Rio de Janeiro

Well, my flight schedule to get back home to California was a little strange and complicated, so this gave me a very short opportunity to see Rio de Janeiro, which was one of my top places of interest for this trip. For the first day, I booked a tour to see the infamous Christ the Redeemer Statue at Corcovado and then to take the tram car to the top of Sugarloaf mountain. Lucky for me, the day was sunny and fairly clear. I could see the entire city of Rio from both of the mountain top, everything from Copacabana and Ipenema beach to downtown Rio to the favellas on the hills. It's definitely worth the trip. The tour was kind of fun because I met some people that spoke English and had a nice lunch, but if you go, you can probably more easily hit these 2 destinations on your own.

Later on in that evening, I ended up meeting up with Christine from the Itaipu damn tour. We had a bite to eat at an all you can eat place where they keep bringing more and more meat until you explode or say no more. Christine and I had booked a favella tour for the following day. The favella tour was awesome, and the guide -- a german girl who had come to Rio to find work as a translator but ended up paying the bills as a tour guide -- was lots of fun with tons of great stories to tell. I was feeling a little nervous about the favella tour at first because of what people had said about being a voyeur of poverty and how shameful that is, but this tour was one of the most interesting ones I have been on and I highly recommend it. The guide told us stories about the history of favellas, and the life and culture of the residents favellas, the drug and organized crime culture, and the efforts to help them. They are basically a lawless part of the city run by drug lords who are fighting amongst themselves to increase market share and make more money. It sounds a bit like corporate America, but individuals trapped in the middle can have a quick and painful end. The favellas are not patrolled by police, who stay at the side of the favella towns and only venture in when told to go find the drug sellers. Since the groups doing the selling don't generally like this, they keep a tight ship and the favellas are pretty much petty crime free. They are more effective at this than the police are in any of the other parts of the city. It's a strange irony. What was really interesting is that the favellas can border some of the nicest houses in Rio. On one side of the street there is a mansion and on the other side of the street, there is a medley of construction grown from poverty and despair. The construction is very interesting too. People build wherever they want and mostly to make room for a growing family or new tenants. There can be a window of one house with a view of the entire city of Rio and then your neighbor comes by and builds a taller building about 1 foot away from the window and completely blocks the view. Nobody minds because they are all in this community together for the rest of their lives, and they share in understanding of the life of the favella.

In the afternoon after the favella tour, I soaked in the beach of Ipanema for a couple of hours before having to head to the airport for my flight back home. Rio was an excellent adventure and I long to go back soon.

Iguazu Falls

This weekend, I went to Iguazu falls with Jim. I was able to convince him to join me a couple of weeks ago, and we were off to see one of the best waterfalls in the world.

Friday at Itaipu Dam

Like all flights in Brazil, the flight to Iguazu was running late. On the flight, we met some fun Canadians (plus one Brazilian) that we ended up hanging out with on Saturday night, but more on that later. As soon as we got to Foz, we took the nearest taxi to the hotel and then to Itaipu Damn. I think that they said this was the biggest damn in the entire world at the moment. It was built in the 70s to harness the power of the river and provide electricity to 90% of Paraguay and a good deal of Brazil. Looking at the damn is spectacular. It is a mass of concrete that spans as far as you can see to either side. Off to the left is the spill way, which is a huge slide of cement ready to fill the river below if there is a heavy rain. In the center, there is an office building that sits on the border between Paraguay and Brazil. We took a tour of the damn and saw the turbines spinning and the control room inside the office building. We also met a woman named Christine that we ended up having dinner with and talking with for a couple of hours. She became my travel buddy in Rio a bit later.

Saturday in Argentina

You can spend the whole day on the Argentinean side of the Falls because there are so many great views to see and so many hiking trails in the park. After learning how to use the bus to travel to Argentina, we made it to the park a little after 10 am, or so we thought. We didn't actually figure out that there is a +1 hour time change as you go over the river coming from Brazil. We couldn't figure out why everything was closing so early until late in the day.

The first view of the falls was amazing. It is a very wide falls with a huge amount of water flowing over it, but when it rains it gets even more massive than my pictures show. Most of the ridge is stepped so there are two main levels of waterfalls and there are waterfalls absolutely everywhere. See all the pictures I took, because describing the view doesn't give it any justice. Needless to say, I was very impressed. We were advised to do a boat tour from the Argentinean side, and it was well worth the money for the hour long tour. It started out with a close up view of two main sections of the falls, and then a really really close up view of them. By this I mean that they take the speed boat practically under the falls to make everybody complete soaking wet. Later, you take the speed boat careening down the river and over some rapids before getting off and taking a truck ride through the jungle in hopes of seeing some animals.

The best views of the falls are from an island called San Martin in the middle of the ridge. You can take a small ferry over to it and hike to a view point where you sit right at the base of one of the falls.

We ended up seeing the Canadians that we met on the airplane in the afternoon. After texting them throughout the day, we were finally able to meet up with them later that night. When we got back to town, 2 of them (Marilia and Rebecca) came out to party a bit with us. We had a great time, talked for hours, sang Brazilian songs, and partook in some of the bar's specialty mojitos. We didn't get to the next hotel until about 2:30 in the morning. This was a bit of a shame, because this was one of the nicest hotels that we've been to and it was in the national park on the Brazilian side, right next to the waterfall.

Sunday in Brazil

This was sort of a relaxing day. After sleeping in a bit, Jim and I got up for breakfast and then a short hike to see the Brazilian park. We had spent the night at Hotel Das Cataras, which is an extremely nice hotel right in the national park and sitting on the ridge which overlooks the Brazilian side of the falls. Though you can see many of the same waterfalls from the Brazilian side and the Argentinean side, the Brazilian side differs in that you have a larger wider view of the area. Plus, this is the best place to see the most dramatic falls called Gigante do Diabo. There is a walkway that goes out to just above the lower falls to see the whole area and it provides a terrific panoramic view.

In the afternoon, we checked out this bird park where we got to see a lot of the native birds included small parakeets and large macaws. It wasn't too exciting after the falls, but a good way to spend the afternoon.

Last night in Belo

My last night in Belo was a great night to remember. My coworkers took me out for a night on the town that just wouldn't stop. In fact, we didn't get back to the hotel until just before I had to leave for Iguazu with Jim. We hit a bar that we wanted to hit the previous week, but Jim's pants situation prevented us from being allowed in. What can I say? The guy always wears shorts, and in Brazil you can get away with it for the most part, but not at this one bar. So we vowed to come back one last time before I left and this was the night. It was pretty fun, and we met all kinds of people. We closed the place down at 3 am and then decided to try Major Loc one last time before calling it a night. 6 of us crammed into Thuler's little car, with Genoves in the trunk and me at the wheel. It was quite a ride. Major Loc was great and had a significant amount of fun people. At around 5 am, we decided to leave and get some food before heading back to the hotel to check out and leave for the airport.

I think I will miss Brazil a lot and am always going to remember this trip and all of the wonderful Googlers that I met on it. It was a terrific immersion in Brazilian culture and the language. I hope that I have picked up a few pointers to bring back to the US from this place. It's amazing.

BioGym

Well, I broke down and got a membership to a gym. I think that after all the great food here, it's time to fight back. There is a gym close to my place which is half way decent and along with volleyball and soccer with the Googlers, I should make some progress.

Weekend Update

Well, I am going to try to cover the entire weekend, since it kept me so busy that I didn't even have time to write in the blog at any point.

Friday night: We started with TGIF, which is a lot better than the TGIF in Mountain View. It's a lot more intimate and social, and lasts until about 8 pm. They have food and drinks and people are all talking a lot more than those in Mountain View. One of the great things about this office is that everyone seems to know everyone else and they are all pretty good friends. Back in Mountain View, you only go to TGIF with a couple of people that you know from your immediate work group and then when it's over, it's over. So, after TGIF, we hit the bar scene. The idea of going to Swingers was shot down by somebody, much to my dismay, and we hit this low key Samba club and danced until 3 when we decided to go to the after hours place, Aubra. I didn't quite see the sun rise, but it was darn close.

Saturday, we had to get up really early to head to Ouro Preto. By really early, I mean I got up at 10:30 and met up with Meghan, Jim, Sarah, and Tom at around 11:30 or so. I wanted to hit Ouro Preto again because the last time I went, it was such a nasty day and the rain kind of put a damper on things (ba dom chin). The first piece of excitement was Tom and the rental car. He was all excited about renting the car and driving to Ouro Preto, but it was clear that driving a stick wasn't his forte. Every time he would start from a stopped position, the engine would rev and then we'd peel out. It was like Tom's signature move. Still, he did get us there safe and sound, and wide awake.

Ouro Preto was a lot better this time around. I had more of a relaxing time and got to take some pictures of the churches in the sun. At the end of the day, we tried to find this mine called Mina do Passagem. It was an old gold mine and had tours of the mine shaft. Unfortunately, we got there about 15 minutes late and missed the last tour of the mine. Basically, you are allowed to ride into the mine shaft on a rickety cable car. I was expecting something straight out of an Indiana Jones movie, but it was a little better than that. Still, it goes fast and there aren't wheels under the tracks like there are on roller coasters to keep you on the track. I got some pictures of the people on the last tour being hauled up.

Saturday evening, we headed to an Italian restaurant in Savassi. Savassi is notably a good place to go for food, however, this restaurant was quite possibly the worst Italian food I have ever eaten. Not only that, but the service left a lot to be desired, and that is an understatement. We had to wait for about 30 minutes just to order our food, and that was after asking for the waiter to come over to the table. We ended up making a big joke of it when Tom started timing the various sacraments of the meal. We started taking bets on when the food would get there. Meghan had 20-25 minutes and Tom had 25+ minutes. The food ended up getting there at 24:58 so Meghan won all the dough (R$8 to be exact). I think that she deserved it to, because she was the most pissed and hungry). Later, we met up with the Brazilians at a bar called Frade where they brought out a ton of meat and mandioca, which I didn't have because of all the food that we had at the Italian restaurant. When 2 am rolled around, we hit up a Forro dancing at a place called Flashback. So, I realize now that I pretty much suck at Forro. Still, the girls are nice about it when they tell me that I have to learn. Bubble and I finally crashed at 5 am and I slept in a bit on Sunday.

Sunday was Meghan and Sarah's last day in town. As Jim probably did his own thing to say goodbye to Sarah, we took Meghan out to a kilo for lunch and ran some errands. Tom didn't come with us and instead went shopping, but I still felt his presence, or perhaps just heard the sound of screeching tires as we were grabbing some dessert.

After saying so long to the girls, I went with the nooglers to see a country western called 3:10 to Yuma. I really enjoyed this movie and it was a good way to end the excitement of the weekend.

Soufflet

Tonight, we went on another great dining excursion to a place really close to Google called Taste Vin. There, I had a big gorgonzola souflet and part of a chocolate souflet for dessert. It was tasty and I'll have to go back there soon.

Porcao

Tonight, we went to a restaurant called Porcao, which I think is Portuguese for Porky's or something like that. It had a big picture of a pig on the front of the restaurant, and when you sit down you realize why. There is a little circular disk on for everyone that has a red side if you don't want meat and a green side if you do want meat. I didn't actually realize this and had the green side showing. These waiters come by constantly with skewers of different kinds of meat and all of it looked good, so before I knew it, I had like 10 pounds of chicken, pork, filet mignon, and lamb on my plate. So, needless to say that I was pretty full by the end of the meal. It was strange that Meghan suggested taking us there because she is a vegetarian. I guess they had a minimal selection of buffet items that were vegetarian. It was a fun meal though, and Andrea taught me more about using the word "Bah!" which made it a knee slapping good time.

Birthday Party

I went to my second Brazilian birthday party. Julia and Tiago invited us to go to the party so that Liz could experience a real Brazilian barbecue and meet some real people, as opposed to the clubbing experiences that we often have.

The party was a lot of fun. We got there around noon and Tiago started cooking up the meat, and I don't think that he stopped all day. We had to leave around 6 and there was meat on the table the whole time. It was fun to talk to their friends, and Liz and I ended up talking to Mariana and Joao for the whole afternoon. Perhaps I'll head out with them sometime soon.

Above is the birthday girl and below are Liz, Julia, and Tiago.

American Sign Language, not so handy

So, I think that Liz and I have agreed that you shouldn't take American sign language as your language requirement in high school. Not only can you not understand anybody who can speak in any other country, but you can't even understand any deaf or mute people in any other country. The signs are localized and if you learn sign language in the states, you can only use it in the states.

Tiradentes

This little town is terrific. It is a quaint small tourist town which has stone streets and a lot of pretty sights. It sits in a small valley in the mountains next to a city called Sao Joao De Rei. Liz and I got there around 2-3 pm on Thursday and had a nice lunch. We spent the rest of the day walking around and looking for a place to stay. The town was packed with pousadas (hotels) and it was a lot of fun just meeting the people and seeing the cottages. Every place had rooms since carnival had just ended and noone was around. We ended up in this nice place in a corner room overlooking the mountains and the very close to the main plaza. Since the place was absolutely dead, a lot of the bars were closed and we ducked into a fancy Italian restaurant for dinner to avoid the rain, which came down in buckets for about an hour.

Bumb Tire

The road to Congonhas is a bit treacherous to say the least. Actually, it is kind of miserable. Our little underpowered Fiat was struggling to get up the hills and pass these huge trucks which were going ever so slowly in the right lane. They were kicking up red dirt from the bushes on the side of the road and creating a cloud of redness that was difficult to navigate. If you are in the right lane, you also have to watch out for pot holes, some of which are huge and deep. One of the pot holes jumped up and knocked us so hard that the car started yelling for help. After stopping to figure out that our tire's rim was bent, we went on. When we finally stopped in the church at Congonhas, the tire decided to end it's life, and I had to replace it with the spare tire held right next to the engine, since there was so much extra room in the engine compartment.

Liz: Brazilian Retard

It became increasingly apparent on Wednesday as Erik and I traveled from Salvador to Belo Horizonte, that people here think that I, like them, am Brazilian. For the most part this is great, it means that I can blend in and get a better taste of Brazilian culture. There is only one problem, I don't speak a lick of Portuguese. Erik and I find it ever more amusing that when people want to communicate with us, they speak directly to me, completely ignoring Erik, even after he has responded to them in Portuguese. They must think I am a mentally challenged young woman who can only utter one word phrases with poor pronunciation. I may look like a duck, but I sure don't quack like one.

The Elavador

The old town part of Salvador is kind of cool because it is on top of a steep cliff and separated from the beach and the lower city. To get there, you can either take a long taxi ride inland then then come back up the cliff, or you can take the elevator, which was built to transport the millions of people that need to get from the city alta to city baixa. It was free for carnival and usually costs 50 centavos. I got some okay photos of it in front of the setting sun. Salvador is the only place in Brazil where the sun seems to set over the ocean. Liz and I watched it from the windows at the top of the elevator on Tuesday night.

The upper part of the city is a lot of fun. The streets are all cobblestone and very narrow. There are bands constantly marching through them playing loud music and they usually have an entourage. They are preceded by costumed dancers who just don't seem to run out of energy. On Tuesday night, we watched one of these bands in the street as we ate dinner at a great Arabic restaurant.

One of the most exciting parts of this old part of town is that it is the birthplace of Capoeira, a Brazilian fighting dance that is awesome to watch. The really good dancers do circular kicks and round house punch that narrowly miss their opponent. The goal is to spar without actually making contact and make circular motions to the fast paced music. It would be fun to learn and would keep you in great shape.

Oops, We Did it Again

On Monday, Erik and I really did want to take it easy, so we decided to do a bit of sight seeing in the old part of town. As it turns out, this part of town is the location of the third Carnival circuit. This circuit is not as crazy as the other, and the restaurants, shops, and attractions stay open while capoeira demonstrations, marching bands, drum corps, and clowns entertain in the streets. Erik and I saw a couple of Salvador's most famous churches, including one painted with gold. Then we ate, shopped, danced, and enjoyed the festive atmosphere until well into the night. We had such a great time, we did it again on Tuesday, although Tuesday was our three year anniversary, so we started the day with our favorite vacation past time--lighthouse hunting (http://www.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=1903815149024114357).

Salvador Carnival

Going to Salvador is definitely a fun way to spend Carnival in Brazil. For the first 3 days, I had 3 very different experiences:

Friday - I met up with a fellow Googler, Meghan, whom I had never met before. It was pretty lucky for me that she had 2 friends who were supposed to come to Brazil with her but couldn't make it at the last minute, since Liz was coming on Saturday and I was planning on being all alone in Salvador. Meghan definitely knew where to stay in Salvador. She was in a sweet hotel overlooking the entire Ongina beach circuit and with a terrific view of the city. I'll try to get one of her pictures to post here. Our apartment was in a good location, but definitely lacked a view, and an air conditioner. It also had a nice Kamikaze shower. After checking out the beaches and getting some food, we set out for our first night of Carnival. It was absolute madness, but still lots of fun. At 9 pm, the streets were quite full of people. There were people walking through the crowd on a march to see the parade. The excitement comes with a huge trio electrico can be seen. You stop for a moment from fighting the crowd to dance to the music being blasted at you from 30 ft high speakers mounted on semi truck trailers. The music fills the streets for hundreds of feet and bright lights flash as the band which is set up on top of the huge speakers plays Brazilian music. It is quite an experience to hear those things go by. The trucks are surrounded by people who have bought abadas, shirts which allow them to be right next to the float and march along the street without fighting the crowd. For us, the waiting minutes between the floats were spent people watching. There are people in costumes, flamboyant gay men in tutu's and pink bras (I was grabbed several times by these guys instead of any girls), women in short shorts and tight shirts, men selling Skol beers for one real, vendors making curred cheese on a stick, and people running, jumping, and singing. Later on in the night, people start to get drunk. The worst part of roaming the streets without a place to be is that there are random fights that break out and you have to act quickly to avoid the swiftly moving crowds. There is also the time of night when everyone has to go pee and all the bathrooms are full and crowded, so anywhere works. The streets become soaked with beer sweat, rain, empty cans and bottles, and lots of pee. But the party goes on. It rages until 5 am or so, and finally the crowd thins out and people start to go home. We made it home at around 5 am, just in time to see the sun rise, and sleep the day away.

Saturday - I met up with Liz, who made it from San Francisco after a 26 hour journey to central america, Peru, and Sao Paolo. With Meghan's hotel connection, we managed to get ourselves an abada for the evening so that we could get into a camarote. This is a private party on the side of the circuit where you can watch the parade and the people from the comfort of a private area with drinks, food, and massages. The party started around 8 pm for us, and this was definitely the best night of Carnival. When the trio electrico's go by, you stand right at eye level with the singers in the bands and you get to dance and sing as they go by with all the rest of the people in your box. We met up with some nice people there and managed to talk to them for quite a while. I thought Liz was quite funny because though she couldn't speak a lick of Portuguese, she would randomly approach strangers and start talking to them in English. She got lucky a couple of times because they actually knew English, but often times she would just get smiles and nods. Though we ventured out on the streets for 10-15 minutes, we were much happier with the carnival in the camarote. And still, we got to bed just in time to see the sunrise and sleep the day away.

Sunday - We decided to check out another circuit of carnival called the Campo Grande circuit. This is the older and more well established circuit on a much narrower street. It started at around 1-2 pm and by the time we got there, it was madness. So, we decided to find the Ongina circuit again. We got to the start of it and found a Samba trio electrico without a bloco around it and we followed it for a couple of kilometers dancing all the way. I thought that by the end of it, I would have learned to Samba, but Liz said that I looked like a white guy doing the Samba, which I think means that I suck at it.

So Much For Calling It an Early Night

On Sunday, Meghan and Erik were both tired from partying until down two nights in a row, and I wasn't fully recovered from my long journey, so we decided to check out a new Carnival circuit (the previous nights had been spent at Ondina), then head to bed early, maybe around one or two. After a short stroll though the Campo Grande circuit around 11, we decided that Ondina had better music, so we changed our direction and went there, since it was too early to call it a night just yet. We got really lucky when we joined the circuit. The crowds weren't too thick and there was an awesome samba band slowly making its way down the street on top of its big truck. Usually these trucks carrying the bands are surrounded by a VIP area that requires an abada to enter, but that was not the case with this band. We danced along behind them, then sampled the reggae band that was coming along after them, and the blond pop singer who was ahead of them. The crowd and the music were infectious. Before we knew it, it was almost sunrise, again.

The Brazilian Way with Fabric

To party with the bands at Carnival or get into a camarote, you have to was a special t-shirt called an abada that shows you are part of the group. This is a very extreme version of matching wristbands. Abadas are brightly colored, polyester, square, and come in one size--gigantic. Lets face it, how many women want to go to a party where they are wearing the same outfit as everyone else? Fortunately, Brazilian women (and some of the men) work wonders with fabric, and so, did not let their abadas keep them from donning the latest styles. I was amazed by how many ways the abadas were altered. We saw everything from skimpy halter tops, to tube dresses, to tank tops with sashes and empire waists. We didn't have sewing machines or hours to kill altering our abadas, but we did what we could with a pair of dull scissors. Meghan and I went for sassy off-the-shoulder numbers, while Erik opted to show off his bulging biceps.

They Won't Steal Your Liver...But You Might Need a New One

I arrived in Salvador after over 24 hours of travel and went directly to bed even though it was early afternoon. I slept a few hours and was aroused by Erik as the sun was setting. He and Meghan (a friend from Google) had arranged for us to get into an all inclusive camarote-- an exclusive box on the Carnival circuit where you ahve a great view of the bands as they slowly pass by on giant trucks. After all the horror stories of pick pockets, suffocating crowds, and gringos being kidnapped so their organs could be harvested, spending my first night at Carnival in the lap of luxury was a welcome surprise. As I mentioned, we had a great view of the bands, plentiful food all night, bathrooms with sinks and toilet paper, a masseur, and an open bar. Now, given the beers on the street cost about 55¢ an open bar doesn't seem all that exciting--the booze is practically free everywhere. But this place had hard alcohol too, so having only gotten five hours of sleep in the last 48 hours, I thought it would be nice to have a mixed drink of some sort with coke in it was my best bet for the night, even if it was watered down. I ordered a burbun and coke and expected something that was 50% ice, 40% coke, and 10% whiskey. They gave me a 12 oz. glass with three ice cubes, and filled it to the brim with Johnnie Walker, no coke. They clearly wanted my liver to fail! I grabbed an extra glass, obtained a can of coke, poured half of the whiskey into the new glass, filled both glasses with coke, and happily double fisted my drinks.

The rest of the evening was fantastic. The music was great, we met some fun and interesting people, and didn't get to bed until dawn.

No Joke

At the international airport in Lima, you have to go though security even if you just got off another international flight and are going to a gate in the same terminal. While I was going through security there, I noticed they had a large, clear, plastic box full of confiscated items. Along with the expected pocket knives and manicure equipment were, I kid you not, a bow and arrow, a wrench, and a crowbar. Now, I can understand if you bought a bow and arrow as a neat example of Amazonian handy work and didn't want to put it in your checked bags for fear that it might be to delicate to survive the rough treatment of baggage handles, but a wrench and a crowbar? What are you going to do on a plane with a wrench and a crow bar?

Clearly I had way to much time in the Lima airport given that I spent the brain power thinking and writing about this, but if this is the most memorable part of a 24+ hour journey, I think I am not doing so bad.

Ouro Preto - City of a Brazilian Churches

Today, we went to the city of Ouro Preto or "Black Gold". It is a colonial town built in the mountain and full of narrow streets, old building, and a ton of churches. The town is about 120 km away from Belo Horizonte and it took us about an hour and a half to drive there. The city was amazing. It reminded me a lot of some of the small towns I have driven to in Italy, with cobble stone single lane roadways and little restaurants and shops right up against the road. As we walked around the town, I noticed that there was one church after another. You couldn't look out over the town without seeing at least three of them. I took a lot of great pictures of the place which you can see on picasaweb.

For lunch, we stopped at this overpriced fancy restaurant and I got some more Minas Gerais food. I have to start to learn how to order it because there are certain things that I just don't like. They have pork rinds as a major part of the meal, which I hate, and also there is usually one green food which is sort of like grass, also not very tasty. The others ordered filets which looked a lot better.

We could only go into a couple of the churches. Inside one of them, you find a lot of ornate religious decor, sculptures, and wooden carvings. They were all painted with gold leaf. In another church, we found that a lot of the religious figures were holding skulls to remind the people that they are mortal with finite life and to remember not to overly value material things. In both of the churches, there was a free standing doorway just inside the main doorway which was used to block the view of the ceremony from the unprivileged outsiders and uninvited lower class.

Lightning

They are predicting a serious thunder and lightning storm over the next couple of days, so it's a good thing that I am going back to work and locked away there for most of the day. 

The rain here is really impressive.  It pours harder than I have ever seen before for about an hour or two and then stops.  You definitely don't want to get caught in it.

Monique's Place

Last night, we went over for a great time at Monique and Thiago's apartment. This last minute gathering was concocted by Andrea the night before, and before too long, a lot of people knew about it. I have some pictures of the people there and the house. Monique has a little Chinchilla in the back room that is pretty cute. She mentioned how sometimes, it gets out and she finds it a couple days later running around or playing in the laundry bin.

The Bloodthirsty Capybara

Today, Bubble, Jim, and I went over to a great restaurant in Pampulha, which is a neighborhood of Belo Horizonte. I had some of the best food I have had during the trip. It was a pumpkin filled with shredded, dried meat, cheese, and squash. It was great.

Later, we went to a small park where there were capybaras running around. Well, they weren't necessarily running until I chased after them. At first, I didn't know what to expect when I got close to them. They're pretty big, and as I approached one of these deadly creatures when he was sitting down, I didn't know whether he would get up and run away or get up and attack. I didn't want to be in the Belo Horizonte news as the American that got mauled by the ferocious cabybara. They were all loose, savage, and wild, and nobody else was closeby, so he could have dragged me into the lagoon if he wanted. Ah, but to my pleasant surprise, he ran. He wouldn't let me get less than 3 meters from him. Since I can only dive 6 feet to capture a chase, this was just enough room to be out of reach, and he knew it. In some of the pictures in the web album, you can see some baby capybaras lounging around by the water.

Gruta De Maquine

Today, we went to the Gruta de Maquine. This is supposed to be one of the best caves in the area. I read that there are a lot of other caves, but they are closed to the public because of scientific research and exploration.

Jim and I took a tour and tried to make out a few words here and there from what the guide had to say. The cave was pretty impressive because of the 7-8 huge rooms. You could put a whole Google Holiday party inside one of these rooms, but I don't know if you would want to since it's sooo hot and humid down there. We were in the cave for about an hour and I was really lethargic by the end of it.

Soccer with the Brazilian Googlers

People here grow up watching soccer, playing soccer, and living it.  There are 2 teams to root for and I really don't remember what they are called because of the way they are pronounced.  

Last night, we we to the soccer field and played for about an hour and a half.  We played on an outdoor net covered small field with astroturf and small goals.  This is like an indoor soccer game but in the open air.  It is at a small recreation center nearby.  We had about 6 people on a side.  

I ended up doing pretty well for my first time with the Brazilians. 

Wii Santa Revisited

So, since my internet didn't work yesterday, I was able to make an update to wii santa.  Now it'll become popular.  Check it out and rate it.  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YHGEWsZ69Ho

Forro

Last night, I went out with the guys for a night of Forro. It's a Brazilian dance that originated in the north. Rafael told me that there was an American base there on which it started becoming popular and was said to be "For All". Later, it was changed to Forro because it sounds the same.

It was a ton of fun, and pretty easy to pick up. There were lots of people, and still they dance into the night... the bars close at 4 am.

Dining Alone

Well, since my co-ambassador doesn't seem to eat much after 4 pm, I decided to go out and dine alone.  I found a restaurant while randomly walking about, and then managed to get seated.

Looking at the menu was quite exciting, since I had no idea what they were serving.  I just picked something, and it turned out to be pretty good.... a beef, broccoli and potato dish.

Getting across the street

So, getting across the street is pretty easy compared to the streets in Vietnam or India.  Still, it does have it's dangers.

People drive pretty fast on the small streets but they do stop for the red lights, very much unlike in the Dominican Republic.  Here, the stop before the limit line and people can cross the street when the little green guy lights up.  Here's the kicker.  When that little green guy turns to the red guy, you had better sprint like your life depended on it, because frankly, it does.  You have about 1-2 milliseconds to get your butt across the street before the cars start racing towards you.  There is no room for dawdling. 

Plane Ride = Long

Wow, the flight was really long to get here. I flew from SFO to Atlanta to Rio and then to Belo Horizonte. It took over 24 hours of travel time between home and then hotel room (~27 hours of so). I probably slept about 3-4 hours on the flight and about 3-4 hours the night before my flight, so I am a little bit out of it right now.

Still, I managed to go out and get some groceries at the Mercado Central in Belo. I was really dehydrated and needed some water, since we apparently aren't supposed to drink the tap water. I am better now.

One interesting scene on the drive from the airport, aside from the torrential downpour I experienced, was that there is a lot of graffiti in this town. In fact, I saw a high rise apartment building with at least 30 floors, and there was something spray painted on the outside of each floor. The taggers are really dedicated to their work if they scale the railings of 30 balconies to paint something on the building.

Other than that, I think that the other big shocker is that not many people speak English and I'll have to pick up Portuguese a lot faster than I first expected. I think that my vocabulary has already improved dramatically in the last 6 hours. I wonder how fast I can go.