i am jack's update

This time I got four different people to complain about lack of updates! The Whining McWhinerson twins Paulo and Claus, and my parents, who I can't call silly names because they will stop giving me money. I love you, Mom and Dad.

Both future events from last entry did not happen exactly as planned; everyone was too cheap to pay the cover (R$20!) for O'Malley's on St. Patrick's Day, and it rained at the beach. No bikini pictures, sorry. I'll try to work on that. I did end up going to O'Malley's later with Claus, and the place was pretty much an Irish pub. The menus were in English and they had chili cheese fries. I flailed around happily and rolled my eyes while Claus alternately ogled our waitress and claimed that every other woman in the bar was a prostitute there to hit on foreigners. I did in fact drink green beer. I did not take a picture. I think you all can imagine what it looked like. Hint: green.

The weekend before last CIEE took the group to Rio. Paulo had me braced for a dark pit of despair, but while it wasn't my favorite city ever in the history of the world, I don't believe it needs to be nuked into orbit. It was pretty if you like that kind of thing and it smelled bad. The most interesting things were actually the flights there and back. It was about 40 minutes each way. We showed up a couple hours early each time, but the full check-in and security dance only took about 10 minutes. You just went through the line and you were done. No liquids in bags, no checking your shoes, no atmosphere of general suspicion, no giant lines. It was amazingly efficient and stress-free.

On the first day we went on a tour of the historical bits of the city.

This is a giant modernist cathedral. It is beautiful and I would go to church in it every day.







This is one of the most important Baroque churches in Brazil. I am a terrible human being and I can't remember the name. Oops. It was right across the road from the modernist cone. From a conservation point of view, the place is insanity. Rio was obscenely hot and humid while we were there. Paulo told me that most of the sculptures were probably made out of a specific kind of Brazilian wood that has a high mineral content, making it really hard to break down. I can't remember exactly, but I'm sure he will LEAVE A COMMENT with that information, won't he? Anyway, as for the rest, they just keep the light low and try to stop people from rubbing their grubby hands all over everything. As a consequence I couldn't use the flash on my camera, so these pictures are really blurry.






Here's the Biblioteca Nacional (National Library!)





Here is the restaurant where we ate lunch. It was buffet style and stupidly delicious.


This is Megan falling out of her chair in the middle of the classy restaurant:


Then we had a break and went to the beach. I think the city exists only to support tourism along the beaches. For me, that was the problem with Rio. Friends of mine know that I am not really into the beach. I like it, I enjoy the general concept of splashing around and pretending to be a pirate, but I am not a beach person. I am clearly the terror of the seven seas, but it's not a lifestyle or anything. I tan only on accident. I learned to hate the beach in Rio. Our hotel was right on top of the infamous Ipanema. What that goddamn song doesn't tell you is that the waves are really strong and there's a bitch of a current, so if you are an idiot gringa who has seen the ocean all of four times in her life, you should stay the hell out of the water unless heavily supervised. I got thrown around a lot, messed up my nose and did something really painful to my shoulder, after which I decided that the beach could go hang itself.

After the beach we went to see Beth Carvalho sing! I'd heard a couple songs by her before and really liked her voice, so I was super excited. She was promoting her new DVD/CD, a history of Samba, I guess. She sang a lot of classic songs to which everyone (except for the embarrassed Americans) knew the words. I actually knew a couple, which was nice. I even tried to samba a little. Claus showed me how a week or so earlier, and I'd been trying in secret to get my feet to move fast enough. I don't think I was awful, even though Brandon laughed at me a lot. After the concert my arm hurt like hell and I was in the middle of catching a sinus infection, so I went to bed while everyone else went out and got drunk and made out with boys. So it goes.

The next day, Saturday, we did more typical tourist things! First we went to visit the Cristo Redentor, which apparently was a gift from France. France used to be pretty awesome about things like that, I guess. I let Brandon use my camera, so thank him for these.
This is the train we took on the way up the mountain. These guys played a couple songs and tried to get everyone to get up and dance. I samba'd a little again, and Tanya grabbed my ass. I learned my lesson in Rio and will never try to samba in public again.


The city through the clouds:


My favorite picture of Brandon ever:


For Mom and Dad:




Then we went to Pão de Açucar, which is a mountain (two?) and not a grocery store. I was confused for a while, but then suddenly the grocery store's logo made sense.
From the scary hanging contraption on the way up:


I took Brandon to the gun show but he was not impressed.


Me, Brandon, and Angela, one of the Brazilian students who worked with CIEE.


Shot of the other peak:


Shot from the other peak:


Then we ate dinner, watched part of City of Angels (what?) and went to bed. Or at least, I did. WOOO RIO SINUS INFECTION 2007!!! SPRING BREEEAAAAK!!!

On Sunday I returned to wreak vengeance on the beach by glaring warily and refusing to enter water deeper than my ankles. Brandon swam around and if he loves the beach so much why doesn't he just marry it? We got back to São Paulo around 6 or 7, and I went to bed. SPRIIIING BREEEAAAAK! We didn't get to go to the giant rain forest park or the super cool contemporary art museum that looks like a flying saucer, but Brandon and I do plan to go back and hit those up. Maybe then I'll inhale cachaça and make out with boys on the beach, but it's way more likely that I'll go to a barzinho with Brandon to pound on tables and yell about art. That's how I roll, baby.

Incidentally, last week I went to five museums! I visited the Pinacoteca again for class, and also went to two museums on USP campus with Paulo. The Museum of Contemporary Art at USP (or MAC-USP, conveniently enough) has three of Maria Martins' sculptures, but they weren't on display. Anita Malfatti's A boba and Tarsila do Amaral's A negra were, though. I think about 80% of book on Brazilian art have one of the two on the cover. I flailed around happily and Paulo just kind of stared at me. Sometimes Brazilians drive me nuts because they have no idea how awesome this stuff is. I have to wonder if they feel the same about me, but I'm going to have to go ahead and guess not. The US is pretty preoccupied with how great its culture is, although I don't know if that statement applies to me as an individual.

The other two museum-esque spaces I visited are one of the most fascinating things about Brazilian culture. To me, anyway. Two of the biggest banks, Itaú and Banco do Brasil, have buildings called “cultural centers” where they host various art exhibits. That's right. Banks. The Itaú Centro Cultural currently has a show celebrating 20 years of existence. The show is all about contemporary art; this isn't safe, easy Norman Rockwell crap (sorry, Paulo). This is dangerous art, risky art, art that the patrons of the bank might not like. And on top of that, it's one of the best organized exhibits I've ever seen. The rooms are all spectacularly laid out and the art is displayed in interesting ways without being gimmicky. The guards in each room were very knowledgeable, too. I was really impressed. The library is currently closed for renovation (they have a library), but I puttered around on the web version and was, again, impressed. Banco do Brasil had a small collection of pieces by Anish Kapoor, which are equally bizarre and, in an American mindset, possibly damaging to the bank's image if the patrons decide the works are too controversial. I can't get over how weird it was to see museum-quality (or better?) exhibits in a corporate setting, especially after working for the art consultant for half a year. I thought corporate types didn't care about art beyond providing the office with an image, but here apparently they really do care, or at least care enough to hire someone who cares and fund some really fantastic things. I like that. Get on it, USA.

I had an interesting conversation with Paulo and Claus a couple nights ago; we were talking about something, and they asked if I was ashamed to be an American. And I said yes, clearly, of course I am sometimes. I honestly believe that if you're not occasionally ashamed, you're not paying attention. I'd have to be a giant insensitive asshole not to feel a bit embarrassed as an American here. Comparatively, the military dictatorship didn't end that long ago, and there are still clearly consequences of that regime working themselves out. That fiasco was partly my country's fault! Of course I have the grace to be embarrassed by being part of that, no matter how indirectly. I do profit from the US's wealth and status, part of which has been built on constantly fucking over Latin America. I don't like it, I want to work to change the US's conception of Latin America and thus hopefully its foreign policy, but I am still part of it and I do still feel like a neo-imperialist asshole from time to time.

This is honestly the hardest part about being here. There's the basic American identity crisis, but now it's compounded by trying to understand who I am and what that means in an international, and not necessarily positive, context. I don't want to be a great white savior who uses her free time to swoop into favelas to build houses or something. Building houses or something is good work, but there's something kind of condescending about it. I don't pity Brazilians. Honestly, they don't need it. I think they've got a lot of stuff right that we're haven't yet. I don't know how to solve any of Brazil's problems and I'm not sure it would be my place to sweep in and solve them if I could. I do have an idea of how to help stop my country from being such a giant shithead to everyone south of it, which I hope will leave Brazil and the rest of Latin America free to figure things out for themselves without getting screwed every time we decide we don't like the current administration. Maybe I'm exaggerating the negative role of the US in the history of Latin America, but it's hard not to feel like this because I was brought up Catholic and taught to feel guilty about everything. Thanks a lot, Mom. And hey, maybe I can help balance out the idiots who buy commemorative plates encrusted with crying bald eagles and Confederate flags.

In a similar vein, here are some pictures of anti-Bush graffiti around the city. He came for a couple days like...a month ago, and the city got all riled up about it. I don't know if Bush ever actually saw any of the graffiti. From my experience, the graffiti has been very specifically anti-Bush, not necessarily anti-America or anti-me. One of my professors was wearing a pin decorated with Bush with a Hitler 'stache and swastika, but she didn't act any differently toward me. She keeps missing our appointments to go over the poetry we're reading in class, though, so maybe I am the great white Satan. Oh well. You'll have that.
On the wall around my apartment building, I think it says “TO BUSH: THE BOMBS WILL EXPLODED,” I think:

This one is close to PUC, and I like it because he just looks so confused:

I'm a leftist wackjob, but I have to admit this whole episode made me really uncomfortable.

Ok, enough of that. Let's have some more pictures of random things!

This is what I eat, like...every day. Hot dog completo, you are my one true love. I'm not really sure what's all on here, but there are about 12 toppings and one of them is mashed potatoes. I don't know why I like it, either. The green soda is absolutely delicious.


This is a mortadela sandwich. Mortadela is basically baloney, but sliced really thinly. This sandwich is just stupidly big. There is no earthly way for one person to eat a plain meat sandwich the size of their head.


This is where coffee grows! On a tree! In one of the PUC courtyards!


This is a gorgeous photo Paulo took of the sunset behind one of the PUC buildings.


The place from which Paulo took the photo:



Mosaic tables in that courtyard area:


This is Paulo! He got a haircut and shaved! This picture is from a week or so ago and the beard has already grown all the way back in. Claus said he has grass, not hair. I think that might be true.


Claus also shaved, but he hasn't made any more spectacularly bizarre faces since my last post, so no photo for him. This has been your Brazilian facial hair update.