Salgados

I have only come to fully appreciate the amazingness of salgados during my latest stay here in Brazil. I’ve always known that they existed, but I never ate them often during my last two stays in Brazil. This time, however, they’ve become one of my staple foods.

The term “salgado” is very widely-encompassing and basically describes any of a large number of small things to eat. Literally translated, it means “salty,” which contrasts with the sweeter dessert-like items, termed “doces (sweets).” A lot of salgados look like croissants and are filled most commonly with cheese or meat. They can also be square or circular, though, and can be filled with things as diverse as shrimp, hotdogs, or palm hearts. The only common denominator is that whatever’s inside is surrounded with baked dough.

The main reason why they are so amazing is because they are really cheap. Ironically, that is part of why I didn’t eat them often in the past. I usually ate at places with flashy, American-looking signs that were clean and looked nice, but because of that, they were also more expensive. Cheap salgados tend to be sold in little hole-in-the-wall sidewalk restaurants that have handwritten signs and tend to look rather run-down. I avoided them because I didn’t trust their standards of cleanliness.

However, one night during Carnaval Laura, Vianney, and I were hungry and one of those little restaurants happened to be the first place we came upon. We stopped in for some salgados, and I’ve never looked back since. I’m aiming to save as much money as possible since I’m here for so long without any means of income, so I’m willing to risk cleanliness for cheap food. The best part is, I have yet to get sick from anything, so those restaurants must be cleaner than they appear.

one of the nicer-looking salgado restaurants

Salgados are also sold in little food kiosks outside of PUC. My favorite place sells a salgado and a small plastic cup of Coca-Cola for just under $1.25. If I’m not overly hungry, that’s enough of a meal for me. Different salgados are cooked throughout the day, so it’s always a bit of a gamble as to what’s going to be there when I order. I usually get ones with cheese or chicken. On lucky days there are ones with chocolate! It seems to me that the chocolate ones would be more accurately called “doces,” but I guess they just get grouped together with all the regular salgados in this case.

my favorite salgado kiosk

a sampling of salgados

A Juice for Every Mood

Brazil’s juices are amazing. In the US, most juices tend to be about the consistency of water, and in restaurants one is lucky to have four choices: orange, apple, grape, or cranberry. Here, though, it’s a very different story. There are little juice shops all over, offering countless flavors, and the juices are thick, delicious, and made on the spot from real fruit. Here’s the juice list from Bibi Sucos (my favorite juice shop):

*Abacaxi – Pineapple

*Acerola

*Ameixa – Plum

*Amora – Mulberry

*Berinjela – Eggplant

*Beterraba – Beetroot

*Cacau – Cacao (the seeds of this plant are the ones used to make chocolate)

*Cajá

*Caju – Cashew

*Caqui – Kaki Fruit

*Carambola – Star Fruit

*Cenoura – Carrot

*Coco – Coconut

*Cupuaçú

*Figo – Fig

*Framboesa – Raspberry

*Fruta-de-Conde – Custard Apple

*Goiaba – Guava

*Graviola – Sweetsop

*Jaca – Jack Fruit

*Kiwi – Kiwi

*Laranja – Orange

*Laranja Lima – Orange Lime

*Maçã – Apple

*Mamão – Papaya

*Manga – Mango

*Mangaba

*Maracujá – Passion Fruit

*Melancia – Watermelon

*Melão – Melon

*Melão Cantalope – Cantalope

*Morango – Strawberry

*Pêra – Pear

*Pêssego – Peach

*Pitanga – Red Brazil Cherry

*Tangerina – Tangerine

*Taperebá

*Umbu

*Uva Itália – Italian Grape

*Uva Roxa – Purple Grape

I hope that by the time I leave Brazil, I will have had the opportunity to try most of them. It’s certainly going to take awhile since there are 40 different flavors to choose from! I think I may have to skip eggplant and beetroot, though....

My all-time favorite juice is watermelon. The Brazilian juice is nothing like the watery, fairly tasteless juice that runs down one’s hands when eating a piece of watermelon. It’s more like drinking a watermelon through a straw. The juice is thick and retains the slightly-grainy texture that the fruit itself has, and it is absolutely delicious. There’s no better refreshment on a super hot day than a glass of ice-cold watermelon juice.

It’s hard to stop myself from ordering watermelon juice every time I stop at a juice shop, but I’ve also had the chance to try papaya, kiwi, cacao, and strawberry juice. I was excited to try papaya juice, but I found it disappointingly mediocre. I’ve no particular desire to ever have it again, especially with so many other tantalizing flavors to choose from. The kiwi juice was certainly interesting. In my opinion, kiwi green is a rather off-putting color for a juice, especially since it still has the black seeds mixed in. The juice was so thick and tart that I had to drink it slowly, and I didn’t end up finishing my cup of it because the flavor was just too strong. Though it’s fun to now be able to say that I’ve had kiwi juice, I consider eating a small piece of kiwi to be far preferable to drinking a glass of it. The cacao juice was pretty exotic tasting - a bit tart and like nothing I’ve ever had before. The strawberry juice was my favorite of the new juices. Not quite as good as watermelon juice, but definitely one I could order on a regular basis.

cacao juice

Another ubiquitous feature of juice shops is açaí (ah-sigh-ee). The little red berry from the Amazon has recently become the new miracle fruit in the US because it is high in antioxidants. Açaí is usually part of juice blends in the US, but here it is sold on its own. Though sold in juice shops, it isn’t really a juice – it’s more like a thin smoothie. It’s a very dark purple, and people eat it with a spoon. Occasionally toppings like granola or honey are mixed into it, as well. While I’ll eat it from time to time since it’s so healthy, I’m not a huge fan of açaí. On the other hand, many of my American friends have fallen completely in love with it. Though it is found within Brazilian borders, I’ve never seen açaí as the berry itself – it is always in smoothie form. It’s cold enough to cause brain freezes, so it’s another good option on hot days.

açaí

Trouble in Copacabana

Copacabana has been a bit of a hot spot lately. Some of the drug lords from Rocinha (the largest favela in Rio, which also happens to be relatively near my neighborhood) decided to invade a favela in Copacabana called Ladeira dos Tabajaras. That obviously didn’t go over too well with the people in Ladeira dos Tabajaras, and the police got involved to try to settle the dispute. A shootout commenced in the streets of Copacabana, and five of the gang members were killed. One of my American friends lives on the street were the guys were killed, and she said she made it into the metro (synonymous with “subway” here) only ten minutes before the shooting began. That metro station is a common transfer point from bus to subway, so I’ve definitely been in that area many times. According to O Globo, the biggest Brazilian news agency, one of the stray bullets from the firefight entered a home in Humaitá, a completely different neighborhood about a kilometer away. The article also said that some of the gang members are hiding out in the forest in the area near Copacabana, so they haven’t been caught yet.

This incidence brings Rio’s violence closer to home for me. Usually the fighting takes place within favelas I’ve never heard of, so I usually don’t pay much attention. Copacabana, on the other hand, is located in the middle of the Zona Sul, and it is one of the most famous neighborhoods in Rio. Lots of students from PUC live there. Another newspaper headline I saw said that property values are going down in Copacabana because of the violence. I know at least one person in Copacabana has been killed by a stray bullet that entered their apartment (though the incident was unconnected to the current shootout). The streets there are also dangerous – one of my friends told me that at least 45 people have been robbed recently. Even in the middle of the day, it’s not very safe to walk around there. I’ll definitely be avoiding the area for awhile!

An Unexpected Twist

Friday night some friends and I decided to go to Lapa. We seem to have settled into a fairly set group that consists of me, Mathiu (France), Vianney (France), Paulina (Chile), Carlos (Peru), Daniel (Germany), Henning (Germany), and Igor (Portugal), so it’s quite international, just the way I like it. I have yet to make many Brazilian friends, but at least I’m not just hanging out with other Americans. I think it’s really cool having friends from so many different countries.

We caught a bus to Lapa, which was about a 45-minute ride away. As we were walking into the area, there was a hole in the middle of the pavement, and I twisted my ankle and fell. It was a more serious twist than usual, and though I could walk on it, the pain was more intense and lingered for longer than I was used to. Almost immediately, I started feeling very poorly. The music was suddenly unbearably loud, and it felt like everything was pressing in on me. I thought it was odd and couldn’t figure out how twisting my ankle could have such an effect on the rest of me. I felt strange enough that I wondered momentarily if I’d been drugged, but then I remembered that I hadn’t had anything to eat or drink since leaving home. Igor asked if I wanted to sit down for a little while, but I declined, thinking I’d be all right in a minute. I soon reconsidered, however, and went to go sit down on a step.

As I sat there, I began to feel even worse. I was light-headed and, though I really wanted to continue on to the club with my friends, I decided I was in no shape to do so and that I’d better go home instead. Mathiu came over to check up on me, and I stood up to tell him that I thought I’d better go home. I managed to complete the sentence, but then my balance went way out of whack. I grabbed his shoulder to steady myself, but the next thing I knew, lots of hands were lowering me to the ground. I remember thinking as I blacked out, “I’m losing consciousness outside at night in the middle of a foreign country, and in Lapa [NOT an overly-safe neighborhood] no less.” So much for always being on my guard about my surroundings. And then, “I don’t know where I am or who the people moving around me are…I hope I don’t wake up someplace strange with everything gone.” It was a little bit like the feeling I had last summer when I boarded the bus to Nova Friburgo without knowing what awaited me on the other end, except that this was ten times worse.

I opened my eyes to find Igor and Mathiu peering over me, still in Lapa, right where I’d fainted, of course. It hadn’t really occurred to me as I blacked out that I had seven friends there with me. Thank goodness for that. I was impressed with the presence of mind of the person (perhaps Igor?) in charge of my recovery process. If the same thing had happened to one of my friends, I’m not sure I would’ve known exactly what to do. My recovery, on the other hand, seemed like it could have been the example for a first aid manual. At first they had me just lie there, with someone elevating my feet, then slowly rise to a sitting position. Someone got me a bottle of water, and little by little they coaxed me back to normal. A Brazilian woman came over to help, and she rubbed my wrists and splashed water on my neck and forehead while directing me to take deep breaths. All the while, I was speaking Portuguese to those around me. It’s certainly interesting to have to speak a foreign language under conditions like those.

Almost immediately upon opening my eyes, I started laughing, especially since I didn’t know the proper Portuguese to be able to make sufficient fun of myself. I felt so ridiculous, especially since I’ve never had anything like that happen to me before. The whole episode was so strange. Prior to twisting my ankle, I’d felt completely normal. I was walking along, talking with Mathiu and Vianney, and then BAM! I twisted my ankle and everything fell apart. I’ve certainly twisted my ankle many times in the past, so I have no idea why I reacted so severely this time. Brazilian sidewalks are definitely hazardous, though. I tripped and fell a couple weeks ago and got a nasty scrape on my right knee, and now, as soon as that scrape has healed, I have a scrape on my left knee and an injured left ankle. I’m pretty sure my host mother thinks I am the world’s biggest klutz, and I’m rather inclined to agree with her.

After awhile, I felt well enough to stand. I hailed a taxi and set off for Gávea, disappointed that I was leaving Lapa before the night had even begun. All things considered, though, I was very lucky. I’m thankful that I had such attentive friends, and that I was there with a group that had six guys, instead of a small group of girls. While fainting in Lapa on a Friday night is far from my idea of fun, things couldn’t have been handled more smoothly. I even learned a new Portuguese word in the process: desmaiar = to faint!

The Price of Paradise

I love being here in Rio. I can think of nowhere that I’d rather be spending my semester abroad, and quite frankly, the thought of spending a semester in Europe (the traditional destination of choice) seems so blah in comparison with being here in Brazil. When I think of Europe, I think of snow, cold temperatures, and lots of places far from the sea. Contrast that with my hot and sunny weather and beautiful beaches just minutes from my door, and Brazil wins hands down. I certainly want to travel around Europe at some point, but I wouldn’t want to trade my tropical life here to spend a semester there. Besides, everyone always goes to Europe. I like being different and going to a country most people don’t go to and speaking a language most people don’t speak. It’s more fun that way.

My life here is pretty much a permanent tropical vacation, but it’s not without its costs. This has been the hottest summer in 30 years in Rio, but my apartment does not have air conditioning. Now, I’m a fan of hot weather and would much prefer it to be really hot than really cold, but sometimes the heat here gets to be a bit much even for me. The highest temperature I’ve seen here has been 98.6, and it’s always really humid, as well. While it gets hotter at times in Oklahoma, we’re able to escape into air conditioned buildings, so the heat doesn’t really impact us that much. Here, though, there is no escape. (Well, that’s not completely true – the classrooms at PUC and a nearby shopping mall have air conditioning, but that’s about it.) Sometimes it’s difficult to fall asleep at night because it’s so ridiculously hot. I know it’s going to be a scorcher when I get sweat beads on my face just while I’m getting ready in the morning, before I’ve even gone outside into the sun. One of my new favorite pastimes is simply lying on my bed under my fan going at full speed, attempting to cool off a bit. I cannot believe how many Brazilians walk around in jeans. Seems like punishment to me, since I can’t bear to wear anything other than skirts or shorts. Luckily, though, it’s cooled off a little in the last week or two. Now the temperature is usually only in the mid-80s, and trust me, it feels absolutely heavenly.

I also don’t have internet access or TV at home. My host family has both, but I don’t really get to use them, which is frustrating. I didn’t watch a huge amount of TV in the US, but there were still a couple of shows that I followed regularly. It bugs me that I’m missing a whole season of those shows. Depending on what kind of television service a family has, it is possible to get American shows here in Brazil. I used to watch American TV shows when I was with my other host family in Santa Catarina. Even if I weren’t able to watch the shows here on TV, I could still follow them online, but my lack of internet access rules that out, as well. It would also be nice to watch regular Brazilian TV because I think it would help with my Portuguese.

I’d also like to be able to watch Brazilian soap operas, which are really popular here. TVs seem to spring up everywhere around here, including in little sidewalk restaurants, in the kiosks of food vendors, and even outside the Sambodrome, where people would sit along the sidewalks to watch all the hubbub. In the evenings, almost every TV is tuned to the same soap opera. It’s called Caminho das Índias, which translates something like Way of the Indias (which makes no sense to me), and it has a very recognizable theme song. I haven’t seen enough of it to really figure out the story line, but apparently there’s some connection between a group of Brazilians here in Rio and some people in India. I must say, it seems so odd to hear the Indians speaking Portuguese, though I suppose if the soap opera were American, they’d be speaking English and I wouldn’t think anything of it. The whole show seems rather strange to me, but it certainly has lots of fans around here.

What bothers me far more than my lack of TV is my lack of internet. I’ve had a laptop with wireless internet for the past two and a half years, and I can’t even begin to guess how much time I spend on the internet on an average day. I like the feeling of always being connected to everything, and like most other college kids, I certainly spend my fair share of time on Facebook. I also like having all the information I could ever need available at my fingertips in a matter of seconds. In addition to using the internet for fun, while in Brazil I could also use it to translate words (which is much faster than using a regular dictionary), to look up additional information on class topics in English, and to research and plan excursions. That is, if I actually had internet at home.

I have my laptop here in Brazil, and I can get free wireless internet at PUC and at Shopping Leblon. Both, however, have their drawbacks. To get to Shopping Leblon and back, I have to pay to take the bus, an annoying expenditure when I’m trying to save as much money as possible. Though the internet access itself is free, it really costs two bus fares. I don’t have to take a bus to get to PUC, but the main wireless area there is outside in a rather jungle-y part of campus. Mosquitoes like to hang out there, so if I stay too long I start to get eaten alive. In addition to being plain uncomfortable, it’s also of minor concern to me because some mosquitoes in Rio carry Dengue Fever. If you’ve never heard of it, look up the symptoms on the internet – it’s pretty nasty. There have only been a few thousand reported cases of it in Rio, so I’m not too concerned about it, but still, it’s something to be aware of, which isn’t hard considering the city of Rio has a big Combat Dengue campaign, with posters in buses, on the sides of the subway trains, and in the metro stations.

Instructions on How to Combat Dengue

Because I have no internet and no TV at home, nights here are different from what I’m used to in the US. My host family and I hardly interact at all, so I spend all my time in my room. Lately I’ve been finishing my homework by 11:00 or so, and after that I look around my room, wondering how to fill my time. What did people do before TV and internet? On school nights in Oklahoma I usually go to bed around 2:00, so to have nothing to do at only 11:00 is strange indeed. Considering the fact that I packed my whole life into two suitcases and two carry-ons to come here, I don’t really have that much to do. I always read a ton when I’m in Brazil, but that idea is much better suited for month-long stays than for semester-long stays. I brought four books along, and I’ve already raced through two of them. I’m not looking to buy more books here since they’re expensive and heavy to take home, so I’ve got to make my other books last as long as possible. However, Laura also brought along a few books, so I think we’re going to trade at some point. That would give me a little more reading material, at least. Even so, I may have to actually start going to bed before midnight if I run out of things to do.

The one other thing I find very frustrating here is the amount of time it takes to get anything done. For example, I had to pay a fee to the Federal Police in order to register here in Brazil. In the US, we’d be able to simply write out a check to the Federal Police and turn it in during registration. Here, though, fees have to be paid at a bank instead. I went there expecting it to take twenty minutes at most, but I ended up having to wait an hour just for the three minutes it took to actually pay the fee. The good part was that at least the bank had cushy chairs to sit on while waiting. I wasted an hour of my day, but all in all it wasn’t so bad.

Registration, on the other hand, was a more extensive exercise in patience. Everyone who stays in Brazil longer than 30 days has to register, and PUC sends us in groups to make it easier for us. We had to be at PUC at 6:30 in the morning on the day of registration, and we arrived at the office by 7:15. We then proceeded to wait around for the next seven and a half hours before we finally got everything completed. I truly do not understand what on earth can possibly take so long with the registration process. Once again, we had very comfortable chairs, and since the registration office is located within the airport, we also had access to a food court. Paul, one of my French friends, happened to be in my group, so we did our best to try to amuse each other. The wait was about as pleasant as it could have been. It just frustrated me because I ended up missing part of one of my classes due to the ridiculously long wait time. My group was lucky, though – I think at least one group had to wait for ten hours instead of just seven and a half.

The most frustrating wait that I’ve had, however, has been the wait for my PUC student ID card. I want the card because students get discounts some places (like at the movies). Plus, it would also just be nice to be able to prove that I’m a PUC student because it would make things on campus a little easier. We were supposed to receive our cards the last week of February. When I went to get mine, however, I was told that the photo machine was broken and that I’d have to come back on March 17. I went back that day to find a sign on the door saying that I should email a 3X4 photo in a JPG format to the office. After getting one of my friends to help me crop my photo (I had no idea how to get it into the 3X4 size myself), I emailed it to the office. I got an email on March 18 saying that I could go to the office to pick up my card. When I went there, however, I was told that now the printer was broken and I’d have to come back today (the 19^th). I finally managed to get my card today, more than a month after I arrived!

Other minor things that I’m not exactly fond of:

*Bathroom sinks in Brazil almost never have hot water.

*The ever-present tiny ants from my old apartment are here in my new one, as well. Even though I’m careful to never keep open food lying around, they still seem quite at home in my room. They crawl on me from time to time, though I’d really rather they didn’t.

*I miss the softness of tumble-dried clothing, since everything here has to be line-dried.

*Everything public, including the sidewalks, always seems so dirty and/or downright disgusting here, though I think that’s a permanent feature of all big cities. Regardless, it takes a bit of getting used to for a germaphobe like myself.

*Along the same line of thinking, so much nasty stuff washes down from the favelas after it rains that you’re not supposed to go in the water at the beach for 24 hours, enough time for all the toxic stuff to wash far out to sea. “Black tongues,” residue washed up by the waves that looks exactly like its name, also appear on the beaches after it rains, which is rather gross. Not all places in favelas even have sewage systems, so I prefer not to think about what’s in all the runoff.

*I was excited to be coming in the summer because I thought that it would mean extended daylight hours. I forgot, however, that since Rio is in the tropics, there isn’t much difference in the amount of daytime between summer and winter. It still gets dark by 6:30 every night. I wish the days weren’t cut so short, especially since on Tuesdays and Thursdays I don’t even get out of class until 7:00.

*There’s still always the threat of being robbed. I’m lucky, though – the most dangerous neighborhood that has host families for students is probably Copacabana, and I’ve got both Leblon and Ipanema separating Gávea from Copacabana. Multiple people have told me how they always have to watch their back there; that would get old very fast, I would think.

All things considered, though, Rio is still an awesome place to live. Its slight drawbacks in no way tarnish its reputation as “A Cidade Maravilhosa – The Marvelous City.”

Churrasco in Colégio

On Saturday I went to a churrasco, or Brazilian barbeque, in the neighborhood of Colégio. It's located in the North Zone (Zona Norte), which is mostly residential, and is even further away from the South Zone (Zona Sul) (where I stay most of the time) than the neighborhood of Madureira, the site of my late-night adventure last summer. Déborah, one of the girls who works in PUC's international office, was hosting it at her house, so a group of us took the bus and the subway out there. I didn't time it on the way out, but on the way back it took almost an hour and a half to get from Colégio back to Ipanema.

Colégio looks a lot different from the Zona Sul. Around where I live, the streets are packed with high rise apartments, flashy stores, and shopping centers. Colégio, on the other hand, seemed to be mostly single-family homes. Most of the Zona Sul does not feel particularly foreign to me; though there are of course small differences that make it distinctly Brazilian, overall it feels like any of the big cities I've visited in the United States. Colégio, on the other hand, felt very foreign.

I've been in Brazil enough that by this point, neighborhoods like Colégio look familiar enough that it's hard to articulate exactly what makes them look so foreign. However, it was interesting to hear some of the reactions of the other people in my group, most of whom I assume haven't seen many neighborhoods like this before. It's always a slight shock to step off the metro or bus into a neighborhood like Colégio just because the differences from the Zona Sul are so jarring. One person said something to the effect of, "Wow, this is definitely NOT the Zona Sul." Another commented, "Well, they still have buses here." I take that to mean that Colégio seems like such a different world that it's a little strange to imagine it being connected to the Rio's we're used to. Another person said the neighborhood reminded him of his childhood, which was, I think, in the Dominican Republic.

Colégio is definitely not a favela, but by American standards, it still looks very poor. White walls surround a lot of the houses, but they're dingy and covered in dirt and sometimes graffiti. The sidewalks are cracked and uneven, often with grass sprouting up wherever possible. Most of the cars I see in the Zona Sul look new, bright, and shiny, but a lot of the cars in Colégio looked like they'd already led long lives.

In addition to these things, I think one of the key factors that makes Colégio look poor is the presence of open holes in the walls of homes that serve as windows. Since almost every window in the United States is screened and/or glassed in, all the gaping holes in Colégio seem initially to scream poverty. If they could afford to close their windows, they would, right? Wrong. Most Brazilian windows do not have screens and do not seal (though many can still be closed). Homes here don't have central air, so the windows also serve for ventilation. Even in apartments in the middle of the city, there's still often a big gaping hole in one wall near which laundry is hung to dry.

Laundry is the other big thing in Colégio that gives the illusion of poverty. Laundry stretches across the rooftops of Colégio, which to Americans looks very strange. Here, though, air drying clothing is the norm. In the US, dryers are expected and homes that have clotheslines usually hide them discreetly in the backyard, out of sight. In Brazil, dryers are rare and laundry is often hung for all to see. I don't know of many Americans who would willingly hang their undergarments out to dry in sight of the public, but here nobody seems to think twice about it.

The two biggest "indicators" of poverty in Colégio really aren't indicators at all, but rather just differences between the US and Brazil. I guess on some level they do signify a lower economic status since homes in Colégio don't have air conditioning or clothes dryers, but those things are rare all throughout Brazil and are in no way unique to Colégio.

Even though Colégio seemed to be a rather modest neighborhood, Déborah's house had a pool in the back. That's certainly more than I can say for my house in the US. Later, when I was in the kitchen, I noticed that they had one of the nicest, most modern-looking stoves that I've ever seen in Brazil. Granted, I haven't seen that many Brazilian stoves, but even so, the niceness of Déborah's stove caught my eye. That Déborah's family can afford a pool and a flashy new stove indicates to me that they are doing quite all right financially.

Brazilian barbeques are a huge part of the culture here. Because of that, I always thought it a bit strange that I'd never been to one, though I attributed that to the fact that I didn't like meat, so I didn't think I'd enjoy it anyway. As it turns out, though, that meat was some of the best I've ever tasted.

The word barbeque is a bit misleading in the Brazilian sense because there is no actual barbeque sauce involved. Instead, the meat is seasoned and then cooked in an outdoor oven. We had beef, sausage, and something that looked like chicken at our barbeque. Never one to be adventurous when it comes to meat, I stuck with just the beef. Though very tough, it was deliciously savory and had a slight smoky flavor. Déborah's family members would wander around offering plates with small pieces of meat on them to us as we lounged by the pool. That went on for several hours. At one point they brought out a pot of rice and a crumb-like substance called farofa to go with it; that was the closest we ever got to eating an official meal. For the most part we just filled up little by little on the pieces of meat.

The caipirinha, a Brazilian drink made of cachaça (sort of like Brazilian rum), lemons, sugar, and ice, is definitely the drink of choice here. At one point some people decided to make caipirinhas, so one guy scaled the back wall and began picking lemons from the tree that hung over the pool area. The confusing thing about lemons in Brazil is that they are green. Even though I know this, I still have a very hard time convincing myself they aren't limes. It seems, though, that lemons aren't the only strange green fruit around here. After that guy had picked eight or ten lemons, someone informed him that they were actually green oranges - no good for caipirinhas. So the guys played catch with the green oranges as someone went off to the store in search of green lemons.

I expected the barbeque to last for only a few hours, but we ended up staying there from early afternoon into the night. It was a nice way to spend a Saturday, hanging out with people in and around the pool. All the while, mostly English music played from a radio in the background, which I got a kick out of. I like a lot of Brazilian music, but it seems that most people around here would rather listen to American/British music instead. There were about twenty of us at the barbeque, and I'd only known a few people beforehand, so it was a good opportunity to meet some new people.

the view from the Colégio metro station

the view from the Colégio metro station

the view from the Colégio metro station

where the meat was cooked

picking oranges

Urca

On Sunday afternoon I decided to head to Urca, a neighborhood on the far side of Copacabana. I had no particular destination in mind, but my Rio guidebook has a walking tour of Urca in it, so I jotted down the route and set off to see what there was to see. Urca is the neighborhood where Sugarloaf, one of Rio’s famous landmarks, is located, but apart from that, it doesn’t have much in the way of tourist attractions. Most of the neighborhood is residential, and it’s supposedly very safe. Urca sits on the Bay of Guanabara, and one of the neighborhood’s busiest streets follows a path right along the water for quite a long ways. There’s a wall separating the sidewalk from the water, and all along it were people fishing or just enjoying the view while talking and eating with friends. It was shaded for the most part and there was a nice breeze, so it was a very pleasant afternoon stroll.

Urca has a little beach on the bay. The beach itself is not at all spectacular, but the backdrop behind it is beautiful, with mountains jutting up only a little ways back from the water. The bay is really polluted and everything always strongly advises against swimming at any of the bay beaches, but Brazilians apparently don’t mind it since there were lots of people in the water.

A hidden oasis nestled among busier neighborhoods, Urca is so much quieter than the parts of Rio with which I’m most familiar. It reminded me of lazy summer days in my hometown, with only the occasional car zipping by. The street along the bay had a decent number of cars, but the streets further inland had hardly any traffic whatsoever. I even stood in the middle of the street to take several pictures, something that’s all but impossible most other places.

As I was walking around, I almost concluded that if I were to come back to live in Rio again at some point (which isn’t a particularly unlikely possibility), I’d like to live in Urca. I love how while the neighborhood itself is so peaceful, it’s still only a bus ride away from any of the busier parts of Rio. It seemed so safe there, and at times it was hard to remember that I was still right in the middle of one of Brazil’s biggest cities. I also love the path along the bay, to which almost every street in Urca seems to lead. While it doesn’t have quite the splendor of the ocean beaches, the view of the bay is still quite lovely. In some ways, it’s almost better because there’s so much more to see: the waves lapping against the rocks directly below the path, the mountains, Rio’s skyscrapers, boats on the water, the huge Rio-Niterói bridge, and the neighboring city of Niterói, across the water on the other side of the bay. It’s more visually stimulating, since the view of the ocean beaches is simply of a huge expanse of blue, with waves along the coast and a few islands in the distance. I suppose it’s just a difference between the mostly manmade beauty of the bay and the natural beauty of the ocean. They’re beautiful in different ways, and it’s hard to choose which is better.

In the end, however, I decided that I don’t think Urca is quite the place for me. I realized later that the entire time I was walking around, I didn’t see a single drugstore or supermarket. This is in direct contrast to Gávea and Leblon, where there are drugstores on almost every block and at least four supermarkets within walking distance of my apartment. There are also lots of Lojas Americanas (a chain that’s sort of like a Brazilian-style Wal-Mart) around, so I can get almost everything I need within a few blocks of my apartment. I really like how convenient it is to be able to run to the nearest supermarket/drugstore/Lojas Americanas, get whatever I need, and still be back to my apartment in ten minutes. After enjoying this luxury, I think I’d find it a hassle to have to board a bus or walk long distances to get whatever I needed if I lived in Urca. In the US, driving distances to get necessities is the norm, of course, but in Brazil, it’d be quite a change from what I’m used to. In my opinion, Urca is better suited for Sunday afternoon strolls than it is for permanent residence.

a military fort

that's Sugarloaf in the background

a different view of the same house

en route to Sugarloaf

Urca Beach

the inside of Our Lady of Brazil

Our Lady of Brazil church

St. Peter, floating in the bay opposite the church

the rock in the background in Urca, the first stop on the way up to Sugarloaf

Back to School

I had my first week of classes this week. OU’s international programs are set up so that all exchange students take twelve hours, which means I only have three classes. Each one meets for two hours twice a week. I’m taking Brazilian Literature and Culture, Sociology of the Family in Brazil, and Portuguese for Foreigners (PUC requires that one). All three of my classes are taught entirely in Portuguese, and the literature and sociology ones are regular classes with Brazilian students in them.

We didn’t do much in my first sociology class, but my literature professor assigned a reading with questions to answer on the very first day. My professor talks slowly, so she’s not particularly difficult to understand, but even so, I walked out of that class with my head spinning a bit. Learning in Portuguese is so much more difficult than learning in English. I can understand most of what my professor says, but I definitely have to devote my full attention to her. Listening with only one ear while really thinking more about something else is definitely out of the question.

In addition to always having to pay very close attention, I also have to keep remembering to pay attention to what she actually says. That sounds silly, but it’s actually a bit difficult. I get so caught up in trying to understand the meaning of the individual words that it’s easy to forget to pay attention to the meaning of her sentences, of the ideas that she’s presenting. If I’m not careful, the words just go in one ear and out the other, and even if I understand every word, my brain won’t hold onto the overall meaning. It’s like the mechanism that tells my brain to file facts away for future reference breaks down somewhere between hearing the words in Portuguese and storing the ideas in English. If I concentrate hard I’m better at retaining information, but I’m sure my notebook is going to be my best friend this semester. I take notes mostly in English, though with the occasional word or phrase in Portuguese, because I would get too far behind if I tried to write everything in Portuguese. Plus, if I spend too much time writing, then I’m not devoting my full attention to what my professor is saying, and thus I don’t understand. Makes for an interesting situation…

The text that my professor assigned was only about five pages long, but it took me several hours to get through it and answer the questions. There’s no such thing as speed-reading or skimming in a foreign language. I have the same sort of trouble with reading as I do with listening to the lectures: if I’m not careful I only understand the words and not the meaning. In some ways reading is even worse because I spend time looking up words in my dictionary. I didn’t have a particularly hard time with this text, but sometimes with the readings that I had for a medieval Spanish literature class, I’d get to the end of sentence and realize I’d spent so much time looking up words that I had no idea what the sentence was actually saying. Hopefully the texts I have here won’t be quite as bad those! I’ve found that it helps to stop at the end of each paragraph and summarize what is being said. That seems to help cement the information in my head a little better, but it sure takes forever!

It’s one thing to learn the parts of the body, different foods, or other fairly useless things in Portuguese class in the US. It’s quite another to write responses in Portuguese in a Brazilian class about the different sociological and political tensions that led to a war in northeastern Brazil, and to then attempt to have those responses be of the same caliber as those of regular Brazilians. It’s a very strange feeling not to be able to express myself as fully as I want to simply because I don’t know the correct sentence structures to be able to do so. Complex sentences with multiple dependent clauses become infinitely more difficult in a foreign language. As a result, most of my sentences are fairly simple. At times I feel like a third grader because my sentences tend to be shorter than in English and my paragraphs lack fluidity.

The professor I have for my Portuguese class, Adriana, is actually one of the same ones that I had last summer, and happily she’s the nicer of the two. I placed into the highest level of Portuguese for Foreigners, which is a tad frightening, but hopefully with Adriana it won’t be too bad. At one point she asked one of my classmates if she’d read any books in Portuguese, and my classmate replied that she’d tried to a book called Os Sertões, but that it had been really difficult. Adriana laughed and said that she’d only assign that book to her enemies, it was so hard. As luck would have it, I’m reading at least part of that book in my literature class. How wonderful.

One of the American girls in my Portuguese class, Patricia, is also in my literature class. Our literature class meets right before Portuguese, so we’ve got a four-hour block together every Tuesday and Thursday. I also have sociology with another American guy from my Portuguese class. It’s really nice to already know people in my regular Brazilian classes; that makes them a little less intimidating.