Showing posts with label Rio de Janeiro. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Rio de Janeiro. Show all posts
Tuesday, September 7, 2010
Sunday, August 8, 2010
Winter travels: São Paulo and Manaus
For four weeks, we lived at the center of it all. The expensive, expansive, hectic, maddening and refreshing center of Brazil, São Paulo.
Specifically, I splurged and rented an apartment in an apart-hotel in Moema, a neighborhood on the south side of the center, only a few blocks from Parque Ibirapuera. I had limited time to find and reserve a place, and many places to be. The apartment ended up sheltering Bethany and my cousin Christian as well, so maybe it wasn't a terrible expense.
In reserve order, the ugly, the bad and the good of São Paulo.
The Ugly
Moema is, after Jardins and whichever neighborhood is currently trendy, the third-nicest neighborhood in São Paulo. Or at least it should be; it's certainly expensive enough. (Note: Due to circumstances, it was once necessary to search for lunch in Jardins. I consider myself lucky to have escaped after losing less than R$20.)
We lived five blocks from an Applebee's, and six blocks from a Starbucks. This combination might exist in Barra da Tijuca (and maybe in Brasilia), but otherwise nowhere else in Brazil. (Perhaps nowhere else in South America.)
On every corner, and in front of every decent restaurant, stood valets willing to park your car for around R$10-R$15 for the duration of lunch or dinner. Even the gym up the hill had valet parking. Admittedly, there wasn't much open street parking, but this is true in San Francisco as well. I can proudly say that I ate lunch regularly in most towns for less than it costs to park one's car in Moema.
Bethany and I went to a local joint to eat burgers, fries and Cokes for the 4th of July, in our best ironic manner. We chose a place called America Pasta & Burgers instead of Applebee's. The bill totaled R$88, and we never ate there again.
The above examples illustrate the ugliest part of São Paulo's wealth and inequality. In the finest neighborhood, the rich spend large amounts of money to enjoy a standard of living on par with that of the United States. For the quality of products and services, prices are outrageous. And the streets are stale and soulless. There's very little public space, because everything has to be held behind gates or under vigilant watch or hidden. (Granted, there is more public space downtown.)
Last December, while we walked around Lagoa Rodrigo de Freitas in Rio, I commented to friends that I wouldn't mind retiring to a high-rise apartment in Lagoa. Valmore questioned this, noting that he envied the United States, where everyone has a small single-family house with a yard and a fence; why would I want to move to an apartment? His point was taken, though I did later see upper-class single-family homes (most memorably, near the park in Campo Grande) in Brazil. The major distinction between single-family homes in Brazil and the States is that the former are almost always behind guarded walls.
In short, the rich of São Paulo can indeed lived charmed lives, but they pay exorbitant amounts to do so, and to keep that world protected. (This is already widely known; I'm just relating my encounter with it.)
The Bad
In many cities, I've met people who say "Oh, the traffic here in [my city] is getting to be as bad as São Paulo." It's an interesting point of reference, because I didn't find traffic to be too much of a problem in SP. (See above point: this may be due to the fact that I lived in Moema. I admit that traffic did once make us late to the SPFC-Avaí game, but we didn't miss much.) The bus system is not too bad, the metro is speedy, and I don't own a car. (Really bad traffic is in Salvador. F--- you, Rótula do Abacaxí.)
But if the traffic isn't bad, the air pollution is. My eyes stung from time to time, in the same manner that they always sting when we crest the hill up near the new Getty Museum and enter the LA Basin.
And every driver was, of course, sitting in his or her own car, most without passengers. As my mother asked in Salvador (not rhetorically), "Has the government done much to encourage carpooling?" Ha! Crazy lady. The current government is trying to put more cars on the road as fast as they can, with special tax incentives and discounts.
There are some kinks of developed world life not worth imitating, as São Paulo develops.
The Good
But the integrated bus and metro system was great! And two museums, the MASP and the Museu da Língua Portuguesa were lots of fun! And Rua Augusta is a good bohemian/alternative break from the blandness of Zona Sul. Chris especially liked Augusta, aside from the very disappointing Mexican restaurant at its peak.
And yes, one does get the feeling of being in the center of the world. You can take a bus in São Paulo and pass the corporate headquarters for, say, the maker of a brand of urinals that's all over the country. Or the headquarters of a beverages company whose juice you drank long ago at a dark bus station in Goiânia. You can go to the Tietê bus terminal and literally find a bus for anywhere in Brazil. Every touring show or band or exhibition will pass through. (50 Cent played while we were in town, and the Bodies exhibit was open at the MAM. Tickets for Mr. Cent's concert started at R$200, which seemed steep for a hip hop artist who hasn't been relevant for five years.)
And oh, the park. Parque do Ibirapuera, as previously mentioned, has a 6000 meter dirt trail around its perimeter, with three water stations and two bathroom stops, varied terrain, and plenty of shade. There are running routes in Brazil that are more scenic (Aterro do Flamengo, Rio), longer and with more bathrooms (Parque da Cidade, Brasília), shadier (Parque Mãe Bonifácia, Cuiabá), with cleaner air (Praia do Calhau, São Luís), or with more fun wildlife (Parque das Indígenas, Campo Grande), but Ibirapuera wins the all-around prize.
It took two tries to figure out how to manage the course while running clockwise (the direction without signs), but two or three loops could be combined and cut into almost any distance. I think I topped out at 18 km. I don't remember.
Sadly, the park is a slight break, but not a complete break, from the smog and exhaust of the streets.
There was also a fruit market on Saturday up the hill in Vila Nova Conceição. And tofu and yakisoba noodles in local supermarkets. (And peanut butter, but only the Peter Pan sugary type.) We never had very good Japanese food, but did find some good pizza after a search.
Finally, interviewees in São Paulo were just as friendly and helpful as those in other states were. I picked up a little of the paulista r in my accent, which I've retained to the present, but I still find José Serra's accent a little over-the-top. (In a funny coincidence, only after a visit to the Museu da República in Rio did I realize that one of my interviewees was the spokesman who announced Tancredo Neves's death in 1985.)
The Uncategorizable
São Paulo is not soulless. It is just too splintered and diverse to be categorized. I'm sure that if I traveled for the sake of experiencing specifically art, fashion, food, music, architecture, history, or any interest, I could really dig deep into one part of the city and be richly rewarded.
However, in taking a little bit of everything at once, I must admit that I found São Paulo to be bland. Sure, it's the most populous city in the Americas, but it lacks the romantic feeling of "here I am!" that one gets in Manhattan. Even on Avenida Paulista, or in the park, or at the monuments or at Praça da Sé or Praça da República, there's little romance or style in the city. I blame this on the car. In Manhattan, one sees (and gets bumped and shoved by) the multitudes on the streets and the subway. Here, there are crowds on the subway, and people on the street for lunch, but it's all just so mind-bogglingly spread out that it doesn't feel dense. (Disclaimer: Anhangbaú metro station did feel dense at Tuesday, 8 AM.) Many people just get in their cars and pass you by.
There's also no center. The city is too big to concentrate on any one plaza. Not all roads lead to Praça da Sé or da República, or to Terminal Bandeirantes. Corporate office parks are in Chácara Santo Antônio, a good 15 km from where their daily occupants and masters (probably) live in Jardins. Hence the helicopters.
For that reason, with apologies to all readers, I never took a photo in São Paulo. Of anything. It never dawned on me to do so, even when visiting monuments and museums. I don't have a good explanation why.
Will I be back? Rapáz, seria quase impossível continuar estudando o Brasil sem voltar pra Sampa. Of course. And I'll give it another go. (But not that Mexican place, Tollocos. That stunk.)
---
It occurs to me that my reports on places always include complaints about one thing or another. I'll never be satisfied. So let me refrain from detailing my thoughts about Manaus.
It will suffice to say that I prefer Belém to Manaus, and that Manaus will need a lot of work to become an adequate host city in 2014.
It was nice, however, to get back to the familiar signs, sights, and smells of regular Brazil. And we ran into Alceu and his family (visiting from Fortaleza) on the plaza of Teatro Amazonas. The plaza is a lovely public space.
And while I met more than one paulista who explained to me (in SP) how Brazil feeds almost parasitically off the wealth that São Paulo produces, I also met two Amazonenses who explained that the industrialization (and coffee boom) of the Southeast was financed by tariff duties on rubber, and so the rest of Brazil owes Amazonas a debt.
As two small momentos of Manaus, here's a picture of Albert in front of Teatro Amazonas, and a stuck turtle at the Bosque da Ciência.
---
I have a flight for San Francisco in four days.
Specifically, I splurged and rented an apartment in an apart-hotel in Moema, a neighborhood on the south side of the center, only a few blocks from Parque Ibirapuera. I had limited time to find and reserve a place, and many places to be. The apartment ended up sheltering Bethany and my cousin Christian as well, so maybe it wasn't a terrible expense.
In reserve order, the ugly, the bad and the good of São Paulo.
The Ugly
Moema is, after Jardins and whichever neighborhood is currently trendy, the third-nicest neighborhood in São Paulo. Or at least it should be; it's certainly expensive enough. (Note: Due to circumstances, it was once necessary to search for lunch in Jardins. I consider myself lucky to have escaped after losing less than R$20.)
We lived five blocks from an Applebee's, and six blocks from a Starbucks. This combination might exist in Barra da Tijuca (and maybe in Brasilia), but otherwise nowhere else in Brazil. (Perhaps nowhere else in South America.)
On every corner, and in front of every decent restaurant, stood valets willing to park your car for around R$10-R$15 for the duration of lunch or dinner. Even the gym up the hill had valet parking. Admittedly, there wasn't much open street parking, but this is true in San Francisco as well. I can proudly say that I ate lunch regularly in most towns for less than it costs to park one's car in Moema.
Bethany and I went to a local joint to eat burgers, fries and Cokes for the 4th of July, in our best ironic manner. We chose a place called America Pasta & Burgers instead of Applebee's. The bill totaled R$88, and we never ate there again.
The above examples illustrate the ugliest part of São Paulo's wealth and inequality. In the finest neighborhood, the rich spend large amounts of money to enjoy a standard of living on par with that of the United States. For the quality of products and services, prices are outrageous. And the streets are stale and soulless. There's very little public space, because everything has to be held behind gates or under vigilant watch or hidden. (Granted, there is more public space downtown.)
Last December, while we walked around Lagoa Rodrigo de Freitas in Rio, I commented to friends that I wouldn't mind retiring to a high-rise apartment in Lagoa. Valmore questioned this, noting that he envied the United States, where everyone has a small single-family house with a yard and a fence; why would I want to move to an apartment? His point was taken, though I did later see upper-class single-family homes (most memorably, near the park in Campo Grande) in Brazil. The major distinction between single-family homes in Brazil and the States is that the former are almost always behind guarded walls.
In short, the rich of São Paulo can indeed lived charmed lives, but they pay exorbitant amounts to do so, and to keep that world protected. (This is already widely known; I'm just relating my encounter with it.)
The Bad
In many cities, I've met people who say "Oh, the traffic here in [my city] is getting to be as bad as São Paulo." It's an interesting point of reference, because I didn't find traffic to be too much of a problem in SP. (See above point: this may be due to the fact that I lived in Moema. I admit that traffic did once make us late to the SPFC-Avaí game, but we didn't miss much.) The bus system is not too bad, the metro is speedy, and I don't own a car. (Really bad traffic is in Salvador. F--- you, Rótula do Abacaxí.)
But if the traffic isn't bad, the air pollution is. My eyes stung from time to time, in the same manner that they always sting when we crest the hill up near the new Getty Museum and enter the LA Basin.
And every driver was, of course, sitting in his or her own car, most without passengers. As my mother asked in Salvador (not rhetorically), "Has the government done much to encourage carpooling?" Ha! Crazy lady. The current government is trying to put more cars on the road as fast as they can, with special tax incentives and discounts.
There are some kinks of developed world life not worth imitating, as São Paulo develops.
The Good
But the integrated bus and metro system was great! And two museums, the MASP and the Museu da Língua Portuguesa were lots of fun! And Rua Augusta is a good bohemian/alternative break from the blandness of Zona Sul. Chris especially liked Augusta, aside from the very disappointing Mexican restaurant at its peak.
And yes, one does get the feeling of being in the center of the world. You can take a bus in São Paulo and pass the corporate headquarters for, say, the maker of a brand of urinals that's all over the country. Or the headquarters of a beverages company whose juice you drank long ago at a dark bus station in Goiânia. You can go to the Tietê bus terminal and literally find a bus for anywhere in Brazil. Every touring show or band or exhibition will pass through. (50 Cent played while we were in town, and the Bodies exhibit was open at the MAM. Tickets for Mr. Cent's concert started at R$200, which seemed steep for a hip hop artist who hasn't been relevant for five years.)
And oh, the park. Parque do Ibirapuera, as previously mentioned, has a 6000 meter dirt trail around its perimeter, with three water stations and two bathroom stops, varied terrain, and plenty of shade. There are running routes in Brazil that are more scenic (Aterro do Flamengo, Rio), longer and with more bathrooms (Parque da Cidade, Brasília), shadier (Parque Mãe Bonifácia, Cuiabá), with cleaner air (Praia do Calhau, São Luís), or with more fun wildlife (Parque das Indígenas, Campo Grande), but Ibirapuera wins the all-around prize.
It took two tries to figure out how to manage the course while running clockwise (the direction without signs), but two or three loops could be combined and cut into almost any distance. I think I topped out at 18 km. I don't remember.
Sadly, the park is a slight break, but not a complete break, from the smog and exhaust of the streets.
There was also a fruit market on Saturday up the hill in Vila Nova Conceição. And tofu and yakisoba noodles in local supermarkets. (And peanut butter, but only the Peter Pan sugary type.) We never had very good Japanese food, but did find some good pizza after a search.
Finally, interviewees in São Paulo were just as friendly and helpful as those in other states were. I picked up a little of the paulista r in my accent, which I've retained to the present, but I still find José Serra's accent a little over-the-top. (In a funny coincidence, only after a visit to the Museu da República in Rio did I realize that one of my interviewees was the spokesman who announced Tancredo Neves's death in 1985.)
The Uncategorizable
São Paulo is not soulless. It is just too splintered and diverse to be categorized. I'm sure that if I traveled for the sake of experiencing specifically art, fashion, food, music, architecture, history, or any interest, I could really dig deep into one part of the city and be richly rewarded.
However, in taking a little bit of everything at once, I must admit that I found São Paulo to be bland. Sure, it's the most populous city in the Americas, but it lacks the romantic feeling of "here I am!" that one gets in Manhattan. Even on Avenida Paulista, or in the park, or at the monuments or at Praça da Sé or Praça da República, there's little romance or style in the city. I blame this on the car. In Manhattan, one sees (and gets bumped and shoved by) the multitudes on the streets and the subway. Here, there are crowds on the subway, and people on the street for lunch, but it's all just so mind-bogglingly spread out that it doesn't feel dense. (Disclaimer: Anhangbaú metro station did feel dense at Tuesday, 8 AM.) Many people just get in their cars and pass you by.
There's also no center. The city is too big to concentrate on any one plaza. Not all roads lead to Praça da Sé or da República, or to Terminal Bandeirantes. Corporate office parks are in Chácara Santo Antônio, a good 15 km from where their daily occupants and masters (probably) live in Jardins. Hence the helicopters.
For that reason, with apologies to all readers, I never took a photo in São Paulo. Of anything. It never dawned on me to do so, even when visiting monuments and museums. I don't have a good explanation why.
Will I be back? Rapáz, seria quase impossível continuar estudando o Brasil sem voltar pra Sampa. Of course. And I'll give it another go. (But not that Mexican place, Tollocos. That stunk.)
---
It occurs to me that my reports on places always include complaints about one thing or another. I'll never be satisfied. So let me refrain from detailing my thoughts about Manaus.
It will suffice to say that I prefer Belém to Manaus, and that Manaus will need a lot of work to become an adequate host city in 2014.
It was nice, however, to get back to the familiar signs, sights, and smells of regular Brazil. And we ran into Alceu and his family (visiting from Fortaleza) on the plaza of Teatro Amazonas. The plaza is a lovely public space.
And while I met more than one paulista who explained to me (in SP) how Brazil feeds almost parasitically off the wealth that São Paulo produces, I also met two Amazonenses who explained that the industrialization (and coffee boom) of the Southeast was financed by tariff duties on rubber, and so the rest of Brazil owes Amazonas a debt.
As two small momentos of Manaus, here's a picture of Albert in front of Teatro Amazonas, and a stuck turtle at the Bosque da Ciência.
---
I have a flight for San Francisco in four days.
Monday, October 5, 2009
What they said
I haven't formed a solid opinion on the Rio 2016 announcement and Games, as I haven't read enough on the subject. It's nice to see Brazilians take pride in this accomplishment and look forward to the Games, but even the strongest supporters (if they aren't delusional) know the money could probably be spent better elsewhere.
Instead, I'll offer two contrasting perspectives on the Games, from other blogs:
Brazil and progress.
Brazil and deception.
Instead, I'll offer two contrasting perspectives on the Games, from other blogs:
Brazil and progress.
Brazil and deception.
Saturday, September 19, 2009
Trip to Porto Alegre
I'm heading to Porto Alegre, the state capital of Rio Grande do Sul, tomorrow, for a two-week stay. My hope is to interview about twelve people down there, and I already have five lined up. I'm collecting information on the development of the agency with the acronym in this URL.
Rio Grande do Sul has a culture and cuisine akin to neighboring Argentina and Uruguay: cowboys, meat, pampas, and wine. They also have harder "r" sounds in their speech. Discussion of regional sotaques, or accents, is reliable small talk here. Brazilians understand me when I note that I learned Portuguese from a professor from Lisboa - they "eat" their words - and in Bahia, where the language is even, smooth, and slow. An acquaintance commented yesterday that Brazilians think American English sounds robotic; it doesn't have the same melodic song to it that Portuguese has.
Some unordered thoughts on the last week in Rio:
1. I'm in the market for a good book on Leonel Brizola, and would appreciate suggestions. All state politicians in Rio de Janeiro tend to fall into three camps: those who are brizolistas, those who were brizolistas but split with the old man at some point, and those who made their career out of opposing Brizola. For example, former state governors Anthony Garotinho and Marcelo Alencar fall into the second group, and present governor Sergio Cabral is from the third. From what I've heard and read, Globo hated the man. (The twice-governor of Rio de Janeiro and once-governor of Rio Grande do Sul passed away in 2004.)
2. I attended a very enjoyable house-warming party at Jim's new place in Gloria/Santa Teresa last night. On my brief walk there, I passed by the usual collection of ladies of the night that prowl the streets of Gloria. One spoke to another in a voice that could be described as "deep Kristie Alley." I passed, and chuckled when I thought of the title of Garcia Marquez's last novel, Memory of My Sad Whores. I thought that I might address them as such on my walk back.
On my eventual walk back, instead of passing the harlots, I walked past a twenty-something blond girl comforting a second twenty-something blond girl as the latter threw up on the curb outside a club. I asked if they needed help, which they declined. Of course they were Americans; Brazilians just don't get that drunk.
3. I think all Rio bus drivers have an ongoing bet with their fare-takers: "How fast do you think I can drive this bus?" Similarly, all taxi drivers see pedestrians crossing the street as a signal that they should aim and speed up.
4. I may have to go down to Copacabana and Ipanema more often if I'm going to train for the Travessia Mar Grande-Salvador. Gustavo put the idea in my head; we'll see.
With luck, I'll take some photos in Porto Alegre. Here, every time I thought to take a picture out the window of Christ, it was too cloudy to see him. Forgive me.
Instead, a view of Potrero Hill, taken when we first moved to San Francisco.
Rio Grande do Sul has a culture and cuisine akin to neighboring Argentina and Uruguay: cowboys, meat, pampas, and wine. They also have harder "r" sounds in their speech. Discussion of regional sotaques, or accents, is reliable small talk here. Brazilians understand me when I note that I learned Portuguese from a professor from Lisboa - they "eat" their words - and in Bahia, where the language is even, smooth, and slow. An acquaintance commented yesterday that Brazilians think American English sounds robotic; it doesn't have the same melodic song to it that Portuguese has.
Some unordered thoughts on the last week in Rio:
1. I'm in the market for a good book on Leonel Brizola, and would appreciate suggestions. All state politicians in Rio de Janeiro tend to fall into three camps: those who are brizolistas, those who were brizolistas but split with the old man at some point, and those who made their career out of opposing Brizola. For example, former state governors Anthony Garotinho and Marcelo Alencar fall into the second group, and present governor Sergio Cabral is from the third. From what I've heard and read, Globo hated the man. (The twice-governor of Rio de Janeiro and once-governor of Rio Grande do Sul passed away in 2004.)
2. I attended a very enjoyable house-warming party at Jim's new place in Gloria/Santa Teresa last night. On my brief walk there, I passed by the usual collection of ladies of the night that prowl the streets of Gloria. One spoke to another in a voice that could be described as "deep Kristie Alley." I passed, and chuckled when I thought of the title of Garcia Marquez's last novel, Memory of My Sad Whores. I thought that I might address them as such on my walk back.
On my eventual walk back, instead of passing the harlots, I walked past a twenty-something blond girl comforting a second twenty-something blond girl as the latter threw up on the curb outside a club. I asked if they needed help, which they declined. Of course they were Americans; Brazilians just don't get that drunk.
3. I think all Rio bus drivers have an ongoing bet with their fare-takers: "How fast do you think I can drive this bus?" Similarly, all taxi drivers see pedestrians crossing the street as a signal that they should aim and speed up.
4. I may have to go down to Copacabana and Ipanema more often if I'm going to train for the Travessia Mar Grande-Salvador. Gustavo put the idea in my head; we'll see.
With luck, I'll take some photos in Porto Alegre. Here, every time I thought to take a picture out the window of Christ, it was too cloudy to see him. Forgive me.
Instead, a view of Potrero Hill, taken when we first moved to San Francisco.
Sunday, August 16, 2009
First Impressions, Rio de Janeiro
I'll begin by noting that these aren't properly my first impressions of Rio. I've been to this city twice before. The first time, I felt very afraid of the city. (For interested readers, I was sufficiently narcissistic to post my first impressions, long ago, here.) The second time, Bethany and I stayed in this same apartment and I attended a congress of regulators down in São Conrado.
So instead, a distillation of the first four days in Rio:
Centro has less activity on the weekends than I remember. The Middle Eastern restaurant now closes on Saturday and Sunday. However, the crowds at the beach have grown larger; for the last two days, running down Praia do Flamengo, I had to weave to avoid people multiple times.
Barring a trip to São Paulo, this is the most cosmopolitan city I'll visit, for the entire trip. Therefore, it would behoove me to eat Japanese cuisine and visit art galleries while I can. Beyond these borders, it's rice-beans-meat for a long, long while.
The exchange rate hurts. However, I cannot recommend the Capital One credit card enough. Whereas my HSBC card charges me 3% for ATM withdrawals, and the B--- o- A------ (too disgusted to say it; it's the bank that helped rebuild San Francisco after 1906) card would charge me 5%, the Capital One card converts the currency and charges no additional fees. (Thanks go to my lovely and helpful girlfriend for securing the card for me.) The only drawback so far has been a rejection at the Sendas supermarket, and the fact that the Lojas Americanas clerk wouldn't swipe it because I didn't have ID. It's odd that I'm rarely asked for ID in the States.
My roommate is great; he's been in Brazil for more time than I have, but we have complimentary knowledge about the country. He knows the city's history and all about football, and I have stupid anecdotes about recent politics.
Research starts in earnest this week. I plan to go to Eletrobras's headquarters and leaf through the proprietary studies on restructuring the Brazilian energy industry that they have.
I think Faustão is trying to lose weight. I saw the show tonight, and he looked thinner, or slender enough to be wearing jeans.
Finally, because every good post needs pictures, here are some shots of the running route (of Praia do Flamengo in general) that I stole from someone named Fabio Barros. Apologies Fabio!
So instead, a distillation of the first four days in Rio:
Centro has less activity on the weekends than I remember. The Middle Eastern restaurant now closes on Saturday and Sunday. However, the crowds at the beach have grown larger; for the last two days, running down Praia do Flamengo, I had to weave to avoid people multiple times.
Barring a trip to São Paulo, this is the most cosmopolitan city I'll visit, for the entire trip. Therefore, it would behoove me to eat Japanese cuisine and visit art galleries while I can. Beyond these borders, it's rice-beans-meat for a long, long while.
The exchange rate hurts. However, I cannot recommend the Capital One credit card enough. Whereas my HSBC card charges me 3% for ATM withdrawals, and the B--- o- A------ (too disgusted to say it; it's the bank that helped rebuild San Francisco after 1906) card would charge me 5%, the Capital One card converts the currency and charges no additional fees. (Thanks go to my lovely and helpful girlfriend for securing the card for me.) The only drawback so far has been a rejection at the Sendas supermarket, and the fact that the Lojas Americanas clerk wouldn't swipe it because I didn't have ID. It's odd that I'm rarely asked for ID in the States.
My roommate is great; he's been in Brazil for more time than I have, but we have complimentary knowledge about the country. He knows the city's history and all about football, and I have stupid anecdotes about recent politics.
Research starts in earnest this week. I plan to go to Eletrobras's headquarters and leaf through the proprietary studies on restructuring the Brazilian energy industry that they have.
I think Faustão is trying to lose weight. I saw the show tonight, and he looked thinner, or slender enough to be wearing jeans.
Finally, because every good post needs pictures, here are some shots of the running route (of Praia do Flamengo in general) that I stole from someone named Fabio Barros. Apologies Fabio!
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