Massively revised game plan!!! YAY for Brazil!

New game plan, final revision. Ask me in person about Vietnam, I am going to talk about Brazil now.

Whatevs, I am lazy.

Brazil:

Brazil is a wonderful country full of color, life, and sunlight (stark contrast to Hanoi b/c of the pollution). Sao Paulo is no different. I will admit, it is an odd city with crappy sidewalks, and it is HUGE, but it is also really beautiful in an unexpected, hodge-podge kind of way...

My host parents are interesting people. My host mom is an IT journalist and French-Portugese translator. My host dad is a retired high school philosophy teacher and avid astrologist for the past 25 years; he still studies as well as teaches astrology. The two of them are eccentric, but nice. They just moved apartments, and apart from periodic spats with the cable company over the TV, internet, and phone line, they are moved in. She is a wonderful cook with an affinity for schnitzel...? Whatever, it tastes good.

Our country coordinator Glenda is Ballin! She is a translator professionally and has gotten great stuff lined up for us. She is married with a small daughter who is sooooo cute and never seems to run out of energy. Her assistant is Sylvia, a linguistics student about to graduate, and she is so helpful and young and energetic and willing to show us stuff to do. The two of them are a fantastic duo that have logistics down pat. They are also no-nonsense, which is soooo0 nice as IHP students are so rediculous some times (as students are wont to be... I admit it...).

Our first full day in Sao Paulo we went to a churascaria, sooo much fun. There were endless skewers of meat in rotation, and although some of it was actually legit raw (or as close to raw as possible while stil not entirely raw), the rest of it was delicious. I also discovered a dessert beer, Brahma Malzbier. It is so sweet and delicious and dark (I missed dark beer sooooo much in Vietnam, land of the Pilsner)! There are a number of good beers in Vietnam, and I will get there in a moment.

Actually, I will get there now... The first weekend we were in SP (Sao Paulo) I met like half the group at this bar in Vila Madalena (fun place to hang at night and on weekends) and we went to this great bar that only serves beer if it is a domestic micro brew. With one or two other people we would share 600 ml bottles of various brews so that we could try as many as possible. I split a REALLY good dark (don´t remember what kind) called Cheers. We also tried a Thank God, which was really bad and tasted kind of like bananas and beans. The last one we shared, I forgot the name, wasn´t bad either. Fun, early night for a bunch of exhausted travelers.

That Wednesday night the Med School we are having our classes at, Santa Casa, threw a party at a bar and club, and we all got invited. Fun night, lots of dancing and all. They had a live band that kind of sucked, but they had a good dj and things picked up. Odd students, we left at like 2 or 3 because we had class the next morning... not the culture in SP, here it is party till 7, don´t go to bed, and go straight to class... Students here are insane. But in a good way. And they throw good parties. There is another one in May, but we won´t be here. Too bad.

There have been other fun times around Sao Paulo after class and on weekends, last vignette on the matter is what I have come to consider my after class hang out spot. So I live in Oscar Friere st, two blocks from a street called Teodoro. A number of students are in homestay off of Teodoro street, and it is fun times. With Joel, my home stay room mate, I go and meet Alex, a girl from the program who lives near us, and we meet at this bar attached to a Japanese restaurant on Teodoro. Two days ago I discovered the Xingu, another dark beer that is tasty and less sweet than the Brahma Malzbier. Anywho, every so often we (Joel, Alex, and I) meet up after class for drinks there and just hang. It might be huge, but Sao Paulo is a very accessible city.

Speaking of managing a city, The Metro is wonderful. It is R$2.65 per entry, and it runs all over the place. That is how Joel and I get to class every day and back, and how I get around. We live off of the Clinicas train stop on the green line. Class is at Santa Cecilia on the red line. Everything is on the red line, the green line, or the blue line that connects them plus extending further in each direction. Also, they are fast and efficient trains, even if at rush hour they are like cattle cars... So much better than the bus as far as I am concerned.

Last week IHP took a trip to Ituverava, a town in Sao Paulo state five hours out of SP city, home of the owning class of the local farms and sugar cane processing factories as well as the population that has grown about that faction. We were special guests of Mayor Matsubara, which was awesome because they were having a Rodeo and Festival and we got full access to the events for free as well as space in his box at the Rodeo for concerts and for the Rodeo itself. I had never been to a rodeo before, and it was a lot of fun. Nobody was hurt. The cutest is when the 4 year olds ride the sheep, it is so funny... There were also concerts, but no artists I had ever heard of (to no surprise). They were fun anyway. Things went way early into the morning. I was hosted by a lovely family. The mom was an administrator for the hospital (and actually gave a presentation), the sister was 24 and worked at the hospital, the son was 17, and the dad a truck driver. They had a huge family, and one night we had a bbq at a cousin´s house, who as it turned out was hosting IHP students too. Was it necessary for the Brazil leg of IHP? No. Was it worth it anyway? Most definitely. Ituverava was a ton of fun.

I am out of stuff to say for now, I am going to go back to working on a project for my methods class on the social marketing of condoms in Brazil...

Adios,

ME!