news from last week

I've got internet at my host family's house now. It was a huge pain in the ass for her, but we finally got it done. I'm going to pay for it and buy her a present or something. Here are some entries that I wrote earlier.



9/1/07
Moving in with my host mom went well. Even though I could barely move with all my luggage, once I unpacked I realized how little I have. Dona Francisca even commented that I didn't bring much. I told her I don't really own much except books, and I only brought 7. Which I remember Dad saying was too many. This begs the classic question of where the hell all my paychecks go if I'm always broke but I never buy anything except (used) books. Eating out chews up a lot of it, I think. After sorting though all my stuff at home and trashing half of it, I'd also have to guess aborted sewing projects.

Senhora Silva's place is really, really nice. My room is small, but I don't need much space. Pictures:


Pretty plain for now.

The rest of the apartment is heavily decorated with lots of paintings and classical art prints. It's a lovely apartment in a building with heavy security. I feel safe here and everywhere I've been so far, to be honest. After I unpacked, Senhora Silva walked me all over Higienopolis and halfway to Perdizes, where PUC is. We didn't get all the way to PUC, but I feel like I walk there on my own. Tomorrow and the next two days Senhora Silva is going to take me to school via electric bus.

Sao Paulo is beautiful, but completely overwhelming. Just about everyone except for the ungodly filthy rich live in giant high-rise apartment buildings. The slightly less ungodly filthy rich have obscene white towers with fancy black ironwork on the balconies, matching tall, black iron gates with sharp gold and silver fleur de lis at the top (and sometimes barbed wire or what looks like electric fences), and men in black suits stationed outside. They keep pools and benches and entire parks behind those gates. Kids play on the lawns while their mothers stand behind, looking on nervously as if the gates, multiple locks, dozens of cameras, and troops of frowny official men with radios in their ears weren't enough. Maybe they're not.

The biggest city I've ever been to is Chicago. Downtown Chicago is big, but even there at some point the skyscrapers stop and smaller buildings take over. There's a core of huge stuff that gets smaller at the edges. I assume that's true for Sao Paulo as well, but I've yet to see it. The skyscrapers just stretch on and on, eventually disappearing into the perpetual fog.

It's the greenest city I've ever been. One of my guidebooks said that Sao Paulo was very urban and often criticized for lack of green space. That is complete crap. There are a bunch of big parks, and the streets are all lined with trees. When I say trees, I mean trees. A man's man's tree, not the weak sort of tree we have in Wisconsin. I mean three, four, five story high monster trees, trees so big their trunk is the size of the building they were built around, trees more massive than I've ever seen, dripping with vines bigger than my wrists and hairy fruits the size of throw pillows. There are also tons of palm trees, or at least trees shaped the same way. They're oddly alien. I feel like I'm walking through a postcard whenever I see a group. Trees. “Urban jungle” is kind of a silly phrase but it applies here in a very literal way.

Weirdly enough, the pigeons look exactly the same.

Here's the view from a couple of the apartment's windows. There are a couple trees, but not what I'm talking about.


View from the living room, the front of the building.


View from the kitchen, the back of the building and interior of the complex it's in.



10/9/07
Today was the first day of classes. It went all right. As advertised, we don't have any books for our classes. They're too expensive and hard to get in large quantities. So instead, we use photocopied packets, handouts, and lots of lecture and class discussion. I wonder what training is like for teachers here.

The buildings of PUC themselves are pretty old and kind of falling apart on the outside. The inside of the “Edificio Novo” (new building) has some really pretty graffiti. The classrooms are very open and airy, just like most rooms and restaurants here. No one has air conditioning. My first choice for fancy American luxury appliances here would be a dehumidifier.

I slept through my alarm and missed the bus this morning. I took it back with Senhora Silva this afternoon, though. It's very fast and completely terrifying, like most Brazilian motor traffic. I'm sure I'll get used to it. Tomorrow I'll get up on time and see if I can find my way back to PUC.

I'm pretty sure Senhora Silva is trying to feed me to death. She keeps insisting I eat giant lunches and inviting me to whatever I want from the fridge. Today she brought home some of the weird fruit I saw hanging from the trees yesterday. For a fruit that massive, the part you eat is pretty small. It's just a little layer of pale yellow fruit around a massive brown seed about the size of the top joint of my thumb. It's very sweet. I think it tastes like fake banana flavoring.

The following three pictures are the skyline from the, uh...North side of PUC, fourth floor. I think. They form kind of a panorama if you look at them all next to each other in the order they're presented.




And here's what you see if you look down instead of out:



Here's what must be the West side if the above is the North:


This isn't my school, it's a much more modern one for the arts (I think?) called FAAP. It's on my bus route. When I took this picture, my back was to a giant new white building with pseudoclassical architecture. Inside the building are galleries and reproductions of O Alejadinho's giant portals in Ouro Preto.





I'm going to go get something to eat and then update for today.