On the 28th, Ana decided to take me to visit her relatives that live on a farm not too far outside of the city proper. It was about a half hour drive and all but the last 5 minutes or so were on paved roads. When we got to the farm we were warmly greeted by her various aunts, uncles cousins, and neices. A quick look around revealed it to be a small farm with a dozen chickens, a handful of cows, a bunch of fruit trees, and various dogs and cats.
After we had taken care of the pleasantries, Ana took me on a tour of the farm, showing me around the house, and a small hut in the back of the house, used for cooking and baking. It was about this time that this was perfect evidence that, unlike Eddie Albert, farm living is definitively not the life for me.
I spent the whole time I was there walking around looking at the ground, trying to make sure that I wasn't stepping in something disgusting. At the same time, I had to keep a wary eye on the chickens which kept pecking towards me. When we went to take pictures of the newly born calves, Ana was worried that the bull would charge us. I tried to make sure to keep the hut between myself and the bull at all times after he let forth a rather angry sounding moo while we were taking pictures.
One cool thing is, I finally got to see a cashew tree with fruit on it. I never realized (like most people who have only seen cashews in a bowl of mixed nuts) that cashews grow in a shell as the seed of a fruit that grows on trees. The fruit looks and tastes a little bit like a pear, and they make a juice out of it, which I drank a lot of, and I brought a couple bottles home with me. They call the fruit "caju". This was actually the first time that I had tasted the fruit itself and it was a bit grainy, the texture is very hard to describe, it tasted decent though.
We has lunch while we were there and Ana warned me about this dish that we were going to be served, chicken with a sauce made with chicken blood. Now, I had already had stomach discomfort for a few days and hadn't been eating much, and the whole idea of eating chicken blood is somewhat off-putting for me, considering how rabidly paranoid about salmonella my mother is. However, I had already decided that I was going to try it, as I had tried the other things I had been offered. So first Ana made me a plate, and then for some reason said that she gave me the wrong thing and gave the plate to her mom and made me another plate with essentially the same things. I found out afterward that there was fried chicken and roasted chicken and she had inititally given me fried chicken, but that the sauce is supposed to go on the roasted chicken. Anyway, I tried the sauce, and it wasn't really anything bad at all. My stomach was still not feeling too good, so I didn't eat much. Because I wasn't eating a lot, I was worried that I might look rude, but I was more worried that I was going to get sick all over the place.
On New Year's Eve, we got all dressed up and went out to Ana's Brother's friend's house to celebrate. On the way there, we stopped at the store to grab some juice for the bottle of vodka that we were bringing. The grocery store that we stopped at was named Super Frangolândiawhich translates to, I kid you not, Super Chicken Land.
Needless to say, this amused me to no end, and for the rest of the trip, every time we passed the supermarket, I would shout "Super Chicken Land!" Then Ana would roll her eyes and silently wonder why she ever started going out with me.
When we got to the party, the host and hostess greeted me in English, which instantly made me feel more comfortable. We had champagne at midnight, and all the males had to open a bottle, shaking it up and blasting the cork into the stratosphere. I was told this was necessary, so I was happy to participate. After this, we had to eat seven grapes and keep all the seeds for the whole next year. I'm not a superstitious person, but I like to hedge my bets, so I'm still carrying around a napkin full of seeds in my wallet.
Shortly after all this, we had to play a weird party game where a present is wrapped in layer upon layer upon layer, and each layer has a label, instructing the recipient to do something, then hand the present to an appropriate person, say someone at the party who has helped you in the last year. Then the next person has to unwrap to the next inner layer, rinse, and repeat. At some point, the task was to call up all the people who are going to be married in the next year. This basically turned into anyone who had been going out for more than a week getting called up, so Ana and I took our places on the "stage". The challenge was for each man to make up a poem for his beloved. It had to rhyme, and it had to be a love poem, a fairly tall order on short notice. The first time I was called I begged off for more time and the second time around, I still had nothing good, so I went with something lame which rhymed great with 2008. When they called for applause to rate the entries, I got a tiny smattering of applause thanks mostly to the dual facts that I didn't know 3/4 of the people there, and hardly anyone spoke English. I clearly hadn't won, but they declared me the victor, out of pity I assume. Ana came to help me, we handed it off to a "single person" (Ana's mother) and I was finally off the hook.
After the stressful part of the evening, I relaxed and polished off about 3/4 of a bottle of champagne and got sufficiently inebriated. We watched a recording of a few of the concerts of a very popular band in Brazil, Chiclete com Banana (Gum with Banana) whose outdoor shows in Brazil regularly take in hundreds of thousands. The music is a kind of raggae fusion that's actually quite energizing and addictive.
At around 2am we got tired and left, even though Ana said we were going to be there until 6... I think we're getting weak in our old age. It was a fun night, and a great way to bring in the new year.
How it all began. The story before the story. The prequel to Mission: Brazil if you so choose.
Everything started out great... the first leg of my trip was leaving at 6:30 from Boston to Miami so we had to be at the airport at 4:30, which meant leaving at 3:30, which meant getting up at 3:00... no thank you, I'll just stay up until 3. What I hadn't quite thought through all the way was that this realistically meant that I was staying up until 7:00, after the plane took off. It didn't work anyway, and I ended up falling asleep for an hour and a half before we left. With a stop for coffee and a bagel on the way to the airport to keep me fueled up, and we made it at least relatively on time. I had checked my ticket, and checked it again, I was leaving on Delta, so we pulled into the the Delta terminal and mom and I said our goodbyes and I walked in to wait in line... and wait... and wait... and wait and wait and wait. Eventually I got to the front of the line, breathed a sigh of relief and handed the nice ticket lady my freshly printed travel info.
"Sir, this flight is American Airlines." She said calmly, shattering my sense of calm and bringing my brain to a screeching halt.
"Well, uh... Where's American?" I stammered through the tired.
"Terminal C, up those stairs, follow the signs." She said, indicating a large set of stairs all the way across the terminal.
"I've got 45 minutes to my flight... If I'm in terminal A, then terminal C is... probably pretty f#$%ing far away." I thought to myself, breaking into a flat out run, as fast as I could dragging a 50 pound suitcase and carrying a 15 pound carry on bag and a laptop case slung over my shoulder. I ran up the escaltor, down a corridor, along a moving walkway, down an escaltor, along another corridor with another moving walkway, this one not working, all the way following cryptic signs directing me toward terminal C. Just when I had given up hope of ever finding the mystical Terminal C, I came around a corner and there I was... With a HUGE line in front of me. Luckily one of the employees was looking for passengers to Miami and happened to call out. I raised my hand and he rushed me through the baggage checking process. This guy is my personal travel savior. If not for him, there's NO way I would have made the flight to Miami.
After I got to the ticket desk, the man behind the counter asked where I was going and I replied "Miami".
"And then where?" He asks, his eyes like probes.
"Uhh... Brazil."
"Well, I have to ticket your bags to your final destination."
"But its on a different airline and I didn't buy the tickets together." Talking more to myself, trying to figure out how he knew I was going to Brazil until I realized that homeland security probably knows when I go number 2. I had assumed I would have to pick up my bags in Miami and then check them again on the way to Brazil.
"Sir, I have to ticket your bags for their final destination." His face is stern.
"Ok, fine, whatever." I reply, sure that I'm never going to see my bags again but even surer that if I don't hurry, I'll never make my flight. Anyway, through security and made it to my gate just in time to get at the end of the line for last call for boarding. It's all about the timing...
After I made it to Miami, I was stuck for hours, so I bought a wifi day pass, sat on the floor, plugged into a wall socket on a column in the middle of the check-in area and talked to Ana online. Finally, 4 hours later, TAM's check-in desk opened and I checked in, and made my way through security. I got hungry at this point, but there was nothing but a crappy sandwich shop selling food once you got through to the gates... I bought one of the sandwiches, which came with a small portion of potato salad, and a water, which was lukewarm. I finished the small sandwich and, still hungry, decided to chance the potato salad. It wasn't that tasty, but I was hungry and it was helping. It was a decision that I would quickly come to regret, as fifteen minutes later I was doubled over with stomach pain. I then spent the next couple of hours trying not to let anyone know that I thought I was dying. After I got on the plane I was so tired that I fell asleep for an hour and when I woke up I felt, well not great but at least didn't think I was going to die.
The international leg of my journey was actually not bad at all. All of the attendents on the TAM flight spoke english to some degree, they served a meal on the flight, and even served sandwiches on the two short domestic hops (Manaus to Belem and Belem to Fortaleza) once we got into Brazil. They provided pillows, blankets, and even small pouches with toothbrush, toothpaste, and a black mask so we could sleep. Even more helpful on the quest for sleep, the fact that I had been up for over 20 hours already with nothing but a few brief naps. I drifted in and out of sleep and studied my Portuguese for Dummies book when I could manage to focus for more than 5 minutes at a time without getting a headache.
Finally, we landed in Fortaleza and I was just looking forward to hugging and kissing Ana for the first time in months and getting to lie down and pass out for a few hundred years. However, the customs officials had other ideas. There was actually no one working yet at 6:30am when we got in, and we had to wait until 7 for the guy to show up. Ana would later say that she saw a customs official walking in, a half hour after my plane landed and got worried because I hadn't come out yet. The actual passport process was fine though, they took the sheet I had filled out and handed the carbon copy to me. After I got my bags, I had to go through customs, which essentially was some guy asking if I had anything to declare and me saying no. After that, I finally got to the hugging and kissing and eventually the passing out.
Well, this is it, I'm leaving Brazil today, as I write this I'm on a plane bound for Belem, then Manaus, then Miami, then Atlanta, then Boston, then Northborough, then bed. I still have a long way to go and it's already been a trying experience. First there was the crying and hugging and kissing goodbyes as we waited for my flight to start boarding. Then, once I had gotten through the metal detectors and into the federal passport checkpoint, the clerk asked for my customs ticket, and showed me a copy of a ticket much like the one I filled out on the plane on the way here. "Holy S%#$, what did I do with that damn thing?!" I thought to myself, my heart skipping a beat or two.
"I don't know." I hear myself say, unable to come up with anything more than that.
"If you don't have your customs ticket, you will have to pay a fine, one mil dollars."
"A MILLION dollars!!!!!" I think to myself, really starting to panic now and unzipping my laptop case in a frantic rush. About halfway through unzipping the second pocket to rummage frantically, I realize that "mil" in protuguese means thousand. I'm still not particularly happy with the prospect, but at least it's not beyond comprehension.
In the back pocket of my laptop case, I find the slightly green sheet, stuck between an unopened piece of mail and a couple Brazilian DVDs Ana burned for me and breathe a sigh of relief, handing it to the customs clerk. He stamps it and hands me back my passport, the nightmare ends. Seriously, if they expect you to keep this thing on you for when you leave, there should be a big sign on it that says, "YOU BETTER F$#*ing HOLD ON TO THIS OR WE'LL CHARGE YOU $1000!" There should be flashing lights and warning sounds when they hand it to you, and it should come with a giant piece of duct tape so you can secure it firmly to your forehead.
Handy travel tip: Don't travel with any liquid at all in your carry on bag, unless ABSOLUTELY necessary. I know, I know... they let you travel with 3 ounce containers in a clear plastic bag, blah, blah, blah, blah... But when you go through the checkpoint they have to inspect your tiny little containers and make sure they're all under 3 ounces, and they all have to fit jammed into that stupid plastic bag. Besides, unless it's a secret formula that turns lead into gold, or the cure for a virus that will wipe out mankind, what do you need with it on you at all times anyway? If you get stuck somewhere you can buy more shampoo, soap, deodorant, vodka, whatever.
Well, posting this now is going to put things a little bit out of order, but I want to get to it while it's fresh in my mind. Last night I went to Ana's college graduation. College over here, like pretty much everything else, is a little bit different from in the United States. The best colleges are the public, state or federally funded, and they are totally free if you can get into them. The competition for these schools is understandably fierce. Private colleges also exist, and there are a few of them in the Fortaleza area. When you finish your undergradute degree, you need to do what is called a "monografia" which is a big research paper in your area of study, sort of like an undergraduate thesis. This is submitted to the federal government along with your transcript and your signature and they send your "sheepskin" about 3 months later.
Ana's college didn't hand out fake degrees to everyone in attendance, but only to a representative from each area of study, the one with the highest GPA, if I understood correctly, so the ceremony was mercifully short compared to the nearly 5 hour marathon we had at RPI. What they did hand out, however, was confetti, whistles, streamers, and balloons. They not only condoned the noise and mess that goes along with the graduation ceremony, they actively encouraged it.
This may sound a bit sappy, but I'm really proud of Ana. She has gone through a lot in the last few months since she got back to Brazil, and she toughed it all out and graduated. Congratulations Ana, I love you.
On December 28th, we went to the water park in Fortaleza, aptly named "Beach Park". Now you might ask yourself why the name of the park is in English, and in fact, I asked Ana that myself. Apparently it's for international tourism reasons: More people will understand what it is if the name is in English. I think the "bonus" reason is that people here think English is cool. You see people walking around with English words on them all the time, most of whom probably have no idea what they mean. It's kind of like when people in the United States wear t-shirts or (worse yet) get tatoos with Asian characters that they can't read.
Ana knew someone that works there, so we ended up scoring some free tickets, which was great because I forgot how expensive those places can be. After we put our stuff in a locker, we grabbed a tube and floated around the park in this big artificial river they had running in a circle around the inside of the park to make it fun and easy to get to different areas. It was hard to actually see what they had in the park from the river area though, so it wasn't much of a help for taking a look around so we just got out and walked around. Ana showed me all the waterslides and the wave pool and the kids area. She also showed me the waterslide that she had told me about before we got there, the one that she informed me was "the biggest waterslide in Latin America". It was called Insano, and though she had told me it was 33 meters (108 feet), it was really 41 m (134.5 feet) as a large sign on the slide proudly proclaimed. Something tells me that they had made it bigger since the last time she was here...
We walked around for a little bit and while I wanted to do something together, Ana kept insisting that I go on water slides (she doesn't like water slides, but refuses to admit that she's scared of them). "You go on the water slide and I'll get the camera and take pictures of you going on the water slide, that is doing something together!"
"OK, OK fine" I finally relented, standing in line for the esfinges. I had seen the slides attached to set of stairs that I as climbing and they didn't seem that bad, a couple of short 45 degree steps separated by short horizontal stretches. When I got to the top however, I found out that there were apparently 2 rides, the line divided at the top, and one of them had a much shorter wait: sarcófago. Now, I was fairly confident that it wasn't much different, but I hadn't seen the slide: a sharp downward angle in an entirely closed tube. Reading the description of the water slide afterwards on their website, I would find out that I had been travelling up to 80 km/h. For the metrically challenged, that's 50 mph! Apparently, however, it wasn't fast enough, as I ran out of momentum while I was still in the tube, about 20 feet from the end and began to panic, envisioning someone coming down behind me as I scrambled frantically for the exit.
After that heart stopping experience I was equal parts done with water slides for the rest of my life and ready to go on anything else they could throw at me. Ana kept insisting that I should go on the Insano, and I kept insisting that she was trying to get me killed. Eventually, I decided that I was going to just go on it and get it over with, so that we could stop discussing it and do something less suicidal. As I climbed the many, many stairs of the wooden platform leading to the top, a voice coming from a speaker informed me (in portuguese and english) that this was, in fact, "the tallest and fastest water slide in the world" and that anyone overweight, pregnant, with heart problems, a bad back, or anyone that was just a total wuss shouldn't go on the ride. While I was on my way up, a woman was coming down slowly, pale in the face and clutching the rail. When I got to the top, I waved to Ana so that she could take some pictures of me to prove that I faced up to the challenge.
While I was waiting for the slide, I couldn't help but examine the physics of the situation. 41 meters high, 9.8 m/s², V = A × T, E = ½ Mass × V², all of this together means that at this height, your bones end up liquified if anything goes wrong. Once I got on the slide, I decided that the only way I was going to not wet myself was to just close my eyes and slowly count to 10 as I went over the edge. From watching a few people go down the slide before I climbed to the top, I was quite certain the worst part would be well over, and if I made it to 10, I'd be OK. After releasing, the water took hold of me and slowly dragged me toward the edge, about 15 feet from where you get onto the slide. 1 second later, I was over the edge, and for the first second and a half, there's nothing but air underneath me. For another second, there's a slight slope, and then it quickly slopes down into a horizontal tunnel about 50 feet long that dumps you into a pool at the end. It took me to 11 to get to the pool. Below is a video (not mine) of someone riding the Insano. I would find out later on the website, that I was travelling up to 105 km/h or 65 mph, that's car on the highway fast.
After that, we put the camera away and Ana and I rode a couple of the more tame rides together: the Moréia Negra and Atlantis . I actually hurt myself on Moréia Negra, tweaked my back a little going around one of the sharp turns (I don't think I was holding the raft quite right). Since Atlantis is for 3 people at a time, we actually had to split up and go with different sets of people, and I was waiting for her at the end where she climbed off of the raft whimpering and clinging to me. I laughed because I'm kind of a jerk like that.
We decided to relax in the wavepool and catch some sun, so we snagged some tubes. Across the pool was a kids' area where they had big powered waterguns shaped like machine guns and mortars on a giant fort. Above the fort was a huge anthropomorphic bucket character that got constantly filled with water and, after playing a song, dumped the water all over anyone that was standing in the area in front of the fort. It made me wish I wass a kid again so that I could get away with jumping all over the fort and shooting unsuspecting people with blasts from the mortars.
Well, as anyone who is reading the blog regularly (all two of you) might have noticed, it's been a while since I posted anything here. While trying to do the "one post a day" thing, the backlog simply got to be too huge to deal with, even when I was trying to write two a day to catch up. Each of these posts takes me an hour or more to finish, and then I spend a bunch of time tweaking the links, photos, etc. The time commitment, needless to say, was just getting ridiculous. This is supposed to be my vacation after all. I thoroughly enjoyed posting though, so I'm simply going to compromise and update the blog with the important stuff, like a sane person. I'm also posting the link to my flickr album here so that you can find it more easily.
At any rate, I'll try to start posting from the backlog of interesting stuff later. Next up: Beach Park, where I take on the world's tallest and fastest waterslide!
