the camera returns!

I got my camera back, and it works! The powers of modern technology are amazing!

I mentioned there was another sushi sitar event. Here are some pictures! Exclamation point!
Left side: Sitar dude, Luis. Right side: Ricardo, Diego (a friend from our Artes do Corpo class), Brandon, Ingrid's head.

Diego, Brandon, Ingrid:


More blurry pictures of sitar playing:


Brandon is the prettiest girl at the ball, as always:


Here's Claus and Paulo being ridiculous in the Pão de Açucar cafe that I mentioned we often haunt:


Here's Paulo and Claus being ridiculous in a slightly different setting. I have a lot of these shots.

That was from when we went to the Lasar Segall museum to see the opening of an exhibit on a Brazilian illustrator and caricaturist. It was fun and we got to see some of Segall's workshop, which is now being used as an engraving workshop. It's absolutely gorgeous. I would love a space like that. Actually, the entire house/museum is gorgeous. I would like to be Lasar Segall. Except not dead.

It's getting into midterm season here, which is depressing when all my American friends are talking about finals and what they're doing for summer break. I had a Portuguese exam on Thursday, which was kind of silly because we haven't learned anything and the things we did go over in class didn't show up on the test. I did have to write a poem using the words “cristal” and “flor” (and I should hope you can figure out what those mean. I am not translating). What. On Tuesday I'll have an in-class pseudo group exam on poetry. I also have papers due for two classes in the next couple weeks. I'm understanding my classes better and better as time goes on. Except Artes do Corpo, but there's really no saving that one. It isn't meant to be understood. It's fun, though, in a bemusing sort of way.

I am also making new friends, and by that I mean stealing Claus's. On Wednesday Claus and I went to a really pretty bar called Geni (from a song by Chico Buarque, I guess) and met some of his friends and a small legion of their friends. Once it started getting late, Claus abandoned me, and I spent the night with Milena and her roommates Flavia and Raquel. They share an apartment. They're the second group of people my age that I've met in Brazil who don't live with their parents. The apartment didn't look much different than any of mine or my American friends', to be honest. It had a lot of mismatched furniture and things that obviously got handed down from family members. The walls were mostly bare, which was weird. Not a single stolen street sign or beer poster.

Last night I hung out with Claus and Nathalia. Nathalia is a friend of Paulo's who I stole and claimed as my own. Most people call her Tokuda, and they yell it like a battle cry. Paulo wasn't there because he is a big mean jerk who abandoned me (are you noticing a pattern here?) to spend the weekend in Rio. His brother is getting married or something silly like that. Lame excuse, Paulo. Anyway, this is us fucking around in the Metro. I think you've seen enough pictures of me and Claus to figure out which ones we are, and you can pick out Tokuda by process of elimination.



And this is me trying to take a shot of the Metro station through the train doors while they were in the middle of closing:


This weekend is another holiday. I was talking to Paulo recently about the things that really make me feel like a foreigner. Most of the time I feel comfortable enough to not really think about it too much. I've gotten better at Portuguese and although it's still pretty damn obvious I'm not a native speaker, a lot of people have said they thought I might be from somewhere else in Latin America. I also get people who immediately start speaking English when they hear two words out of my mouth, so I don't know what to believe. But I feel pretty ok until one of two things happen. The first is when we're out somewhere and a song comes on that everyone but me knows. I know the words to a handful of songs, but no one ever plays one of the five I know. It really makes me realize again that I'm a stranger in a different culture. Claus and Paulo are close friends, but we didn't grow up with the same things, and there's a big gap in basic little trivia like this. Second is when there's a holiday and no one tells me until like, the day before. For example, this weekend. I talked to Elizabeth about this the last time it happened, actually. She said it was the same in Japan, and she actually got up and went to school a couple times because no one told her. It really is discombobulating.

Tonight Celso's band has another show. I think I've mentioned them before; they play a lot of weird 90's American music and classic rock. They've played the same set every time I've been to see them, but I'll go anyway. Their bassist is pretty good. Last time I spent the concert staring at him and wondering why on earth I stopped practicing. I don't have a good answer. I keep telling myself to pick that up again when I get back, but we'll have to see if I can talk my brother into giving me my bass back. He can keep the guitar. Guitars are for losers.