making out, and so did myself and Orlando. Brazil is fun.
Orlando, Alan, and myself, realized that in the hostel, there were some other gay guys, so we created our own little gang of homos. Jack (Jacolino), Luiz, and Lucas were the others. Later that night, we went to Le Boy, apparently the most well-known gay bar in all of Rio, and for good reason. It's just like the club in Queer as Folk, huge, and pulsating to the beat of silly gay electronica and Madonna, etc. (or bate-cabelo as they call it, hairbanger, technically). I met another guy there, Carlos, who lives in Juiz de Fora, a town in Minas about 3 hours from BH, in the direction of Rio. He hasn't returned my messages though. Go figure.
So that's Rio. The bus ride was 7 hours. For Florianópolis, there's a trip from UFMG that's going, for some library sciences conference, but they're going by bus, and I don't think I can handle 20+ hours each way, though I'm sure it'd be an adventure. I'm taking an airplane, with a total flight time of about 2.5 hours, and a cost of R$550 roundtrip ($275), whih I hear is typical. There was an offer going around of GOL giving yo ua flight to Floripa for $50 each way, but it's nowhere to be found on the website. I was going to be accompanied by Mindy, from Wisconsin, but she had trouble buying the ticket with her credit card (as did I, but thankfully, I have an American Express, just about the only card the website accepts that's foreign).
I went out with Orlando about 2 weeks ago, and he was supposed to call me to invite me to a handball game he was playing at, but he never did, and I asked Alan about it, who told me the game wasn't gonna happen. I've called Alan (Orlando's phone is on the fritz), emailed and left Orkut messages for Orlando, but to no avail. Pooey. Also, about a month ago, I went to COnfessionário, a club here in BH, for the birthday of André, one of the guys I met the first time I went out at night in February. There, I met Oziel, who André referred to as, oh, you're taking advantage of the sabor da terra, huh? (Flavor of the earth), just cuz he's quite dark. I thought Oziel was maybe 21, 23, 25 - turns out he's 33. Brazilians conserve themselves well here - I joked with Oziel that it mut rain formaldehyde here. I've been seeing him every once in a while. Still, I'd prefer Orlando get back in touch with me. It helps that he's 19, more my age range, and more my life stage.
Everyone says I speak Portuguese so well, and when they ask how long I've been here - 2 months, I tell them - they are amazed -- and you can speak Portuguese so well? Well, I tell them, I took classes in the US. They have Portuguese classes in the US? Noone thinks that anyone learns Portuguese outside of Brazil, which isnt a totally invalid assumption. I think I'm almost fluent - I often find myself talking faster than I'm thinking, not really realizing that i t happens to be Portuguese the language I'm speaking. Last night, Natália, a friend who studies English at UFMG, invited me to an English phonology class, sayig the the teacher says wrong things sometimes. (She has the right to comment as she went to an English international high school in Saudi Arabia for 4 years.) Heert for heart, cayterpillar for caterpillar, but it wasnt like that. I wasn't able to mess with her like some friends said I might be able to, especially if the teacher were Thaïs, an especially disliked teacher for being so pompous about her English prowess. Still, it was interesting,and at times a bit over my head since they use the International Phonetic Alphabet, which I learned a bit in my one linguistics class at NYU, but still it's all IPA to me. Most of the pronunciation was correct, or at least as correct as Brazilians can speak it with their accent, which I must say, is a cute accent. :)
So that's my life here. I'm putting off writing some papers that I need to do - one for my Criminality class, about the Subculture theory of why crime happens - one for my Political Resistance class on how uprisings in the UK in the 1700s over the price of grain relates to the economic situation - and another on some articles for my Sociology of Education class.
Speaking of Political Resistance, there's a movement at UFMG to try to lower the price of entry into the cafeteria. For me entry is R$2.50, as it is anyone who doesnt have the economically disadvantaged student card (or the poorcard as my friend Vinícius calls it), while for the lowest level it's only $0.75. The movement wants the price for everyone to be $0.75, since eating lunch and dinner at the cafeteria (bandejão) can become expensive once done everyday, and may mean that some have to go hungry, or spend less on other things (like the damn expensive copies that you have to get constantly here). So a group of students decided to jump the turnstiles at the cafeteria, as their pleas for the administration to bargain with them were ignored. Of course, the univ says they offered to bargain, but the students continued being intrasigent (the word used here, which even in english i dont entirely understand). Last Friday, they closed the cafeteria. The posters affixed by the movement say that the univ refused to bargain. Each side says shit about the other side, as usual. The cafeteria was reopened on Tuesday, but the movement is still continuing, trying to get the administration to talk with them about lowering the entrance fee. Wednesday during my afternoon class, there was a truck going around with a loudspeaker, making announcements to rally up students. There have been protests, but they keep happening when I have capoeira at noon. Oh yeah, speaking of which, I went to a berimbau workshop on Sunday - that's the instrument used in capoeira - it looks like an archery bow with a gourd towards the bottom, and you hit it with a stick, while holding a little rock to and away from the wire. So I made one, though with a lot of help from Meque, my teacher, since the workshop actually started Saturday, but I didn't get there since Friday night, I went to Confessionário with all of my gay friends and faghags (including Claudia, as previously mentioned), and we didn't get back to the dorms until 6am. And, no, I didn't pick up any guys. :-P
The berimbau will be an interesting thing to bring back to the States. Probably customs'll think it's a weapon, but other people say that they must be accustomed to tourists coming back from Brazil with strange things. I probably can't bring back a cute boy though.
So I really like this atmosphere of protest at UFMG, though a lot of people are fed up with the political drama nature of it. I'm fed up with the fact that there are so many other things that students could be caring about in society, but neveryheless, the limited timespan of university studies (all over the world) makes students think, oh, I don't have to complain or protest, since I'll be out of here soon, so I'll just accomodate myself to it. Meh. Nevertheless, it's certainly fascinating.
OK it's 3am and my papers are due, like, last week, so I should get to work.
Raquel, during her contortionism show at Confessionário
Thiago (Jimmy) and Raquel, in Pampulha, near the dorms, at a pet store
Chilling at the dorms
Me peeling the pole for my berimbau
Getúlio Vargas' shirt, gun, and bullet of his suicide
On Ipanema Beach during our last night there - we would end up spelling Ipanema with our bodies - Andreas (Greek) has a picture - after having realized that there's no samba in Ipanema, no matter what someone was told
On Ipanema Beach during our last day there
Sambaing with Carla and others at a party at UFMG
Jimmy and Silvio in the dorms before we went to Confessionário
Back: John (from São Paulo), Claudia (Argentinean) , Alan, me, OrlandoFront: Andrea (Argentinean), Luiz, Jack, some Chilean guy
Claudia, me, Florent, Fabien, Benoit (all French), Laura (Italian), Nico (Fr.), Valeria (Uruguayan) at Corcovado
Claudia taking pix at the Cristo
Hmm, take a guess
McDonalds in Lapa
El Misti Hostel - note they do favela tours - how disgusting...
At a jogo in the Maraca stadium
Walking in downtown Rio
Walking in Lapa
The Santa Tereza bonde (trolley)Below: Getting to Rio, seeing a woman wearing fio dental (buttfloss), and the subway in Rio
18 March 2007
Somos os Pet Shop Boys!
A while ago, Raquel, a woman introduced to me by Sandra, my liaison with the university, asked if I'd want to see the Pet Shop Boys here. I told her surely, and she ended up not being able to go, so she sold me her ticket (R$45, the price for students and youth - everyone else pays R$90). Unfortunately, I couldn't find anyone to go with; neither her friends, nor my new queer friends at school. André tried to get some more tickets from a friend of the producer, but to no avail. I offered to sell the ticket to him, since he's apparently passionate about them, much more than I am. He didn't want to go himself, and I almost wasn't going to go myself, but I did.
Going to a concert, in any country, by yourself, is an interesting experience. You get to freely wander through the crowd, and pay more attention to the ambience as well. I was surprised that the average age was about 35, and more than half the crowd was straight. My friends at school love them, and when
I learned about the Pet Shop Boys a year or two ago, I thought only gay people listened to them.
Not the Pet Shop Boys, but some other band, in the Arena at Chevrolet Hall -->
http://www.maristahall.com.br/novo/index.asp
(Chevrolet Hall official website)
I'm really quite a party pooper. While I gyrated the whole time, on my mind were some deep thoughts - what it must feel like to perform for a foreign audience. Aside from "Somos os Pet Shop Boys," they spoke in English, and occasionally, there'd be a pause after what they said while everyone processed the words and decided whether to clap, scream, or do nothing. Most people here in the higher echelons have some faculty of English, so there definitely wasn't total miscommunication. Speaking of said crowd, the vast majority of the crowd was very European-ish. Whiter people are richer here, so it makes sense, but the unconscious affinity with white faces (I can't help it) here made me tune in to the emotional vibes, and I became really aware of the fact that people all over the world are really all the same - with the same aspirations, needs, pleasures, etc. I also thought of the role of foreign investment here, as the name of the venue is Chevrolet Hall, and there was a car elevated next to the stage, and Chevrolet insignias scattered about with the slogan "Conte Comigo" (Count On Me).
Now, what I REALLY enjoyed this weekend (the show was nice, but really more of a sociological observation session for me, and occasional boy observation session too, of course), was going to a samba bar last night! Carla, with whom I have two classes, invited me, and she and her friends say I'm now converted to the religion. We went to Bar do Cartola, in memory of a famous male sambista of the same name, in Caiçara, a neighborhood to the NW of the city. It was absolutely fabulous, and any vision you have of Brazilians all sambando together, is totally true. While people don't samba in the streets and women don't walk around with hats of fruit, inside this newly-expanded bar, everyone was having a blast. Here, the men can actually dance, most of them, in contrast with American men who are quite reticent. For me, there was the constant underlying cruising eye, and guys I could have sworn were gay ended up making out with girls. The only thing that happened to me in that realm last night was a man in his 60s who was pretty damn drunk and was dancing near me when I was taking a rest in a chair. I could tell he was trying to meet eyes with me, so I just totally ignored him. I probably should have just not cared about him and danced whenever I wanted to (I forget if I was faking resting at any point), but older gay men still make me somewhat uncomfortable.
We left the bar around 4am, and Carla, her friend Gabriel, and myself went back to her apartment in the Centro. She said it was a pretty crappy apartment, but I felt right at home. With all the strange angles, plastic wire sheaths, washing machine in the kitchen, it felt just like my friend Julia's apartment in the Village. On the 16th floor, she has an incredible view of the Central Station, some plazas, the Santa Tereza Viaduct, and the mountains in the distance. She says the location is wonderful, nothing has ever happened to her in terms of crime, or anyone she knows in the area, but she just doesn't like the apartment itself. She'll be moving to Caiçara in July, to her brother-in-law's apartment, where the rent will already be paid for.
This morning, we went to the Hippie Fair (a craft fair that used to be entirely handmade things, but industrialized items, like Kipling bags, are slowly infiltrating it), passing through the Parque Municipal first. I didn't buy anything aside from some little things to nibble on. I felt, again, right at home; the park is like Belo Horizonte's Central Park, and the fair is very well-organized, and because it rained cats and dogs this morning, it wasn't too packed - I felt like I could have been in a fair in the U.S.
We're going to the Bar do Cartola again on Friday, and then one of the friends I met at that gay club I went to 2 weeks ago is having a birthday party on Saturday. I'm going to look into gay samba bars - I think samba is much more conducive to sensuality than wretched techno music - and I can't wait until I can unabashedly samba again. :)
Going to a concert, in any country, by yourself, is an interesting experience. You get to freely wander through the crowd, and pay more attention to the ambience as well. I was surprised that the average age was about 35, and more than half the crowd was straight. My friends at school love them, and when
I learned about the Pet Shop Boys a year or two ago, I thought only gay people listened to them.Not the Pet Shop Boys, but some other band, in the Arena at Chevrolet Hall -->
http://www.maristahall.com.br/novo/index.asp
(Chevrolet Hall official website)
I'm really quite a party pooper. While I gyrated the whole time, on my mind were some deep thoughts - what it must feel like to perform for a foreign audience. Aside from "Somos os Pet Shop Boys," they spoke in English, and occasionally, there'd be a pause after what they said while everyone processed the words and decided whether to clap, scream, or do nothing. Most people here in the higher echelons have some faculty of English, so there definitely wasn't total miscommunication. Speaking of said crowd, the vast majority of the crowd was very European-ish. Whiter people are richer here, so it makes sense, but the unconscious affinity with white faces (I can't help it) here made me tune in to the emotional vibes, and I became really aware of the fact that people all over the world are really all the same - with the same aspirations, needs, pleasures, etc. I also thought of the role of foreign investment here, as the name of the venue is Chevrolet Hall, and there was a car elevated next to the stage, and Chevrolet insignias scattered about with the slogan "Conte Comigo" (Count On Me).
Now, what I REALLY enjoyed this weekend (the show was nice, but really more of a sociological observation session for me, and occasional boy observation session too, of course), was going to a samba bar last night! Carla, with whom I have two classes, invited me, and she and her friends say I'm now converted to the religion. We went to Bar do Cartola, in memory of a famous male sambista of the same name, in Caiçara, a neighborhood to the NW of the city. It was absolutely fabulous, and any vision you have of Brazilians all sambando together, is totally true. While people don't samba in the streets and women don't walk around with hats of fruit, inside this newly-expanded bar, everyone was having a blast. Here, the men can actually dance, most of them, in contrast with American men who are quite reticent. For me, there was the constant underlying cruising eye, and guys I could have sworn were gay ended up making out with girls. The only thing that happened to me in that realm last night was a man in his 60s who was pretty damn drunk and was dancing near me when I was taking a rest in a chair. I could tell he was trying to meet eyes with me, so I just totally ignored him. I probably should have just not cared about him and danced whenever I wanted to (I forget if I was faking resting at any point), but older gay men still make me somewhat uncomfortable.
We left the bar around 4am, and Carla, her friend Gabriel, and myself went back to her apartment in the Centro. She said it was a pretty crappy apartment, but I felt right at home. With all the strange angles, plastic wire sheaths, washing machine in the kitchen, it felt just like my friend Julia's apartment in the Village. On the 16th floor, she has an incredible view of the Central Station, some plazas, the Santa Tereza Viaduct, and the mountains in the distance. She says the location is wonderful, nothing has ever happened to her in terms of crime, or anyone she knows in the area, but she just doesn't like the apartment itself. She'll be moving to Caiçara in July, to her brother-in-law's apartment, where the rent will already be paid for.
This morning, we went to the Hippie Fair (a craft fair that used to be entirely handmade things, but industrialized items, like Kipling bags, are slowly infiltrating it), passing through the Parque Municipal first. I didn't buy anything aside from some little things to nibble on. I felt, again, right at home; the park is like Belo Horizonte's Central Park, and the fair is very well-organized, and because it rained cats and dogs this morning, it wasn't too packed - I felt like I could have been in a fair in the U.S.
We're going to the Bar do Cartola again on Friday, and then one of the friends I met at that gay club I went to 2 weeks ago is having a birthday party on Saturday. I'm going to look into gay samba bars - I think samba is much more conducive to sensuality than wretched techno music - and I can't wait until I can unabashedly samba again. :)
15 March 2007
Oh, men
As can be expected, last week I had two men, and now I have none. I was supposed to meet Vinícius one day and he never showed up, so I thought he was no longer interested in me. Later that day, with friends of his, I met Bruno, and ended up staying at Bruno's that night. Turns out that Vini and Bruno are friends, so for a while, both wanted nothing to do with me, then Bruno did again, and now he doesn't. It's kind of confusing. Singleness can be freeing, but having someone to cuddle with is nice too.
The classes I'm in are the following:
FAFICH - Faculdade de Filosofia e Ciências Sociais (School of Philosophy and Social Sciences)Student Number: 2007550479
Departamento de História (History Department)
HIS031P - Tópicos em História Moderna: Formas de resistência política na Europa, Amêrica Espanhola e Amêrica Portuguesa (Topics in Modern History: Forms of Political Resistence in Europe, Spanish America, and Portuguese America)Friday, 2pm-5:40pm, FAFICH 3044, 4 credits
HIS032K - Transição democrática e Relações Civis-Miltares no Cone Sul (Democratic Transition and Civil-Military Relations in the Southern Cone [of South America])Wednesday, 2pm-5:40pm, FAFICH 3044, 4 credits
Departamento de Ciências Sociais (Social Sciences Department)
SOA071A - Tópicos em Sociologia: Sociologia da Educação (Topics in Sociology: The Sociology of Education)Monday and Wednesday, 9:30am-11:10am, FAFICH 3042, 4 credits
SOA071F - Tópicos em Sociologia: Sociologia da Criminalidade (Topics in Sociology: The Sociology of Criminality)Monday, 7pm-10:40pm, FAFICH 3040, 4 credits (most of the class is conducted on the Internet)
You probably think that it's difficult to comprehend a class entirely in Portuguese. It is. But I'm making my way through it. The teachers I understand, since they take the effort to usually enunciate a little better. When fellow students talk though, most of it usually goes over my head. In the case of the Transition class, for example, we've spent the last 2 weeks talking about sociological theory about the military. It's very abstract to me, and even if I understand all the words, it doesn't always coalesce to a coherent thought in my head; even if it were in English, wouldn't make any sense either. I hear that teachers are usually somewhat lenient with exchange students, and I think my language ability is someone better than most of the other exchange studets, so I'm not really worried.
By now, I've gotten quite comfortable with the university, and with the downtown here (where I shop, and transfer to my second bus to-and-from school). I still feel like everyone looks at me funny, cuz I'm just about the whitest person I ever see, aside from the exchange students who are French or American. I can pretty much get whatever I need done done, but I wouldn't call myself fluent, and certainly not comfortable in every situation. One challenge that makes itself apparent everywhere, is my lack of knowledge of the snacks here. They all look the same; fried balls or pockets, which on the outside give no hint of their contained goodness (such as chicken, ham and cheese, corn, beef, etc.). So I constantly have to say, "Oh, what's in this? Oh, ok. Can I have the triangle-y one? Thanks!" I'm getting better though.
I was in a 1.99 store the other day (our dollar stores, and full of cheap crap from China, of course), and I wanted a can opener, since I recently got a can of tuna with no finger-pull-handle-opener thingy. I saw plenty of kitchen tools, but no can opener. So I asked one of the people working there, if they had can openers. "Ah, I see. But in the U.S., where I'm from, we have this kind of can opener with two arms, and you put it on the can, and turn the handle... / Oh, well you guys are a First World country! You could find something like that in (insert fancy store name here), but not in this store. / But the American stores like this, with cheap stuff, we have that kind of can opener. / Really? (genuine surprise on her part)..."
I didn't get a can opener. But Lara did point out to me these metal things she has that you put on a can rim and wiggle it all around, do the hokey-pokey, and the can opens. Tada! I'll try using it eventually, when I want tuna again.
Speaking of cans, it's damn near impossible to find canned beans here; they're all in bags. I hate cooking beans, so anytime I want beans in the house, it's been imported lentils, or I think once I was able to get some sort of pinto beans. I'm sure I'll have to crumble and cook beans eventually. Usually, I make pasta, with tomato sauce, and cut up pepper and onion and add that too. It's quite filling, quite easy, and probably quite healthy.
And, there's almost never soap in public bathrooms. The water's always cold. And more often than not, there's one toilet paper dispenser above two stalls, to be shared between the two, or what I saw in some bathrooms, the toilet paper is outside the stalls, so you have to go and gather a wad before you go in. It makes sense, and just requires a little more planning, but it is different. And annoying when you poop and don't know how much you're going to need.
Returning to feeling comfortable with the university, I've met so many gay guys, it's kind of scary. I hear there's no official gay group, so people just kind of informally meet, and really that's how it works! If you go to any neutral hangout area, be it grass, a Diretoria Acadêmica (basically a student lounge), or benches - an area with no explicit purpose to be there except just to be - you will find gay guys and their faghags, and the requisite lesbians as well. It makes sense, but it just seems so much more explicit here to me. Maybe the society is less accepting, or what's most likely the case is that it's just a different society and I'm still not quite capable of interpreting all the attitudes that people have. The fact that just about everyone of the gay guys I've met here greets and says good bye with a kiss on the cheek (with guys), certainly indicates a different norm here. I like it, of course.
Sunday, the Pet Shop Boys are playing here. I may buy a ticket from a friend if I can meet up with other friends of hers that are going; I don't want to go myself.
According to a 12-step guide to studying abroad, missing home starts at a certain time. I think I kinda miss New York about now. But I'm looking forward to meeting more Brazilian hotties enough that the homesickness isn't taking too much of a toll on me. I buy boxes of assorted chocolates from time to time (like I did yesterday) to establish the continuity of orgasmic chocolate in my life here. I ate 4 already today, I think; I better stop.
And for all of you curious critters out there, the time difference is now only one hour ahead of Eastern Time now, since we here in Brazil stopped Daylight Savings Time, and you Americans just started.
The classes I'm in are the following:
FAFICH - Faculdade de Filosofia e Ciências Sociais (School of Philosophy and Social Sciences)Student Number: 2007550479
Departamento de História (History Department)
HIS031P - Tópicos em História Moderna: Formas de resistência política na Europa, Amêrica Espanhola e Amêrica Portuguesa (Topics in Modern History: Forms of Political Resistence in Europe, Spanish America, and Portuguese America)Friday, 2pm-5:40pm, FAFICH 3044, 4 credits
HIS032K - Transição democrática e Relações Civis-Miltares no Cone Sul (Democratic Transition and Civil-Military Relations in the Southern Cone [of South America])Wednesday, 2pm-5:40pm, FAFICH 3044, 4 credits
Departamento de Ciências Sociais (Social Sciences Department)
SOA071A - Tópicos em Sociologia: Sociologia da Educação (Topics in Sociology: The Sociology of Education)Monday and Wednesday, 9:30am-11:10am, FAFICH 3042, 4 credits
SOA071F - Tópicos em Sociologia: Sociologia da Criminalidade (Topics in Sociology: The Sociology of Criminality)Monday, 7pm-10:40pm, FAFICH 3040, 4 credits (most of the class is conducted on the Internet)
You probably think that it's difficult to comprehend a class entirely in Portuguese. It is. But I'm making my way through it. The teachers I understand, since they take the effort to usually enunciate a little better. When fellow students talk though, most of it usually goes over my head. In the case of the Transition class, for example, we've spent the last 2 weeks talking about sociological theory about the military. It's very abstract to me, and even if I understand all the words, it doesn't always coalesce to a coherent thought in my head; even if it were in English, wouldn't make any sense either. I hear that teachers are usually somewhat lenient with exchange students, and I think my language ability is someone better than most of the other exchange studets, so I'm not really worried.
By now, I've gotten quite comfortable with the university, and with the downtown here (where I shop, and transfer to my second bus to-and-from school). I still feel like everyone looks at me funny, cuz I'm just about the whitest person I ever see, aside from the exchange students who are French or American. I can pretty much get whatever I need done done, but I wouldn't call myself fluent, and certainly not comfortable in every situation. One challenge that makes itself apparent everywhere, is my lack of knowledge of the snacks here. They all look the same; fried balls or pockets, which on the outside give no hint of their contained goodness (such as chicken, ham and cheese, corn, beef, etc.). So I constantly have to say, "Oh, what's in this? Oh, ok. Can I have the triangle-y one? Thanks!" I'm getting better though.
I was in a 1.99 store the other day (our dollar stores, and full of cheap crap from China, of course), and I wanted a can opener, since I recently got a can of tuna with no finger-pull-handle-opener thingy. I saw plenty of kitchen tools, but no can opener. So I asked one of the people working there, if they had can openers. "Ah, I see. But in the U.S., where I'm from, we have this kind of can opener with two arms, and you put it on the can, and turn the handle... / Oh, well you guys are a First World country! You could find something like that in (insert fancy store name here), but not in this store. / But the American stores like this, with cheap stuff, we have that kind of can opener. / Really? (genuine surprise on her part)..."
I didn't get a can opener. But Lara did point out to me these metal things she has that you put on a can rim and wiggle it all around, do the hokey-pokey, and the can opens. Tada! I'll try using it eventually, when I want tuna again.
Speaking of cans, it's damn near impossible to find canned beans here; they're all in bags. I hate cooking beans, so anytime I want beans in the house, it's been imported lentils, or I think once I was able to get some sort of pinto beans. I'm sure I'll have to crumble and cook beans eventually. Usually, I make pasta, with tomato sauce, and cut up pepper and onion and add that too. It's quite filling, quite easy, and probably quite healthy.
And, there's almost never soap in public bathrooms. The water's always cold. And more often than not, there's one toilet paper dispenser above two stalls, to be shared between the two, or what I saw in some bathrooms, the toilet paper is outside the stalls, so you have to go and gather a wad before you go in. It makes sense, and just requires a little more planning, but it is different. And annoying when you poop and don't know how much you're going to need.
Returning to feeling comfortable with the university, I've met so many gay guys, it's kind of scary. I hear there's no official gay group, so people just kind of informally meet, and really that's how it works! If you go to any neutral hangout area, be it grass, a Diretoria Acadêmica (basically a student lounge), or benches - an area with no explicit purpose to be there except just to be - you will find gay guys and their faghags, and the requisite lesbians as well. It makes sense, but it just seems so much more explicit here to me. Maybe the society is less accepting, or what's most likely the case is that it's just a different society and I'm still not quite capable of interpreting all the attitudes that people have. The fact that just about everyone of the gay guys I've met here greets and says good bye with a kiss on the cheek (with guys), certainly indicates a different norm here. I like it, of course.
Sunday, the Pet Shop Boys are playing here. I may buy a ticket from a friend if I can meet up with other friends of hers that are going; I don't want to go myself.
According to a 12-step guide to studying abroad, missing home starts at a certain time. I think I kinda miss New York about now. But I'm looking forward to meeting more Brazilian hotties enough that the homesickness isn't taking too much of a toll on me. I buy boxes of assorted chocolates from time to time (like I did yesterday) to establish the continuity of orgasmic chocolate in my life here. I ate 4 already today, I think; I better stop.
And for all of you curious critters out there, the time difference is now only one hour ahead of Eastern Time now, since we here in Brazil stopped Daylight Savings Time, and you Americans just started.
04 March 2007
A whirlwind week
The past week was full of events, making it so that I never really had time to stop and write things down.
Tuesday evening, I met Sandra, my liaison at UFMG through the scholarship program between the US and Brazil. We spoke about what I'll be studying, and she took me to the nearby shopping center so I could buy itty-bitty photos of myself for my student card and my Federal Police registration.
Wednesday was the first day of the international student orientation, and I must say it was fascinating. Being, for once, totally out of the mainstream of the student body is truly eye-opening, though it gets tiring. Also, it was like the UN was meeting everytime we were together, since the French, British, Italian, Cabo Verdeans, and Argentinians would talk in their own language or dialect with themselves, but when we were all together, there was a broken Portuguese with bits of all the other languages in effect. Also, from day one, I was complimented for my Portuguese; really, most of the kids who come here came expecting to learn Portuguese throughout the course of their stay here. Alot only spent a month studying it, and that really doesn't give you much to stand on in everyday life here, no matter how close Portuguese may be to French, Italian, or Spanish.
Thursday, I met Cristina Campolini, the head of the History department, to plan some of my classes, and we ended up talking about gay life in BH. She drove me home, picking up her boyfriend on the way, a man 24 years her junior (she's 55, he's 31). She's quite a character. I have a picture of her I'll post. I ended up enrolling in Forms of Political Resistance in the Americas and Transition to Democracy in the Cone Sul (Southern part of South America). Later that night, I met up with some of the other exchange students in Savassi, the chic part of town, and we went to a restaurant, sat at a long table for 18, and drank caipirinha all night. I had maybe a 1/5 of a glass and already felt a bit tipsy, so I stopped, incurring the wonderment and almost-frustration of those around me. Caipirinha really is the drink of choice by, well, just about everyone here, Brazilian or not -- it's impressive how noone escapes its allure.
Friday, that Political Resistance class met at 2pm, but I stayed with our program, at the Centro Esportivo Universitário (CEU, which means Sky), which was chilling at the pool, a free lunch, and then a samba and capoeira lesson. One of the instructors, Wesley, and I, had a long conversation, in Portuguese, about love and other abstract things. He's pretty. They'll be leading capoeira classes for beginners starting soon, and I'm going to join.
Speaking of pretty, I also met Juan, who's Argentinian, and Friday night, I took him to Match, an improvisation show that friends at UFMG are doing for 2 weekends - the audience chooses the topics, and 2 teams have 30 seconds to plan improv skits. We both really liked it, and I invited him to stay at my house since it's nearby, but he wanted to go home.
The next day, Saturday, yesterday, I bought a new cellphone, one that actually vibrates. Next, all of us exchange students arranged to meet at the CEU at 2pm, and I went swimming a bit, with the perfunctory total slathering of sunscreen so I don't roast. There was a birthday party for someone at the university housing at 10pm, and I decided to just stay in the area instead of go back to my house. I talked with Juan for a long while in his dorm about democracy, American and Argentinian and Brazilian culture, and our personal stories. He's so nice to me, and seems to really like me, but I think I'm pretty sure he's straight. Those kinds of nice straight people confuse me.
That doesn't really matter since later that night, Juan had left the party, and I left my bag in his room, and it ends up he basically passed out. So I wasn't able to get my bag, or get into his room to sleep in the extra bed there, so I just hung around the party, completely chateado (pissed bored), watching all of the drunk people (drunks are the same here; they make asses of themselves in any language) completely crowding the suite, and the lights went from dim to off throughout the night, so it really was not my kind of scene. At that party, I hadn't drank a drop of alcohol, only juice and Coke. Cláudia, Argentinian and a faghag, introduced a guy, Júlio, to me, having danced with him and figured him gay, so for the next hour after Juan disappeared, I mostly kept an eye out for him, trying to get into the right atmosphere to come on to him. A guy suggested he has a boyfriend, so that got my hopes down a bit. In the hall though, finally around 3am, I was talking with Júlio and friends of his, and followed them to their dorm, going from building 7 to building 4, and lo and behold, their suite felt to me like a gay colony. Four of them, friends, and all gay, live there. Soon after I entered, André, Adriano, Vinícius, roped me into a conversation on Madonna, who they view as their holy mother. They put on some of her music, and André and Adriano started vogueing. The gay scene here is about 15 years behind the American one apparently. They were in awe of me being from New York, but equally flabbergasted that I do not view Madonna as holy in my eyes. I have nothing against her, and I like her music, but I'm not in love with it like they are.
Eventually, I started making out with Vinícius, (Júlio is dating someone), and didn't leave his room until 9 hours and 2 showers later.
I know, TMI. Good. I disgusted you. :)
I ate a little breakfast with Vinícius and his roommates, and then they went to the computer lab in the hall, so I was watching the amazement of internet talk in Portuguese for a long while. I was a bit preoccupied with ringing Juan's doorbell before he might go out or do anything for the day, so that I could get my bag, and say goodbye to him for the time being, and finally around 1pm I went over, and he was perfectly awake, though with a bit of a ressaca (hangover). We said tchau until the next weekend when us intercambistas (exchange students) will probably reunite again at the pool, and I returned to Vinícius and Adriano on the computer. The two of them and their friend Valesca and myself, we went to a supermarket, about a 20 minute walk away, to buy food for lunch. André did most of the cooking, yielding us spaghetti with ground beef, sauce, onion, peppers, and garlic, with caipirinha as the beverage. A bag of maybe 10 limes to make them was something like R$0.10 - 5 US cents. Amazing. Food here is much cheaper, but technology is much more expensive.
I was talking with them and some other people, including Carô, a lesbian who sang with my host Lara in the UFMG choir, and Keili, 31-years-old, studying law but not at UFMG, and who still hangs out in the dorms since she's had UFMG friends forever. We all talked about what I'm studying, leading invariably into the conversation on inequality in Brazil, the frailty of the school system and how the people are stuck in a vicious cycle of being too uneducated to know to vote for politicians who will make the education better.
I invited Vinícius over, but he has class at 7:30 tomorrow morning, so we're going to meet up Tuesday at the school. I got home around 8pm, and learned on email that my grandma passed away Saturday night. I was mute for while, but reconciled things, knowing that she's been in a sort of daze for a year and a half, not in pain, but just sort of without any marbles in her head. I've also reconciled not flying in for any memorial services, since (a) I was never extraordinarily close with her, (b) I saw her in September at a family wedding, and called her on the phone before I left for Brazil, so I'd like to leave my last remembrances of her as her being alive, not dead, and (c) of course, flying back would be so incredibly difficult, financially and logistically, as classes start this week.
On the flip side, my mom finally managed to go to a library and email me, which left me equally speechless. And, a very well-written email at that.
It's been a hell of a week. I feel quite well-adjusted now, but there's still so much more to come.
Tomorrow, I meet with the Human Sciences office to discuss classes in politics and economics. There's the Sociology of Criminality, which I've heard rave reviews about the professor, that I will try to take. I hope I can get a spot in it.
Until later!
Tuesday evening, I met Sandra, my liaison at UFMG through the scholarship program between the US and Brazil. We spoke about what I'll be studying, and she took me to the nearby shopping center so I could buy itty-bitty photos of myself for my student card and my Federal Police registration.
Wednesday was the first day of the international student orientation, and I must say it was fascinating. Being, for once, totally out of the mainstream of the student body is truly eye-opening, though it gets tiring. Also, it was like the UN was meeting everytime we were together, since the French, British, Italian, Cabo Verdeans, and Argentinians would talk in their own language or dialect with themselves, but when we were all together, there was a broken Portuguese with bits of all the other languages in effect. Also, from day one, I was complimented for my Portuguese; really, most of the kids who come here came expecting to learn Portuguese throughout the course of their stay here. Alot only spent a month studying it, and that really doesn't give you much to stand on in everyday life here, no matter how close Portuguese may be to French, Italian, or Spanish.
Thursday, I met Cristina Campolini, the head of the History department, to plan some of my classes, and we ended up talking about gay life in BH. She drove me home, picking up her boyfriend on the way, a man 24 years her junior (she's 55, he's 31). She's quite a character. I have a picture of her I'll post. I ended up enrolling in Forms of Political Resistance in the Americas and Transition to Democracy in the Cone Sul (Southern part of South America). Later that night, I met up with some of the other exchange students in Savassi, the chic part of town, and we went to a restaurant, sat at a long table for 18, and drank caipirinha all night. I had maybe a 1/5 of a glass and already felt a bit tipsy, so I stopped, incurring the wonderment and almost-frustration of those around me. Caipirinha really is the drink of choice by, well, just about everyone here, Brazilian or not -- it's impressive how noone escapes its allure.
Friday, that Political Resistance class met at 2pm, but I stayed with our program, at the Centro Esportivo Universitário (CEU, which means Sky), which was chilling at the pool, a free lunch, and then a samba and capoeira lesson. One of the instructors, Wesley, and I, had a long conversation, in Portuguese, about love and other abstract things. He's pretty. They'll be leading capoeira classes for beginners starting soon, and I'm going to join.
Speaking of pretty, I also met Juan, who's Argentinian, and Friday night, I took him to Match, an improvisation show that friends at UFMG are doing for 2 weekends - the audience chooses the topics, and 2 teams have 30 seconds to plan improv skits. We both really liked it, and I invited him to stay at my house since it's nearby, but he wanted to go home.
The next day, Saturday, yesterday, I bought a new cellphone, one that actually vibrates. Next, all of us exchange students arranged to meet at the CEU at 2pm, and I went swimming a bit, with the perfunctory total slathering of sunscreen so I don't roast. There was a birthday party for someone at the university housing at 10pm, and I decided to just stay in the area instead of go back to my house. I talked with Juan for a long while in his dorm about democracy, American and Argentinian and Brazilian culture, and our personal stories. He's so nice to me, and seems to really like me, but I think I'm pretty sure he's straight. Those kinds of nice straight people confuse me.
That doesn't really matter since later that night, Juan had left the party, and I left my bag in his room, and it ends up he basically passed out. So I wasn't able to get my bag, or get into his room to sleep in the extra bed there, so I just hung around the party, completely chateado (pissed bored), watching all of the drunk people (drunks are the same here; they make asses of themselves in any language) completely crowding the suite, and the lights went from dim to off throughout the night, so it really was not my kind of scene. At that party, I hadn't drank a drop of alcohol, only juice and Coke. Cláudia, Argentinian and a faghag, introduced a guy, Júlio, to me, having danced with him and figured him gay, so for the next hour after Juan disappeared, I mostly kept an eye out for him, trying to get into the right atmosphere to come on to him. A guy suggested he has a boyfriend, so that got my hopes down a bit. In the hall though, finally around 3am, I was talking with Júlio and friends of his, and followed them to their dorm, going from building 7 to building 4, and lo and behold, their suite felt to me like a gay colony. Four of them, friends, and all gay, live there. Soon after I entered, André, Adriano, Vinícius, roped me into a conversation on Madonna, who they view as their holy mother. They put on some of her music, and André and Adriano started vogueing. The gay scene here is about 15 years behind the American one apparently. They were in awe of me being from New York, but equally flabbergasted that I do not view Madonna as holy in my eyes. I have nothing against her, and I like her music, but I'm not in love with it like they are.
Eventually, I started making out with Vinícius, (Júlio is dating someone), and didn't leave his room until 9 hours and 2 showers later.
I know, TMI. Good. I disgusted you. :)
I ate a little breakfast with Vinícius and his roommates, and then they went to the computer lab in the hall, so I was watching the amazement of internet talk in Portuguese for a long while. I was a bit preoccupied with ringing Juan's doorbell before he might go out or do anything for the day, so that I could get my bag, and say goodbye to him for the time being, and finally around 1pm I went over, and he was perfectly awake, though with a bit of a ressaca (hangover). We said tchau until the next weekend when us intercambistas (exchange students) will probably reunite again at the pool, and I returned to Vinícius and Adriano on the computer. The two of them and their friend Valesca and myself, we went to a supermarket, about a 20 minute walk away, to buy food for lunch. André did most of the cooking, yielding us spaghetti with ground beef, sauce, onion, peppers, and garlic, with caipirinha as the beverage. A bag of maybe 10 limes to make them was something like R$0.10 - 5 US cents. Amazing. Food here is much cheaper, but technology is much more expensive.
I was talking with them and some other people, including Carô, a lesbian who sang with my host Lara in the UFMG choir, and Keili, 31-years-old, studying law but not at UFMG, and who still hangs out in the dorms since she's had UFMG friends forever. We all talked about what I'm studying, leading invariably into the conversation on inequality in Brazil, the frailty of the school system and how the people are stuck in a vicious cycle of being too uneducated to know to vote for politicians who will make the education better.
I invited Vinícius over, but he has class at 7:30 tomorrow morning, so we're going to meet up Tuesday at the school. I got home around 8pm, and learned on email that my grandma passed away Saturday night. I was mute for while, but reconciled things, knowing that she's been in a sort of daze for a year and a half, not in pain, but just sort of without any marbles in her head. I've also reconciled not flying in for any memorial services, since (a) I was never extraordinarily close with her, (b) I saw her in September at a family wedding, and called her on the phone before I left for Brazil, so I'd like to leave my last remembrances of her as her being alive, not dead, and (c) of course, flying back would be so incredibly difficult, financially and logistically, as classes start this week.
On the flip side, my mom finally managed to go to a library and email me, which left me equally speechless. And, a very well-written email at that.
It's been a hell of a week. I feel quite well-adjusted now, but there's still so much more to come.
Tomorrow, I meet with the Human Sciences office to discuss classes in politics and economics. There's the Sociology of Criminality, which I've heard rave reviews about the professor, that I will try to take. I hope I can get a spot in it.
Until later!
25 February 2007
Finally, a gay bar....and a..table
Friday, I went shopping on Rua dos Caetés, getting socks, shorts, and a laundry bag. Lara and I then started our search for a table for my room, which we got for R$100, about $45. Now my room at least has a table to go along with the bed. The armoire is quite spacious, so I'm not wanting for space to put things; a big room needs furniture though; you'll see in pictures eventually.
This table fits in a corner and has a rounded perimeter (think a quarter of a circle); it was quite a good deal, seeing as all the furniture here, even in the used furnitures shops, is quite expensive. I really don't know how people furnish their houses - it just further reinforces the fact that the class disparity here is quite large. Everyone lives in their own little world, behind gates, and I haven't seen more than one instance of people outside, conversing with neighbors. There's no such thing as a streetfront stoop for someone to sit on, since literally every residence is behind gates.
Perhaps in the favela, there are, but that's the favela. It's a different culture here.
Friday night, I went to Andaluz, a gay bar in Santo Antonio, Rua Congonhas, 487, with a friend of Natália and his friends. Gay guys here are the same as they are in the US; they dress in fitted clothes, move the same way, though I've learned that the American lisp which we associate with gay guys isn't an indicator here in Brazil. I only had a 1/4 glass of caipirinha, and a bottle of water. One of the guy's friends was trying to teach me how to dance, thinking I couldn't move my hips. That may have been true...still, it just takes me a while to loosen up. I didn't pick anyone up that night, but Natália's friend did. Still, I met several cool guys, and got a taste of the gay scene here, which I hear is quite ample.
Here's the bar's website: http://www.andaluzbarcasa.com.br/site/
Saturday, Lara and I went to her parent's house, where I had a long conversation with her mom about the social disparity here, and how to haggle at a street fair, as well as how to dress so that I don't get victimized by a criminal: simply, and stay close to the soldiers of the Policia Militar.
She affirms that so many people here can't find jobs, even with a college degree. This problem has been lamented time and again in the Brazilian press, and the government could probably do a better job of helping. Everyone pays absurd taxes, and the politicians steal a good chunk of the money, so nothing ever really gets done by the government. Sure there are almost 200 million people here, but with taxes as high as I hear they are, the pols could certainly do more.
Lara's father, who came from Japan in 1967, looking for work, I believe, is an agronomist by career, but also a violinist. He learned some Hebrew too, from a Brazilian Jewish friend, so he was showing me his textbook which he mostly used 10 years ago, and playing some Jewish song CDs. His English isn't too bad, either. His Portuguese has a hint of a Japanese accent, as can be expected. It's like a regular U.N. in that house.
Today I've been in all day, my stomach's been acting up a little. Maybe it's the water, though I've been drinking from the filter; apparently, in the whole of Brazil, tap water's not safe to drink, according to Lara's mom. With all the different foods I'm eating, I'm sure I've been exposed to different bacteria and microorganisms here.
Tuesday, I meet Sandra, my university liaison in the exchange program, and Wednesday, programming for the Semana do Aluno Estrangeiro (Foreign Student Week) starts. At that point, I pick my classes. Apparently, some classes may very well begin tomorrow (Monday), but I can't really do anything about it; I'll have to wait until registration is opened up to us during this programming to choose. I hope the classes I want, or similar ones, are happening this semester, and open. (I'm looking to take stuff around politics and economics of Brazil, basically an academification of my observations of the socioeconomic situation here.)
This table fits in a corner and has a rounded perimeter (think a quarter of a circle); it was quite a good deal, seeing as all the furniture here, even in the used furnitures shops, is quite expensive. I really don't know how people furnish their houses - it just further reinforces the fact that the class disparity here is quite large. Everyone lives in their own little world, behind gates, and I haven't seen more than one instance of people outside, conversing with neighbors. There's no such thing as a streetfront stoop for someone to sit on, since literally every residence is behind gates.
Perhaps in the favela, there are, but that's the favela. It's a different culture here.
Friday night, I went to Andaluz, a gay bar in Santo Antonio, Rua Congonhas, 487, with a friend of Natália and his friends. Gay guys here are the same as they are in the US; they dress in fitted clothes, move the same way, though I've learned that the American lisp which we associate with gay guys isn't an indicator here in Brazil. I only had a 1/4 glass of caipirinha, and a bottle of water. One of the guy's friends was trying to teach me how to dance, thinking I couldn't move my hips. That may have been true...still, it just takes me a while to loosen up. I didn't pick anyone up that night, but Natália's friend did. Still, I met several cool guys, and got a taste of the gay scene here, which I hear is quite ample.
Here's the bar's website: http://www.andaluzbarcasa.com.br/site/
Saturday, Lara and I went to her parent's house, where I had a long conversation with her mom about the social disparity here, and how to haggle at a street fair, as well as how to dress so that I don't get victimized by a criminal: simply, and stay close to the soldiers of the Policia Militar.
She affirms that so many people here can't find jobs, even with a college degree. This problem has been lamented time and again in the Brazilian press, and the government could probably do a better job of helping. Everyone pays absurd taxes, and the politicians steal a good chunk of the money, so nothing ever really gets done by the government. Sure there are almost 200 million people here, but with taxes as high as I hear they are, the pols could certainly do more.
Lara's father, who came from Japan in 1967, looking for work, I believe, is an agronomist by career, but also a violinist. He learned some Hebrew too, from a Brazilian Jewish friend, so he was showing me his textbook which he mostly used 10 years ago, and playing some Jewish song CDs. His English isn't too bad, either. His Portuguese has a hint of a Japanese accent, as can be expected. It's like a regular U.N. in that house.
Today I've been in all day, my stomach's been acting up a little. Maybe it's the water, though I've been drinking from the filter; apparently, in the whole of Brazil, tap water's not safe to drink, according to Lara's mom. With all the different foods I'm eating, I'm sure I've been exposed to different bacteria and microorganisms here.
Tuesday, I meet Sandra, my university liaison in the exchange program, and Wednesday, programming for the Semana do Aluno Estrangeiro (Foreign Student Week) starts. At that point, I pick my classes. Apparently, some classes may very well begin tomorrow (Monday), but I can't really do anything about it; I'll have to wait until registration is opened up to us during this programming to choose. I hope the classes I want, or similar ones, are happening this semester, and open. (I'm looking to take stuff around politics and economics of Brazil, basically an academification of my observations of the socioeconomic situation here.)
22 February 2007
Compras (Shopping)
No sentido ao trabalho, a Lara me levou até o Savassi, onde tem muita gente mais bonita, como ela falou, e lojas e informações turísticas pra mim. Ela tinha verdade - o Shopping 5ª Avenida é bem legal, com lojas de roupa, eletrônicas, livros e comida. Ao entrar, de repente fui para uma loja com camisas belohorizontinas, e tagarelava muito com a Marly Moreira, vendedora nela. Tem muita camisa com letra em inglês, mas é inglês errado! «Exploring the Nature» Talvez eu devesse comprá-la. Comi no All Face, um self-service por R$11,23 - salada, arroz e feijão, peixe frito, e mais. Fui a uma papeleria que tinha maioritariamente coisas femininas, mas falava com as moças trabalhando nela sobre o aprendizagem das linguas, e como a lingua mais estudada na secundária mudou do inglês para o espanhol faz uns 20 anos.Depois disso, fui à livraria Leitura, e comprei mapas do BH, e do MG, e também cadernos, canetas, canetas de marca-texto, e um livrinho das rotas dos ônibus, descritas pelas esquinas nos quais viram. Fui à Praça da Liberdade, onde tem a rota 5102, o qual eu posso pegar pra ir prà UFMG. Também experimentei o Museu Mineiro, um pouco chato porque eu não gosto tanto do arte do período barroco, mas deu pra praticar meu português com as legendas, e o homen de vigia que sabia algumas coisas acerca das coleções.
Voltei na direção do apartamento, parando pra comprar comida, Cotonete, e razores de barbear, num Carrefour na Avda. Albuquerque, e voltei pra casa, ainda se levou muito tempo por causa das porradas dos morros e os pesos nas mãos.
Fico muito feliz com este dia bem produtivo!
(Foto: Palácio da Liberdade)On her way to work, Lara dropped me off in Savassi, the neighborhood of beautiful people, as she said, and also stores and tourist info for me. She was right - Fifth Avenue Shopping is quite cool, with clothing stores, electronics, books, and food. On entering, I immediately gravitated to a store with Belo Horizonte shirts, and I chatted for a while with Marly Moreira, the saleswoman there. There were a lot of shirts with English on them, but bad English! «Exploring the Anture» Maybe I should've bought it. I ate at All Face, a buffet for 11.23 reais, about $5 - salad, rice and beans, fried fish, and more.
I went to a stationery store that had mostly girly things, but I spoke with the girls who worked there, about language classes in high school, and how Spanish has become the most commonly studied language, instead of English, in the last 20 years.
After all that, I went to the Leitura bookstore and got maps of Belo Horizonte, Minas Gerais, notebooks, pens, and highlights for school, and a booklet of the bus routes, described by where they make turns. I saw the stop for the 5102 in the Praça da Liberdade, the bus I'll be getting to go to UFMG. I also checked out the Mineiro Museum, a little dull since I don't really like Baroque-era things, but I was able to practice my portuguese with the captions, and the security guy who knew a bit about the collections. I went back to the apartment, first stopping to buy food, Q-tips, and shaving razors in a Carrefour on Albuquerque Avenue. I got back home, but it took a while because of the fucking hills and all the weight in my hands.
I'm quite happy having had such a productive day!
20 February 2007
Achei gente bacana hoje... (I met cool people today...)
Da manhã, a gente foi para o sitio da Ana, uma amiga da Lara. Ela tem um balneario na Lagoa Santa, a uma hora do Belo - vai pra lá os finais de semana. Lá tem piscina, e trouxe a minha sunga. Encontrei a Ana e seu namorado Fideles, Luciana e seu namorado Iván, Cibele (profissora de inglês), Fernanda (propagandista, que passei um semestre da secundária no Oklahoma), e o Michel, que acabou a relação com a sua mulher a sexta passada. Michel é bem interessante; foi para os Estados Unidos, na Califórnia, e morava lá acho um ano. Passou algum tempo como entregador de pizza, e gostaria de voltar pra estudar o cinema quando tiver o dinheiro suficiente.A gente nadou, comeu, e bebeu. Eu só bebi um meio copo de caipirinha; fiquei muito tempo bebendo a Guaraná pra não ficar bêbado. Ficamos lá desde as 2 até as 10 da noite.
Assisti o baile Gay no Carnaval carioca com Lara - é cheio de transvestis (homens com peitos de silicone) - não sei se deveria ser ofendido ou entretido.
This morning, we went to Ana's place, a friend of Lara. She has a weekend house in Lagoa Santa, one hour from Belo. There's a pool there, and I brought my bathing suit. I met Ana and her boyfriend Fideles, Luciana and her boyfriend Iván, Cibele (an English teacher), Fernanda (publicist, who spent a semester in Oklahoma), and Michel, who just broke up with his girlfriend on Friday. He's pretty interesting; he went to California, and spent a year or so there. He was a pizza delivery boy for a while, and he'd like to come back and study film when he has the money.We swam, ate, and drank. I only drank a half cup of caipirinha, drinking Guaraná (a carbonated fruit drink, kind of like starfruit) so as to not get drunk. We were there from 2 to 10 at night.
I watched some of the Gay festivities in the Rio de Janeiro Carnaval on TV, with Lara. It's full of transvestites, which mainly means guys with tits. I'm not sure whether to be offended or amused.
19 February 2007
Gay bars!
This morning, we drove through Macacos, a small town that has, well, macacos (monkeys), and ate at a restaurant. We had some typical mineira food (of this state, Minas Gerais) - frango ora-pro-nobis (chicken with a vegetable like collard greens), angu (a cornmeal pudding, kind of like flan but salty instead of sweet), feijão comum (regular beans). It was delicious, and then we went to Nova Lima, a city of 70,000, where we passed through an intersection where people had two cars blasting rap (Brazilian rap), surrounded by people bumpin' and shakin', and then on to a field with a band singing music that was a bit lighter. 
It was a concert, full of people, beverage vendors, and people picking up the used cans to sell, for 1 real per kilo - Lara tells me that the maid who comes twice a month to her house, used to do that, pick up cans, but quit it because it wasn't worth the effort for such little money. Looking around, I saw people of every shade of beautiful, beautiful brown. At the same time, I felt like everyone was looking at me, but Gil told me not to worry, because they're more likely looking at the three of us, since we were among the whitest people there.
Back in Belo Horizonte, we went to Establecimento, a restaurant/bar with a gay owner, and for that reason, the place has a nightclub below that while not exclusively gay, has a large gay following. The people there were totally different than the people in the concert in Nova Lima - artistic, chic, young and apparently educated, and at least a handful of gay guys (viados, bichas, bibas...a flaming guy can be uma bicha barulhenta or uma bicha de poque-poque, as poque-poque is the sound flip-flops make when you walk). They had caipirinhas and beer, and I just had a lemonade, before we ordered pastries of beef and chicken (pastéis). Lara introduced me to a friend of hers who was helping out the owner in the kitchen, Darlan. Lindo, lindo, lindo...I thought he was cute, maybe not soooo lindo, but cute. We didn't really talk too much, since he and Lara were talking most of the time the 3 of us were together, and I was a bit timid with my Portuguese. I'd like to see him again.
It was today that we had a conversation about how open-minded Lara and Gil are, and that Lara would gladly take me to a gay bar, since she used to go a lot before getting involved with Gil (4 years ago). Gil's not entirely averse to going to one with us, though. I really felt much more comfortable tonight, and Gil said to me, «you probably didn't know what to think about Brazil, about the attitudes here» «exactly!» . So they really made me feel like I can be myself.
In the house, Lara, Gil, and myself sat at the dining room table talking about English and Portuguese. Mostly, the words «anyway» and «by the way». We're dorks.
Tomorrow, we're going to Ana's house, a friend of Lara, and friends of their's, whom she tells me are very cool. (Ana used to go to gay bars too before her boyfriend.) I don't expect any strapping young available men to be there, but it'd be nice. :)
It was today that we had a conversation about how open-minded Lara and Gil are, and that Lara would gladly take me to a gay bar, since she used to go a lot before getting involved with Gil (4 years ago). Gil's not entirely averse to going to one with us, though. I really felt much more comfortable tonight, and Gil said to me, «you probably didn't know what to think about Brazil, about the attitudes here» «exactly!» . So they really made me feel like I can be myself.
In the house, Lara, Gil, and myself sat at the dining room table talking about English and Portuguese. Mostly, the words «anyway» and «by the way». We're dorks.
Tomorrow, we're going to Ana's house, a friend of Lara, and friends of their's, whom she tells me are very cool. (Ana used to go to gay bars too before her boyfriend.) I don't expect any strapping young available men to be there, but it'd be nice. :)
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