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!