Entertaining myself

So this weeknd David and Ruth went to Ubatuba. I had already arranged with Paulo to have class on saturday to make up for one he missed; athis week had been busy for him, and he'd actually missed a few. normally, i wouldn't give classes on saturday, less in the morning, but he's my most loyal fan, so i bent for him. well, he canceleld on me at the last minute, no surprise, meaning i cuold sleep in! still, to late to go to ubatuba, whcih would've been cool.

i'm glad i didn't go though. i had a good weekend.

i sorta wasted my friday. i kept telling myself i was bored and that i would go out. well, 11pm rolled aroudn pretty fast and i spent all night in front of the tv. But that whole laziness jsut made me more stoked on saturday, cause I HAD to make up for my lost friday.

saturday i met up with nayara and some of her friends at an art exhibit in the city center. I got there n hour late cause i waited for a bus that never came. waiting for the bus i ran into a friend of Falvia's (my cousin), so i got on the bus with her and went to a neaqrby metro. the art exhibit wasn't my style (old religious carvings from the center of brazil), but i got there so late that we practically left right after i got there anyway. nayara's friends all bailed, so nayara and i wandered the city a little.

we checked out this beautfiul cathedral called Sé, where there jsut happened to be a police wedding going on, so it was kinda fun seeing the honor gaurd and hearing the police band. the cathedral had a huge organ that spanned the back of the cathedral, apparently only one of 4 or so of its kidn in the world!

afterwards we grabbed a quick bite to eat, then lazed towards the buses. on the way there, we passed a mall that was featuring a really really good beatles cover band, so we checked it out. a few weeks ago a local cover band (recognized as one of the best beatle cover badns in the world) set a world record playing throuhg the entire beatles repertoire front to back in one set; i think this was them. they even had the voices down, i was super impressed. still, i couldn't et over the fans. these people realy loved the beatles. it was wierd seeign so many people singing along in english, and it was great hearing heavy accents on certain words.

after a few songs, nayara had to get on her way so i walked her back to the buses. i decided to hit up a few friends and see if anyone could hang, so i called up basically everyone i could who wasn't family, only to find no one could hang out. everyone was either working or sick or had plans....it was crazy. so, i continued my little adventure. i went back to the beatles jam, heard em out till the end, then wandered the city center.

the city center is kind of...a shit hole. it's touristy during the day, but at night it's all goths, tramps and cheap porn vendors. don't ask me why, but there are tons of goth kids in são paulo. you'd think being a goth was hard enough with the alienation and teen angst and all that, but i mean, FUCK, these kids must be nuts to rock the black, heavy clothing and long hair in brazil. whatever. it's hot enough for me, anyway.

there wasn't anythign to do after the beatles quit, so after i'd satisfied myself wandering around, i jumped on the metro hoping to find a new bar to hang out at in villa madalena. i got off a metro stop early since my last experience at the villa madalena stop sucked (ben and i couldn't find any cool bars then got hassled byt he cops at gun point). i got some bad advice about a road to check out by the metro guy, so i kept on going and ended up back at the Ó Do Borogodo, a samba joint and realy enjoeyd a few weeks ago.

i got there about 2 hours before the music started, so i bought a beer, and started warming up, which was kinda lame cause i was there alone and they give you HUGE beers, meant to be worked at with groups of people. so i decided to invite myself over to a table occupied by two girls. When i asked if i could sit down, the cuter girl answered me "Disculpay, No fahla pour-two -gase." no fucking way. last time i was here, i met Georgiana and spent the whole night speaking english. saturday night, the first table i sit down at jsut happens to be the only english speakers in the joint.

One girl was from miami, the other form finland. they were nokia workers on a night out. not the most interesting conversationalists, but it was nice talking to another american who had been in the country about as long as me (of course, i speak portuguese and she don't, mwuahahaha). When ricardo arrived, i ditched em to say high.

I mentioned ricardo in passing a few posts back. I met ricardo at a feijoada Alex (flavias bf/fiancee/husband) brought me to a while ago. Ricardo, a professional musician, was the birthday girls bf. they're no longer together, but that's neither here nor there. Ricardo told me at that party that, yeah, he'd be totally down to trade english lessons for samba lessons, and we traded info. well, i never got back to the kid, and i wasn't going to let this chance slip by. I got his info, and we are def gonna do it.

ricardo plays the pandeiro (a kind of tamborine), and he plays a MEAN pandeiro. i was skeptical when i first saw thing, kind of wondering why he was the only percussive element in a badn with 3 string instruments and a flute/sax player. all i can say is that i am ready to leard from this guy; it sounded like he was playing 3 drums at the same time.

but yeah, the ó was fun as usual. met 2 cute jewish girls, Talita and her friend Ligia (super rare to meet jews outside of hebraica, i've been finding), and their friend Fernando. Talita was super cool, a psych major at PUC and a kidnergarten teacher at hebraica. def wana see her again. her friend was cool and really outclassed me as a dancer. i asked her for a lesson and she jsut kept giving me advice about trying to feel th usic...damn theater kids. their friend fernando was a good guy too, spent some time in canada an dpicked up a taste for football and hockey while there (i foudn someone to watch the super bowl with!!!!).

leaving the ó, i entered the twilight zone. Not only did the cab driver recognize me, he rememebred i was an english teacher, and the street i lived on. woah der. i hadn't been to the ó in at elast 2 weeks, maybe mroe; last time i visited was the ngith before i left for caconde, which was before rosh hashanah.....i mean, damn!

one of the worst parts about going out on my own is that i have no backup, no one to help me piece things together from the cryptic artifacts occasionally unearthed when seeding through the nights wreckage the morning after. sunday morning i was thumbing through my notebook and found what i thought was an email address for "fernanda - canada." WHO THE FUCK WAS FERNANDA?!?! I DON'T REMEMBER ANY FERNANDA??" i beat my head against the wall for about two hours before i put canada and hockey together, realized the 'a' was an 'o' and remembered who it was. super frustrating, not the first time, and far from the last. Hopefully i'll pull a system together to keep this sorta thing from happening, like taking notes wheni get emails or something.

whatever, i think i've been doing pretty well for myself on my own. there hasn't been a single night i've gone out on my own and found myself unable to meet a few new really cool people.

so sunday i slept in and decided to go check out a fair in liberdade, the asian district. the fair was cool and i wandered aroudn there basically all afternoon, and picked up some books that were on reserve for me at the bookstore.

I had bought a dvd of Child's play a few days before cause it was super cheap (packaged with the amityville horror, the two of them were less than $7!! and this was in a legitimate store!). i was decided from the hangover and all the walking, so i decided to just kick it with a beer and a pizza with the movie that night. well, the pizza took for ever and turned out to be a poorly choiced order, and i couldn't figure out how to get the dvd player to work, so that plan kidna went to hell, but it was nice vegging out in front of the tv anyway.

David and Ruth got back to find me half asleep on the couch, painfully trying to stay awake to watch the man in the iron mask (which was a dissapointment).

I slept alot, danced alot, met some new people, and even caught a few new sites. I'd say it was a pretty successful weekend.