"Brazil" via ACM in Google Reader

Just imagine a pasture of cows without tongues and you’ll...

2012-05-14T19:28:12Z

Just imagine a pasture of cows without tongues and you’ll get it. (Taken with instagram)

Sao Paulo

2012-05-06T22:39:00Z

Sao Paulo is what some people call the New York of Latin America. It is currently the seventh largest city in the world with a population of almost nineteen million people. This past weekend my friends and I decided it would be a good idea to take advantage of our six day weekend by going to visit said city.

Day 1: We arrived in Sao Paulo at 5:40 in the morning after a seven hour bus ride. We then took the metro to Tanyu's cousin's house, where we resided for our short stay. We stayed in the neighborhood of Liberdade, a predominately Japanese neighborhood. We kicked off the day by going to Ibirapuera park and the Mercado Municipal where we had its most famous food, the mortadella sandwich. We went to the exact same place that Anthony Bourdain went, for anyone that watches the travel channel. After the Mercado we went to an international market that is on the street 25 de Marzo. It was quite busy, but we were on a mission. Alissa (another foreigner here in Juiz) had conned us into getting tickets to see the ballet. Although the men were reluctant, we decided we would make that sacrifice. We bought the tickets, went back home, dressed up and headed back to the Teatro Municipal. There, we endured one hour of what Alissa referred to as "modern dance". To say the least, it was a great experience and I thank her for dragging us along.

Day 2: After taking in a little bit of culture, we decided that it was time for some fun. We took a bus to the Sao Paulo Zoo where we spent a few hours taking in all sorts of wildlife. When I say wildlife, I am also including the enormous school groups of young elementary children running around yelling and laughing. After the Zoo we headed over to the Museo de Lingua Portuguesa. A museum that is only about the Portuguese language. I am going to be honest here, I did not really learn that much, but man they had some really cool displays. Lots of visual entertainment and definitely worth a visit with a student price of three reais. We finally returned and decided to call it a night.

Day 3: This day we decided to live the good life. We went to Avenida Paulista, which is the business district of Sao Paulo. There we proceeded to window shop at the mall and pretend like we had the money to buy something. Our next destination was Tandoor, an Indian restaurant. You see, in Brazil they don't have as much ethnic diversity in their food choices so this was a real treat. The food was ok for the price and lacked in spices in my opinion. We didn't just stop there, we decided that a good way to finish the night was by paying a visit to the hotel Unique. At this hotel they had a bar, the Skye Bar to be exact, that was at the very top of the building. There we took in the ~320 degree view of Sao Paulo and pretended that we could actually afford this lifestyle. We then took the metro back home and looked fondly upon the glamorous life we once lived.

Day 4: This might have been the best part of our stay. We went to the semifinals of the Copa Paulista and watched Santos play Sao Paulo. Here is Anthony's play by play of the game.

Game begins. São Paulo on the offensive, Santos absorbing pressuring and then breaking forward quickly to find Neymar’s feet as often as possible. PK. Neymar 1, São Paulo 0. São Paulo rallies to find a header rejected by the post off a set piece. Neymar recieves the ball on the left side of the field, just in front of where we are fortunate enough to be sitting, and toys with a defender. A cut to the right, pause, a sharp cut to left. Another cut to the right, another sharp cut to the left. The defender dives, Neymar gets fouled in classic fashion. The crowd is as impressed as it is angry. Just before halftime, a leisurely Neymar receives the ball in the middle, close to São Paulo’s goal. Easily drifting around a defender, he exposes a gaping hole in São Paulo’s defense and effortlessly tucks away a second. Neymar 2, São Paulo 0.
Second half. São Paulo shifts tactics, realizes they can’t leave a large gap between the midfield and defense to allow Santos a race against numbers on a fast break. They commit more players to Neymar, removing him from the game for a few minutes. As São Paulo creeps closer to getting a goal back, Santos slips away and Neymar finds the post on what looked to be a sure close to his hat trick. After breathtakingly close attempts, São Paulo finally finds the net as Willian cuts one way, keeps his composure and calmly finishes in the opposite corner, giving the crowd a breath of life. Neymar 2, São Paulo 1. Just as São Paulo is looking to equalize and send the game into extra time, Neymar resurfaces and takes a crack from a ways out. Keeper error. Neymar 3, São Paulo 1. Crowd is silent.

I really had the opportunity to watch some outstanding soccer. Can't complain about having the chance to watch Neymar, the best player in the world according to Pele.

Day 5: We had to leave at ten forty that night so it turned out to be a pretty low key day. We pretty much just ate some food, such as takoyaki, and hung out at the house all day. We also played a lot of poker, not only that day but during the evenings of most of our stay. We then said our goodbyes around nine and headed back to good ol' Juiz de Fora.

I am not really the kind of person that enjoys large cities, but I really did enjoy my stay in Sao Paulo and had a lot of fun. I am looking forward to my next adventure. Here is a link to a video that Tanyu made of our trip to Rio. I left a day earlier since I had already been to Christ Redeemer and I was not able to go to the soccer game since I was dropping Evan off at the airport. Enjoy!

http://vimeo.com/40428060

As an end note: Sorry for the out of order pictures and Sao Paulo has a little squiggly line above the first "a".

Ibirapuera Park

Morumbi Stadium after the game

Neymar in the blue

Torcida de Sao Paulo

View from Skye Bar

Ant Eaters

Brazilian Jungle Cat

Museo de Lingua Portuguesa

Estacao da Luz (next to museum)

Tucan

Some South American bears

Giraffe...

Spider Monkey

Teatro Municipal

Mercado Municipal

Teatro again

Home of the mortadella sandwich ("Bourdainin' it")

Mercado Municipal

A little bit of Sao Paulo

Photo

2012-05-01T21:33:57Z

Bourdained.

Photo courtesy of Tanyu Yuba

Didn't know this was a real thing

Bourdained in São Paulo

2012-05-01T21:26:19Z

That sumptuous sandwich, bathed in grease and melted cheese, on a bun of pure French grain delight. A mess of bread, cheese, and thinly sliced mortadella— a meat that says ‘if it tastes good, it doesn’t matter what’s in it,’ piled higher than the empire state. Anthony Bourdain was absolutely right.

After a seven hour bus ride to São Paulo that lasted through the night and a blissful Mortadella sandwich at the Mercado Municipal, we each decided to take a coma for our health.

THURSDAY I woke up at the ballet that night, realized where I was, and promptly fell back asleep. I am proud to say that I am now officially cultured and might possibly be upper class. The ballet was modern, edgy, angsty, and I’m proud to say I did not fall asleep during the hour long performance. Count that in the ‘Gentleman’ column.

After attending a ballet and an International market, it was time for some more mature, philosophical, grown-up fun. So we went to the zoo.

FRIDAY Spider monkeys are the funniest animals I think I have ever seen. Their arms are oversized, their chests are oversized, and their tails are oversized, and stronger than their oversized arms and chest. Anyways, after the zoo we went to the Portuguese language museum, and while the visual atmosphere was amazing, I couldn’t help thinking that they were overcompensating for how boring a museum of words would be. Overcompensation or not, it was still a pretty neat idea.

SATURDAY Liberdade, São Paulo, or São Paulo, Japan. We stayed with Tanyu’s Japanese Brazilian cousins during our time in São Paulo, and they were two of the coolest cats I’ve met. Based on their advice and on the authentic Japanese atmosphere, we partaked in some delicious cuisine in Liberdade, including Lamen, or Ramen, except slightly more expensive than 10 cents a pack, and balls of Octopus. At the peak of Japanese cuisine was the Melona. See Tanyu’s blog for a picture of the most delicious creamsickle under the sun. Unfortunately, it’s not exactly available in the United States or the rest of Brazil, for that matter, which is an inspiration to the four of us to begin a business venture of exporting Melona to the rest of the world. Just you wait.

SUNDAY Neymar. The atmosphere at São Paulo’s Morumbi Stadium was electric, and an hour before the game started it was already dwarfing the scene we experienced watching Ronaldinho and Flamengo in Rio. Maybe it’s because São Paulo fans are generally richer, maybe it’s because São Paulo fans are generally more die-hard, or maybe it’s just because it was the semi-final of the Campeonato Paulista, but the parking lot was more packed than the stands of the Flamengo-Vasco game. The Morumbi was alive with singing and jeering from the São Paulo fans the second we set foot inside. I’m not entirely sure that I can post any of the chants we heard on this blog, but they were, entertaining to say the least.

Game begins. São Paulo on the offensive, Santos absorbing pressuring and then breaking forward quickly to find Neymar’s feet as often as possible. PK. Neymar 1, São Paulo 0. São Paulo rallies to find a header rejected by the post off a set piece. Neymar recieves the ball on the left side of the field, just in front of where we are fortunate enough to be sitting, and toys with a defender. A cut to the right, pause, a sharp cut to left. Another cut to the right, another sharp cut to the left. The defender dives, Neymar gets fouled in classic fashion. The crowd is as impressed as it is angry. Just before halftime, a leisurely Neymar receives the ball in the middle, close to São Paulo’s goal. Easily drifting around a defender, he exposes a gaping hole in São Paulo’s defense and effortlessly tucks away a second. Neymar 2, São Paulo 0.

Second half. São Paulo shifts tactics, realizes they can’t leave a large gap between the midfield and defense to allow Santos a race against numbers on a fast break. They commit more players to Neymar, removing him from the game for a few minutes. As São Paulo creeps closer to getting a goal back, Santos slips away and Neymar finds the post on what looked to be a sure close to his hat trick. After breathtakingly close attempts, São Paulo finally finds the net as Willian cuts one way, keeps his composure and calmly finishes in the opposite corner, giving the crowd a breath of life. Neymar 2, São Paulo 1. Just as São Paulo is looking to equalize and send the game into extra time, Neymar resurfaces and takes a crack from a ways out. Keeper error. Neymar 3, São Paulo 1. Crowd is silent.

What a night.

MONDAY Raining. Poker tournament. More octupus balls. ’Nuff said. Boarded the night train out of São Paulo, broke but smiling.

Melona Madness! (Taken with instagram)

2012-04-30T22:39:21Z

Melona Madness! (Taken with instagram)

Sao Paulo FC X Santos. Morumbi (Taken with instagram)

2012-04-30T00:33:12Z

Sao Paulo FC X Santos. Morumbi (Taken with instagram)

Municipal Theatre, Sao Paulo. Classy night at the ballet (Taken...

2012-04-27T21:42:20Z

Municipal Theatre, Sao Paulo. Classy night at the ballet (Taken with instagram)

Mercado Municipal (Taken with instagram)

2012-04-26T20:35:12Z

Mercado Municipal (Taken with instagram)

brazilwonders: “Pra não dizer que não falei das flores”...

2012-04-21T16:21:55Z

brazilwonders:

“Pra não dizer que não falei das flores” (Portuguese for “So that it may not be said that I did not speak of flowers”), also known as “Caminhando” (Portuguese for “Walking”), is a song composed by Geraldo Vandré that ranked second on the Festival Internacional da Canção in 1968. Afterwards, due to the song’s critical tone toward the dictatorship, public playing of the song was forbidden by the brazilian military dictatorship.

The melody has a hymn and march rhythm, and the lyric, with the verses in an easy rhyme scheme (almost all of them end with the same syllable: “ão”), to aid memorization, was widely played. The first artist ever to sing “Caminhando” after the censorship’s ban was lifted was Simone, in 1979, garnering enormous success from both public and critics.

Video

2012-04-16T04:47:13Z

When you want a hiatus from writing...

2012-04-16T19:12:21Z

Post a video. here’s a link to a video of our Easter trip to Rio beautifully shot and edited by Tanyu Yuba:

http://vimeo.com/40428060

Photo

2012-04-15T20:32:42Z

Yes, I am still blogging

2012-04-11T16:23:00Z

Some may say that I have been somewhat neglectful of my blog. This is true.

After spending two months in Brazil I am finally not asking myself "what to do?" everyday. I am attending four classes at the University here: Spanish Literature (taught completely in Spanish), Politics 1 (Taught in Portuguese), and Religions of Brazil (Taught in Portuguese and considered a graduate/undergraduate course), and finally there is Soccer (hardest class...). Conveniently I take all sixteen credit hours, which is full time student material, Monday through Wednesday. I know, it's pretty neat that I have a four day weekend every week.

So what have I been up to since Ibitipoca (the waterfall place)? Not a whole heck of a lot.

Mostly I have been going to classes and going to the gym here. From time to time all four American foreigners will organize together and we will engage in some sort of activity, but nothing too exciting. After living here for a couple months I have a grasp on the city in general. I know where to go and where not to go and most importantly where to eat. The food here is tasty but I have to say I miss having all the variety there is back home. If you go out to eat there are zero options for spicy food and there aren't any Indian or Thai places to eat at. I did happen to eat some good pizza and sushi here though.

Anyway, onto more interesting things.

The last two weeks I was able to spend sometime with Kristin and Evan which was really nice. they were both here for a duration of a week one after the other. With Kristin we mostly hung out in Juiz de Fora and relaxed. The night she left, we got to Rio early and I took her to Christ Redeemer which was still as breathtaking as the first time. When Evan came down here we did mostly the same things except that we got two full days in Rio. We got there on Friday and stayed next to the Arcs of Lapa, which I had not seen yet. Since it was Easter weekend, Rio was pretty busy. We got to the hostel, left our stuff there and headed down to Ipanema beach. Came back to the Rio Bohemia hostel and enjoyed the famous night life of Lapa.

The next day we went to see Christ Redeemer but we got there at 12:30 and the next available ticket was for 3:30. Unfortunately, Evan had a flight to catch that night and I did not want to risk not making it to the airport on time. I felt pretty bummed for him, but we went to Pista Claudio by the Sugar Loaf and we were able to see some monkeys up close and to also see a sea turtle. We ended up going back to Lapa grabbed some dinner and Evan ate his last acai beverage.

Here are some pics, there may be a few more to come!

Juiz de Fora at night

Morro do Christo

Social area at the hostel

View from outside the hostel

Arcs of Lapa shot from the hostel

Pub in the hostel (and Tony)

Ipanema (Taken with instagram)

2012-04-11T03:35:03Z

Ipanema (Taken with instagram)

Cousins (Taken with instagram)

2012-04-09T01:50:01Z

Cousins (Taken with instagram)

Series: Rostos do MTL Faces of the MTL

2012-04-05T16:33:00Z

Series: Rostos do MTL

Faces of the MTL

Acai and pao de queijo (Taken with instagram)

2012-04-04T16:47:19Z

Acai and pao de queijo (Taken with instagram)

Taken with instagram

2012-04-04T01:40:26Z

Taken with instagram

Madrugada (Taken with instagram)

2012-04-04T01:02:14Z

Madrugada (Taken with instagram)

Cicero Dalino Da SilvaMovimento Terra, Trabalho, e...

2012-03-29T00:46:00Z

Cicero Dalino Da Silva
Movimento Terra, Trabalho, e Liberdade
Fazenda Taboca
Município de Muricí
Alagoas, BR