Uni begins...or does it?

Oficially speaking, monday 9th august was the first day of the second semester at the Universidade Federal de Santa Catarina (or oofski as the locals confusingly refer to it). By this stage i had acheived the following;

-found a place to live
-found the Uni
-registered at the Uni
-sorted out bus pass/meal card etc
-met a load of nice (if mainly international) people
-learnt some portuguese

However my to do list was still extensive;

-work out my timetable (this involved deciphering the university list which was helpfully written in morse code)
-learn capoeira (or other traditional Brazilian art form combining martial arts and with dance)
-go to the beach
-learn to kite-surf
-learn more portuguese

As far as i see it, the last item on my to-do list could be acheived in one of three ways

option a) Find a  beautiful brazilian girl who truly loves me and embark upon a deep and meaningful relationship, culminating in our wedding in Rio de Janeiro around the time of the 2014 world cup in Brazil.

option b) Find a beautiful brazilian girl who is only interested in me in order to get a British passport, but who will be able to teach me some portuguese in the short term

option c) Buy a better book

With this in mind, I arrived at the University at 10am on the monday morning. Sadly my first port of call was a foreign students meeting containing neither hot young brazilian girls nor books. I assume the point of this meeting was to offer words of support and advice, whilst providing the crucial information for our 5 month stay. Without being overly critical, the fact that neither me nor any of my mates understood a single word, may have gone some way to undermining these aims.

There was however one brilliant moment in the meeting. A friendly little middle-aged woman, had just started speaking when a  man who is clearly a 'big dog' in the Uni (judging by the size of his moustache) strolled into the room, took the microphone andd pushed the little woman off the stage. Apparently still drunk from the night before, he proceeded to give a slurred and completely unintelligable 2 minute speech and then left. His colleagues, who obviously understood what he was going on about, or who were worried about keeping their jobs applauded loudly.

We were then told the rest of the week was for choosing and signing up for courses. Having effectively done this before my arrival, i thought that all that was left was the formality of going to the department and saying 'ola'. I had of course forgotten that this is Brazil. On getting to the relevant offices i was told that all my courses were either cancelled or that the lecture responsible 'foi embora'. This is a very brazilian expression but here it can be taken to mean 'pissed off without telling anybody.'

In spite of this setback i was able to sign up for three different units; Brazilian History, History of cinema and Futsal (indoor football). I was warned that departments didn't really like international students, but apart from one grumpy sports coach who tried to hit me when i asked where the sports hall was for the 4th time in 3 days, people were generally very friendly.

Special mention must however go to the man in the cinema office who sent our group into hysterics by taking out a magnifying glass to study our enrollment forms in great detail. Given that his passion is film it seems unfortunate to say the least that he has such bad eyesight (he was also wearing glasses). There is no doubt we'll be keeping an eye out for Inspector Gadget (as my mate Giovanni aptly named him) and his vision enhancing equipment around the campus. It would make my year to see him whip out the mangnifier to study the menu in the uni restaurant.

This week also saw the start of a series of nightly 'festas' on the university campus. I intend to keep to the promise i made in my first post about cringe alcohol related stories. Lets just say the combination of 3 beers for 2 quid and numerous caipirinhas sorted us out. I only tried to board a 3am coach to Rio once. In very american college style, people gathered in huge groups from 10pm in front of live music or a dj and go on drinking until 3 or 4am when the music stops until some kid pumps out that 'yolanda be cool' song at full blast from his car. I don't mean to sound critical...its a massive tune.

On a rare night without one of the aforementioned festas, we managed to find our way down to Lagoa, a Floripa nightlife hotspot, and without doubt the most beautiful place i have visited so far (i'll try and upload a photo at somepoint but if you google lagoa de conceicao floripa you'll get some idea).
Our destination was a sushi restaurant, a choice i couldnt help but feel was like going to India and ordering snails. In spite of this the sushi was great and the cocktails better. We hit another bar before heading home.
Estimated time until next visit to lagoa: 48 hours  max

zero classes, many festas and some legend with a magnifying glass.
Not bad for the first week of term....