Advertisement
Published: February 13th 2006
Edit Blog Post
Clara
Lucas, Luis-Davi, Claudia, and Clara I got on the bus and for the first time in Brazil since the (ahem) airport incident I was alone. The bus drive was uneventful. I recall looking out the window to the Impatiens covering the side of the road and I thinking of about home. As the bus flew by a blur of Impatiens I kept tab of how much they would go for at good old Pipkinās. I lost interest after about 1000 dollars worth or so- any aspiring flower importers out there?
I arrived at the bus station in Rio de Janeiro, and I did not see Clara. This left me with no choice but to face my arch nemesis, the Brazilian public phone. Due to a number of error messages I could not understand, I had yet to successfully complete a phone call with a public phone. Before you laugh at my incompetence read on, things are not always as easy as they seem.
As I explained in the first entry
The First Day, Brazilian public phones are not coin operated. Each phone has a slot for a prepaid calling card. When you slide in your card and pick up
apartment living room
the living room in the apartment the phone there is an electronic display of the number of credits on your card. Adding to the complication, in 1998 the state run public phone company was split up, and now there are several competing long distance providers. In order to make a long distance call, you must preface the area code and telephone number with a three digit code for the company you want to use. Some codes only work in specific states while others provide for the entire country. From what I can tell, they all charge about the same thing. If that were not enough about a third of the public phones do not work. They either do not have a dial tone, will not accept a valid phone card, or (my personal favorite error) automatically dial a number when you pick up the phone. The large number of malfunctioning public phones really threw me off when I first arrived. When my call would not go through I assumed I did not follow the proper procedure.
I picked up the phone slid in my card and started dialing. Clara did not pick up, and I was sure I
had messed up some part of the phone call procedure. Before I could formulate the sentence asking for assistance with the phone in Portuguese, the phone rang and Clara was on the line. My call miraculously made its way through, and showed up on her caller ID. She had just arrived at the bus station and was on her way to meet me. We left the bus station and headed to her grandmother's car.
When Clara and I started dating two months prior I never thought I would see her in Brazil. My plans to go to Brazil were set before I met her in Cincinnati, and we planned on just enjoying the month together before I left for Brazil. But then a week a way from my departure on October the 18th, she was offered a full basketball scholarship to Cincinnati State. The only catch- she needed to change her visa status from tourist to student by November 14th. And the only way to change a visa that quickly was for her to fly back to Brazil, and go to the United States embassy in Rio.
In the car I met her grandmother Eliza and Eliza's three
apartmant living room 2
another shot of the apartment dogs. Unbeknownst to me, I would see a lot more of those dogs in the near future. But back to the story- to this point in my Brazilian journey, I was spoiled by my bilingual friends Carol and Giselle. While I would sometimes ask them to speak in Portuguese, we would always fall back on English when we were having a conversation. Eliza spoke to me in Portuguese, and only Portuguese. It was a rude awakening- I had a lot of work ahead of me if I wanted to become fluent. I concentrated hard trying to pick apart and digest Eliza's speedy monologue. Despite my best effort the only word I could catch was dog, and that did me little good. There were a lot of blank stares and silence, which come to think of it constitute most of my advanced conversation in Brazil.
Meanwhile, Clara sat in the back saying very little. I think she enjoyed witnessing my total lack of understanding; perhaps it reminded her of when she first arrived in the States. Eliza does speak a little English, and when she got tired of talking to a brick wall she switched to English. We made our way to the neighborhood of Flamengo, to the apartment Clara was staying at.
When Clara is in Rio she lives in a huge apartment with her grandparents Daisy and Adolpho, mother Claudia, two brothers Lucas and Luis-Davi, Cousin Ana Luisa, and Uncle Gustavo. It is not uncommon for extended family to live together in Brazil, and there is enough space to accommodate all. The apartment is amazing. In the living one of the walls is a huge window over looking one of the busier streets in Flamengo. There is a bus stop near by, and it is only four blocks from a park lining the ocean. You can check out a picture of the park on this website http://www.ipanema.com/citytour/flamengo.htm the apartment is not in the picture but it would it is on the same street as the white apartment in the left hand corner.
I arrived in Rio on Thursday and on Friday I left with Clara and her family for the weekend. Around 25 of her aunts, uncles, and cousins were headed to Teresopolis to celebrate Adolpho and Daisy's 50th anniversary. Teresopolis is a small mountain city and the cool breezes of the high altitude make it a popular weekend getaway for Cariocas (people from Rio) escaping from the hot Rio Sun. Clara's family was going to spend the weekend eating delicious food, talking, laughing, and playing soccer. The highlight of the weekend was to be a huge party on Sunday. And I got to tagalong.
Advertisement
Tot: 0.079s; Tpl: 0.011s; cc: 10; qc: 41; dbt: 0.038s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.1mb