Festa, festa!

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What a crazy night that was! Andre walked me down to the internet cafe, then invited me to join him for a party with some friends. Now if ´´Homeland Paci´´ had o´ been in town I probably would have said no. But it was just me, so I thought, ´why not?´ So about 1:00am we roll back to the Pousada, having been to four parties, each of them featuring live bands playing loud forro music, everybody singing along and dancing it up, three of the festas were in the streets, one of them a quasi political/ poetry ´do´ in the middle of Recife. At one point, I realized, while perched in the boys room, that if Andre disappeared with his amusing buddy Julio, I would neither have the means or the wherewithal to find my way back to Olinda. What else could I do? That´s right: have another beer, dance more, and keep on smiling. Each party had the most stunning range of people there, zany crazy characters all dancing like mad and laughing from three to eighty three. It seemed that the whole World was represented at the first party. The second one was an entire neighborhood, the third a different neighborhood, and the fourth a pretty crazy club (the band was weakest in the last one, but by that time who was counting? Not me!)
It was a fantastic night with an almost dream like logic spinning me from party to party, dance to dance, until stumbling back into the pousada. I had broken every rule of travel in Brazil and had nothing but a good time. Sometimes you just have to have a little faith in your fellow humans even if the book tells you different!
Today, feeling rather heavier than last night, I took a number of walks around this rather pleasing section, the old part of Olinda. Flying out to the islands is going to cost a fortune, but I´m going to do it anyway. There are more festas coming up tonight. Tomorrow, the big thing is the final between Germany and Spain. I´m desperately trying to find a bar that might be showing the game. Unfortunately, it clashes with a big Brazilian game. Also, my pathetic Portuguese continues to make every little thing a challenge. I´ve only met one person with decent English - and he took off before I could talk to him. Nevermind.
As they say, ´Tudu Bem´ and ´tranquilo´.
Photos might have to wait again - it´s roasting hot in here even with the fans.
Festa, festa!
See you on the flypaper,
mike

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Comments

[suze]

You social butterfly! Sounds like a lot of fun - hope you'll post photos of the festivities! While it may have felt like you threw caution to the wind, you possibly have the most intuitive good sense of anyone I know, so I'm not surprised it all went very well! So the weather is very, very hot there? But you are not wearing 'hot weather' clothing?? 'Splain, please? We got your plants sorted today. They're good. (For now). Very weird not to be greeted by the Boy though....I kept thinking we needed to find him to let him out. Oh yeah....had a slight panic attack at arriving to a blank space where the bike normally is. Whew....I was relieved when we found it! And Gia and I went to a very cool yard sale in your neighborhood.....these people had exactly the same taste in music as us and had their entire CD collection out on the lawn. Needless to say, we pounced and scored a pile of excellent CD's that were suprisingly not in our stash already! That's about it from here. Keep having a fab adventure and we'll keep following along! Take good care, xo, Suze p.s. the cow graffiti photo is my favorite, so far. Oh wait....no, my second favorite - after you and Jesus.

[ontheroadEandS]

CODE RED!! CODE RED!!
What in all of creation is happening!?! The office of homeland security regrets to inform you that things have gone completely FUBAR here in Olinda. All safety and security regulations have been violated and the general safety of the journey has been compromised. The office recommends all travelers stay in in their rooms until further notice. Under no circumstances should this incident be spoken about, reffered to, or acknowledged to the public. Abort mission!! All visitors stay in your rooms within the safety of your nets!