Ouro Preto

Ouro Preto:


We arrived this morning at 7:30 (by night bus from Rio) to Ouro Preto and walked around town for 8 hours. We had this tour-guide who approached us at 8am after we dropped our bags at a cute little pousada, and offered us a little explanation of the town sights. Little was an understatement. He could talk for days about the city and would even chastise Nina and I if we weren't paying close enough attention. He offered us a tour in Spanish so that we would all understand but actually spoke Portanol (Portuguese + Espanol). But even though this was easy for me to understand my head began to hurt after about hour 3. We went into numerous churches and adjoining museums, climbed up and down the steep cobble stone streets of the town and even got to tour a small gold mine. I learned cute love stories about a Portuguese judge and a Brazilian girl, I know the nuances and characteristics of the sculptor Aleijandinho who had a disease that crippled his hands and feet but could still carve wood and soap stone statues, and I can now compare Baroque gold-plating patterns with Rococo. Even at lunch we got no break, he showed us to a restaurant and sat down and ate with us! (He was shocked to find out that Mom, was related to me, he thought she was Nina and my school teacher).

Needless to say, the town is adorable. The red shingles and brick houses against the hilly lush green landscape remind me of Austria and Bavaria. Gold was found here back in the 1600's and the mines here produced something like the weight of 100,000 cars!

Here we are at the mouth of Jeje Mine

Rio Photos

Uploading photos is not fast at all with this internet connection, but I couldn't help but share with you some of our Rio trip.

Here amy and I are on top of the world with Jesus. The view from the top gives you a 360 of all of Rio's hilly and coastal terrain


We had a picnic lunch amongst the shady foliage of Parque Lage. On the menu was bread and a sun-dried tomatoe spread, mozzarella cheese, a cucumber, with mangos and cookies for dessert.



Despite the prediction of a rainy Wednesday the sun melted us to exhaustion today. Here we are at the Lapa Steps that are tiled and mosaic-ed by a Chilean man Salaron. He was working on them while we visiting and obliged us with a picture. These steps were the inspiration for the steps in San Francisco.

Rio

Greetings from Rio!

This is our third day here and the differences between and Salvador are absolutely drastic. Rio is a metropolitan city compared to Salvador, which now in retrospect is like a small town with three million people. So far the weather has been great, though they predict rain for the rest of the week. It is way less humid than the north and the breeze keeps the 31 degree sunshine not feel too hot.

We visited Christ the Redeemer, spent a quick afternoon on the sandy shores of Ipanema, introduced Nina to Acai (which she now is wants to eat for every meal), we explored by chance the Parque Lage and discovered the coolest set of rock caves, had a picnic in the park, and we hit up the Jardim Botanico. Today we are headed over to the famous Lapa stairs and to explore Centro a little more.

We are staying up at the top of this hill in a neighborhood called Gloria in this funky guest house with a bunch of other Europeans (mostly students or volunteers). There is the cutest kitty, dog, and turtle that live with us as well as an extremely friendly, a little eccentric owner who can speak every language imaginable.

I'll have to post pictures later.

Traveling

Dear Friends and Family,

I had some more posts I would have liked to put up (along with pictures), but, alas, my time has run short (and my suitcase too small). Instead of blogging I've been running around doing other things for my last hours in Salvador. Today I am headed to Rio to meet Nina, one of my best friends from home, who has been studying abroad in Buenos Aires. I am not sure how much internet time I will spend on my travels.

My mom arrives in Rio on December 12th and then we head to Minas Gerais. After a little less than a week we fly down to Iguazu falls and check out Curitiba. Then we will fly up North to Recife and spend the rest of our time at my mother's cousin's beach house there.

I send my beijos and amor.

Boa Viaje!

Lasts

Come Sunday I leave Salvador...so this week has been full of lasts. Last days of class, last finals. A couple of hours ago I just turned in my last paper to officially signify the end of the term. Tonight we have our Despedida Dinner where us students and our host mothers will come together and share one last meal. Last night I went to my last Capoeira class. It was super sweet. In honor of the occasion the mestre had me play everyone in the Roda. Usually, everyone takes a turn and rotates, but they made all the people I was playing rotate while I got to be in the spotlight. Another farewell tradition they have is at the end of class have a "Samba de Roda." This is a uniquely Bahian style of Samba that involves 3 quick and small steps and a lot of booty shaking. Everyone stands in a circle clapping as a few men play the drum, tambourine, and berimbau. One girl and one boy dance in the middle and people rotate through as they wish. The boys get creative with how to kick out the man and do everything from pulling on his corda (capoeira belt) to forcibly remove him or hand him a cellphone as if someone was calling. At the end of it all everyone hugged me and I was very touched by how much everyone was sad to see me go.

I feel a little like I am about to head into limbo. There is still about a month until I return to the US, but only 2 days until I leave the home I have made here in Brazil. I am excited to travel around, especially to meet up with Nina in Rio and my mom on the 12th. But I am not looking forward to the exhaustion of unfamiliar cities and being a lost tourist.

Thanksgiving

The weather has been capricious this past week, uncharacteristic of Brasilian summer. We have had quite a bit of rain. No bay area drizzle, its more like torrential downpour with big juicy water droplets and big puddles in the sidewalk. But when its not raining, or threatening to rain, it is hot and sunny. Yesterday I went to the beach because it was a warm sunny Saturday. But as I sat on the sand and looked up at the sky I saw in the distance a HUGE dark grey rain cloud. Sure enough, within a half hour the cloud was upon us and it started to rain. We huddled under an umbrella because it was too heavy to even try to walk home in. The people who work at the beach, however, were not at all beat by the rain. They frolicked in it, sprinting and diving into the water. Rain is the only time they get a little break from their jobs. Soon, we joined them running and splashing in the water. Even in a wet bathing suit, I was never cold. Sure enough, the rain stopped and the sun meekly poked its head back out.

One morning I woke up to this ridiculous downpour. 13 floors below my window is a parking lot with a corrugated tin roof. The sound of the rain is great amplified by the roof

(By the end of the rain, that white wall had broken due to the mudslide that crashed into it)

Anyways, on Thursday night we celebrated Thanksgiving by dressing up and going out to a nice restaurant. There was no Alison-pie, or roasted veggies, or fire in the fireplace, or photo-albums from bike trips but it was still a very nice meal. I was supposed to skype my family at the dinner table, but unfortunately the two times I tried (5pm California time and again at 8pm), I didn't get through.


Me, Gloria (UCSC), and Tami (UCSB)


Me, Daryn (UCLA)


Alex, Me, Daryn, and Chris, all from UCLA


My Crepe...Delicious

Last night I went to a hip hop concert. Hip Hop, prounounced 'hippy-hoppy' in Portuguese, is very uncommon in Brazil. But this concert was a sweet change from all the samba, forro (pronounced foho), pagode (pronounced pago-gee), and reggae (pronounced heg-ee) I have been listening to for the past 3 months. One of the singers was absolutely phenomenal. She was like a combination of Goapele and Lauryn Hill, only in Portuguese. And of course, concerts are very participatory event in Brazil. Dancing and singing along are absolutely mandatory. We didn't get back until 4:45 in the morning. The sky was already lightening.

Zoo

Today I walked to the zoo to clear my mind. It is a great hour walk along the coast and there was a nice breeze so it wasn't too hot. I ran into Edison my favorite jewelery vendor along the way. He immediately cheered my mood. The Zoo also picked up my spirits. I was prepared for very dreary conditions for the animals but the park was very lush and green and not depressing. Though, I'll admit many of the animals were living in some very small spaces. Especially the bigger non-Brazilian animals. The jaguar, for example, was in a cage the size of half of my dorm room. But the jacare (small brazilian alligator) was in this huge swampy space that had a lot of vegetation. There were tons of types of monkeys and some great parrots. There was a hippo and some small bears. All the animals were SUPER active. The monkeys play fought and ate, the jaguar paced, the birds preened and flew,the bears climbed around,the baby warthogs nursed while others rolled in mud, even the tortoises were walking around hither thither. It seemed as though the animals hold the same sort of Brazilian life mentality...Even though life is extremely hard, only God can improve it, so they take time to find pleasure in life and are always good-spirited and enjoying it. (This is completely contrasted to the American mentality which is, you has the power to improve your life so you are constantly analyzing life critically and fighting for change, and you have this negative energy about life's shortcomings and can never relax and enjoy).

Anyway here are some pictures from the afternoon
Salvador's Jesus Statue

Speaking of cultural differences--check out this cannon of beauty as compared to the USA


The pacing Jaguar

Macacos!

Its tito!