It’s been a dry spell here at the ol’ blog, but I’m sick at home today and the only good thing about that is… this! There have been many great things going on down here so now I can tell you all and be happy about them all over again.

More on the apartment, definitely one of the best things to have happened to me thus far. Luck with housing seems to follow me with some regularity, but I wasn’t sure it would follow me all the way to Brasil. The apartment is in Botafogo, a neighborhood that is lovely and peaceful with small streets that get crowded in early evening when everyone is coming home from work and kids from school. There are two very busy commercial streets that run through Botafogo, and lots of smaller streets with apartments and trees lining them. The apartment has a beautiful view of the Cristo Redentor because the building was built before the others around it, so the architect had his choice, at least according to my roommate Beto. There’s a produce market two seconds away, literally across the street, that has fresh orange juice and anything else a person could wish for or be curious enough to try!

After a short period without gas in the house (who thinks to ask about those things when checking out an apartment?) we got it a couple weeks ago and I’ve been enjoying hot showers and cooking a lot. Happily, Beto likes to cook too, so we make a lot of messes and good food. Speaking of messes, the quest to get internet has been interesting and still without success. But the floor is all ripped up in an effort to change cables and whatnot! I’m not writing about this to complain, but rather because I have to explain this photo that I wanted to post of the construction site.
And the internet I was pirating last week seems to have returned, so I can sail the seven seas again.

Living with a Brazilian (see photo on left) who talks a lot (A LOT!!) is having the desired effect on my Portuguese, or at least I think so. I understand a good deal of what he says to me, with the exception of many girias (slang) that don’t make sense when translated directly. I still screw up tenses and verb conjugations a lot, but will probably have to take classes to fix that. Here are a select few girias that I love:

estou fritando: literally, “I’m frying”
= tossing and turning in bed, unable to sleep
(being the occasional insomniac I appreciate this!)

tomara que cai: “hopefully, it will fall”
= a certain type of bikini top…. Pretty self explanatory :P

Tem paraquedista: “you have a parachuter”
= if someone has a hanging booger!

Just a bit more on the subject of housing, I was interested to read that Lula is proposing a sort of a stimulus package for housing, that will build about 1 million homes for citizens of various income levels. About half of those houses will be equipped with solar water heating and the houses will use certified sustainable wood, according to the environment minister Carlos Minc. Rio has a huge problem with affordable housing availability, as anyone who has seen the favelas already knows.

Much love, gente!

Sao Paulo Elephants

As far as I can tell, the elephant I found was the best thing about São Paulo. This is an utterly unfair and unqualified statement given that I saw very little of the city, but I make it anyway because I think having a blog gives me license to do so. A lot of people compare SP to NYC, but the similarities are few. There are chique restaurants and bars in both places, true, but SP is really more the sister city of LA. Short buildings except downtown, sprawl, traffic, smog, more sprawl. No beach though.

ANYWAY! Whirlwind trips full of long meetings aside, I was tickled to return to my marvelous city. This return was made even sweeter by the fact that I moved into my new home in Botafogo. You can peek down at my house by clicking here.

I couldn't ask for a nicer roomate or a more beautiful apartment and location. This evening I sat on the balcony and ate dinner looking up at Cristo and listening to Beto play guitar... beleza pura. How on earth did I get so lucky? I must have been a saint in my last life, or a brahmin perhaps.