My New House Makes Me Go On The Internet

óla gente

Who am I writing to, anyway? Maybe I should say "óla, Julia", my one and only official reader :)

Anyway, I have moved to the decrepit and charming Santa Theresa. It's kind of like if a tourist moved into...hm, well, if Brattle Street were winding up a mountain, and the mountain was in the middle of the Bronx, and it was haunted and colonized by hipsters, that would be the equivilant. It's kinda cool, but also kind of impractical and creepy.

The walk down...

And, to contrast completely with that description (you just have to see it to get how it all goes together, I guess), today I jumped on the Bunge (street car) to get downtown. In Santa Theresa, we have several modes of transportation: walking (prefered), taxi, omnibus, moto-taxi, and street car. Everything with wheels is a little dicey, because the narrow road into the bairro is composed of hair-pins and cobblestones. It has been rainy since my move, and the combination of tires, slick rock, hair-pins and no space is just not fun. So I've been walking a lot. But I changed my pace and jumped on the street car today. It's free if you hang off the side :) , so everyone is doing that (yeah, me too, 'cause there were no seats left), and it's just like The Music Man! People were singing and clapping, I don't know why. And we just wind our way down, clanging the bell, tooting the horn, singing and...hanging on. There is one particularly "thump thump thump went my heartstrings" part, over the Lapa Viaduct arches, where you're way up above everything and just hanging over...

Now I'm going to go home early because I don't know how to get home late at night :(

My arch nemisis: Pigeons are gross

Settling In

My hostel from Pão de Açúcar

I'm moving in on my third week in Rio. To me, of course, this feels like just the beginning, but I think in terms of international trips, I am expected to have seen and done something interesting by this point. And I have! Don't worry, I'm not sitting on my inadequate-looking butt all day drinking caiparinhas!

In fact, I don't really like these ubiquitous acid drinks that are offered enthusiastically at every bar, tourist or otherwise. I've only even sat on the beach a few times...actually, that's not true. The beach here really does work itself into everything, sand just filling in the cracks of a day. As long as you're in the Zona Sul, you will be looking at the many bays, maybe even dipping your toes in, at some point. But once you venture into Centro, or even more off the beaten track into Zona Norte, Rio's beach culture nearly disappears. On a rickety communter train heading North, I saw some boys dressed in red swim trunks and yellow t-shirts waiting on the platform. I recognized the uniform from a hot day on Impanema, and sure enough, the boys were going home with their silver kegs of the chilled matte that had been so refreshing. So, there are indications of the beach in the North...

The girl from Impanema!

But I have to admit I have been more interested in the night life here than in the beach life. Every night offers various music opportunities...Samba, Samba, Samba, Forro, Samba, Funk, Samba...Rock is pronounced "Hockey" (haha). Obviously, I like the Samba. There, I can just groove my own little way, singing along with the inevitable "La-ya La" chorus. Funk...well, let's just say my years of whining classes in Trinidad help out here, but it's not my first choice!

Practically every night I find myself at a Samba party. My friend Eduardo has been my guide. He seems to go out every night of the week, and every time to somewhere new and interesting. His only distractions from a die-hard nightlife are the Fluminense games that happen all of the time (Rio has a bunch of football teams, some of the best in Brazil, and everyone is beyond obssessed).

The first time we went out, he brought me to a little back street bar in Largo de Marchado, where a tiny band played soft chorinho ("little cry"). Since then, he's brought me to sambas all over town. One on a rock by the port where the first slave market was held in Brazil. A bar in Lapa where we've ended up every Terça Feira (Tuesday), free concerts all over the place. I am the gringa with a huge bottle of water (I cannot get hydtated here!), and every time I offer Eduardo some, he says "Thanks, but I only drink the water that the birds refuse." Get it? Vodka, cachaça...clear alchohol. It took me a while to figure out what he was talking about, I kept insisting that the water was store bought, as "clean" as I could find....anyway, a cute little Brazilianism for you guys.

Cachaça casado no mercado

I bought a pandeiro from my pandeiro teacher, and yesterday another new friend gave me a lesson. We ended up singing all of the Astrud Gilberto songs I've been listening to all of these years, me in English, him in Portugues! The lyrics are quite different, and it was fun to comb through them. Did you know that the Girl from Impenema was not tall and tan and young...well, she was lovely. She was so beautiful, that her beauty was something for everyone to share and enjoy, and this guy was sad that the beauty wasn't for him, but he also recognized that that is the way it is. Just a little different from the way we sing it.

Meu Pandeiro

My roof/the view from my room

I just moved away from the beach, up into the hills of Santa Theresa. I am far away from everything, except for Santa Theresa, which is a little artsy/old money neighborhood, the kind of place where the buildings are crumbling away and the artists are painting them all different colors with spray paint. My place is no acception. It's a family house, with the family still intact, and I think Great-great-grandfather's wastebasket still hasn't been emptied, let alone replaced. It's a mess. I live in the eaves of the roof with the pigeons and their shit. But, I have a great view! After writing this, I will go visit a tiny NGO ("onghee" haha) in the North where I am the new English teacher.

The view from Santa Theresa: a castle and Christo!

Typical graffiti, typical architecture

Beijos!

Oi gente!

Back on the trip, so hopefully back on the blog...

I think this has all started rather well: I discovered that having my plane to Brazil canceled in Charolotte, NC is not that bad. I woke up the next morning to the rhythm of a fancy alarm clock at the Embassy Suites (?), stretched out in my super-comfy bed, took a little jog in the gym, checked my bag at the airport, and spent an informative day at the Levine museum of the New South. Then I ate some fried chicken with okra and candied yams at Morts. Yum! Coming back to the airport on the bus, I met a 85-year-old Colombian man who lives in Charlotte all by himself! He´s been there only four years, he´s estranged from his son´s because they are, or at some point were, living in sin with some women, his wife passed away decades ago, and he has no friends because he thinks all of the old people are racistas. And he was taking this bus to the airport to try and book a flight to Colombia, where he will collect his pension and then move again, maybe London or New York?

It was a funny little side-trip, but well worth it!

The flight to Brazil from Miami (somehow I got to Miami, too) was funny: by the time I got to this third airport, I had encountered a lot of displaced Brazilian travelers, and walking onto the airplane, to the last last row where I had been seated, was like walking through a beige, canned-air dream of friendship. That is to say I kinda knew a lot of people, and I felt super popular. I spent most of the flight drinking wine with the Brazilian guy to my left, the Floridian girl to my right, and the fat man who´s chair kept breaking in my lap ahead. And winking at the cute flight attendents. The moral of the story is: Boston may not be the friendliest city in the world, because ever since leaving the place I have had this feeling that we´re all supposed to be friends with each other.

And yes, I did arrive in RIO! I am here now, in fact. This city...It is really beautiful. Those mossy looking stones crumbling into the ocean are really there, mingling with mist and sun. The weather is coolish and bright: it is spring here. I went for a quiet walk in Botafoga, along the beaches, and enjoyed seeing the fishermen along the sea-wall, and the colorful old houses with stucco mouldings and big glass windows. Across the bay, the Jesus on the hill was spreading his arms open to the city, and in the water in front of me a little gold jesus/saint stood on a rock and pointed at a fish.

In Copacabana, the sidewalks are covered in famous wave mosaics, the cars honk, the buses spew grey smoke, and the men walk around in speedos. Ronaldo and Rafaela, some new friends, discussed the democratic nature of beach space as we sat there on the beach, watching volly-ball and ping-pong and brazilian bikins and watermellon sellers.

Last night, Rafaela from São Paulo and I went to a samba bar in a neighborhood called Lapa. The singers were from Samba schools, and they had full samba bands (Pandeiros and all!). The music is so wonderful! This is where it comes from!

I am happy to be here. I will make sure the stories get better!