First Week in Brazil in Pictures

Here are a few pictures of my time in Brazil thus far.

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Welcome to São Paulo

The view from my bedroom window. What a great place to write papers on urban geography : )




The night view... as best I could capture with my camera.




This is looking down into the Mercadão (fruit market).




At the Museo de Linga Portuguesa they had an entire hall way with a screen showing film and pictures related to the exhibits.

One of the exhibits at the Museum of Portuguese had parts of poems illuminated on the black floor. This one stuck with me:

Who does not see well
ONE WORD
Cannot see well
ONE SOUL

Playing with an interactive word game. I'm with two friends from Macalester who are doing the same program in São Paulo. They are wonderful and we are having a great time : )

One of my favorite pictures I've taken so far, this is another exhibit at the Portuguese Language Museum.

As in most big cities, graffiti is all over the place. What I didn't expect was elaborate works of art/murals like this. I snapped this picture quickly, but I'll have more examples up soon.

Maracatu deserves a lot more of an introduction than I can give it. Basically, this group of people meet every Saturday at this school and play a type of music that originated in the Northeast of Brazil. You have muscians, dancers and spectators... and if you want to learn how to play something new, just walk up to someone and they will hand over their instrument before you can open your mouth to ask. Not only that, but they stick around to teach you how to play. In my case it took a long time to learn how to play a simple beat on one of those big drums, but it was worth the effort. I will definitely be back.

Escola Mocidade!! Sunday night we went to a carneval rehearsal with one of the best schools in São Paulo. So many people and so much energy! Incredible! I can't wait for carneval!

YES!

We all got to try one some of the head dresses from past carnevals. The one I am wearing is HEAVY. I can't imagine samba-ing for an hour with this on.

The Arrival, CIEE and Host Family

I arrived just fine on thursday morning, no issues, I was even picked up by CIEE (which I wasn't expecting). The only thing was that after arriving at the airport in São Paulo, I had to wait a few hours for others who would be riding with us. Although it gave me time to meet the other people in the program is was really hard to just sit there when São Paulo was riiiight outside. I was so anxious and exicited to go into the city! But that gave way to exhaustion after the first hour. I ended up falling asleep on the bus ride to the hotel (missed our first tour through the city, basically!) which is located on Avenida Paulista, a very important street in the city. I think that stat to know is that 3/4 of São Paulo's money is on this avenue (lots of banks and major commercal activity).

Speaking portuguese was scary at first but I am proud of myself for putting myself outhere and speaking as much as possible, even though my proficiency isn't that good. We have monitores (students at the University that work with CIEE) who have been increadibly helpfull and kind. And fun. We've gone out a few times now, last night to a small concert, and its been great. Lots of Brazilian funk. Some samba.

I met my host family for the first time on Friday and we hit if off right away. I think my parents would be very happy to know that they have hosted many times before and expect to take of my as part of their family. They picked my up this morning (Sunday) and brought me home where I have wireless (and fast!) internet access and my own room. So if anyone would like to keep in contact using skype, it would be very easy (my skype username is simple: sarahmercado).

I'm pretty tired at the moment, so I'm going to take a nap. From now it'll be easier to update this blog (with WiFi), and I'll have more comments on life here and my impressions of the city. Just want to let you all know I'm doing great and not to worry!!

Firt step... get out of the house

I am surprisingly calm about this trip, although I am very aware that the feeling wont last past the security check point at the airport. So far everything is planned, packed, accounted for, under control, so there is nothing left to do other than eat these Cheerios and invite you all to this blog where I will update everyone on my trip to Brazil.

I leave today, January 7th, arrive tomorrow morning, January 8th. My return flight (if there are not catastrophes) is scheduled for August 11th. So between now and then, I'll let you know how it all goes!

Wish me luck and don't worry too much, I'll update this as frequently as possible so that you don't inundate my mother with worried phone calls about my whereabouts.

Much love!

Sarah