a busy week

wow.... i haven't posted all week. i'm gonna skip around alittle here.

wednesday night i went on a date with rosane that went super well. lesse....shaun was still sick, tom had already left...or did he leave that day? oh yeah, and i went to janga beach wed, real shithole. polluted. real fine sand, got all over me.

....ok, time to work backwards.

thursday (yesterday) i wandered around olinda, took some pictures, talked with some local artisans (one of which offerd me a room for rent during carnaval)....then i tried to hook up with Alex for dinner since he finally rolled into town last night. his cell died mid conv so i didn't know exactly where he was. my first try was the espaço ciencia where his exposition was, but that turned out to be totally closed. the next attempt was this shitty mall nearby (i tried to hitch a ride on the bus but they wouldn't have it. i mean shit, it was one stop, and all i had a was a 50!), and he wasn't there either. had chinese mall-food for dinner, went back to the hostel, then went up to Sé to here a choro. there was a rehearsal going on there that was awesome. alll young kids, i don't think anyone of em was even as old as me. they were super good, and were rehearsing two songs, farol (lighthouse, in reference to a landmark here) and dança da latinha a song i recognized and sung along to, althouh i'd never heard it sung to a choro beat before (eu quero uma latinha pra botar uma bebe...). at the rehearsal i ran into thiago for the THIRD TIME. he took me into town to a little samba bar where we hung out. from there we wandered around and randomly found ourselves at an outdoor fashion show, then headed back to the bar. on the way there, i bought a bottle of Axé da fala, a local drink taht was super sketch. i bought it from what looked like a closed bar. thiago goes up to the bar and starts calling out "THIAGO!!" the other thiago pops his head over the wall, takes the order, and passes ove ra bottle of the homemade drink. it was pretty strong stuff, apparently loaded with herbs or something. good, kinda had a mediciny after taste though. we talked it up with a group of kdis we ran into for awhile, then i went home. i needed the rest.

tuesday.

monday first. fuck, i've already blogged about monday...

allright, no excuses. tuesday. tuesday!!! tuesday was terçã negra! i got to know shaun and tom better over breakfast then helped tom hitch call the bus station to figure out when his bus was leaving.then the three of us went into the old city to kick it a little. got to play translator some more (plus tour guide), kinda fun. it was also nice seeing the old city in the light. i can't believe i forgot to bring my camera, i'll just have to jack some pics form them. tom met up with his friend from recife who showed us a great spot to watch the sunset over the city. shaun and i went back to olinda soon afterwards. while shaun took a nap (he was getting sick) i did laundry by hand for the first time. lotta work, but worked well. kinda embarassing that i had never done it before. somewhere in here tom came back. kinda late shauns girl, roberta, and her friends came by, and we all went to this local bar to warm up. there, we met roberta's friend's younger sister, 19 i think, and her like 30 year old swiss/turkish bf. wierd wierd couple: he met her a year ago during his like 4 wk vacation here, apparently they stay a couple all this time, now he's back and they're a couple again, and he plans to take her back soon to marry him in switzerland. wierd wild stuff. we caught the tail-end of terça negra, a big bloc party with "afro" music, then went to the bar zero um (01) to here some reggae. cool place, and wouldn't you know it, there was thiago. same fucking guy man! he's always at the good parties. oh yeah, i also bought somethign from a sketchy street artesan who was selling mainly smoking related art. leonardo ("not 'da vinci', 'da VIDA!' ") made this thing he called the "coco loco," it's this goofily carved coconut. i'll post a picture of it. definitely never seen anything quite like it.

allright, i'm all cuaght up, time to talk about today. today i went to the mercado riberio where i had passed through yesterday because i saw them setting up for something today. see, this famous brazilian actress XUXA was coming to town, and the city organized a big carnival-esque display for her. quite frankly, i just wanted to see the show, but everyone else wanted to see her. i waited for a long long time. i talked it up with some local SAMU folks (paramedcis), and sat on top of a very uncomfortable fence for much longer than was advisable. after like 2 hours the show finally started. it was awesome, huge walking dolls, marching maracatu band, crazy frevo dancing, dudes with spears doing another dance who1s name i forgot...very very cool. much shorter than i would've liked though, and had a bad view. As XUXA was leaving, people kinda stormed her bus, so i took that opportunity to get a better view of the real show, and in so doing almsot got stabbed by a charging spear dude. very very cool stuff, i wanna come back here for carnaval real bad. so yeah, did that, had some tapioca for lunch (i've been eating alot of it. good local food, they heat fine yuca flour to make pancakes and put cheese and meat inside), bought some local art sicne it's my last day in town then kicked it at the hostel for a little. tonight i'm meeting up with rosane again. hopefully we'll make it to this big Choro show. a popular brazilian reggae artist, Adão Negro, is also in town so maybe we'll do that. or maybe we won't get around to either, she's not coming by till late. either way, i'm sure tonight will be fun, and tomorrow we're going to porto de galinhas with her to learn how to surf. i leave in the wee hours of sunday morning, so i dunno what i'm gonna do sunday night. hopefully i won't spend it at the airport.