9 days

Well, I came out of finals alive. I said goodbye to Fred on the 24th and came back to Appleton shortly after. I'm here for a little over a week before I catch my own plane. We had a pretty good Christmas at my house. I got a plane ticket, immunizations, six months of medicine, and some skirts that Mom made for me.

The biggest unexpected expense in this whole trip so far has been medicine. I got three immunizations, Yellow Fever, Typhoid, and Hepatitis A. My insurance didn't cover any of them and they ended up around $400ish. We had to call the insurance company to get a vacation override for 6 months of my regular meds, and although I only take three things, that ended up in the $400 range as well. I'm baffled. I guess I didn't realize that six months of copays would end up that much. Next time I'll try seeing if it's cheaper through the campus health center.

I finished my huge research project on Maria Martins and Tarsila do Amaral. I'm really excited to see their work in person, although I probably won't see the two pieces I worked with for the paper. Maria's I Believed that I Long Dreamed I was Free is lost or destroyed, and Tarsila's The Lake is in a private collection, I believe. The São Paulo's MAM should have a bunch of work by Tarsila, at least. Martins did some large-scale public sculpture for Brasilia, so I'm even more eager to get over there. Prof. Muniz's and his wife took the bus between Brasilia and São Paulo all the time when they weren't much older than me.
Unfortunately, I looked it up and found out I'm just missing the São Paulo Biennial. The exhibitions closed on December 17th. I guess I'll just have to go back in two years. Oh dear.

All I have left to do now is obsessively check my grades, pack, and wait for Fred to call. It's currently 10:10 PM in Hyderabad, 2:40 PM in São Paulo, and 10:40 AM in Appleton. Coordinating calls from Hyderabad to Appleton is pretty easy, but when I get to São Paulo I'm going to mess it all up.