High Five for Raw Food!

So, I will update on the events of last weekend and this past work week. I will try to keep things a little shorter, because I realize that not all of you are trying to procrastinate during homework for summer classes and may, in fact, have things to do.

Although I'm insulted you don't have time to devote your every waking minute to me. Let me know, too, if you'd rather I write longer entries like I've been doing or if I shorten it up. Also, none of the following pictures are mine – I’ll upload them to Facebook sometime when I’m not feeling lazy.

So this past Saturday I went to Praia Grande, São Vicente, and Santos with the Koreans from Samsung (quick mini lesson - if you want to say Samsung in Portuguese, say it like it were spelled Sam-soong-ee), Edumundo, Nick (Nick-ee), and Yu? (a colleague of Edmundo's visiting that week from Korea) Obviously, I don’t think Edmundo and Nick are their birth names. Anyway, we left arond 8:30 for the roughly hour and a half drive to Praia Grande. The drive there took us along Rodovia dos Imigrantes, a highway that affords passengers stunning views of the mountains. It is chocked full of large tunnels, whose ceilings must be 30 feet high, and many bridges along the mountainsides. São Paulo rests in a plateau, which keeps its temperatures more mild than the coastal cities of Santos, et al. So the views were stunning when we descended from the mountains out onto a perfectly flat coastal plain.

Praia Grande is a beach which many people here belittle for its crowds of ugly people during the summers. But, it was winter, so the beach wasn't very full. I saw nothing wrong with it - it certainly was prettier than any shoreline of the North Atlantic. So, we wondered around, with my companions taking a bazillion photos. People looked at us. I guess tourists aren't common in June. Then Edmundo suggested we try the typical Caipirinha. It was good, but 10am is not usually when I think of having a mixed drink. This made me feel extra touristy.

After that, we watched a woman have her backpack snatched off the ground in a drive-by bicycle robbery. It was impressive yet distressing at the same time. From then on, we kept a closer watch on our backpacks.

Later that morning, we drove to São Vicente, which is very close to Praia Grande. It had some nice islands and was in general very pretty. The monument where the Portuguese made landfall is here, although we drove by it when I wasn’t expecting, so I didn’t get a picture of it. We drove up a winding, narrow road and stopped for some photos of the view. It was very idyllic – palm trees and brush lining a little street that curves down the mountain, with the ocean and islands in the background. We then progressed further up the mountain, to the top where a lookout monument rests and supposedly lines up with one of the government buildings in the capital, Brasilia.

After descending the mountain, we stopped for lunch between São Vicente and Santos.

[Quick note – I suddenly realized that I lied earlier and this entry won’t be short. No apologies].

Anyway, we ate lunch at an outdoor restaurant along the beach. Fried fish, steak, and tiny little camarões were consumed. You eat those little suckers with their exoskeleton, but it’s so small it doesn’t taste nasty like those on larger shrimp. Besides the food, Nick spent much of the lunch asking me why I didn't have a girlfriend, telling me to find a girlfriend, and suggesting that when I find a girlfriend we return to São Vicente.

Then we drove to Santos, very nearby, to ascend Monte Serrat (say Mon-tee Se-haat). The building atop the mount is old and has wonderful views. It used to be a restaurant, casino, among other things before turning into a tourist stop. We took some photos, had some coffee, and then headed for Vila Belmiro - the home of Pele. We walked through the musuem that hypes up Santos FC as if it were Barcelona, Manchester United, or some other top-class club. Sure, it had it's glory days, but the write-ups on many of the displays would give you the idea that these guys are like the giant martians in Space Jam. The tour showed the facilites, like the locker room, press room, and the pitch. The locker room had a shrine to some saint, and the incense smell was so overpowering that I wanted to die. After the tour, we began the drive back to São Paulo.

For dinner that night in the city we stopped at a Korean restaurant, my first experience with one. I wonder why three Koreans would pick such a place? I'm an adventurous eater, so most of the stuff was good, albeit a little weird. There were these tiny litle dried fish covered in a hot sauce. Wasabi soaked sliced carrots and veggies. Other things. The two stand outs were a soup with big pieces of onion and other unknown vegetables and giant chunks of fish - skins and all. It didn't taste bad, but it was a surprise to see a three inch long torso floating amidst the reddish broth. The other bizarre food, and the only I didn't at least moderately enjoy, was this weird water-soup thing. Basically, it was salt water with slices of cabbage stem or something. They loved it. I thought it tasted like I fell off my boogie board while screaming.

This past work week I divided my time between Portuguese class in the mornings and working in the Rector's (hec-tor) office. A rector is basically a provost/chancellor/dean mashup in Brazilian colleges. There, I worked on writing up a new set of rules and guidelines for how things are to be posted and goverend on Mackenzie's website. I'll let you know if they ever actually change it so that you can see hints of my handywork. I won't tell you if somehow their website turns out worse, ha ha.

On quarta-feira, Wednesday, the rector's assistant suggested that first we go downtown to lunch and look at the marketplace. So we walked through the streets, first coming to the black market of São Paulo. It's basically a series of blocks filled with stores and streetside vendors selling a ton of electronic stuff illegally. I gather that police occasionally sweep through to clear the place out, but nevertheless it was packed fuller than my stomach after an all-you-can-eat buffet. I didn't buy anything, although it was tempting.

Then we arrived at lunch, a German style bar/pub. We ordered some chope and some Brazilian-style German finger foods. Like my earlier first experience with Korean food, this would be my first experience with raw meat. One or two of the dishes weren tiny slices of sandwich bread covered in raw beef and topped with chive, mustard, and mayo. It was good, and I didn't die or get sick later, so I consider that pretty successful.

After work that night, one of the guys in the office invited me to accompany him and a friend to a Japanese retaurant, rodízio style, which means that you pay one price (in this case R$50) and get to eat as much stuff as you want. Waitors come to your tables, you specify some menu items, and you gorge yourself until you want to cry. Well, okay, so I didn't take it to that level of gluttony, but I've been told that some people actually force themselves to vomit in the bathrooms so they can eat more. I don't know if you can really count that as getting your money's worth. So, after raw meat for lunch, I was now going to pack myself full of raw fish. Lots of fresh sushi and sashimi followed, most of it very good, and none of it bad. My favorite two dishes were a fried pork (who knew that was Japanese) and some dish of small mushrooms that tasted like they were sautéed in some sort of white wine sauce. Über delicious. Again, I gave myself a high five that night after I wasn't sick post-one pound of uncooked food.

The rest of the week, and this weekend, played out in uneventful fashion. In a few minutes I will support the US soccer team over the juggernaut of Brasil. May Daivd trump Goliath again.