Eu esqueci o titulo...
Right now it is bucketing down with rain. It´s really tropical weather, with blue skies and lots of sun in the morning, but around noon, the skies darken and it rains for a few hours on in with thunder and lighting. This also makes the weather rather humid, the umidade (oo-mee-dadge) is usually in the 50-60 percentile range.
Adelaide´s arid hinterland makes for a much drier heat in summer, which is a lot more bearable, because I have up to three showers a day (one after I wake up, one after I get back from school and one before church/bed) because you sweat a lot more. The showers, then, are more rinse-off´s than anything else. Last Tuesday during our one and only lesson a week of Educaçao Fisica (which really translates to free-time with a ball of your choice; basket-,volley- or soccerball) I worked up the biggest sweat I think I have ever done in my lifetime, simply because the air doesn´t take up the moisture, because it is already quite humid. That made for a nice little meteoroligical lesson didn´t it?
In other news: I almost made it my first full week of school this week, but last night we went out for Jess´ 18th, and getting home at 4:30 in the morning it was no hard decision I was going to have a nice sleep in. I am sure I was sorely missed by my classmates and teachers alike... Swingers Lounge is the name of the boate or nightclub that we decided to invade. It is in Vitória (so we had to cross the third bridge) and NO it´s not a swingers club. So Jess, an English girl called Kate, two of her friends, one of whom is a brazilian living in Boston and Sammy Clayton (another Aussie) and myself all went to Swingers. It good fun! Jess managed to charm the bouncer into giving us invites so we dodged the cover-charge. It´s a largish place with a big bar that stretched on the right side, DJ Booth on the left and dance-floor eitherside of a elevated part where people can dance and perform other drunken stunts. Loud music, and lots of people, I was very impressed. They even had midgets, dressed up in devil suits who poured tequila in people´s mouths and played drums. They had some mexican theme going. Usually nightclubs play one type of music, but at Swingers it changes drastically, which seems weird but I thought it worked well. One minute you´re dancing to a Brazilian song, and then ´Let´s twist again´ (like we did last summer) comes on, and then it changes to trance, and then to hip-hop. Means everyone´s taste is satisfied at least once. Boy it was loud, my ears are still ringing... Drinks are ridiculously cheap. One beer cost me $R3.50, and a double-shot Johnny Walker (red label) just 10 reais. You get given a little card with a barcode, which tracks all your expenses for the night, then before you go to leave you pay your tab. Good system, cuts a lot of waiting time at the bar.
This week to come I hope to find me some portuguese lessons, so I can get serious with the language. Right now I am learning either from experience or teaching myself. Which I must say isn´t going all that bad, seeing as I have a strong foundation of other languages to work from. But I hate stuffing up the verb conjugations, so I want to get it right.
Apart from that all is well! My host parents are getting busier with the school, because the post-carnaval influx of old and new students. I even had to fill in for Uziel to teach Joanna, a 50 year old lady who is learning English, at least I made myself useful. We went through how to offer and request clarification. Ex: Is that clear? No please explain. etc... Good fun.
Having been here over 5 weeks, I can now confirm that this country is soccer-fanatic. TV is full of it! During carnaval week the daily news went like this: Carnaval around the country followed by soccer news. That was it! I am not kidding. On random occasions during the day you can hear amateur fireworks banging in the distance, not knowing what it was for before, I now know it´s people celebrating a goal, from one of the many games being played nationally. I am yet to find a club where I can join to play, as there aren´t many around. People play more street soccer, futsal or futebol de praia. We were going to play last Friday on a synthetic court, me and the guys from school, but it was raining hard. Um outre dia..
Anyway, I am off once more. Will endeavour to provide some pictures from school and what not in the future. Hope all is well back in Australia and with any family members following from Holland or the USA, but for now Brasil is the place to be!
Abraços!
Adelaide´s arid hinterland makes for a much drier heat in summer, which is a lot more bearable, because I have up to three showers a day (one after I wake up, one after I get back from school and one before church/bed) because you sweat a lot more. The showers, then, are more rinse-off´s than anything else. Last Tuesday during our one and only lesson a week of Educaçao Fisica (which really translates to free-time with a ball of your choice; basket-,volley- or soccerball) I worked up the biggest sweat I think I have ever done in my lifetime, simply because the air doesn´t take up the moisture, because it is already quite humid. That made for a nice little meteoroligical lesson didn´t it?
In other news: I almost made it my first full week of school this week, but last night we went out for Jess´ 18th, and getting home at 4:30 in the morning it was no hard decision I was going to have a nice sleep in. I am sure I was sorely missed by my classmates and teachers alike... Swingers Lounge is the name of the boate or nightclub that we decided to invade. It is in Vitória (so we had to cross the third bridge) and NO it´s not a swingers club. So Jess, an English girl called Kate, two of her friends, one of whom is a brazilian living in Boston and Sammy Clayton (another Aussie) and myself all went to Swingers. It good fun! Jess managed to charm the bouncer into giving us invites so we dodged the cover-charge. It´s a largish place with a big bar that stretched on the right side, DJ Booth on the left and dance-floor eitherside of a elevated part where people can dance and perform other drunken stunts. Loud music, and lots of people, I was very impressed. They even had midgets, dressed up in devil suits who poured tequila in people´s mouths and played drums. They had some mexican theme going. Usually nightclubs play one type of music, but at Swingers it changes drastically, which seems weird but I thought it worked well. One minute you´re dancing to a Brazilian song, and then ´Let´s twist again´ (like we did last summer) comes on, and then it changes to trance, and then to hip-hop. Means everyone´s taste is satisfied at least once. Boy it was loud, my ears are still ringing... Drinks are ridiculously cheap. One beer cost me $R3.50, and a double-shot Johnny Walker (red label) just 10 reais. You get given a little card with a barcode, which tracks all your expenses for the night, then before you go to leave you pay your tab. Good system, cuts a lot of waiting time at the bar.
This week to come I hope to find me some portuguese lessons, so I can get serious with the language. Right now I am learning either from experience or teaching myself. Which I must say isn´t going all that bad, seeing as I have a strong foundation of other languages to work from. But I hate stuffing up the verb conjugations, so I want to get it right.
Apart from that all is well! My host parents are getting busier with the school, because the post-carnaval influx of old and new students. I even had to fill in for Uziel to teach Joanna, a 50 year old lady who is learning English, at least I made myself useful. We went through how to offer and request clarification. Ex: Is that clear? No please explain. etc... Good fun.
Having been here over 5 weeks, I can now confirm that this country is soccer-fanatic. TV is full of it! During carnaval week the daily news went like this: Carnaval around the country followed by soccer news. That was it! I am not kidding. On random occasions during the day you can hear amateur fireworks banging in the distance, not knowing what it was for before, I now know it´s people celebrating a goal, from one of the many games being played nationally. I am yet to find a club where I can join to play, as there aren´t many around. People play more street soccer, futsal or futebol de praia. We were going to play last Friday on a synthetic court, me and the guys from school, but it was raining hard. Um outre dia..
Anyway, I am off once more. Will endeavour to provide some pictures from school and what not in the future. Hope all is well back in Australia and with any family members following from Holland or the USA, but for now Brasil is the place to be!
Abraços!
