11 Nov. 2009 I've mentioned this previously in the Spanish-Portuguese entry but pastel is not cake! It's this: these are pictures taken by my friend Katherine at a fair in Goiana, Brazil, in the super interior pretty much smack in the middle of the country. Most of the time they are fried like this on the street. It's like an empanada. Kind of like a thin bread outside and fillings like this:but my Fernanda* made them like this at our house: she baked them and they had like marinated chicken filling. sooooo good! I ate like 7 of them that day! mmmm....
20 nov. 2009 Picolé! became one of my favorite words since the first time I heard it. I first saw it on a box like this one: being held by one of the beach vendors who also sell kangas and jewlery made of brazilian wood, seeds, plants etc. And I was intrigued by just the sound of it: picolé /pee-ko-leh/. anyway I soon found out that it was a Popsicle like this one.
Exhibit B: the street cafés or carrinhos de cafe
I also was a little confused by them at first because there was just a cart with all these red jugs in it and it didn't say coffee (or at least from the angle I was looking at it). And also because I guess I've just never been used to this idea of selling hot coffee in the summer, in the evening! But I guess, people need it? The cool this is that they don't only sell coffee..ohh nooooo! Every cart besides having some colored thermoses, has it's own personality, different colors, art work. Some are simple
[photo credit Dimitri Ganzelevitch because i was always paranoid about taking pictures out in the street when I wasn't surrounded by like 10 people]
and some go all out with music, umbrellas, couches! Apparently there is an annual competition/show of these carts to see who has the most accomodating atmosphere and my host mom said that there was one with a couch and a big TV with loud speakers and all this stuff. And like Clara the coordinator or the Big Mama of the group would always say "This could only happen in Bahia, people!" and I believe it. apparently these little carts started appearing in the 70s and now they're just a part of the busy urban setting. Too bad I don't drink coffee.
Although Brazilians don’t celebrate our thanks giving, (I don’t know if they have anything similar though either) Clara wanted to do it for us because she "knows how important it is to us". So she invited us to her parent’s house near Praia do Forte so we got to see the castle/fort of Praia do Forte on the way there.
And took the opportunity to have a photo shoot.
It was very cool being there in its ruins but I have no idea what it was about. This is one of the things that I would suggest that they do better because I feel like we just get a little information about where we’re going but it’s not really put into context. Like when we went to the caves when we went to Lencois, I don’t even know if that was in Lencois or what it was called and in Cachoeira too, what were the costumes about?
Anyway then we went over to Clara's mom and dad’s house which was amazing.
It was near a river where we were swimming and just chilled out on the front ...yard? garden more like. And they made some pita pizza for us: vegetarian and meat options.
. And we had music and, while the feast was being cooked by several ladies in the kitchen we were swimming and playing music. Some of my friends played the guitar, one played the harmonica and it was great. We had a drummer too. For the feast we had, fried beringela (eggplant) several salads, one was like a sea food salad, another the lettuce and tomatoes etc., two turkeys, and a sauce that was supposed to be kind of like a cranberry sauce, but since there aren’t cranberries in Brazil, it was made of something else, clara wouldn’t tell us but I think it might have been jabuticaba. Either way it was delicious I didn’t even miss the cranberry sauce it was very good and very similar. And well there was a lot of food—in the beginning, but man this time I didn’t stand next to the table so I was toward the end of the line and people totally took almost all the turkey, there were little scraps left ☹. It made me really really really sad. But I overcame that quickly.
Oh yeah and they were making fresh juice all the while :abacaxi (pineapple), limão (lemonade), and maracujá (passionfruit juice). And then we went back into the river.
Later on that day we did a toast and Clara kind of made us all go up to the Mic, but man there was soo much crying. We are a really big group, but what was a recurrent idea is that, even though we were such a big and diverse group people really connected and we all got to interact with one another at some point and everyone had made really strong connections and friendships with people.
It was the case for me anyway, I got a long with everyone I think, but there were a good like 10 people that I really want to visit after the program ends, and like 5 that I think are going to be life-long friends. I have actually not had the best of luck when it comes to that, but I was really lucky to meet some amazing, intelligent, and genuine people that have been sooo good to me, with whom I share so many good memories and I really will miss them.
From what people said for the toast, there were a lot of things, but the whole friendship thing and also that people noticed how this experience abroad has made them grow, how they’ve changed etc. I feel like coming from a little town of 700 people, going to school with the same people pretty much from when I was 2 and a half to when I graduated high school. And even my campus town is not a big city. But it think it was a nice jump. By no means was I literally by myself in Brazil, but when I was traveling around a foreign country, like going to Sao Paulo with one other girlfriend—we were by ourselves, and one day I was actually around like the San Francisco of Brazil by myself because my friend got sick ☹. But it was just amazing! I love doing this to myself though, I like creating challenges for myself and another thing I like to do is making myself do something I don’t want to do because I don’t feel like I like it.
In high school I found drawing portraits of people soo hard so I didn't like to do it and I hated watercolor and pastel, so I decided to do my Advanced placement concentration portraits all in water color and pastel, sometimes I don’t like a food but keep eating it until I like it (if it’s good for me). And I like to go and give speeches in front of lots of people when I’m unprepared just to see what happens.
But this trip kind of showed me that if I can do this, it opens up so many other options as to what I feel I can do and also for more likes, more ideas of what I would like to do.
Other people also mentioned stuff about Salvador. I think like I had said somewhere in November, a lot of people were really ready to go home, they were just mentally done with Salvador. Many people were specifically done with Salvador because they didn’t like the city, were complaining about how dirty it was, the smog, the dog poo and the occasional harassment on the street, "why couldn’t we have studied in Morro de Sao Paulo blablabla". I never felt that way necessarily but the smog and harassment and fear being out in the streets was not pleasant. But someone mentioned that he really enjoyed it overall, regardless of all those things Salvador is a really important place historically and culturally. It was a real experience that we didn’t just see the European Bahia and history that we’re always learning in class while others like African contributions and histories are footnotes or incomplete (twisted ehem*) at best. But that was the focus of our studies and it would only be appropriate to be in the city richest in afro-brazilian culture.
Anyway it was a ridiculously nice time that Thanks Giving-- I think for everyone, despite the fact that I did not get to eat as much as I had wanted. And the general sentiment was that we really really were/are thankful to have the opportunity to be here and were really going to miss it.
21 nov 2009
We had a lovely breakfast at the hostel,
I felt like compared to the other hostels it was a well rounded breakfast (well the Pousada Natureza takes the cake but...) they had lots of fruit, protein in the ham and other deli meats, granola, good swiss cheese. They also had some fresh juice like pineapple, (no soy milk but :( well what do you expect?) baguettes, butter, honey, cookies, banana with ground cinnamon
coffee, tea,
some nice cake. Look at this, i was pretty satisfied. I made myself a little sandwich with ham and cheese and honey drizzled on top. I had some of that banana and guava, and half the papaya, mango, pineapple juice. mmmm..
Today we had planned to go to a the top of the Banespa building to see the panorama of São Paulo, then a really awesome Mercado near by, then walk to Liberdade for lunch and go to a the museum of the Portuguese language.
This is what our little neighborhood in Sampa looks like as we're leaving our dear hostel:
There are orchids growing out of the trees!
I was surprised at how flowery this big city smells, every like 3 minutes I smell some jasmines or roses.
We got to where the Banespa is supposed to be we took the metro this time. We unfortunately found out they don't have ANY deals on the metro passes, like a week pass or anything you have to buy them all at the same price.
We walked all around this place only to find out that the tower is closed all saturdays, so it was sad. We didn't get to see that 360 degree view of the city :( But oh well.
I had a sudden urge to go to the bathroom and all around us were just these tall executive buildings. So I just went up to a random one and asked if I could use the bathroom, and amazingly they just let me in.
It was some lawyer building, and I don't know I feel like in Sacramento if I ask at some lawyers building I wouldn't get the same response.
So here's the bathroom: I know I'm ridiculous but I just really felt like I had to capture these heart-shaped toilet seat covers that I had also seen at Boi Preto Churrascaria restaurant but it was still too early for me to start taking pictures of such trivial things. But I am relatively uninhibited now! muahahahahah
Anyway then we were looking for the Mercado Municipal, but got lost and bumped into this graffiti exhibit and I am really happy about that.
I got to see this artwork by my favorite graffiti artists--they're twins and that's their street name "Os Gêmeos" which also can mean Gemini. This IS they're hometown and I'm planning on seeing this other installation they have in the city at a museum right now.
We kept walking supposedly towards the Mercado and we came up to this crowd:
And I guessed it we were in Rua 25 de Março, which is always this crowded. It's lined with cheap stores and stands where you can find all sorts of things! Anything!
We saw this flan looking thing, pudim de leite, pretty much flan.
But we couldn't find the mercado and we kept getting inconsistent information, just go down the rua and it will be at the end, then we got to that end and they'd say oh just go that way all the way down the street, so we went down that busy crowded street like 4 times!!!! oh meu deus it was torture. And well we ended up somewhere else that they happened to have food too. So we just decided to give up there. (And i bet we were really close too)
Above is a lovely selection of (from left) jiló, maxixe, and quiabo
What those gentlment are cutting are huge Jaca fruit and they offered us a sample
It comes from Asia originally as I've mentioned in another blog in Jardim Botânico , and it's like gummy and sweet and chewy but really sticky.
so the mercado was okay but this is what i was expecting:
The mercado even has a website check it out. so there's just one other reason to come back to SP some day. I love farmer's markets!
Then we walked to the Museu da Língua Portugeusa and it was amazing!
They talked about the history of languages and how Brazilian Portuguese evolved into what it is now. You can look at this branch of langauges of some of the biggest linguistic families. Oh my gosh I was geeking out at this museum because I am facinated by language in general. And it was amazing to just see the history of the language I use every day here.
Also a time-line of all the influences
The latin roots, their meaning and what word it is in Brazilian portuguese now
Some Arabic words that are in Portuguese (and many in English too)
Then the African Bantu words that came in because of African slavery in Brasil.
I had a really great time, of course but the thing is you need to know Portuguese to really appreciate this museum there's no translation so the more portuguese you know the better.
It was a very technologically advanced musuem too.
They had this electronic map you could click on to hear the different sotaques (accents) in Brazil. It was really cool.
There was also a table that showed images of preffixes and suffixes and roots of words and people could use their hands to combine them, and once parts of words came together and made sense a cool like video wikipedia came up. look:
Then we went to take the metro again down to Liberdade because our feet were so tired of walking around and standing.
Hey does any Bart station have piano in it? i thought this was a really cool station, this metro subway station was built in an ex train station.
We got to Liberdade, the Japanese town.
And we got there on a day that they have their street fair so that was cool. We timed somethign appropriately yes! They had Brazilian Japanese food .
We went to a Japanese market. There are a lot of Korean and Chinese pockets here too though, so Lena said she felt she was in China.
Lena said that she felt less homesick just seeing asian food and stuff but it actually had the opposite effect on me. I suddenly missed my trips to San Jose's japan town and all the happy memories I've had related to Japan *ehem*
I'm in Japan!
And look what I found! Another Os gemoes work!
I always think that there is something strategic about works so my friend and I were trying to analyze it and we came up with the idea that may be the purpose of it being in the Liberdade district may symbolize immigration in which you bring your physical house, by reinstilling your cultural architecture and literally bringing your "house" and keeping your food and your own little bubble of culture to a new place. That's what that made us think of but who knows.
What we did know was that we were starving. I bought a little sandwich back at 25 de marco but it was little, and I brought a granola bar and nibbled on it as the day progressed but that was totally not lunch. And now it was 4PM no lunch thus far but the restaurants weren't open for dinner yet and I really wanted to go to know i'd seen online but I forgot what it was called and where it was so...we just asked around I think it was like Nasako or something like that. But at this point we were just hungry and went into a little market that had a little table in the back where you could eat their homemade prepackaged food. we got some inari it was dericious! I don't know what that red powder was I've never seen that in Japanese food before but whatev.
And then it started to rain again, and it was pouring and pouring forever. We sat on the steps at some restaurant that would be opening sson andthey had a sign that there was a special in the lunchboxes of sushi and stuff and it was pretty cheap so we waited. until finally it opened and we were the first ones there. We got the menu and all the little dishes were like 30 dollars and not filling. So Lena was like "I can't afford this" and plus we were starving and we would not be satisfeitas if bought what we could afford. So I'm like, what should we do? They had already given us warm wet towels and everything but Lena's like "I don't care I'll tell them"
So I let her and in her broken Portenglish she told the waitor "Um this place is caro de mais for us, entao, we have leave, sorry" And I'm like, oh no, may be I should have said it but the waitor was totally chill about it and polite even though we had to go, she's like "don't worry about it"
So it was great.
So we kept walking down that same street and I kept seeing "lamen" signs all over the place. Lamen this Lamen that, what's up with that? I was really curious, but then finally my Engrish kicked in, and I'm like. ohhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh: RAMEN!
But next to the Ramen place there was this Buffet!:
And it was pretty much the same price as the other place or less actually it was like 15 dollars for all you can eat. It was a mixed buffet of Chinese, Japanese food and Korean BBQ.
It was my first korean barbecue ever and it was exciting.
Lena was really the one who know how to use this thing, but they had a selection of seasoned raw meet over at the buffet thingy and you pick what you want and cook it youself.
I got a whole bunch of sushi, I love SALMON! I was super excited. they also had octopus and oyster and all these little japanese pickled stuff.
I thought it was a really nice place and it filled pretty well. Lena felt like she was in China especially here. She kept hearing Cantonese.
Oh man, woman, and child, I ate sooo much. I was almost going to explode but I decided not to. Because the food was really really delicious. And the service was good. I would definitely go back to this place, I forgot what it's called but you just go down that main street at liberdade past that os gemeos work, and go straight.
Another great but tiring day! And yep we walked back to our hostel from there! Oh I need a shower. my hair and my dress (Katherine's/the community dress) smell like BBQ.
boa noite!
but my Fernanda* made them like this at our house: she baked them and they had like marinated chicken filling. sooooo good! I ate like 7 of them that day! mmmm....
