Malls, Moria, and a Movie

My dear fans, followers, and fumadiddles (make it your word of the day), I must humbly apologize for not updating as often as some of you might like. Actually, I rescind that apology and instead ask you to apologize for not mailing me packages filled with Utz Gormet Variety Kettle Cooked Chips, Turkey Hill tea, and Seltzer´s double-smoked balogna.

An entire week and two days has passed since I last graced these pixels with my literary wizardry. So what has happened, other than my terrible jokes growing worse?

Well, I forget if I mentioned or not, but last week on Thursday was Corpus Christi here in Brazil. So I "worked" for three days and then rested for four. Tough life. Unfortunately, my weekend wasn´t filled with much of anything, given the sickness of family members here, and my newness (and lack of cell phone) meant that I didn´t have anyone to accompany me someplace. The highlights of those four days (aside from not waking up at 5:30) were probably buying Pert shampoo and Colgate toothpaste with little mint strips. Delicious. So you can see that my weekend, in actuality, had no highlights. I did get to see one of the shoppings here. Yes, shopping is now a Portuguese word for shopping mall. Creative. I´m not sure what language it originated in, though... It was Shopping Morumbi, I think; a cavernous maze of floors and halls with many different stores with horrifyingly overpriced goods. R$300 ($150 USD) for a pair of Nikes that I can buy at Tanger for $50? R$1600 FOR MY iPHONE? Gah! I suppose I won´t be shopping in any shoppings. Not like I´ll really have extra room in my suitcases during the home journey.

Also, at the mall I finally found a stupid ATM that takes my cards. Thank you, Banco do Brasil. I still don´t know why all the other banks ATMs, all plastered with Visa logos and many with Star debit, don´t accept my perfectly legitimate cards proudly bearing the PNC logo for the world to see.

There isn´t anything else worth noting from that weekend. I finished a Grisham book. Wow.


[Since I haven´t written in a week, there are a lot of details swirling in my head like mayflies under a ballfield light. I don´t know if these events are slotted in the right day. In fact, I´m not even going to bother mentioning a day, unless I know for sure.]


This week I will give the term "Marathon Week". The days have been long and sometimes longer. At least twice this week, I have left the house at 6:15am (like normal) and have not returned until 9:15pm. I will spare you number crunching: this is 15 hours. So all I do when I return home is eat some reheated dinner, go to my room, close the door, and cry upon realizing that even if I were to try to go to sleep immediately, I might get six hours. Therefore, my early mornings are atrocious. My phone alarm first rings at 5:10, allowing me two snoozes. Sometimes a third if I´m feeling daring. Then I claw my way out of bed and into the cold bathroom (since there are no heaters in subtropical homes, at least that I´m aware of, the house can be around 65° in the morning). Side note about my bathroom: there is always the sound of running water coming from somewhere within the walls. It´s weird. Sometimes, when all is quiet on the Western Front, the trickling sounds like voices. I don´t like it. When the lights are out and everthing is dark, I feel like I´m in the Mines of Moria. If I start to hear drums, I´ll know I´m done for. Anyway, I roll out of bed and turn on the shower, making sure to leap out of the way of the stream until the water heats up to a humane level. Then I dress myself nicely, since everybody´s crazy about a sharp dressed man. Well, at least according to the upper portion of a siamese twin last letter of the alphabet. Headache?

Okay, so I get dressed, and go downstairs for a typical breakfast. Light stuff, no eggs, bacon, and muscle-milkshakes or anything. Some slices of bread with butter or cheese spread, some cappucino mix, and a little cup of coffee. The van comes for us, and we climb in. Let me tell you how much the roads in São Paulo suck. No, let me tell you how much the roads in São Paulo suck in a vehicle whose shocks are probably made of diamonds, and you´ve only woken half an hour ago. The roads are atrocious. Speed bumps, random holes and drainage ditches abound. So for 40 minutes or so each morning, I´m treated to a spine-crushing massage and the sounds of shock absorbers squeaking and moaning in protest. I arrive at Mackenzie at seven, and have an hour to kill until class. Usually, I contemplate finding a chiropractor or back-specialist before instead opting to get a coffee and do my Portuguese homework. After lunch, I bum around Agência Junior de Comunicação Mackenzie, a group of students who run an advertising/marketing firm. Their stuff is pretty impressive, and they´re a nice group of people and have helped me practice Portuguese as well as shown me around.

I think I was spending time with them this week because I´m a marketing major, so my director here at Mackenzie thought I would assist them in activities. In reality, I can´t do much of anything, since I can hardly process every other word in a fast Portuguese conversation, and they don´t have much work to do at the end of semesters.

I finally got a cellphone with a São Paulo number this week, although the little sucker is prepaid and will proably eat through credits like nobody´s business. Plus what the heck is the iTap crap? I want my QWERTY back! I forgot how cumbersome texting is on a number pad.

What else have I done.... Ah. I went with my Portuguese class and the one professor to see Exterminador do Futuro, or Terminator 4. I wonder if moviegoers here think that the theater is a substitute for Q-Tips, because the volume melted my earwax away. You know the popular expression: it was like I was there, but in a bad way. By the end, though, I didn´t realize that the speakers were so loud that Apollo 11 could take-off next door without us knowing.
The walk to the theater was interesting, since my profesor and I opted to hike the 10 or so blocks instead of crushing ourselves in an ônibus. The walk took us across various streets and past many different stores and locales, and it afforded me a closer knowledge of the city. At six at night so much is going on. People hustle to and fro leaving their jobs, dodging other pedestrians and obstacles on the wrinkled sidewalks. The smell of grilled meet greets your nose as you walk past one of the many streetside vendors of grilled foods and shiskabobs. People are checking into hotels or removing their cars from the infinite number of parking garages and stations scattered wherever they fit. Friends chat over dinner or a drink outside a café. Traffic rolls by. You walk alternating your gaze between the potholes in the sidewalk and the storm of people and cars in your path as you cross streets. There is just so much going on.

This week I also went to MASP to see the Vik Muniz exhibit. Let me just say that I typically vacuum dirt up. But this guy decides to use every little grain of earth to make a portrait. Abandoned computer towers form continents. Trash is positioned to form images. Check out his stuff.
This trip also showed me how nuts the buses can be. When fulley packed, it can be impossible to move, and one has to begin to force his or her way towards the doors 15 minutes before the stop. Port Authority never seemed so dignified.

On the note of transit -related things, traffic before/during/after football (soccer) matches is absurd. The one night we were coming home from Mackenzie by taxi, and the tubes of São Paulo´s highways had been clogged by enormous amounts of material. Vans drove by filled with people screaming, flags and banners of their teams hanging out the windows. Crazy. Oh, and this traffic was during HALF TIME, not before the game. Who knows what the roads were like prior to kick-off.

Well, it´s late (for me, it´s 10:30 here and I woke up at 5), and I think I´ve rambled enough. Thank you for navigating my nonsense and many references to random things. I probably forgot some stuff I wanted to say, but maybe I´ll tack it on later.

Oh, and as per your request, Jen, the boys are everything you´ve every dreamed of. Just like the Backstreet Boys, or a slightly younger Brad Pitt, or Will Smith with his muscle bulk in I Am Legend. Or...they look like American guys. This isn´t something I much care about, you know.