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Published: February 15th 2007
Brandeezy!!!
Brandee arrives (finally!) and joins the group.Wednesday 2/14/07 11:45pm
Brasil! La la la la la la la la…Brasil! Simply said: HOT! As in the vibe, the temperature, the people. Yep, that’s the adjective I’d use to describe the entire country right now. H.O.T.
Miami to São Paulo and Risk Our journey from Miami was not that bad, at least not the flying part. It was the parts in between flights that worked on that last nerve. But as long as I repeated to myself, at times aloud, “C’est pas les Etats-Unis!” (this is not the USA), I was able to make it. So as we said in the previous entry, Brandee did not end up meeting us in Miami, so it was me, Meli, and Louis. On the flight over, we had a row to ourselves—it was a Boeing 767 with the 2-3-2 configuration, with us occupying the center 3 seats. Meli rode *&$%!@(MISSING) (middle) . The food was aiight, nothing to write home to mom about, though I guess I am sorta doing that right now. Well, la di da! After the pseudo-gourmet meal, we broke off into a few games of Risk (the game of world domination). I have it on my laptop.
Sao Paulo Airport
The miserable one hour wait in line Yes, I’m addicted to it. Meli humors me often by playing with me. Actually, me, Meli and Jak (my roommate) play the board game and have had some epic games lasting greater than 3 hours. Two months ago, I didn’t know how to play, thus prompting me to download it and to play constantly. Now I’m not that bad at it and even won last week when Meli, Jak and I played.
Plane Rookies! I digressed. After playing Risk, Louis and I zonked out. Meli, the queen of watching bad movies, stayed up to watch “Queen.” We woke up to a croissant, yogurt, and juice. My favorite moment during breakfast—watching Meli open the yogurt, which was under pressure, and seeing it spray her sleeve. Even better, the same thing happened to a few other people around us. Ditto for the orange juice in the sealed cup. I knew to depressurize it by poking a hole in it before tried to open it. Those rookies!
Drama in São Paulo In Sao Paulo, customs was no hassle. It was taking our bags to the transfer check-in that was a freaking zoo. The line was deep. You’da thought the plague had
Sao Paulo Airport
20 of 25 hours down... hit and people were trying to jet. We inquired as to where to go and we were directed to either use the long line upstairs, or the “shorter” line downstairs. We chose option B: 1 hour in line! 1 hour in line. At one point, I jumped out of line trying to get into a shorter one. Turns out, that line was for people heading to Salvador at 9am, not 10:30am like us. Merde! Louis was waiting in the “shorter” line and initially I waived him over. Thanks to that move, we lost our place in the “shorter” line.
Oh, the drama didn’t stop there. When we reached the counter, we found out that there was a 20 reais tax that me and Meli had to pay because Orbitz hadn’t done it for us. This was being explained to us as Meli stood on the luggage cart with Lou balancing it with his foot. You know where this is headed. Lou took his foot off and Melissa nearly hit the floor. Luckily I’m going to be an Emergency Room doc, so it didn’t scare me. But I definitely laughed. The only laughing I did in Sao Paulo airport.
LA Represent·!
Meli status post mani/pedi and Louis in silly hat! Upstairs we trotted to pay the tax. As we are trying to pay, Meli turns to me from time to time talking in English. The cashier lady was acting a little snotty and goes to Meli, who speaks FLUENT Portuguese, “I can understand you, if you want to speak in English.” With huge attitude, Meli politely checked her I English, with something to the extent of, “I was just telling him to wait in line until we were helped here…” and then continued talking to her in Portuguese. I must say, I got excited by the little cat fight. You can totally take her baby! I got your back.
Drama on the Flight to Salvador Drama on the ground concluded and we boarded for Salvador on time. We got to our seats and the row was filled with people. Meli asked if their tickets were for row 11, and they said yes. The woman at the window even showed us her 11F stub. Meli made her way to the back of the plane and talked with two stewardesses. The Japanese Brazilian flight attendant (Brasil has the highest concentration of Japanese outside of Japan) requests that the other passengers show
Checking out the scene
Lee just looking! If you could see what I see... their stubs, and it turns out that the couple in 11D and E had actually been seated in row 10, but did not want those seats because they did not recline into the exit row. They then tell a sob story about how the older gentleman had just had surgery on his leg (hmmm, maybe he shouldn’t be flying, and definitely not in the exit row?). More drama ensues. The man claims he can’t be in row 10 because he can’t move his leg. The flight attendants then say that he can’t be in the exit row because he must be physically able to open the door in an emergency, and he responds by moving his leg and saying he can do it. Well, they boot him, we get our seats, and the flight is smooth to Salvador. We also meet another American woman who graduated from Stanford undergrad in 1998, and it turns out that she and I knew some of the same people.
Drama Getting to the Apartment From deplaning to the apartment is a saga, but nothing we can’t handle at this point. Driver was late. Phone card was confusing to use. But we managed to
Guava Jelly
Lou about to hit up the guava jelly check email and still had no idea where Brandee was - stranded or in flight??? The driver, Cacique, apologized for his tardiness and, on the 40 minute drive to town, regales us with songs, describes Carnaval and Bahian culture, and tells us that he may be famous some day for his Bahian cooking. Emanuela, the young lady who arranged our abadás (entrances to the block parties or box parties, which take the form of a colorful t-shirt) for us, meets us at the apartment and orients us. By this time, Meli and Emanuela are e-mail friends, and Emanuela scares her with stories of how she had to be escorted by three armed guards when she purchased all the abadás for her tourist clients. They are like fabric gold during Carnaval - people can steal them and sell them to tourists desperate for a chance to participate.
Drama Getting Cash Finally in the apartment, we settled in for all of 20 minutes before going on a hunt for cash and comida (food). It was raining, and as I said before, crazy hot. As a former travel guide writer, Meli always searches for a bank with international access first - not
Risk
Doing what we do always easy. We walked and walked until we finally got to Banco do Brasil, the same bank that jacked Meli of her money the last time she was in Brasil (ATM did not dispense the cash!). But it was our only option, and we stand in line (again!) for the one ATM with international access. Cash done, food next. We end up at what was pretty much a “restaurant” run by a Brasilian senhora. She had a handwritten menu with no prices. Food was decent, not spectacular, but at least it was crazy cheap. Rice and beans for all, seafood stew for Meli and me, and beef for Louis. Comfort food!
No More Drama On the way back, Meli separated from us to make an appointment at the local salon (c’mon, manicure and pedicure for 10 reais ($5)?). Lou and I explored a bit, and I was forced to use my Portuguese without Meli around. The highlight was getting Lou & I gym memberships and negotiating prices. I’m a Brasileiro in the making. Not to mention that several people come up to me asking if I’m Brasilian or speaking Portuguese to me because I can definitely pass for a Brasilian. They have lots of Afro-Brasilians here. We went to the gym across the street to find out how much it would cost for us to get a week membership. They will be closed for part of Carnaval, but I managed to get us a deal - 4 days for 20 reais ($10)! We also got some internet time and some havaianas (flip flops) for Lou. By now, we were definitely getting into the swing of things. The rest of the day was spent playing some Risk (as Meli napped), going to the gym, and hitting the supermarket for essentials.
Just Go This Way One more expedition before ending our first day in Brasil (here, they spell it with an S). Dinner! Food! A brotha’s gotta eat! We walk a good mile, stopping along the way to ask various people for Rua Cesar Zema where Ponto de Encontro (restaurant) was located. The map we had looks like B.B. (my 7 year old sister) drew it—that’s not a diss love, I know you got mad skills. No one knew, including the concierge at a nearby hotel. With heads low and bellies empty, we walk back towards our apartment. Turns out, Rua Cesar Zema was our cross street, 15 meters from the apartment doorsteps. Lots of excuses, right: hunger, fatigue, new locations, rain, jet lag. We totally missed it. Ponto de Encontro is now a bar with grimy, crusty fogies hanging out with high school looking girls. I mention that detail for a reason. Here, the police strictly enforce the law of locking up people preying on minors and people selling or possessing drugs. Apparently, the youth here are sometimes forced into prostitution, especially during Carnaval. As we sat and ate across from Ponto de Encontro, about 6 heavily armed guards stormed our restaurant. They talked to the owner, went upstairs, and left. Earlier, when we started our journey for dinner, we saw the armed guards arresting 4 guys with those machine guns & shotguns pointed at their backs. The catch is that these guards aren’t always good guys. We were told that minutes after they left our restaurant, they stormed another restaurant and walked out with the safe. Were drugs in there, or were they just being crooked cops??
We all sipped tasty Brasilian classics as we downed a delicious meal (my Dorade with cappers butter sauce was fantastic). On to an internet café that costs R$1 (1 real is about 50 cents) for 20 minutes. Big news: Brandee finally got out of Chicago and will be here tomorrow at some point. Just told us she’s coming…didn’t say when. Thanks Brandee. Jak and his NYC entourage also arrive tomorrow. Delene gets here Friday. Carnaval officially starts tomorrow!
Happy Valentines Day!
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Domitille
non-member comment
WOUHOU!!!
Hey, that's so great to follow you like that, it feels like we're traveling with you guys... Hello to Melissa whom I don't know yet - but feel like I know her already! All the best to you two, enjoy enjoy enjoy, and tons of kisses... Domitille