NOTE

If you're reading this for the first time...

1) don't pay attention to the dates, b/c I was way behind, so the posts are actually from weeks ago.

2) read from bottom to top (is this stupid to say? I was new to this whole blog thing 'til now...)

3) don't be alarmed but my English writing skills and my spelling are vanishing into thin air by the hour.

Second week: still in São Paulo...

I stayed in SP for another week and enjoyed my little niece some more.
Couple of pics I took that week...



Avenida Paulista on a beautiful sunny morning.
This avenue is right in the heart of São Paulo and it's one of its symbols. It's the one place I know where you can get stuck in traffic at 1am on any day. I find it very pretty, and it kind of reminds me of NYC (although not in this pic, there's no traffic jam...).



My bro's apartment is very close to Congonhas airport. This is a smaller airport that takes care of most of the regional flights in and out of SP. It's mega-busy, of course. There are flights to Rio nearly every 30 min, to start with. But the city grew around the airport, so now there are apartment buildings really close to it. I took this shot out of the kitchen window. You can't really keep a conversation when a plane is flying by. My niece told me the teacher in her school has to briefly stop the lesson, too.

I give up

That's it folks, I give up. I kept trying to write up this blog so it would be up to this date, but I keep falling behind. I have been a total lazy ass when it comes to writing about whatever I did some 3 weeks ago. Yes, I was waiting until I could get it sort of up-to-date before telling friends about it, but what the heck. Forget about it. I'll keep it simple, so you all can see nice pictures whenever I get one and read a story every now and then.

So, wrapping up, the weekend in BH was just plain awful. 8-hour bus ride, sleep, eat, 5-hour exam, eat , 8-hour bus ride back. All for a stupid exam, that was poorly designed and will simply not select the best candidates to fill those positions, which makes me even more upset about enduring such a ride. Anyway, I had to do it.

On the way back I took the "sleeping cart" bus. It was $40 bucks more (ie, $100 bucks for the one-way ticket back to SP), but it was worth every penny. Even though I can never sleep on buses/airplanes, I crashed and before I knew we were in SP (5:45 am). I took the subway, then a cab to my bro's (6:45 am). I took a shower and slept again 'til 11;30 am. That day, after I finally woke up, I realized I didn't have the exam anymore as an excuse, so I finally had to face the facts... I was really in Brazil, on vacation. I was done. Anxiety took hold of me for a moment.

part 4 - bus stop

You can find some pretty amazing bus stops around here, even in places that seem to be going across the middle of nowhere. This is where we stopped on our way to BH.
At the bus stop I had a feeling that a lot of people there were looking at me in a funny way. I had that same feeling a few times after that, but now it went away. Was it my big backpack? Or was it just my impression? In the States you can almost forget that you are a woman - walking on the street you sometimes feel like if you were almost invisible. I have a suspicion that my feeling might have come from simply not being used to how people here stare at you with little ceremony.





Hunny enjoying some Coca-Cola while I was taking that shot of the bus station.

part 3

Hunny seemed to be pretty comfortable on the bus (Hunny is the stuffed bear that hangs from my backpack and follows me everywhere. He came with me all the way from Japan to the States and now, Brazil).

I kept myself busy with tons of reading, and even crossword puzzles...



Interesting how odd things about the culture of your own country, which usually pass by unnoticed, become evident to your eyes after beeing away for a while.

At this road-side motel, you get a special rate if you are fast... (see the banner, it says "vapt-vupt $25,00"). A vapt-vupt = a quicky one... ;)

(the expression is generally used to refer to anything that is done quickly)

part 2

I left São Paulo at noon, it was a beautiful day and I had some fun taking pictures from the bus window. Here are some (click on the image to see it full size):



This one was taken from a bridge across the river Tietê. The rivers Tietê and Pinheiros sort of cross the city of São Paulo and along with them run the two major thruways of the city, Marginal Tietê and Marginal Pinheiros.

Wheels for sale on the side of the road.

Roadside dwellers.

First weekend: concurso EMBRAPA - part 1

Saturday morning my brother drove me across town to the grand São Paulo bus station, to catch the 12pm bus to Belo Horizonte (Minas Gerais), city where I'd take the exam for the job at EMBRAPA. SP has a huge bus station, connected to the subway lines, where buses come and go from virtually anywhere in the country and even across the border. Sorry, no pictures. I am a poor Grad student and I don't have money to buy a new camera in case this one gets stolen. (Correction: I am no longer a poor Grad student! I am an unemployed doctor). It was nuts to be back at the bus station after so many years, I had not taken a bus there since long before I left the country in 2000. But when I was in college, I was there all the time, traveling to see my family in Rio de Janeiro. I used to travel late at night with only a backpack. Those were great but crazy times! Gosh, everything is making me nostalgic these days.

BH is 8 hours away, Northwest from SP. Never been there before. Long trip: I brought lots of reading, my camera to play with, and my life-saver, my adorable iPod Nano.

First week in Brazil

I took this picture the day I left Ithaca - it's the view outside the living room of my old apartment. It was March 25th!! I know, everyone is tired of seeing that "white stuff", but I figured it would cause quite an impression on folks here! ;)

I didn't take many pictures on my first week here, so I don't have much to show. Come to think of it - what did I do all week? Time flies when you are feeling lost. I spent all week at my brother's place in São Paulo (aka the Concrete Jungle). I was preparing for a national exam, part of the selection process for a job at EMBRAPA. So in theory I was going to be studying hard and reading lots, but let's be honest... I was too tired for that. I did do a lot of reading, but spent a lot of time with my adorable little niece, chatting on the computer, reading emails, reading a book (Life of Pi - I am loving it), and relaxing. And also running around with errands, like renewing my driver's license that was expired since April 2005...


Speaking of my little niece - Rafaela - she was the best part of my week, for sure. She is 7. We had not seen each other for 2 years but that didn't seem to matter. I brought her a children's digital camera and she absolutely loved it. But she loved MY camera even more, plus hers was out of battery, so...

We took lots of pictures. SHE took lots of pictures. She is 7 but knows the camera features better than me. Got worse when I showed her how to make movies with it... Kids these days... they are amazing!

Man, do I look TIRED in this picture or what?


Anyway - first week flew by, with me feeling like a total stranger. I pretended to read lots of scientific articles in Portuguese to prepare for the exam, because the toughest part for me was to remember (and learn new) technical terms in Portuguese, after studying and working in the U.S. for so long.

Aviso aos navegantes

Pessoal,
este Blog é em Inglês, não é porque eu sou uma esnobe, mas porque ele é dedicado aos meus amigos de Ithaca, NY. Eu o criei para poder compartilhar com eles um pouco do nosso país e das minhas viagens por aqui, na minha volta ao meu querido Brasil. São Brasileiros, Americanos, Canadenses, Indianos, Latino-americanos... por isso, enquanto o mundo não adota uma língua internacional, vai em Inglês mesmo.
Portanto, enrola a língua e bola pra frente!!
---------------------------------------------------------

Dear all,

welcome to my very modest and totally experimental photo blog. I have been wanting to send email updates to my friends who stayed behind, so instead of filling up your mailboxes with the same photos and stories from Brazil, this is my way of sharing these stories with some of my dear friends. I hope you enjoy it, but suggestions are welcome! Miss you all,
Lyza