This weekend, something fairly important is happening here in Brazil. Sunday 3rd of October 2010 is the official date for the general election and its creating quite a buzz around the University. Campaigning here principally comes in one of two forms, the first of which involves waving large flags in people's faces. Now i don't have anything against getting a bit of flag in the face for a good reason, i just wish they would have asked whether i was actually entitled to vote before invading my personal space. The second seems to be a game of who can stick up their candidate's face on the most billboards around the island, obviously hoping to sway the indecisive voter who thinks 'he/she may have no political experience and be facing allegations of corruption, but i have seen their face a lot recently and that reassures me'. If it works then fair play to them.
As far as the result is concerned, I have been informed by several locals that it is a foregone conclusion in favour of a woman named Rousseff, representing the same party as the outgoing Lula. (im yet to work out whether this is because the candidate is extremely good, or whether its just that the elections are a little bit fraudy). Anyway it should be an interesting day with America's golfing demise at the hands of Colin Montgomerie's Europe providing the rest of the entertainment.
More importantly for me however, Sunday 3rd of October also marks 2 months of residence in Florianopolis. In many ways i still feel like i have just arrived, and while this may be because some people still look at me as if im from the planet zog when im trying to speak portuguese, I prefer to think of it as linked to the whole 'time flies when your having fun' thing. And it has been a lot of fun.
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One undoubted highlight of the last two weeks was a churrasco hosted by some of our portuguese friends from the university. Their rooftop apartment overlooking the sea on avenue Beira-mar (the posh bit of floripa) was an absolute banger. Great food, great sangria and plenty of portuguese spoken. Here's hoping they have another one soon.
I think being on the terrace of such a posh appartment gave us delusions of grandeur because a few days later we decided to visit 'Churrasceria Floripana', reputedly one of the best restaurants on the island. As a roup of 20, we paid 50 reais per person (eek) for the all you can eat option, but it was well worth it. In addition to a full sushi, salad and dessert bar, the highlights of which included salmon roll, california roll, couscous, sundried tomatoes, spicy prawns and creme caramel (thankfully not mixed together), the waiters brought pasta, risotto and massive skewers of barbecued meats to the table (presumably so we didn't waste any of the calories by getting up.) 'I'm going to open an identical one in England' i thought as i rolled home.
In order to burn off the accumulated calories with illustrious dancemoves, we went to all three of the big university organised 'festas.'
They had several things in common;
1) obscure, distant but ultimately awesome location
2) attractive brazilian girls with bizzarely high heels (im not insecure about my height....honest)
3) at least one justin bieber song (my mate giovanni loves a bit of bieber)
4) open bar
As far as im concerned an open bar or 'openbar' as its known in portuguese is a very good concept, you can get nicely sloshed without selling a vital organ, and you can pretend like your buying drinks for girls by going up to the bar and getting free drinks on their behalf. The only potential problem comes if your group of mates decides to get to the night really early in order to make the most of the openbar, and then you drink 10 caipirinhas in an hour because no-one else is there yet, because its still before 10pm, causing you to spend the rest of the night making an absolute idiot of yourself by staggering around speaking and some kind of slurred dialect meant to be portuguese which no-one can understand....or thats what i've been told.
In any case, the third of these festas deserves to be mentioned in its own right. Hosted by the arquitecture department, the theme was 'pop art' which was taken to mean 'any kind of bizarre fancy dress'. People really went all out with their costumes and it was a cracking night, not least because a big group of us decided to dress as 'where's wally' which rather ironically meant it was very easy to find everyone.
Getting there and back from these nights was also very easy thanks to a van service from the university that acted like a moving house party on the way and only smelled slightly of sick on the way back. This example of transport efficiency is however an anomoly. In general getting around the island is a bit of a nightmare unless you have bought a car, know someone that has a car or have stolen a car (the preferred policy of the favella dwellers) . This is because the bus system is about as easy to understand as the mandarin language guide to hydraulic brake construction.
Problems i have with the bus:
1) The bus routes are designed for scenic appreciation rather than speed
2) Many buses have very similiar names and go completely different places
3) Many of the drivers can't drive; lamposts hit, pavements mounted etc.
4) The buses are often full but standing up is impossible because they drive so badly
5) Buses are ridiculously irregular on weekends.
This last grievance was provoked one weekend when a group of us set out to trek to a secluded beach, only reachable by trail. There are few things more annoying than getting up really early on a hangover, and then waiting almost two hours for the bus, which we needed to take us to the start of the trail. When we eventually got there the trail was awesome, the weather was beautiful and the beach was almost deserted. I say almost because there was one individual on the far side of the beach ( pause to clear throat) 'enjoying' himself. Im not sure whether it was a genuine 'bad time' or just a performance for our benefit. Needless to say it spoiled the view a tad.
Coming back to the bus issue, the one redeeming feature of the entire system seemed to be a student bus card similiar to an oyster card. However for some reason the card can only be topped up once a month from an office in the centre. At the time of registering for the card, I tried to explain to the woman in the office why this wasn't practical for the consumer but im not sure she understood/cared. When it came to topping up my card last week, I obediently went to the centre and waited patiently for my turn for about half an hour. When i was finally shown to a counter i was told by the attendant that i didn't have the necessary documentation, despite me having my student ID with me. At this point, with steam practicaly billowing from my ears, I considered several courses of action. In order to avoid the federal police, I eventually restrained myself from setting the entire building on fire, and decided instead that stealing her pen and buying myself an ice cream would suffice. A moral victory, only slightly lessened by the fact im still going have to go back next week to try again.
In other news, im off travelling tomorrow so you may not hear from me in a while. I've decided that the immense stress of all my work and lectures means i am entitled to a 10 day holiday, of exploration, sightseeing and general debauchery. The current plan is to make a triangle trip to Iguazu falls, Buenos Aires, Montevideo and Punto del Este returning back to Floripa just in time to don my leiderhosen, change my name to henrik von inglunder and hit the Oktoberfest (the one held here is the biggest outside of munich). Should be quite hectic all in all, but i will try and write a blog update when i can...
you stay classy san diego
