Gringo in Brazil

Last Post... Ever!

2009-01-30T01:15:00.003-02:00

I had previously written up most of what was going to be my final blog entry talking about all the ways in which my time in Brazil changed my future plans, how much I enjoyed it and learned from it, etc. However, I don't think that scrawled-out rough draft will ever make it onto the pages of this here blog, and so this post will have to do.

My plan since last summer has been to abandon IT, at least for the next few years. I want to focus full time on linguistics, though I'm sure I'll be doing some programming on the side for some personal projects. I'm going back to Barão Geraldo in July after I graduate to try my hand at getting into UNICAMP's Master's program in sociolinguistics, language policy more specifically. I'm gonna be with my lady, pursue the linguistics dream, and hopefully teach English to Brazilians to earn my daily bread (take note that tuition's free and I'm also counting on a scholarship *fingers crossed*). After the two years it'll take to get my degree... well, we'll see where we are.

There you have it, the post I should have written 6 months ago. I won't be writing in this blog anymore since my little stint in Brazil is over and I'm planning on actually moving there; this soon-to-be-fully-brazilified gringo has no more use for this blog. I'll probably start up a new one which will be more broadly devoated to linguistics with a hint of tech stuff at some point. I'd image you'd be able to find it by googling me (if and when I make it). Tschuss.

Modern Day Photo Booth

2008-09-27T16:23:00.005-03:00

Look at the clock!

Brotas!

2008-09-16T14:32:00.017-03:00

So this past weekend, Ruth and I took a trip to Brotas. Brotas is well known for its raw, natural beauty and is a popular vacation destination for hikers, tree-top walkers, white water rafters, rappelers, and all order of land-and-water-based extreme sport fanatics. I was itching to spend some time in nature in Brazil, which I hadn't really done up until last weekend. And I really wanted to go to Brotas in particular because a previous Brotas trip of mine had been foiled by a mysterious sickness that made me want to sleep for 20 hours a day instead of trapsing through the wilderness and jumping off bridges and whatnot. Ruth had already been there and loved it, so we up and went.

We left Saturday morning and did "canyoning" as it's called here on the first day. "Canyoning" is actually "rappelling," an activity that involves descending from a cliff next to/inside a waterfall using a big rope and a harness. It's very beautiful and somewhat scary; YOU are responsible for controlling the speed of your descent, and if you screw up, you can fall very far, very fast onto the jagged rocks below. It was also raining when we did this so all of the rocky surfaces that serve as footholds were very slippery, complicating matters further. However, we got a little training before actually lowered ourselves back first off the edge of a cliff, so I felt OK about it.

Badass photo. This was the 2nd waterfall we went down, 50 m (164 ft) high from the top to the water below.

So sexy... and so high up. The white splotch at the bottom is the guide holding the other end of the rope.

Getting gooshed with water is part of the experience (our guide dunked us all in the water below afterwards).

We all made it to the bottom! (We were with some random couple that happened to be paired up with us).

Saturday was a rainy day. During the canyoning it was pretty cold and after it was even colder...

Back at the campsite to dry off and relax.

Here's us in the tent.

Obligatory kissy face picture. I didn't shave because, well, we were camping.

After a rather uncomfortable nights sleep in the tent, we went out and did white water rafting on Sunday. Luckily the weather was much, much better on Sunday. We even got a sunny afternoon to raft in and I got a little sunburnt.

Our rafting crew. There were 4 or 5 other boats, all of which had DOGS in their rafts. That's right, dogs. Our motto was: "No dogs, no fear!!" (Ruth and the guy on the far right came up with that one. He was a card; went rafting and couldn't even swim!)

White water rafting, whoo!

Group shot! The raft was wedged on some rocks to get us all good and soaked.

All in all it was a very fun weekend. I feel like I satisfied my nature fix for the time being, and got some sweet photos to boot (Ruth made friends with the girl who worked at the agency and she hooked us up with photos for free). I'm actually going to use the first photo of me canyoning and a couple of the others for a Drexel co-op students abroad photo contest. I'll let you know how that goes.

Até mais.

Poços de Caldas in Pictures

2008-08-27T09:42:00.026-03:00

Poços is a city in the state of Minas Gerais that borders the state of São Paulo. Last weekend, Ruth, her 6 roommates, and I set off to spend a weekend in Minas.

It might seem a little strange to take a trip as a house, but there some backstory. About a month ago, a bunch of old "problem" roommates moved out and new ones moved in. Three of the seven new roommates are gringos, two from Spain and one from Chile, and the other four are Brazilian. While the old roommates were nothing but trouble -- one of them actually refused to pay back rent until she was collectively bitched out by the others -- but the new ones get along really well. Since I spend a lot of time at Ruth's, I hang out with them a lot. They're a very silly and fun bunch, prone to spontaneous song and dance, chicken fights, and gymnastics.

Here it is, Poços in pictures:

Hitting the pavement Saturday morning.

Here I am.

This is a mental defective we picked up on the side of the highway outside of Campinas. Just kidding, this is Sophia from Chile.

Feeding the monkies at a rest stop. The rumors are true, Brazil has mad monkies.

This was the monkey with the best hairdo.

Here's me and the girls (minus Laura) after arriving in Poços. From left to right it's: Teresa, Ruth, Sofia, and me. What a handsome bunch we are.

Going up a mountain in a gondala in Poços.

This is me trying to offset Ruth's enthusiasm for this photo.

Cute.

Poços in all its glory.

This is the mini Christ the Redeemer keeping it real at the top of the mountain. As Ruth noted, this city has a Rio de Janeiro complex: a much smaller city with a much smaller Christ the Redeemer atop a much smaller mountain.

Ruth and I gazing into each other's eyes at the summit.

Human pyramid next to the Christ. From top to bottom, left to right it's: Ruth, Laura, David, Jaia, and Pintor. David's trying to lift up Ruth's skirt (and succeeding). Naturally I beat his ass to a bloody pulp after this.

Ruth defending herself against David's attacks and making everyone fall down in the process. I think that's my hand coming to the rescue.

Heading back down the mountain on foot.

David, Pintor, and Sofia chillin' back at Laura's parent's house.

Teresa playing "he loves me, he loves me not" (apparently "he wants me, he doesn't want me" in Spanish)

The whole crew (minus Ruth) in Poços. In the foreground are Laura's sister and her sister's huband whom we met up with on Sunday.

Word to your mother. Have a good Wednesday.

Update

2008-08-22T10:40:00.003-03:00

Here goes.

Over the past month I've started to travel a lot more, hitting such notable destinations as Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo. I've actually been to São Paulo a bunch of times over the past two months or so for reasons that I will explain later.

Rio was really awesome. That city is much more Brazil to me than São Paulo is. From what I've seen, São Paulo is sort of like New York but with more of the bad stuff and less of the good stuff. While it is in many ways the cultural and financial epicenter of Brazil, it's got no style; sure you can go to museums and get a good job there, but it's big, ugly, dirty, polluted, and dangerous. (São Paulo is really big, enormous to the tune of 20 million people).

Rio, on the other hand, has charm and is a fantastic tourist city (minus the crime which is purportedly even worse than in São Paulo). Rio is warm and sunny and colorful. It has beautiful beaches and incredible sites to visit (Pão de Açúcar and Christ the Redeemer). It has samba and funk and parties in the streets. It's residents walk around in standard Rio attire: t-shirt, shorts, and flip flops. Like the country itself, Rio has beauty and glamour next door to wretched poverty and crime; its favelas literally stretch as far as the eye can see. Rio is Brazil.

My most important announcement isn't about travel and is the primary reason why I haven't been posting. Instead of my usual work-basketball-party routine, I've been in more of a spend-all-my-time-with-my-girlfriend routine. That's right, girlfriend. Her name is Ruth and she is awesome. We've been together for about 2 months now and pretty much all my time not spent working is spent with her. She's an anthropology student at UNICAMP (the big university I live near) in her second to last year. She's short, cute, funny, smart as a whip, and silly as a goose. Here's us together:

Here's us posing for the camera and laughing about some damn thing. Notice the tip toes -- so short!

I wish I had some sillier pictures but alas my mother f-ing camera was stolen. When I get some better ones I'll throw them up here. I think you get the idea though.

We're toeing the line on this being truly serious business. I've met the family a few times (they live in São Paulo and that's why I've been there so much) and she's coming to the U.S. in December and is going to spend Christmas at my house. My plan is to come back next summer after graduation and do a Master's degree at UNICAMP in linguistics. Our travel plans were already prearranged (or at least preconceived) before meeting each other, so this isn't just young love naïvité, but that is a good part of it.

That's enough for today. I'll see you around the next tube of the Internet. Bye bye.

Some Not So Good News

2008-08-06T09:03:00.002-03:00

I was planning on blogging next about the trips I took to São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro, but instead I'm writing about our house being robbed on Monday night.

Around 8:00 pm, four young, masked black dudes came into the house with knives while three of my roommates were home (luckily for me, I was not home when this happened). Two of my roommates tried to fight back and got roughed up a little, but not too bad; one guy got a lightly bruised eye and a fat lip, and the other has a swollen ankle. They tied up my roommates and stole all the laptops and desktop computers in the house as well as various other electronic devices, including my camera, my USB stick MP3 player, and my OLPC laptop.

The laptop isn't such a huge deal since it wasn't all that useful and contained no personal data, but my camera was a nice one and had all my pictures on it; I had downloaded them to Pedro's computer, but that was stolen too. They also stole my damn flip flops (Ipanemas, nice ones) that I bought in Rio and some other trivial stuff. Thankfully my passport and all my important documents are still there. Curiously, they didn't steal my DVDs.

Apparently this kind of thing is common and it isn't. You hear about people getting mugged or robbed or made to withdrawl money by street thug types, but my roommate Thomas said he's lived in Barão Geraldo for 7 years and this is the first time this has happened to him. My roommates said robbers like to target student houses because students are relatively rich and relatively lax about security; with so many people living together (in our case 8), friends come and go and you don't necessarily know everyone. Consequently, the door is usually unlocked when we're there. There's nothing we could have done much differently to prevent this; the robbers jumped our gate and came in through the front door which was unlocked since people were home.

According to my roommates, it's usually young black guys who do this kind of thing; while Brazilians themselves may be less racist, it is still unfortunately the case that in Brazilian society the darker you are, the poorer you tend to be.

Fuckin' social and economic stratification breeding crime. I want my camera and my sandals back...

Gringos

2008-08-01T10:47:00.007-03:00

As I'm sure you know, our neighbors to the south have their own special name for us Americans: gringo. It may come as news to you (it did to me) that the word "gringo" in Brazilian Portuguese doesn't have a negative connotation. "Gringo" is used throughout Latin America to designate Americans or more generally "whities," and it may or may not be derogatory depending on how and when it's used. In Brazil, "gringo" has an even broader meaning than in Spanish-speaking Latin American countries, being an informal way to refer to anyone who is foreign:

"Gringo" is thus used today in Brazil in a manner remarkably similar to the way it was used two centuries ago in the Iberian Peninsula. Though it's not meant as an open insult it certainly is not a compliment. It is a euphemism for "funny speaking/looking/acting outsider"; a way of signifying that which is not Brazilian and which has little hope of ever being so. In fact, the term comes awfully close to the original Greek barbaros, a foreign babbler. The term's current preferential association with Americans, Canadians and Northern Europeans is thus perhaps more historically connected to the fact that these groups speak non-Latin based languages ("...foreigners who have a certain kind of accent...") than any physiognomic qualities per se.

The quote comes from an interesting article written by a guy writing his master's dissertation about the term, appropriately entitled "Gringos." He talks about degrees of "gringoness"; one can simply be foreign and thus a gringo, or one can be stereotypically gringo-ish (light eyes/skin/hair, from an imperialist nation, non-Latin language speaker) and very gringo. As a tall, blue-eyed, brown-haired, English speaking American, I am pretty much the epitome of a gringo. My Taiwanese friend, Sphinx, is also a gringa here, but she's less gringo than I am. Even my Columbian exchange student friend Enrique is a gringo in Brazil, a term which, in Columbia, is reserved for Americans.

A Level 5 Gringo

Portuguese Linguistics Lessoninho

2008-07-22T11:49:00.006-03:00

Here's a short list of stuff that I've found interesting/challenging/weird about Brazilian Portuguese:

Made Up Words

I found this really confusing at first about Portuguese. In truth, you don't really make up words a lot in Portuguese, but you do modify their endings. Certain suffixes (-inho, -inha, and -ão) get tacked on the ends of nouns to slightly alter their meaning. The first two suffixes (-inho and -inha) make whatever noun they're modifying smaller or cuter, while the -ão makes the noun it's modifying bigger. For instance, I live with a guy named Pedro, but everyone calls him "Pedrão" (big Pedro) because he's tall. Here's some more examples:
- Bonitinho = Bonito ("beautiful") + -inho = Cute
- Cafezinho = Café ("coffee") + -inho = Small cup of coffee
- Gordão = Gordo ("fat") + -ão = Really big fat person
- Doidão = Doido ("crazy") + -ão = Totally nuts
- Rapidinho = Rapido ("fast") + -inho = Fast (informal)
- Rapidão = Rapido ("fast") + -ão = Fast (informal)
These suffixes can be used to permute any word and makes for a really fun, interesting part of the language. Sometimes it's actually about the size of the thing ("gordão"), sometimes it's about degree ("doidão"), and sometimes it just makes the word cuter or more informal (ex. "rapidinho" and "rapidão," both having more or less the same meaning). At the same time, this confused the hell out of me in the beginning since most words exist in several different versions and you have to be comfortable moving between all of them fluidly to be able to converse. To me, it seemed like there were endless words to learn, but once I got used to the construction things got much easier.
Don't Reply With "Yes" or "No"

This feature of the language was also really tough to get used to. In colloquial Portuguese, when someone asks you a yes or no question, you generally don't respond with yes or no. Examples:
- Q). Pode abrir a janela? ("Can you open the window?")
- A). Posso. (lit. "I can.") = Yes, I can (and will).
- Q). Você vai para a festa hoje à noite? ("Are you going to the party tonight?")
- A). Vou. (lit. "I go.") = Yeah, I'm going.
- Q). Você quer bolo? ("Do you want cake?")
- A). Não quero. (lit. "I don't want.") = No, I don't want any.
- Q). Então, na verdade não tem como fazer assim? ("So, it's not actually possible to do it that way?")
- A). Isso. (lit. "That.") = Yes, that's right.
Responding with "sim" or "não" (the equivalents of "yes" and "no") is considered too formal and is weird for everyday language. My first month or so in Brazil, I was still very much in "yes" or "no" mode, and training myself to respond to "Can you?" with "I can" and not "yes" definitely required an adjustment.
No, no, and no!

In Portuguese, when you want to be emphatic about being against something you can keep adding no's:
- Não quero. = I don't want that.
- Não quero não. = I really don't want that.
- Não, não quero não! = I really really don't want that!
Contractions

Portuguese is similar to Spanish in how succinct of a language it is as you may have noticed. This is due largely to optional subject pronouns as well as unnecessary object pronouns (i.e. "I don't want it" = "Don't want" in Portuguese). However, Portuguese takes it to the next level with its contractions. Portuguese is nuts about contractions. While in English we like to do this with subjects and verbs (ex. I would => I'd, You will => You'll) Portuguese speakers do it with prepositions and, instead of sticking an apostrophe between the two contracted words, create a new world altogether. Examples:
- in the (m.) = em + o = no
- in the (f.) = em + a = na
- in the (m. pl.) = em + os = nos
- in the (f. pl.) = em + as = nas
- to the (m.) = a + o = ao
- to the (f.) = a + a = à
- to the (m. pl.) = a + os = aos
- to the (f. pl.) = a + as = às
- of the (m.) = de + o = do
- of the (f.) = de + a = da
- of the (m. pl.) = de + os = dos
- of the (f. pl.) = de + as = das
- by the (m.) = por + o = pelo
- by the (f.) = por + a = pela
- by the (m. pl.) = por + os = pelos
- by the (f. pl.) = por + as = pelas
- his/its = of him/it = de ele = dele
- hers/its = of her/it = de ela = dela
- from here = de aqui = daqui
- from there = de aí = dai
- from there = de ali = dali
This is a very short list. If you count each gender and plurality, there are 78 prepositional contractions by my count. If you're interested, here's the full list (in Portuguese):

I hope I didn't get too linguistic on your asses. Take 'er easy.

Work Vid

2008-07-15T19:44:00.007-03:00

Here's a video introduction to my coworkers at Ci&T Campinas. I worked with these fine folk on a Johnson & Johnson project called ELMO (yes, like the Sesame Street character) building a new J&J business-to-business web portal. These days I'm doing support for J&J and working with about half the same people. Without further ado, the ELMO team:

As you can see, the work environment is set up like a lot of other IT companies: project team members sharing the same cubicle area in order to foster collaboration. However the "vibe" at Ci&T is different than that of a American or French company -- it's even more egalitarian (as in almost no management or developer hierarchy) and more laid back. People talk to their project leader, the person who is effectively their boss, like an old friend. Language is extremely informal and nobody is above a good ribbing. It's nice.

P.S.- In the video Roander, the guy with the black curly sheep hair, is yelling about how Thiago looks like Roger Federer. And you have to admit, he kinda does:

Trip to São Jose dos Campos

2008-07-12T13:26:00.014-03:00

So back a few weeks ago, I finally did some traveling. I went to a city a few hours away from here called São Jose dos Campos with two other gringos: Ben, another Drexel student also working at Ci&T (surprising I haven't mentioned him here already), and Sphinx, a marketing student from Taiwan. Another young, scrappy, Indian journalist named Tushar who is normally part of our gringo entourage was going to come but couldn't make it (he claimed to be sick but I'm pretty sure he was nursing a mean hangover).

We set out by bus early Saturday morning, June 21. We ended up missing our connecting bus so we actually left Campina for São Jose around midday only to arrive in the early afternoon.

Ben and I on the bus. That's Sphinx in the background making a heart. She also doctored up the photo with what can only be described as "gay shit." What can I say, she's Asian!

We were to stay with another AIESECer (AIESEC is a student exchange organization that we gringos all know each other through) from Panama named Johnathon Gray, about the least Hispanic sounding name imaginable. However when he picked us he certainly looked the part, his skin a dark roasted coffee mocha, and he spoke Spanish like the dickens.

John looking solemn and Sphinx looking... a half second too late for this picture .

So John picked us up at the bus station along with the family he was living with. The family turned out to be extremely nice, warm people. I don't actually remember everyone's name, but I liked them a lot. The dad was away on business somewhere I believe, so it was just the mom, the daughter, Ludmila, 18, and the young son whose name I cannot remember. The kid was cool; he had no interest in speaking any other language except Portuguese and he had a speech impediment which made it sort of hard to understand what he was saying. He was really into games, so I taught him bear ninja cowboy which he absolutely loved. We also had a good time playing old school Playstation video games like Crash Bandicoot. The mom spoke no English which was nice. I practiced my Portuguese a bunch with her and she liked the fact that I wanted to learn. As always, everyone was extremely nice. They put us up in their place, fed us, and made us feel right at home.

Our first night there we went out to a bar with some kids from ITA, a technical military school and apparently one of the best and most difficult in the country. As expected they were kind of, you know, nerdy, but we had a good time getting back very late that night. We had some transportation issues coming back.

We fit 8 into this ridiculous little French two door. It was around 5:30 am. Perfect photo op.

Sunday was the better of the two days. We went to Campos do Jordão, a very scenic, beautiful place. Think of a Swiss village stuck on top of a lush, semi-tropical rain forest mountain and you've got Campos do Jordão:

It's difficult to even describe the climate there. On the way up in the bus winding around the mountain side it seemed very tropical like we were still in Brazil. But by the time we were at the top the change in altitude made the difference; there were evergreens and... European style architecture. It was cool.

Boys in town in front of a church.

Me, Sphinx, and Ben. Notice the stuff written in French.

Group shot in front of some shops.

The only problem with this trip is that it was very rushed. Since we had to take buses everywhere we were slaves to the bus schedule and getting around was slow. We only ended up spending about an hour in the little town itself, a combination of poor planning, getting a late start, and there not just being enough hours in the day. The place was very cool though and I would love to go back with a whole weekend to spend there.

What's Up With Me

2008-06-15T20:23:00.006-03:00

Life is pretty satisfactory these days. I have a very well established routine, one that goes a little something like this: go to work, come home, make dinner, play an hour or two of basketball, study Portuguese, cruize the Internet. I generally go to a party or two each week, Thursday being the standard party day in Brazil (Friday mornings are almost always groggy and hangover-y). On the weekends I do more basketball playing and more Portuguese studying with many hours-long marathons of each. The only thing that's really missing is traveling to other cities and Brazilian poontang, but I have faith those things will come later.

One thing that's really been undermining my quality of life in Brazil is my allergies. As some of you know, I have crazy food allergies. Well, my allergies have kicked it up a notch in Brazil. Now, in addition to being allergic to gluten and milk, I am also allergic to refined sugar and I *believe* soy as well. It took me a good 2 weeks of feeling like shit to realize that refined sugar was the culprit and then another 2 weeks to realize that even my drinking coffee without sugar from the coffee machine at work was making me sick (any kind of coffee you get from the machine comes out the same spout so it's probably a cross-contamination thing). Now that I've figured out what was making me feel bad and how to effectively avoid it, the digestive problems, joint pain, bad skin, and fatigue have gone away and I am much happier; incredibly I can actually play sports again and there ain't no better therapy or relaxation than pickup b-ball. Of course, the logistics of finding food when I'm out, buying stuff I can eat, and preparing said stuff are still tricky; it can be incredibly frustrating to go to a restaurant and not be able to order any of the dishes or go to a party and realize they don't have anything I can drink. Because of the allergies nowadays my diet consists solely of: meat, poultry, eggs, nuts, vegetables, fruits, potatoes, and rice. This diet is actually very healthy, and most importantly these foods are all Brazilian staples making Brazil a good place for a guy like me to be eating.

So, physically things are looking up. Mentally things are relatively rosy as well -- again, speaking a foreign tongue makes me really, really happy -- though I'm feeling rather awash with ambivalence at the moment. Brazil is sweet, but I'm here smack dab in the middle of a career existential crisis, one of those "what the fuck am I going to do with my life" kind of periods; I desperately need a copy of Chicken Soup for the Undecided Young Professional's Soul to tell me what the hell kind of job/field I should be getting into after school. One thing is for sure: this internship has removed all doubt that IT is not what I'm meant to do and has shown me that I need to be working with foreign language in some way to be happy. If I know anything for sure it's that cubicle jobs rot your soul, or at least the souls of people like me. I feel caged despite the fact that any conventional measure would tell me I have a "good" job.

My latest ambition is to go to graduate school. I've been researching linguistics grad school obsessively as of late in an attempt to figure out what schools I want to apply to in the fall and what my specialization should be. I'm still planning this thing out, but I think I want to do a Master's degree in some sort of applied linguistics like sociolinguistics or second language acquisition. Of course there's also lots of schools abroad to consider, as well as how I'm going to get somebody else to pay for all of this. Decisions, decisions.

All right, that's all I got. I have about 3 or 4 unfinished posts baking in the oven that one day I'll get around to finishing. I'll see you back here in a week or so, gentle readers. Take care.

Road Names

2008-05-31T12:24:00.003-03:00

Holy shit, road names are complicated in Brazil. Here is a Google map of my neighborhood:

It's the same for public places, like parks and squares. I think it's because every name is commemorating some fallen hero or public servant, and Brazilians frequently have a shit ton of names and a title to boot. For example, the president of Brasil's name is: Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva. Five damn words to say his name.

Imagine trying to tell someone where you live your first week in Brazil: "I live at 601 Rua Engenheiro Humberto Soares Camargo." Remembering it is one thing and then pronouncing it is quite another. Another complicating factor is that the road signs on my street read "R. Eng. Humberto S. Camargo" so you gotta figure out what all those abbreviations are before you can say where you live.

All right, that is all. I have a churrasco to attend.

Shopping Trip

2008-05-24T19:13:00.021-03:00

Hi there. A week or two ago I took pictures and video of my walk to the supermarket, a trip I make once or twice a week. I figured it would be cool for you to see what the streets, signs, and stores look like in Brazil.

Leaving the homestead.

All's quiet on Rua Engenheiro Humberto Soares Camargo.

Here's a video of me on my way (I almost get hit by a car):

The main drag.

Like I said in an earlier post, no sidewalks.

Brazilian road and buildings. A multi-lane road separated by a strip of land is pretty common in Brazil.

At the crossroads. Notice the length of the road names (short by Brazilian standards). Everybody and their brother has a road dedicated to them in Brazil.

I'm there! More video goodness:

Now on my way back...

The yellow buildings are called "kitnets." They're like studio apartments for people overly concerned with security -- they've got walls, gates, electric fencing, and bars on the windows. People who live here are probably not much fun to drink with.

This is the same wall from the above picture. The graffiti says, "Walls talk too."

This is a nice little bar/cafe that I pass on the way. There are usually people chilling in that patio area.

Brazilian pharmacy. You can get prescription drugs here without a prescription!

These are public telefones called "orelhões" ("big ears"). Very charming and distinctive. Cellphones are slowly rendering these obselete in Brazil as they mostly already have in the U.S.

Sign for Chinese and Japense restaurants (Japense food is particularly popular in Brazil). Fun fact #1: the largest Japanese immigrant population is in Brazil. Fun fact #2: You know how "Chinese" is sometimes used as a catch-all for anyone from East Asia regardless of country of origin in the U.S.? It's just like that in Brazil, except with Japanese people.

The home stretch.

Well, that's it. I hope you enjoyed it. See you soon.

All Things Strange & Brazilian

2008-05-14T19:39:00.017-03:00

I haven't posted in a while. I have a few posts that are half finished and a few ideas for posts rolling around in my head. In the meantime, here is a list of strange, strange things I have encountered in Brazil:

Slamming Car Doors. Brazilians don't slam car doors, they close them gently. Every time I entered or exited a car for the first 2 or 3 weeks I was here, I would get yelled at for how hard I closed the door. I would patiently explain that Americans slam their doors hard, dammnit, and that 17 years (I estimate that I slammed my first car door at age 4) of car slamming practice would take a while to undo. (How else can you make sure it's closed anyway?) Then they would say, "Don't you have a refrigerator in your house?" which is a funny Brazilian expression for, "You have a fridge in your house that you close gently -- why are you slamming my car door?" If riding with my roomates, the vast majority of whom are mechanical engineers, I would then get a lecture about long term stress or some such nonsense, at which point I counter with "In the U.S. we slam the same car door for decades and it never breaks." I have yet to hear a good answer to that.
Halls Are Candy. In Brazil, Halls are candy. Yes, Halls, the medicinal cough drop you take when you have a sore throat. Try to wrap your brain around that. EVERYONE in Brazil thinks Halls are candy. They sell them at news stands are restaurants as dessert in a greater variety than I've ever seen in the U.S. It's baffling.

In Brazil, this is candy.
Electric Shower. The state of São Paulo (where I live) is a pretty hot place most of the year. Most homes do not have a hot water heater or heating of any kind because it's so rarely cold enough to warrant it. Thus, the sink gives you only cold water. To heat water for a shower, an electric heater is positioned above the shower head to heat the water before it is sprayed out the nozzle. "Could an eletric appliance inside the shower be dangerous?" you might ask. Why, yes, it could! It is not unheard of for people to get ever so slighly electrocuted while taking a shower. Crazy country!

Our shower head looks a lot like this, except the wires dangle down more.
Oogling women. Brazilians have truly raised bawdy guy talk to an art form. Much time is spent leering at and saying dirty things about attractive Brazilian women. It's a true spectator's sport. Grown men in a work environment will still do this.
Age of Consent. This one really blew my mind. Apparently in Brazil the age of consent is never enforced and therefore the socially acceptable age of consent is more open to interpretation and more flexible. Sex between a guy in his mid to late 20's and a 16 year old girl is fine. Apparently if she looks like a women, she is woman enough for sex. Much more disturbingly, first cousin sex is not necessarily wrong, and a cousin two or three times removed is fair game. Thus, if you don't know your first cousin well -- if you're 21 and she's 16 and has boobs and an ass -- you can have sex with her. I spent an entire evening talking about this with some Brazilians who were advocating dating your cousin. I don't care how ethnocentric I'm being, that is very fucked up.
No Sidewalks. They have sidewalks in big cities like São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro, but in Barão Geraldo where I live, they don't. You just walk on the edge of the road while the cars wizz by. Weird.
No Sex. I just wrote that title to get your attention -- of course Brazilians have sex. But Brazilian girls are generally not as open to casual sex as their American counterparts and hooking up works differently here. A girl can kiss 10 guys at one party, but she probably won't be going home with any of them (or anyone for that matter). Of course, there are sluts in Brazil, but girls are generally less slutty. In summary: making out more casual, sex less casual.
Ratty Facial Hair. Brazilian men can step out in public with truly terrible facial hair without fear of attracting any attention. I like this because I can't grow a beard either.

In Brazil you can go to work like this without shaving.
Laundry. People don't usually have washers or dryers here because they're too expensive. So, people do wash by hand or with crazy little machines called "tanquinhos":

This looks like a washing machine, but it isn't. It just fills with water and agitates. I'm not sure it actually cleans.

All right, that's a pretty lot of text for now. I might write a second installment since there are many things I find strange here in Brazil. Boa noite.

Sample Portuguese Conversation

2008-04-29T12:52:00.004-03:00

Here's a sample conversation with a Brazil speaking normal-speed Portuguese at me:

*************

Brazilian: Hey, what's up? Do you ---- -- --- now? ------ --- ---- last night at 8:00. It was really awesome. Where was ----?

Me: ...

Brazilian: Did you understand?

Me: Not everything. Could you please speak slower?

Brazilian: Sure, no problem. It's ------ ----. --- -- ---! Right?

Me: Fuck.

*************

It can be really frustrating to not understand Portuguese. I'm definitely getting better, but with only 3 months of practice on my own before arriving, it's not very easy to start speaking well. Sometimes I feel like my Portuguese is really good (like when people I meet tell me it is), and sometimes it seems awful. If someone's asking me questions I've heard a million times before (where I'm from, what I'm doing in Brazil, how old I am) it's pretty easy to pass for conversational. But when I'm listening to a group of Brazilians talk amongst themselves I don't understand shit.

The worst part about not speaking well is not being able to understand jokes. If you're with a group of people and you're not really following the conversation, what do you do when everyone else starts guffawing? Your options are pretty much either a) pretend to laugh even though you don't get the joke (though this can be very dangerous if called on it), or b) not laughing, in which case you look like an ignorant baffoon. I generally opt for the broad, good natured smile, which is pretty easy to pull off when everyone else is belly laughing. That way I might have gotten the joke, but if I didn't at least I'm a happy guy, right?

There really is no good answer. Ain't easy bein' gringo.

Video Tour of the House

2008-04-26T16:30:00.003-03:00

So far the pictures on this blog have been a hit. Everyone knows the old adage "a picture is worth a thousand words." Well, if a picture is worth a thousand words, then a video is worth a million.

Since my camera can take high quality video, I figure I might as well turn this into a quasi video blog by putting my videos up on YouTube. That way you can you guys can get the true insider's view -- you'll have so much rich media it's coming out your ears.

Without further ado, a video tour of my house:

Brazilian Secret

2008-04-25T09:07:00.006-03:00

Oh my sweet Lord almighty, this is awesome:

Brazilian Secret

If there's a woman in your life who needs a little help in the butt region, I'm taking orders.

Walk to the Lake

2008-04-22T21:01:00.023-03:00

This was a 3 day weekend thanks to some guy named Tiradentes. I was sick (I have bronchitis but I'm getting over it) so I spent my time studying Portuguese, taking antibiotics, and walking around the area. On Monday I walked to a nearby lake and took pictures. Here they are.

Road next to the lake. Whoo!

The lake.

The path around the lake.

Stretching/warmup area for runners and power walkers.

Brazilians take recycling more seriously than we do.

Ducklings in the lake.

Some bird I don't know. Maybe... heron? Perhaps an astute reader can tell me.

View across the lake.

Curve in the path.

Pretty flowering tree.

Weird tree shaped like an old Coke bottle.

Trees over the path.

Tree with orange flowers.

Walking back on the other side.

Brazilian couple finishing the loop around the lake. I should sell this picture to Hallmark.

So, that's the lake. Very pretty spot, I'll probably go back some time. Good day.

What I Love About Brazil

2008-04-20T16:29:00.004-03:00

Climate. The climate is very nice. Right now it's fall (the seasons are reversed in the Southern Hemisphere). It's generally pretty hot and muggy, 'round 85° F, but it's sunny almost every day. On those hot days a late afternoon shower rolls in quickly, rains for a while, and then leaves and takes the heat with it. Since it's a tropical climate, the plant life is spectacular; strange, beautiful plants and flowers grow everywhere.
Women. Brazilian girls are hot. Really hot. Most all of them are brunettes with some in-between racial tone that doesn't exist in the U.S. They also have big, awesome asses. Not overflowing, lumpy, I-could-put-my-drink-on-that-shelf-you-call-an-ass asses, but certainly larger and rounder than the average American ass. Tan and round, A+. For those who are curious, their boobs are about the same size I would guess, if somewhat smaller.

Here's Miss Brazil. You're welcome.

Hospitality. I've written about this before, but Brazilian hospitality is incredible. People always go out of their way to help me, and I'm constantly being invited places.
Gringo Love. I think some of the Brazilian hospitality might stem from gringophilia, which is cool with me. Hopefully this will help me with said hot Brazilian women (Brazilians tell me it will).
Food. If you've spent time with me recently, you probably know about my crazy food alergies (gluten & dairy). Brazil is awesome for people with these alergies because I can eat the Brazilian staples: beans, rice, meat, vegetables, and fruits. I can actually eat out in Brazil, something that's nearly impossible for me in the U.S.

I can eat all this!

Language. Of course the language is huge for me -- I get off big time on speaking a foreign language every day. It's easier for me this time around with Portuguese instead of French despite the fact that I had studied French for a lot longer when I went to France. I've got the Romance language conceptual framework set up, so I pick things up much easier and faster, though I'm still struggling with the pronunciation. Speaking of which, I love the way the language sounds. It's a very pretty, sing-songy, open-mouthed kind of language. Like Brazil, it is strange and beautiful.

Lay of the Land - Part II, UNICAMP

2008-04-14T21:43:00.017-03:00

These pictures are me making my way out of Barão Geraldo and towards UNICAMP.

Rounding a turn towards the UNICAMP traffic circle.

Traffic circle. They like these in Brazil as much as they do in Europe.

Central clearing/park thing in UNICAMP.

Pretty, though kind of untended. You get this feeling in lots of public places in Brazil.

Big overgrown fountain that don't got no water.

Cute stray pup that I came across. He was very mild mannered and very skinny. I didn't have any food to give him but I gave him a good pet.

Pupper.

Weird Brazilian graffitti on campus [EDIT: my roommate told me this is the mark of a very good illegal local radio station].

Weird UNICAMP academic building.

I'm done uploading pictures. Will do more later. Internet connection too slow. Goodnight.

Lay of the Land - Part I, Barão Geraldo

2008-04-13T13:51:00.016-03:00

I went on a walk around my neighborhood today to get a feel for the lay of the land. I live in a neighborhood called Barão Geraldo. It's almost exclusively student housing, but strangely the houses are really nice.

My house from the outside. I live with 6 other people, and as you can see lots of them have cars. This is great because they're always offering to drive me places.

This is Guilerme in the living room playing video games as he often does.

Street view of Barão Geraldo, my neighborhood.

A typical, nice house in Barão Geraldo

House number and mailbox on the side of a house in Barão Geraldo.

Note the well manicured shrubbery in front of a random house.

Nice street to live on, eh?

Shit loves to grow in Brazil.

In part II, I'll post pictures of UNICAMP, the biggest university in Brazil which is located in Campinas.

Boa noite

Mad Southern Hospitality

2008-04-11T18:09:00.008-03:00

Brazilians are the most warm, friendly people I have ever met. I am in awe of their hospitality. After getting picked up at the airport by a bunch of friendly Brazilians I thought maybe it was just because this is part of the AIESEC duties for them to go out of their way for me. But every person I meet is consistently EXTREMELY nice to me. A few examples:

I was invited to 3 parties yesterday within 5 hours of arriving in Brazil.
My roommates are very, very cool and nice. Every one of them has been nothing but funny and refreshing. They frequently remind me to take whatever I want in the house. They are very patient with my lack of Portuguese and are thrilled when I say little things correctly. I have so far borrowed a laptop and an alarm clock from them. I have been offered food too.
My roommate Leo took me to a party at UNICAMP last night. Of course he gave me the option of where to go, and we went to the party of my choosing. At the party, he introduced me to tons of hot girls as well as his guy friends. We then stopped off at a second party where we met more people and more hot girls. I spoke alternately in broken Portuguese, English, and even French with this French girl I met. He broke down the party and girl scene in Campinas for me all the while.
This morning I went to work for the first time. An AIESECer, Renan, took me to the bus stop this morning at 7:15 (the bus comes early); the dude got up that early just to walk me to the damn bus stop. WTF.
The head of a department at Ci&T (I forget which one) took me out to lunch at a churrascaria with a bunch of other people for work and PAID. The same guy gave me his business card and told me to call him on his cell any time, even on the weekend.
One of my coworkers I met today takes the same bus as me. He walked me home in the opposite direction from my house because I wasn't sure of my address (I would've gotten there just fine for the record).

I think this sort of hospitality comes from a combination of me being an English-speaking American gringo and Brazilians just being extremely nice people. It's nuts -- they just seem to love helping people. Moreover, BRAZIL is nuts: beautiful weather, sweet job, great people, beautiful language, beautiful house. What more could I want?

I'm in Brazil

2008-04-10T15:41:00.006-03:00

So I arrived in Brazil today.

....Ho-ly SHIT!

In French they have a word called "dépaysant" which means literally "de-country-ifying." Something that is dépaysant makes you feel like a fish out of water.. Brazil is dépaysant like a motherfucker.

The flight itself was uneventful -- everything went smooth as silk. We got to the airport with lots of time to spare, the airplane was half full, and the airline (Continental) took very good care of me. After going through customs and getting my baggage, I was greeted by 4 enthusiastic AIESECers. I really didn't know what to make of that. They made me take pictures and I wasn't really feeling that. Still, they were very nice and silly and whatnot so I warmed up to them pretty quickly. They led me to the parking lot to take me back in the one kid's car. Walking to the car it was pretty hot, 'round 85 degrees. They warned me that we were about to drive through the "ugliest part of São Paulo."

All I could think when we started driving was, "Man, Brazil is LUSH." Everything was green. The place seemed to be overbrimming with life thanks to the warm and very humid climate. The buildings were also extremely colorful, favoring loud bright colors. The mishmash of colors and the intense greenery made the landscape supremely beautiful and very exotic looking. I don't think I'd ever felt so strongly the feeling of being "elsewhere" except possibly Morocco, but Brazil was dépaysant in a totally different way. I was not in Kansas anymore.

We passed some slums which were still brightly colored despite their poverty. We also went through an area with a stinky river that they apologized profusely for. There was some weird white foamy stuff floating on top of the water and after a minute or two of explanation in English and in Portuguese I gathered that it was some kind of industrial soap to clean the pollution in the river. Further on down the road there were giant colorful plastic bottles about 30 feet long and 10 feet wide placed on the banks of the river to remind would-be polluters to think twice before throwing littering.

The rest of the ride was devoted mostly to Portuguese: regional accents, curse words, and the like. I'm sure I steered the conversation in that direction. We also discussed partying and the city of Campinas and tried to figure out what they were supposed to do with me next.

When we arrived in Campinas, they took me to my house (one of the Brazilian girls had been on the phone with a higher up AIESEC person who told them to take me there; my head was still spinning at this point). I got shown around the place by Leo (the only roommate I'd talked to prior to leaving for Brazil), dropped my stuff off, brushed my teeth, put in my contacts and we were off again.

Let me tell you, the house owns. It's a beautiful villa housing for college students. There's a big handsome dark green iron wrought gate outside. There is a lawn with plants growing in the front yard. The house itself is brick painted a soft clay color. There is a big living room with a TV, many computers, a fish tank, and lots of open space. The living room floor is gray slate and the rest of the house has wood flooring. There are three blue tinted windows that look out onto the lawn and let a breeze in. There are two bathrooms and 4(?) bedrooms, and they are nice. The house is so, so sweet.

The AIESEC people then took me around to eat and go to the supermarket. Carolina Dorte was driving and Renan had joined us. Only one of the original AIESECers had stuck around (the cute one), so we were 4. After the food run they dropped me back off and told me they were picking me up at 7:15 am tomorrow to take me to work (I think; much of what was said today was at least semi-confusing since it was in Portuguese or English broken to some degree).

I will definitely take pictures and post them -- this place begs for it. My neighborhood is just as beautiful as the house. It's incredible. I would take some now but the daily afternoon rainshower just rolled through and it's overcast, not quite as pretty as it was earlier. Apparently that's how the weather is this season: hot and sticky during the day with a late afternoon shower that whisks the heat away.

I am positive that I'm forgetting to write about tons of things that I saw/learned/found interesting, but I at least wanted to get something down given the magnitude of this day. I really did get the royal treatment, but it was overwhelming to say the least. I could either roll out a perfectly acceptable statement or I'd just stand there with my mouth agape whenever I tried to speak Portuguese. Forget about understanding people when they spoke at me, that wasn't happening today. Tomorrow I will speak Portuguese.

Até amanhã

And Off I Go

2008-04-09T02:27:00.003-03:00

This is it, last post in this hemisphere. I leave at 10:00 pm tomorrow, April 9th.

In a fortuitous twist of fate, I was able to get my visa yesterday. There were problems getting it (there have been many thus far) but I was able to get it same day whereas normally it takes 2 days. Now that I have my visa I have everything I need to go to Brazil. I'm mostly packed, have all the documentation, and my housing is all lined up. After so much preparatory bullshit it's coming as a shock to me that I'll actually be in Brazil on Thursday.

Not much else to say really. I should be in São Paulo by 8:50 am on April 10 and in Campinas by noon.

Bye!

Bureaucracy, Preparation, Reflection

2008-04-03T01:47:00.008-03:00

Man. I have been at home for the past week and a half now getting ready for Brazil. And it is at the very least a part time job -- hunting down the necessary documents, tying up loose ends, playing email and phone tag with Ci&T and the Brazilian consulate... It's that necessary bullshit you have to go through whenever you move to another country. Oh, it's definitely worth it in the end, but a bigity bitch nonetheless.

Since preparing for Brazil is but a part time job I spend the rest of my time relaxing from that devil of a trimester I finished, playing with my mom's dog (my favorite dog of all time), and most importantly studying Portuguese. I do this hardcore for at least an hour or two per day, and I love it. Brazilian Portuguese is a strange and beautiful language that reminds me of French. Ain't nothin' better than learning a foreign language, and it's much easier this time around with French under my belt.

I had a semi-interesting revelation recently: I like myself better when I'm abroad. It's not really anything to do with avoiding my troubles at home or not liking myself in the U.S. It's just that when I'm living in another country I'm learning another language, an activity that fills me with immense joy. Every day I study the language and then get to practice what I learn; the instant feedback I get by learning something and then directly applying my knowledge provides me with incredible incentive to learn more. I love everything about that process.

I also am much more outgoing; whereas normally I would avoid making tedious small talk with Joe Bagadonuts on the subway, when I'm abroad every social interaction is a chance to practice the language so I revel in it. The fact that I'm generally psyched to be where I am makes me more adventurous too. Plus, I can always play my foreigner card -- I love the role of the young, daring, multilingual American who is at home in a foreign land. Foreigners respect the fact that I speak their language well and am interested in their culture. Because I am foreign and speak the language I am immediately interesting. I always have my go to talking point: "Yeah, I'm foreign. Philadelphia, United States. Yes, Bush is an asshat and Family Guy is sweet. Sure, I'll come to your party!" Socially everything's easier: girls like me more, cool people think I'm cool, and a lack of tact is easily forgiven as a harmless blunder committed by a well meaning foreigner.

When I'm in the U.S., I can't play the daring foreigner role. At home, there's nothing about me that's outwardly special. It just ain't the same. It's not that it's bad here, it's just so awesome there.

On the bright side, I'll be in Brazil next week...

First Entry - What This Blog Is and What It Isn't

2008-03-07T02:19:00.001-03:00

Hey y'all,

I'm off traveling again, this time headed to South America, a continent I have yet to visit. Last year I lived in France and it was awesome, but this trip should be just as good and a whole lot more exotic. I mean, southern hemisphere... the seasons are fucking reversed! I'm leaving in the spring and that's when fall will just be starting down there. Since I didn't even consider that important little nugget of information until I started making plans to go there, I can just imagine what kind of other strange and utterly foreign things are in store for me.

So I have succumbed to the luxury of a pre-made blog service thing... as you can see, I did not code my own blog this time around. There really is no good reason to code your own blog except for the learning experience and bragging rights (though it isn't particularly hard or impressive). These pre-made blogs are much, much better in every way: prettier, way more features, easier to use, easier to add media, and on and on and on.

Fair warning: I WILL be talking linguistics in this blog. Foreign language is my passion and my goal is to become reasonably fluent in Portuguese by the time I leave. I have been studying for several months now towards that end and I will be very actively engaged in learning the language while I'm there. Thus, I will be thinking about it and will want to talk about it.

I will also probably be talking nerd stuff, i.e. programming, from time to time. I will make it so that very technical posts will be obvious as such and thus easily avoidable for my dumber readers. At the same time, I'll talk about more accessible stuff like the culture, the food, the hot Brazilian chicks with the badonkadonk asses, etc.

Speaking of badonkadonk asses, I will not be censoring this blog. Last time I sorta did because the grandparents were keeping up with it, but this time I'm going to try not to. I'm not going to be super lewd or post the written equivalent of bawdy guy talk, but I am going to try to stay true to my "voice" or whatever and just describe things as I normally would to my friends. I'd like to have more of an outside readership this time around since last time most of my readers were just family and friends; hopefully my content will be interesting enough to draw in some strangers.

Lastly, I am going to try to adhere to a higher standard of quality with this blog as opposed to the last one. I will do my best to get rid of typos and spelling mistakes and actually proofread stuff before I post it.

Well, that's pretty much it. Next post I'll talk more about where exactly I'm going and what I'll be doing. I might include some prep stuff if I find it compelling enough to write about.

Tchau!