Having spent the last 15 minutes deliberating over what to write in my first sentence, i'm a little dissapointed that this was the best I could come up with. Oh well, it can only get better.
With an entire month in Floripa under my belt, my portuguese is still iffy at best, but otherwise I feel I am having an enjoyable and productive time here. Given that my primary reason for being here is to improve my portuguese, you may disagree with me but my overriding emotion is one of happiness that I am settling into Brazilian life a bit more. Whilst there may still be an invisible sign saying 'gringo' above my head I have made several key steps forward.
1. I am now able to do the shopping in under 2 hours. (I am also a little more aware that being adventurous is not always a good plan if you plan on leaving the toilet the following day)
2. We have made friends with a taxi driver. Carlos Max is a bit of a hero, its just a shame he keeps trying to rip us off by turning off the meter. Carlos if your reading this, I want to let you know that its a very mean thing to do, and if you insist on behaving in this way we won't be giving you any more english lessons.
3. I have managed to locate two of the seven parcels my mum has sent me from the UK. Thanks mum, i'm eating the percy pigs as we speak.
4. We've got a local called CSC. And we're mates with the guys that work there. And they're Brazilian...cash back. The Centro Social de Cerveja is located a mere 3 minutes walk from my house and is nothing short of awesome. They have live music 5 nights a week, barbecued meats and fish served tapas-style, as well as copious amounts of beer and cocktails, all at suprisingly, bordering on alarmingly cheap prices. Definitely worth a visit if your not put off by the 15 hour plane journey.
On the subject of good bars, we spent the friday night at a mexican style joint with the obligatory sombreros, fajitas and festive music in the background. This was a personal favourite. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mh9BbalDxRE. The highlight of the bar was without doubt the 'special shot' served by a lively mejicano who forced one of my unsuspecting mates to down a triple measure of tequila before grabbing his head and shaking it vigourously, leaving him dazed, confused and with an extra 17 reais on his bill. Magic.
Aside from visiting the aforementioned bars, the highlight of my second week of classes was missing some classes to go on a trip around the island with a big group of foreign students *note to self, if you want to get a good idea of the geography of the island choose a coach with seats less ideally suited for sleeping. We visited 4 beaches in total, including the beautiful but windy Praia Joaquina, where we sipped beer and ate a meal of freshly caught fish overlooking the sea. We also stopped off at 'Project Tamar', a turtle charity whose bizarre aim seemed to be to 'save' the turtles by 'rescuing' them from the sea and putting them in what can only be described as an oversized paddling pool. I was thinking of pointing out to one of the members of staff that the turtles might actually prefer the sea, given that it is, after all, their natural habitat. A mixture of hope that i had simply misunderstood the portuguese and fear that i would cause a fight, dissuaded me.
The trip was also a good chance to get to know some other people, and speak some broken portuguese/french/spanish/english. It was nice to meet some portuguese people in particular. I view speaking with them as a sort of Sainsbury's basics version of speaking with brazilians, its more or less the same but you know in your heart of hearts its not the real thing. There are about 80 portuguese at the university but they have a bit of a reputation amongst the brazilians for keeping themselves to themselves and not socialising with people from other countries. I found that this wasn't the case however, and in fact we were invited to have dinner and drinks with some of them later in the week. Admittedly when we went everyone else was portuguese but at least it was a step in the right direction.
A chance to speak our tesco's finest brazilian (if you will allow me to continue with the slightly bizarre supermarket metaphor) presented itself on sunday night when we invited my first brazilian friend Ronaldo and his girlfriend out for a drink as a sort of 'thanks for not kidnapping, drugging or selling us into the sex trade' gesture. As it happened, they suggested that we went to a little village near by called S.Antonio de Lisboa to sample some local delicacies. I was relaxing with some delicious crab and prawn stuffed bread washed down with cold beer, when a tray of oysters was brought out. Not wanting to offend our brazilian friends, who had after all taken us out for dinner, I tried one, realising only as it slid down my throat that it was completely raw. I confirmed my suspicion with Ronaldo, who chuckled and compared the texture to snot before tucking into another. I do not pretend to be a master chef but it seems to me a bit of cooking wouldn't do any harm.
That being said, it was still a fun night and very kind of them to take us, especially given that the length of our friendship was the 1hr 10 transfer to Floripa airport. They dropped us back home and we went pretty much straight to bed.
I love 8.20am mondays.
On another note
As you may have realised, I am still about two weeks behind in my blogging. I am trying to get up to date, but writing a weekly blog is almost as hard to keep up with as a cross between the roadrunner cartoon and Usain Bolt.
I'll leave you with that image...
Sunday, September 12, 2010
Sunday, September 5, 2010
Barbecues, beer, football and robbery at gun point....just another average week in Brazil
On saturday 14th of august i awoke in a cold sweat with a very uneasy feeling in the pit of my stomach. Lying in my bed, I began to run through the possible reasons in my head as to why i was feeling so dodgy; was it just a hangover from the disgusting but very cheap cachaca 51? Was it something dodgy that i ate? (i had long suspected that the university's worryingly cheap chicken pasties had less chicken and more pigeon inside). Was it some Tropical disease i had managed to pick up from one of the friendly mosquitos who seem to treat my arms as an open buffet? Had i reached the stage of mental cultural isolation that the Bristol international office's graph of homesickness had warned me about?
Upon logging onto my computer however, i found that there was an entirely different reason behind my predicament. The Premier League season 2010/2011 was about to get underway and i had completely forgotten. I quickly got dressed and having met up with some mates from the Uni we began a search for somewhere to watch chelsea in the day's late kick off (about midday our time). At best I was expecting to find some bar claiming to have something to do with Ireland down a side alley, showing the game on a tiny black and white telly with commentary in some indistinguishable eastern european language, and with a fat brazilian man swearing and hitting the aerial every 5 minutes to stop the picture going fuzzy. Instead we found the 'Black Swan', an english pub in the middle of Lagoa serving european larger and traditional pub fair, with firm favourites such as ye olde club sandwich in plentiful supply. We were also able to watch the game, albeit on a confusingly large number of different screens, giving the less than pleasant impression of being in a room with 20 Didier Drogbas. Needless to say i'm still having nightmares.
Whilst our morning was about as traditionally brazilian as a bottle of HP sauce, the afternoon was a different story. We had been invited to a house party in the near by area, and the lure of our first 'churrasco' made it all the more exciting. Brazil is famous for these churrascos, a type of barbecue built into a wall with long metal skewers balancing meat and fish (and vegetables if my friend Beth has anything to do with it) above hot coals. We were greeted at the door by some deceptively brazilian looking guys (I found out subsequently that they were spanish, but they still fitted into the category of 'not english') and paid our £6 contribution towards food and drink. We spent the next 10 hours speaking portuguese with a variety of brazilian and international students, eating the entire cast of Dr Doolittle (thankfully minus eddie murphy), drinking caipirinhas, beer, sangria and some anonymous orange cocktail they pulled out when they thought no one was looking and generally loving being in Brazil (at least until the sun went down and it got stupidly cold).
I woke up the following day feeling as happy and relaxed as I had since arriving here. We had arranged the previous night to go to a friend's house for lunch and so I set off around midday in blazing sunshine with two of my housemates Sophie and Nuno. We had been waiting about 20 mins at our nearest bus stop (i'll save my rant about the wonderfully impractical Floripa bus system for another time) when a slightly dirty and dishevelled man came and stood next to us.
We had been warned about the ways to avoid potential muggers; not flashing phones or cameras around, not talking in english and generally trying to pass ourselves off as Brazilian. However at midday on a sunday I will admit our guard was down. Between Sophie's bright blonde hair, my arsenal shirt and Nuno's 'metrosexual' scarf, i think its fair to say that we did not blend into our surroundings as succesfully as we might have. It also didn't help that our bus stop was opposite a renowned Favela and crack-den. (we were only told this subsequently and it certainly wasn't mentioned on our map of the local area)
However we were still unaware of any danger as the man began to talk with Nuno in a low voice, a conversation me and Sophie assumed was friendly banter. A few alarm bells started going off when Nuno handed over his mobile phone and some cash to the man, but a small part of me hoped he was some kind of travelling mobile repair man. The man then turned his attention to me and Sophie asking for our phones and threatening to shoot us if we didn't comply. I did what any self-respecting englishman would do when threatend by some foreign lout...i shrugged my shoulders and pretended i couldn't understand what he was saying. Unfortunately for Sophie her bright pink blackberry was resting in her lap. The guy saw it, and clearly unfazed by the prospect of being called a girl by his fellow favella dwellers, he demanded it, again threatening to shoot her. So she handed it over. Probably sensible.
As he was leaving he said, 'i'm sorry, this isn't the sort of thing i do normally'. Whilst i am a firm believer in the phrase 'don't judge a book by its cover,' in this case his general appearance and manner suggested that this was exactly the sort of thing he did normally. Prick.
We spent the rest of the day in a case of mild shock. We went to our friends for lunch as brazilian police don't work on a sunday, but with classes beginning in earnest the following day (at 8.20 in the morning i might add) we got an early night.
Compared to the chaos of signing up for classes, attending the first week of lectures was fairly straightforward. Having said that we still managed to get lost on the first day in typical exchange student style. We arrived at what we thought was our brazilian history class in good time and sat fairly near the front ready to be keen and enthusiastic. It was only after about half an hour that my view of the class changed from 'an unusual but interesting approach to studying brazilian history' to 'this has nothing whatsoever to do with brazilian history'. I poked the friendly brazilian guy next to me and he confirmed that we were actually in property law. Given the combined embarassment of making this mistake and then having to leave the class by squeezing between desks knocking books off tables as we went, we will not be making this mistake again in a hurry.
There was another surprise of a totally different nature in my football class. The session was not in a classroom studying muscle groups as I had feared, but instead a 6 aside tournament in the uni gymnasium. In the sort of cultural exchange that only happens on the football pitch, the brazilians taught me a variety of portuguese swearwords, and in return I taught them some of the unbeleivable tekkers I have picked up over the years. Apparently slide tackles aren't alowed.......woops.
We spent our nights during the week attending more on campus 'festas,' and frequenting a bar named 'Pida' which made up for its strange location in the middle of a children's playround by offering very cheap drinks and a good atmosphere. (it helped that half the university also went there before the 'festas' got going). However, at this stage I am slightly worried about the ramifications for my teeth of drinking large amounts of caipirinhas, as the local recipe seems to be something like;
ingredients;
1 packet of sugar (preferrably large)
1 lime
1/2 a bottle of vodka/cachaca
2 cubes of ice
Preparation;
Pour the packet of sugar into the glass
Cut the lime in to quarters and place decoratively in the glass
Add 2 ice cubes but no more or people might actually enjoy the drink
Fill up with vodka or cachaca.
Stir well although there is no possible way to dissolve all that sugar
Come to think of it i might brush them now....
Upon logging onto my computer however, i found that there was an entirely different reason behind my predicament. The Premier League season 2010/2011 was about to get underway and i had completely forgotten. I quickly got dressed and having met up with some mates from the Uni we began a search for somewhere to watch chelsea in the day's late kick off (about midday our time). At best I was expecting to find some bar claiming to have something to do with Ireland down a side alley, showing the game on a tiny black and white telly with commentary in some indistinguishable eastern european language, and with a fat brazilian man swearing and hitting the aerial every 5 minutes to stop the picture going fuzzy. Instead we found the 'Black Swan', an english pub in the middle of Lagoa serving european larger and traditional pub fair, with firm favourites such as ye olde club sandwich in plentiful supply. We were also able to watch the game, albeit on a confusingly large number of different screens, giving the less than pleasant impression of being in a room with 20 Didier Drogbas. Needless to say i'm still having nightmares.
Whilst our morning was about as traditionally brazilian as a bottle of HP sauce, the afternoon was a different story. We had been invited to a house party in the near by area, and the lure of our first 'churrasco' made it all the more exciting. Brazil is famous for these churrascos, a type of barbecue built into a wall with long metal skewers balancing meat and fish (and vegetables if my friend Beth has anything to do with it) above hot coals. We were greeted at the door by some deceptively brazilian looking guys (I found out subsequently that they were spanish, but they still fitted into the category of 'not english') and paid our £6 contribution towards food and drink. We spent the next 10 hours speaking portuguese with a variety of brazilian and international students, eating the entire cast of Dr Doolittle (thankfully minus eddie murphy), drinking caipirinhas, beer, sangria and some anonymous orange cocktail they pulled out when they thought no one was looking and generally loving being in Brazil (at least until the sun went down and it got stupidly cold).
I woke up the following day feeling as happy and relaxed as I had since arriving here. We had arranged the previous night to go to a friend's house for lunch and so I set off around midday in blazing sunshine with two of my housemates Sophie and Nuno. We had been waiting about 20 mins at our nearest bus stop (i'll save my rant about the wonderfully impractical Floripa bus system for another time) when a slightly dirty and dishevelled man came and stood next to us.
We had been warned about the ways to avoid potential muggers; not flashing phones or cameras around, not talking in english and generally trying to pass ourselves off as Brazilian. However at midday on a sunday I will admit our guard was down. Between Sophie's bright blonde hair, my arsenal shirt and Nuno's 'metrosexual' scarf, i think its fair to say that we did not blend into our surroundings as succesfully as we might have. It also didn't help that our bus stop was opposite a renowned Favela and crack-den. (we were only told this subsequently and it certainly wasn't mentioned on our map of the local area)
However we were still unaware of any danger as the man began to talk with Nuno in a low voice, a conversation me and Sophie assumed was friendly banter. A few alarm bells started going off when Nuno handed over his mobile phone and some cash to the man, but a small part of me hoped he was some kind of travelling mobile repair man. The man then turned his attention to me and Sophie asking for our phones and threatening to shoot us if we didn't comply. I did what any self-respecting englishman would do when threatend by some foreign lout...i shrugged my shoulders and pretended i couldn't understand what he was saying. Unfortunately for Sophie her bright pink blackberry was resting in her lap. The guy saw it, and clearly unfazed by the prospect of being called a girl by his fellow favella dwellers, he demanded it, again threatening to shoot her. So she handed it over. Probably sensible.
As he was leaving he said, 'i'm sorry, this isn't the sort of thing i do normally'. Whilst i am a firm believer in the phrase 'don't judge a book by its cover,' in this case his general appearance and manner suggested that this was exactly the sort of thing he did normally. Prick.
We spent the rest of the day in a case of mild shock. We went to our friends for lunch as brazilian police don't work on a sunday, but with classes beginning in earnest the following day (at 8.20 in the morning i might add) we got an early night.
Compared to the chaos of signing up for classes, attending the first week of lectures was fairly straightforward. Having said that we still managed to get lost on the first day in typical exchange student style. We arrived at what we thought was our brazilian history class in good time and sat fairly near the front ready to be keen and enthusiastic. It was only after about half an hour that my view of the class changed from 'an unusual but interesting approach to studying brazilian history' to 'this has nothing whatsoever to do with brazilian history'. I poked the friendly brazilian guy next to me and he confirmed that we were actually in property law. Given the combined embarassment of making this mistake and then having to leave the class by squeezing between desks knocking books off tables as we went, we will not be making this mistake again in a hurry.
There was another surprise of a totally different nature in my football class. The session was not in a classroom studying muscle groups as I had feared, but instead a 6 aside tournament in the uni gymnasium. In the sort of cultural exchange that only happens on the football pitch, the brazilians taught me a variety of portuguese swearwords, and in return I taught them some of the unbeleivable tekkers I have picked up over the years. Apparently slide tackles aren't alowed.......woops.
We spent our nights during the week attending more on campus 'festas,' and frequenting a bar named 'Pida' which made up for its strange location in the middle of a children's playround by offering very cheap drinks and a good atmosphere. (it helped that half the university also went there before the 'festas' got going). However, at this stage I am slightly worried about the ramifications for my teeth of drinking large amounts of caipirinhas, as the local recipe seems to be something like;
ingredients;
1 packet of sugar (preferrably large)
1 lime
1/2 a bottle of vodka/cachaca
2 cubes of ice
Preparation;
Pour the packet of sugar into the glass
Cut the lime in to quarters and place decoratively in the glass
Add 2 ice cubes but no more or people might actually enjoy the drink
Fill up with vodka or cachaca.
Stir well although there is no possible way to dissolve all that sugar
Come to think of it i might brush them now....
Monday, August 30, 2010
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....
-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....
Wednesday, August 25, 2010
The good, the bad and the stuff in between
My first few days on the beautiful (if unbelievably cold and rainy) island of Florianopolis were marked by several important discoveries.
Discovery 1: People in Brazil can't speak English.
This threw a spanner the size of Africa into the works, as my usual policy is to attempt a few words in the local tongue, and then revert to English whilst smiling ruefully as if to say 'at least i tried.' Given that my armoury of vocab consisted of two phrases, namely 'bom dia!' and 'sou ingles, nao falo portugues' I was forced to put my complete trust in a small book claiming to be an essential guide to learning brazilian portuguese. Because i bought the book from Waterstones (a company i have come to trust and admire in equal measure) I threw it straight in my case and didn't open it until my arrival. In retrospect this was a fairly moronic course of action as the book turned out to be utterly useless, as the author himself would have discovered had he actually been to Brazil before publishing.
Discovery 2: Brazilian hotels don't beleive in heating
Given the frosty conditions we encountered on our arrival, Sophie and I were hoping to warm up and relax in the hotel room. Therefore on entering the room and finding icicles forming on the inside of the window, i went down to reception to ask how we could switch the heating on. The friendly man behind the desk gave me a quizzical look and told me he couldn't help. At first i thought it may have been a language issue (see discovery 1) but after a fifteen minute conversation involving several hand gestures and a large amount of Spanish, I established that there was no heating in the room. I was however invited to make use of the air conditioning unit, i guess in case i found the 4 degree temperature unbearably hot.
Discovery 3: In Brazil you have to pay a fine for being foreign.
At airport security in Sao Paulo i was informed that i would have to visit the Federal Police in Florianopolis within 30 days of my arrival. This immediately conjured up certain images in my mind; handcuffs, interregations in empty warehouses, that chair Daniel Craig gets strapped to in Casino Royale...you get the picture. The reality however was entirely different. A friendly young woman took my details and figerprints whilst giving me tips about the best clubs on the island. The only negative aspect of the experience was having to pay $R200 (about £100) to the police as a fine for being foreign. Take note David Cameron, I think i've found a way out of the recession and its in Birmingham.
Discovery 4: Doing thorough research into housing pre-arrival is a very good idea.
Conversely, turning up and hoping for the best is not. In the four days we spent house hunting we saw a series of pretty bad places. It didn't help that in Brazil 'close to the university' actually means 'fucking far from the university' and that 'room ideal for students' actually means 'tiny, windowless room with no bed, desk, cupboard.....'or anything else.
Having read the paragraphs above dear reader, you could be forgiven for getting a fairly negative impression from my first few days, and i will admit at this stage it did not feel like i had just stepped into paradise
However as a wise man once said 'women are like buses' (with women representing good fortune in this case). On saturday the sun came out. We got into contact with a lady named Sonia, who picked us up from our hotel and took us to her amazing house 5 mins walk from the uni. Having seen the bedrooms (with tv, bathroom et al) the monkey-inhabited garden, the outhouse with kitchen and barbecue and the huge rear balcony, it took us about 30 seconds to decide to live there, and another ten minutes to try and explain so in portuguese.
We then headed to the mainland to see my newly acquired Brazilian team Figuerense complete a crushing 5-0 victory, putting them in a great position for top spot in the league. What the quality of football lacked, the atmosphere in the stadium and the skol beer more than made up for.
The day was rounded off with a trip to the centre, where me and some fellow 'gringos' found an authentic little pizzeria (the head waiter had a moustache) in an unusually quiet part of town. We found out subsequently that this may have been in part down to its notoriety for drug addicts and transvestites. The pizzas and obligatory caipirinhas went down like a treat and we even tried a local speciality of white chocolate and passion fruit pizza. Delicious and disgustingly sickly in equal measure. I think we managed 2 slices between 5 people.
Things were looking up
Discovery 1: People in Brazil can't speak English.
This threw a spanner the size of Africa into the works, as my usual policy is to attempt a few words in the local tongue, and then revert to English whilst smiling ruefully as if to say 'at least i tried.' Given that my armoury of vocab consisted of two phrases, namely 'bom dia!' and 'sou ingles, nao falo portugues' I was forced to put my complete trust in a small book claiming to be an essential guide to learning brazilian portuguese. Because i bought the book from Waterstones (a company i have come to trust and admire in equal measure) I threw it straight in my case and didn't open it until my arrival. In retrospect this was a fairly moronic course of action as the book turned out to be utterly useless, as the author himself would have discovered had he actually been to Brazil before publishing.
Discovery 2: Brazilian hotels don't beleive in heating
Given the frosty conditions we encountered on our arrival, Sophie and I were hoping to warm up and relax in the hotel room. Therefore on entering the room and finding icicles forming on the inside of the window, i went down to reception to ask how we could switch the heating on. The friendly man behind the desk gave me a quizzical look and told me he couldn't help. At first i thought it may have been a language issue (see discovery 1) but after a fifteen minute conversation involving several hand gestures and a large amount of Spanish, I established that there was no heating in the room. I was however invited to make use of the air conditioning unit, i guess in case i found the 4 degree temperature unbearably hot.
Discovery 3: In Brazil you have to pay a fine for being foreign.
At airport security in Sao Paulo i was informed that i would have to visit the Federal Police in Florianopolis within 30 days of my arrival. This immediately conjured up certain images in my mind; handcuffs, interregations in empty warehouses, that chair Daniel Craig gets strapped to in Casino Royale...you get the picture. The reality however was entirely different. A friendly young woman took my details and figerprints whilst giving me tips about the best clubs on the island. The only negative aspect of the experience was having to pay $R200 (about £100) to the police as a fine for being foreign. Take note David Cameron, I think i've found a way out of the recession and its in Birmingham.
Discovery 4: Doing thorough research into housing pre-arrival is a very good idea.
Conversely, turning up and hoping for the best is not. In the four days we spent house hunting we saw a series of pretty bad places. It didn't help that in Brazil 'close to the university' actually means 'fucking far from the university' and that 'room ideal for students' actually means 'tiny, windowless room with no bed, desk, cupboard.....'or anything else.
Having read the paragraphs above dear reader, you could be forgiven for getting a fairly negative impression from my first few days, and i will admit at this stage it did not feel like i had just stepped into paradise
However as a wise man once said 'women are like buses' (with women representing good fortune in this case). On saturday the sun came out. We got into contact with a lady named Sonia, who picked us up from our hotel and took us to her amazing house 5 mins walk from the uni. Having seen the bedrooms (with tv, bathroom et al) the monkey-inhabited garden, the outhouse with kitchen and barbecue and the huge rear balcony, it took us about 30 seconds to decide to live there, and another ten minutes to try and explain so in portuguese.
We then headed to the mainland to see my newly acquired Brazilian team Figuerense complete a crushing 5-0 victory, putting them in a great position for top spot in the league. What the quality of football lacked, the atmosphere in the stadium and the skol beer more than made up for.
The day was rounded off with a trip to the centre, where me and some fellow 'gringos' found an authentic little pizzeria (the head waiter had a moustache) in an unusually quiet part of town. We found out subsequently that this may have been in part down to its notoriety for drug addicts and transvestites. The pizzas and obligatory caipirinhas went down like a treat and we even tried a local speciality of white chocolate and passion fruit pizza. Delicious and disgustingly sickly in equal measure. I think we managed 2 slices between 5 people.
Things were looking up
Friday, August 20, 2010
A train and two planes....and a car 3/8/2010
My aim is to do a weekly update, but I have decided to allocate an entire post to the journey given its importance. I certainly wouldn't be where i am today without it.
I arrived at Heathrow by myself via the heathrow express as my family are still on holiday in Mallorca, and i met up with my travelling partner Sophie (also from bristol) whose parents had bothered to come back from holiday to wave her off.
As TAM, the fine purveyours of travel in and out of Brazil insist on check in 3 hours before take off, we had time to relax and get a pret a manger (probably not what i'd planned to have as my last meal in england for 5 months, but they do make a cracking chicken sarnie)
Our overnight flight was completely packed meaning i couldnt sit next to sophie (probably just as well cos she's a snorer) and i was instead sandwiched between a friendly Brazilian grandmother, with an apparent liking for graphically violent films, and a young Brazilian guy from Salvador with great chat, but a tragically small bladder given that he had to wake me up every time he needed to got to the loo.
Hours slept - 5
Portuguese words attempted - 12
Brazilian cuisine sampled - 0
We landed at 5.30am local time, and after finally getting through security (with a very dissapointing stamp for the passport) we got our connecing flight to Floripa.
This flight was much more relaxed, and after again succesfully escaping from sophie, i found myself between an English guy who assured me he was going to a poker tournament 'just to write about it' which i guess is similiar to assuring someone you're going to brothel 'just to watch' and a very friendly Floripan named Ronaldo. With a grin he informed me that i was coming to the island at completely the wrong time of year.
Cheers mate.
2hours later, having eaten 2 slices of crispy toast with a delicious condiment pretending to have something to do with guava, we landed in Floripa in beautiful sunshine and 35 degree heat. We headed straight for the beach where we frolicked in the sand and sipped ice cold caipirinhas
Well thats what should have happened. In fact we stepped off the plane into icy winds and driving rain .
Ronaldo, now firmly my first brazilian mate, kindly offered us a lift to our hotel on the other side of the island.
Having seen the film 'Taken' with Liam Neeson i was initially a bit cautious, but after weighing up certain cold and rain against potential kidnap, drugging and sale into the sex trade we climbed into the car.
We got to our Hotel, called 'Slaviero' at about 10am in time for our first brazilian 'cafe da amanha' or 'brekkie' which involved cereal, toast and coffee. I had been warned about culture shock before i left the UK but this was beyond anything i had imagined.
The year abroad had begun.
I arrived at Heathrow by myself via the heathrow express as my family are still on holiday in Mallorca, and i met up with my travelling partner Sophie (also from bristol) whose parents had bothered to come back from holiday to wave her off.
As TAM, the fine purveyours of travel in and out of Brazil insist on check in 3 hours before take off, we had time to relax and get a pret a manger (probably not what i'd planned to have as my last meal in england for 5 months, but they do make a cracking chicken sarnie)
Our overnight flight was completely packed meaning i couldnt sit next to sophie (probably just as well cos she's a snorer) and i was instead sandwiched between a friendly Brazilian grandmother, with an apparent liking for graphically violent films, and a young Brazilian guy from Salvador with great chat, but a tragically small bladder given that he had to wake me up every time he needed to got to the loo.
Hours slept - 5
Portuguese words attempted - 12
Brazilian cuisine sampled - 0
We landed at 5.30am local time, and after finally getting through security (with a very dissapointing stamp for the passport) we got our connecing flight to Floripa.
This flight was much more relaxed, and after again succesfully escaping from sophie, i found myself between an English guy who assured me he was going to a poker tournament 'just to write about it' which i guess is similiar to assuring someone you're going to brothel 'just to watch' and a very friendly Floripan named Ronaldo. With a grin he informed me that i was coming to the island at completely the wrong time of year.
Cheers mate.
2hours later, having eaten 2 slices of crispy toast with a delicious condiment pretending to have something to do with guava, we landed in Floripa in beautiful sunshine and 35 degree heat. We headed straight for the beach where we frolicked in the sand and sipped ice cold caipirinhas
Well thats what should have happened. In fact we stepped off the plane into icy winds and driving rain .
Ronaldo, now firmly my first brazilian mate, kindly offered us a lift to our hotel on the other side of the island.
Having seen the film 'Taken' with Liam Neeson i was initially a bit cautious, but after weighing up certain cold and rain against potential kidnap, drugging and sale into the sex trade we climbed into the car.
We got to our Hotel, called 'Slaviero' at about 10am in time for our first brazilian 'cafe da amanha' or 'brekkie' which involved cereal, toast and coffee. I had been warned about culture shock before i left the UK but this was beyond anything i had imagined.
The year abroad had begun.
A little explanation...
As the title of the blog suggests, i shall be spending the majority of the next year of my life in S. America or more specifically, at University in Florianopolis Brazil and working in Buenos Aires, Argentina. The blog is mainly for my own benefit (just as well because im guessing not many people are going to read it), as a way to remember the year but also to test out my writing tekkers, as i am still toying with the idea of journalism.
I shall try and keep the content as interesting as possible, and i promise to try and cut down on stories such as 'maaate, i drank a load of brazillian beer, and then i was sick all over myself, and then i drank some more beer' or 'then i met the local tribal chief, and after communicating with him through the medium of capoeira, i now have a completely different outlook on life.'
so with that in mind i hope you enjoy it and of course feel free to send any constructive criticism to
youtryandwriteabetteroneyousnob@hotmail.com
much love
simon
I shall try and keep the content as interesting as possible, and i promise to try and cut down on stories such as 'maaate, i drank a load of brazillian beer, and then i was sick all over myself, and then i drank some more beer' or 'then i met the local tribal chief, and after communicating with him through the medium of capoeira, i now have a completely different outlook on life.'
so with that in mind i hope you enjoy it and of course feel free to send any constructive criticism to
youtryandwriteabetteroneyousnob@hotmail.com
much love
simon
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