13 January 2006 - first day in Brazil!

Brasil!!!! Meu Deus, por fim tô aqui! Ahh!



It was a long but uneventful plane ride from Baltimore to Atlanta and then onto São Paulo. All together it was about 11 hours of flying. On the flight to Brazil it turned out that I was sitting next to another exchange student through the same program (CIEE, here called "O Council", i.e. Council on International Educational Exchange). After awhile it just started to feel like a long bumpy car ride. The bumpy part wasn’t so hot…and then because of the turbulance the flight attendants refused to serve us breakfast. "Our safety is more important than your hunger. We hope you understand". And I quote. It really wasn’t that serious, but whatever – the food probably wouldntve been that good anyway, hehe.

So we get to the airport in São Paulo (from now on referred to as "SP" or "Sampa") at 10:30 AM (7:30AM EST), walk a million miles through passport and customs and finally meet up with a group of other CIEE students. Everyone’s tired, hungry and wants to shower. We waited at the airport till about 12PM, then piled into a charter bus with our luggage and made our way downtown, arriving at the Caesar Business Hotel around 1PM.

We’re talkin high class here, folks – cable, nice shower, business desk, nice view into the next hotel, and as the name might indicate (or not), they play constant 70s/80s music (from the US) in the elevators and lobby. It’s located on Av. Paulista, one of the bussiest avenues in SP where there are tons of banks, malls, stores, restaurants, museums, and did I mention banks?? It is also probably the most expensive place to shop. By the way, in Brazil they use the regular plugs as in the States – that was somethin I was a little worried about.

My philosophy is to arrive to a new place with as few expectations as possible, this way you avoid shock or disappointment. I can only confirm that SP is a HUGE metropolitan city – it’s bigger than NY. Many cars, many pedestrians. It’s a lot to take in – which is why I really enjoyed the hour bus ride from the airport.

Once we arrived, we were assigned rooms and given 20 minutes to drop off our luggage and meet back in the lobby for lunch. I gotta say, a shower never felt sooo good! Especially being able to step out into 80 degree weather with flip-flops, jeans, and a t-shirt and not have my wet hair turn to icicles.

We walked about a block and got to a Shopping mall. At the end of their eatery (replete with buffet style Brazilian cuisine, pizza, fast food, chinese, etc) there’s a restaurant called Pateo da Luz.

It’s an all you can eat place that offers "rodízio" (where the waiters come around to your table and offer food). You walk in, take a plate, circle around a large table with all sorts of yummy delights, find a seat at any table and then a waiter comes around for drink orders. I asked for Guaraná – a very popular carbonated fruit drink. It kind of tastes like Red Bull and is supposed to have an energetic kick.

For sobremesa (dessert), they served a scoop of chocolate ice cream surrounded by fresh fruits – pineapple, papaya, mango, watermelon, and kiwi.

During our free time, I called Jefferson, one of the Brazilian exchange students that studied at Vanderbilt through FIPSE-CAPSE. We made plans to get together Sunday. He’s gonna help me with official business – i.e. buy a phone, show me the city, etc. It’s really good to know people here because then being on international turf isn’t so intimidating.

After our free time, we had a 2.5 hour orientation to the program. They gave us a cuaderno with a manual, maps (one of which is a 400 pg road guide of all the streets in the city. 400 pages!). We talked about various fieldtrips we’re going to make over the next 4 weeks and throughout the semester. These coming weeks are going to be intense – hence the name: ILCP, Intensive Language and Culture Program. We have class from 8:30AM till 2PM if there’s no activity/lecture scheduled after, but most days we’re there till 5PM. We’ll get Portuguese and Brazilian culture drilled into us – making field trips here and there to enforce what we learn.

Then we reconvened an hour later at the same place we ate lunch. I love this place – Pateo da Luz.

Imagine this: a huge fire oven, four guys constantly making pizzas of all sorts, and then as the pizzas are finished, waiters come and pick them up and then go around to all the tables in the restaurant offering you a piece. That, my friends, is rodízio. It’s CPK (California Pizza Kitchen) Brazilian style. Much better, hehe.

Being here just one day, I´ve come to a huge realization – telecommunication is a luxury. Rates per minute are soooo high locally (don’t even think about international calls) that phones are barely affordable for the middle class. You know how you have your cell phone plan, allotted minutes and free nights and weekends, right? And if you go over minutes, you pay about 45¢ per minute – well, that’s about the "reduced" fair at night, after 10pm, on Sundays, and holidays. REDUCED! During any other time, it’s about 60¢ per min. So cell phones are only good for two things: (1) meeting up with people and (2) incoming calls (which are free!).

I´m still getting used to the fact that I´m here – not just so much that, but the fact that I´m gonna be living here for the next 6 months. Living in a home, taking public transportation, studying at a university, the works.