Since last night I'm singing this song... and I cannot stop singing it again and again :)))  Rosana... A fuego lento...   It might have something to do with the sun outside (Brazil finally remembered that it's supposed to be a tropical country and not make me suffer from cold more than I do during tough Romanian winters)... It might have also something to do with the weekend coming... and with the fact that I love Latino music… and … with many other things and feelings…   A nice weekend everyone!!!       A fuego lento tu mirada A fuego lento tú o nada Vamos fraguando esta locura Con la fuerza de los vientos y el calor de la ternura Sigue el camino del cortejo A fuego lento a fuego viejo Sigue avivando nuestra llama Con todo lo que te quiero y lo mucho que me amas A fuego lento me haces agua Contigo tengo el alma enamorada Me llenas, me vacías, me desarmas Ay ay ay amor cuando me amas A fuego lento revoltosas Caricias que parecen mariposas Se cuelan por debajo de la ropa Y van dejando el sentimiento amor forjado a fuego lento A fuego lento mi cintura A fuego lento y con lisura Vamos tramando este alboroto Con la danza de los mares y el sabor del poco a poco Siguo el camino del cortejo A fuego lento a fuego añejo Sigo avivando en nuestra llama Tantos días como sueños, tantos sueños que no acaban A fuego lento me haces agua.... A fuego lento, a fuego lento ay ay ay ay ay....

 

 

 

 

 

 

  

Getting on to more optimism than in the last post...

 

I love Harry Potter and  I am totally happy that my copy of the 7th book (HP and the deathly hallows) arrived on Tuesday from amazon.com.

 

I found the package really original... it had a note on it saying: "Attention Muggles - Do not deliver or open before July 21st!"... who read the book in English will understand it :). Loooooved it!

 

Just that maybe only today, Friday, I will actually be able to start to read it... with a project finishing (today!!!) it's impossible to find time to read... But now... nobody can stop me!!!  (maybe just my huge translation project that I have to take care of...).

 

 

Well... one thing I can celebrate for sure... this is the first time when I write two days in a raw in my blog... and today I actually wrote twice!!! I'm getting better!!!

 

 

 

Yes.. indeed... I really hate cold showers!!!

And I had to take one this morning!!!! Argh!!

 

It just happens that the head of the shower in my appartment (here in Brazil is this electric head that heats the water, which comes actually veryyy cold) broke... with no apparent reason (if not just to make me apreciate indeed how good it is to have a hot shower in the cold Brazilian winter mornings... yes .. it can be cold in Brazil).

 

So, praying, swearing, shaking and almost crying, all in the same time, I had to take a reallllllyyyyyy cold shower ... I hate it!!! And when I'm thinking that Vladi (my apartment mate from Colombia) usualy takes cold showers in the morning... I have no clue how he does it!!

 

 

And another thing I hate in the mornings is to feel / inhale the smoke of cigarrets on the street, while walking towards my office... Mrrrr... Taking aside the fact that São Paulo is not a very clean city and with all the cars... I am sure that the air I'm breathing during my 20 minutes walk every morning is not one of the cleanest ones... but let's just not add cigarrets smoke to it...

 

Did I seem stressed in this post? hmmm... I must be tired :) 

Hmm... more than 4 months since the last time I have posted a real message on my blog… and a lot of stuff happened.

 

I would really like to be able to write more often, shorter messages… it would help a lot with keeping up with all the nice/crazy things happening here…but hell!! It’s impossible… Normally at work I barely have the time to read the news on the internet, during the first half hour before starting work… then… with God’s help I’ll get out of the office before 10 PM… if not…later J

 

And then, in the weekends I don’t have a computer – nor internet access… and with these high-tech area we are living in, it has been a time since I wrote something on a paper and then pass it to computer… excepting the slides for projects (at work), which are always better if you get to build them first on paper… and then put them into PowerPoint J…

 

 

What I will do now is to briefly comment on the main events that happened (and that I can still remember) during the last four months:

 

 

1. Skydiving!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
2. Iguaçu / Iguazú Falls
3. My trip to Northeast – Holidays!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

Lula L

 

 

Aaaand.. the most recent one:

 

Skydiving!!!!!!!!!!!  In two series: 30^th of September and 22^nd of October. That was because the first time we went there (everybody in the group) we only got to jump 3 of us (me, a Colombian and his girlfriend) and then it started to rain, which makes the conditions for skydiving improper… so the others had to wait for another opportunity.

 

We have developed a tradition here, that I really like: when a person has a birthday, he/she can choose where they want to spend it or what they (and the group, of course) could do… that’s how we have been to quite a few places in Brazil and did some interesting activities… This time, it was the turn of Gaudhy, our Peruvian ‘bastard’ – this is an internal joke, she will not mind for being called like this, as none of us would – to choose something to do… and she choused… Skydiving.

 

I must say that it was one of the most “adrenaline-intensive” things I ever did!!! Soooo cool!!! We jumped from 4000m (+/- 12.000ft), 50 seconds of free falling and about 3 minutes of parachute-falling (in my case there were 5 minutes or more, as my instructor let me drive the parachute, he “showed me around” and as I was really enjoying he made it last longer J ).

 

It cost R$250 (about USD$115) and if I would have done the video… another additional R$150… but I was not feeling that rich at the moment so I did not have the film done… now I’m kind of regretting it… but I’m also planning to do it again, so it should be fine…

 

Another detail… when the 3 of us jumped (three weeks before the others ppl in the group) it was cloudy… so I had about 45 seconds of the 50 – of free falling – passing from one layer of white clouds to another… reaaaaaly nice… and I think it helped me also not to die of heart attack when we jumped J

 

Just to explain how this goes: when you do the amateur skydiving, as it was our case, (you did not participate in a special training course) you must always jump with an instructor. He is connected to you with 4 connectors, each of them being able to support 180kg.. so even with one of them you should be safe.

 

Then you fly in a small airplane with various other ppl jumping. First jump the pro’s… the ones that can jump alone. Then jump the ‘freshies’, us, together with the instructors (and the cameraman if you film it).

 

In my case, as I was the last one to jump, the plane had to do a 3 minutes tour to come back to the optimal jumping position… In this short period, I had all the time in the world to panic J … kidding… did not totally panic, but I was really scared. I had just seen the others simply disappearing in the clouds… “brrrrr” and “cool” in the same time J. We also did the back flip when we jumped J.  

 

Loved it! Loved it!!!!

 

Then, on the 22^nd of October, we went again, so that the majority of the group should have the chance to jump. This time, the weather was just great! Shiny and warm/hot… I had the chance to take various picture with all my friends jumping. This time, almost everybody had the film done… cool!!!

 

 

2. Iguaçu Falls (12-15 October)

 

Together with Laura (UK), Gerardo (ME), Adrián (ME) and Vladi (CO), with a rented car (really good idea!!), after about 12 hours driving, crossing the south of Brazil, we got to Foz de Iguaçú, the region with one of the most famous waterfalls in the world (about 30 m higher than Niagara Falls – Iguaçu measure 80m height) and one of the most beautiful views I ever saw…

 

The “cataratas” (waterfalls) are shared between Brazil and Argentina (about 1.200 m length being on the Argentinian side, and 800m on the Brazilian side).

 

The cool thing is, that, being in that area, you can go with no trouble in Argentina (none of us needed a visa to enter… yuppiiiiiiiiii) or in Paraguay… In Paraguay actually there was not even a frontier point.. we didn’t even get our passports stamped… that’s everything you might need to know in order to understand why the large majority of pirate products, illegal merchandise, drugs and stuff that enter in Brazil enter at the frontier with Paraguay…

 

Well… coming back to Argentina… having a car in that area is just perfect! Imagine that besides going by car in Argentina (about 20 minutes drive from our hostel in Brazil) in order to visit the Waterfalls, we actually went there sometimes just to have dinner J. I really loved that J…

 

My opinion about all this experience: AMAZING!!!! This is one place you have to go… it’s so beautiful…

 

As I learned from one of my bosses at Kaiser, the Iguaçu falls are actually an ancient cemetery… as it was used for this purpose by the Indians living there before the colonization. That’s why it is said that it has a lot of energy… and this is also why people go there many times and make wishes… you have to go there with positive thoughts, as every thought, sensation you live there it is said to be very much amplified by the energy present there…

 

We have also done the “trip adventure” – meaning: we went by boat under some of the waterfalls, until we got soaking wet and totally hilarious J… I actually have a movie to prove it J. Really cool J.

 

And besides the fact that in that specific day we all got wet because of the boat trip, I also had the “pleasure” of taking another bath, this time in the fountain in front of the Argentinean restaurant in the park… and this was a forced bath.. my nice Mexican friends “helped” me …  a lot.. One of them (Gerardo) actually took a picture with me (again soaking wet) after the nice escapadeJ. If I’ll get the picture and post it here, you might notice the frustrated look on my face :P.

 

And as this wouldn’t have been enough… the following day, during a hot evening, coming back from a day trip on the Brazilian side of the Waterfalls (another marvelous view) me and Laura had another forced bath… this time in the swimming pool in front of our room in the hostel… of course.. fully dressed (I had my jeans on!!! L ). Off course that guys joined us… but – bastards!!! – only after they meticulously changed into their swimming shorts… Well… in the end, it was really cool J we had a lot of fun and a lot of water fighting…

 

The way back “only” took us about 13 hours… we were tired (we actually did not go out any of the nights in disco’s, only one night stayed until 1am in a bar, drinking and speaking… but walking so much during the day was very tiring), but really satisfied with the excellent experience we had had.

 

 

3. My trip to Northeast – Holidays!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! (2-18^th of September 2006)

 

One thing is bad about not writing immediately about events that you really loved: is that you loose the motivation, and the explosion of thousand words and gestures you used to describe the event (in my case – my holidays) in the first days after it happened… And now, after about 12 hours of work (this is the 4^th time I am opening this draft and I hope I’ll get to finish it this time… so I can finally post it) I don’t really feel able to describe it as it deserves L nevertheless… I will try J

 

Having a 16-17 days holidays on the Brazilian seaside didn’t actually mean that I got to change my color (to dark brown) as I was hoping L.

 

Thing is that I had a pretty full schedule, and I only had about 2 days to actually stay on the beach, taking sunbath…

 

My schedule and plan have proved to be pretty busy, but I got to see everything I wanted (almost). My itinerary was the following:

 

1. Salvador – with Morro de São Paulo (a truly heavenly beach)
2. Recife – with Porto de Galinhas and Olinda
3. Natal – with beaches like Pipa, Ponta Negra, Praia dos Namorados + Buggy (jeep) trip to Jenipabu (Lagoon ?) etc etc
4. Fortaleza – Canoa quebrada beach…

 

I know that for the ones that do not know Brazil these are going to be just some names… but trust me – they are reeeeeeeeeeeaaaaaaaaaaalllllllllllllllyyyyyyyyy cool places worth going!!

 

Got to go now but I want to post the message… in order to get a grasp of what these beaches are, take a look at the Album “Holidays on the North-Eastern Coast of Brazil”.

 

Kissssssseeeeeeeeeesssssssssss 2 all!

My dears,

 

I have the pleasure to announce you that today, 20-06-2006, at 9:30 (Romanian time, or 4:30 BR time) I have become an auntie!!!! My brother’s wife gave birth to a healthy “little” boy (it weights 3,700 kg J) …. Yuppyyyyyyyyyyyyy!!!!

 

Photos will follow as soon as I’ll receive them.

 

Many kisses,

 

Magda.

... and life is getting interesting here :)

 

This weekend we watched 3 games:

 

Argentina -Ivory Coast (3-1)

Mexico - Iran (3-1)

Portugal - Angola (1-0)

 

Now, Tuesday, the game between Brazil and Croatia just finished (1-0 for Brazil) ... we're really getting in the mood!! We were all at work, watching the game, with nice food and soda... work in whole Brazil is stopping when their team plays...wow!!!

 

And what is really cool is that all the teams that our Friends of the UN group supported won!!!

 

We have Pablo from Argentina ... Argentina won

Adrián, Alex, Valeria and Jesus from Mexico ... they won

We had Rita from Portugal (and I've also been in Portugal and loved it... so I am also supporting them :) ) - and they also won...

 

I like the cup until now ;)

 

 

I still cannot believe I actually got to participate in the Rio Carnaval (RC)… not just to watch the Samba Schools parading (“desfilar”) but to actually parade with one of them… and not just “one of them”, but the champion one!!!

 

Yes, it’s true: our Samba School (SS), called “Vila Isabel” was the winner of the Carnaval!! (É Campeã!!!)

 

I don’t know how many of you know, but I had no clue about it… the RC is actually the biggest artistic event in the whole world, as it involves all kind of artistic activities (only imagine the skills necessary to create so many costumes (“fantasias”) and the allegoric trucks – which were gorgeous!!

And it is actually a competition… and the SSs are preparing the whole year for this event…

 

But… let’s start with the beginning…

 

From the beginning, our “Friends of the UN” group said that we will participate in the parade (“desfilo”)… but… as we are many… and most of us with Latin blood J… we only organized ourselves and started to call to Rio at the SSs very late, so most of them had already all the fantasias sold, or there were only the +/- ugly/uncomfortable/expensive ones left…

Fortunately the one we finally got was not ugly (tough it depends how many beers you drink before you state your opinion ;) ) and was quite cheap (considering the average prices there) – it was 350 R$, which would mean something like USD$160 or 140 euros… (and you actually get the costume for yourself to keep… if you can carry it L ).

 

Our costumes wore the name of “Republic of bananas” and… yes.. you’re right… they had a lot of bananas… a lot of yellow, green… and in order to use them without feeling a little awkward you must have a very well developed sense of humour... as we did ;).

 

At least our costumes, even if they took a looot of space in Simone's house (our work colleague and friend - of the UN ;)  - original from Rio) were not as big as others we saw there... in shape of little boats (we were actually thinking at a certain moment to buy those ones... good that we didn't do it in the end...).

 

Well... finaly, in the day of the Carnaval, at about 8-9 PM we started to prepare ourselves for the big event. After more than 2 hours of laughing at each other when seeing how funny we looked like in the banana costumes ("Bananas in pijamas" as we called ourselves) we were ready to start moving. Trouble was that the "Sambodrom" was very far from our place. We first walked to the metro station (through a rain that had already started and messed up our costumes - the color of reddish banana flower belt spread on our white pants :((( ) . At the metro station we find out that because of the special day - Saturday night + Carnaval - the metro had worked only until 6 PM...

 

Imagine 14 funny looking banana-people trying to stop taxis on a pouring rain... well... as you might have guessed... it was not so easy...

In the end we got into taxis: 2 or 3 of us in each car, some of us catching a little van... With all the leafs and bananas of our costumes, we got to make a tropical forest out of each taxi :)) it was really funny :).

 

When we got there we just had the most wanderful and interesting view... thousands of people in different fantasias (only in our samba school were about 3.400 people "desfilando"... so imagine that with about 12 samba schools... ). The creativity of the costumes, the beautiful colours, the exitedness on people faces... that was amazing...

 

Well.. this feeling kind of wore off after we had to wait about 3 hours to start our "desfilo" ;)  (We arrived there at midnigh 25th to 26th of February and we waited until 3 AM to actually start our parade... )... but it was worth it!!!

 

When we started finaly to move and entered on the street between the audience... wow... it was really great the feeling... we were an active part of the most famous cultural event of Latin America!!! We were there, little tiny bits of the big mechanism of the Rio Carnaval!!! Yahoooooo :)

 

It was not really easy to move (I'm not even saying to dance samba!!) with all that huge costume, we were sweating like crazy... but the feeling was extraordinary...

 

At the end, when our Vila Isabel samba school finished its parade... the audience started to scream "É campeão!!! É campeão!!!" (It's the champion!!)... And... 2 days afterwards, already on our way back to São Paulo, when we were driving again in our 4-5 cars listening the scores for each school (there are a lot of things counting for the final grade... I would have never imagined so organized and strict!!)... we got the big news: OUR SAMBA SCHOOL WON!!!!

 

You should have seen us... getting our heads out of the cars and yelling at each other ""É campeão!!! É campeão!!!", singing loud the "Enredo" of Vila Isabel (Enredo is something like a power-play... the song that each school has composed for the Carnaval and that is sang during the "Desfilo" - we were supposed to know it by heart... and so we did... 33% of us :)))) ). Actually it was this "enredo" that brought the victory of our Samba School, as it had gained exactly the same amount of points as another school, and the Enredo was established (before) to be the decision element in such cases...

 

You can listen to our "enredo" and also check its lyrics at:

http://www.gresunidosdevilaisabel.com.br/sitenovo/apresentacao/apresenta.html

(there you can also see some pictures from the carnaval - its a flash with the sound and the pictures. If you don't have flash, go to this site:

http://www.gresunidosdevilaisabel.com.br/sitenovo/noticia.asp?id=45  )

 

 

 

 

To be continued... (Cabo Frio and Búzios)

 

 

 

 

 

 

U2 concert in São Paulo

Rio Carnaval :)))

 

Working on it...

Wear Sunscreen

"Enjoy the power and beauty of your youth;
oh never mind; you will not understand the power and beauty of your youth until they have faded.
But trust me, in 20 years you’ll look back at photos of yourself
and recall in a way you can’t grasp now how much possibility lay before
you and how fabulous you really looked….
You are not as fat as you imagine.

Don’t worry about the future; or worry, but know that worrying is as
effective as trying to solve an algebra equation by chewing bubblegum.
The real troubles in your life are apt to be things that
never crossed your worried mind;
the kind that blindside you at 4pm on some idle Tuesday.

Do one thing everyday that scares you

Sing

Don’t be reckless with other people’s hearts,
don’t put up with people who are reckless with yours.

Floss

Don’t waste your time on jealousy; sometimes you’re ahead, sometimes you’re behind…
the race is long, and in the end, it’s only with yourself.

Remember the compliments you receive, forget the insults;
if you succeed in doing this, tell me how.

Keep your old love letters; throw away your old bank statements.

Stretch

Don’t feel guilty if you don’t know what you want to do with your life…
the most interesting people I know didn’t know at 22 what they wanted to do with their lives,
some of the most interesting 40 years old I know still don’t.

Get plenty of calcium.

Be kind to your knees, you’ll miss them when they’re gone.

Maybe you’ll marry, maybe you won’t,
maybe you’ll have children, maybe you won’t,
maybe you’ll divorce at 40, maybe you’ll dance the funky chicken on your 75th wedding anniversary…
whatever you do, don’t congratulate yourself too much or be rate yourself either –
your choices are half chance, so are everybody else’s.
Enjoy your body,
use it every way you can…
don’t be afraid of it, or what other people think of it,
it’s the greatest instrument you’ll ever own..

Dance…even if you have nowhere to do it but in your own living room.

Read the directions, even if you don’t follow them.

Do NOT read beauty magazines, they will only make you feel ugly.

Get to know your parents; you never know when they’ll be gone for good.

Be nice to your siblings;
they are the best link to your past
and the people most likely to stick with you in the future.

Understand that friends come and go, but for the precious few you should hold on.
Work hard to bridge the gaps in geography and lifestyle
because the older you get,
the more you need the people you knew when you were young.

Live in New York City once, but leave before it makes you hard;
live in Northern California once, but leave before it makes you soft.

Travel

Accept certain inalienable truths,
prices will rise,
politicians will philander,
you too will get old, and when you do you’ll fantasize that when you were young
prices were reasonable,
politicians were noble
and children respected their elders.

Respect your elders

Don’t expect anyone else to support you.
Maybe you have a trust fund,
maybe you have a wealthy spouse;
but you never know when either one might run out.

Don’t mess too much with your hair,
or by the time you're 40, it will look 85.

Be careful whose advice you buy, but,
be patient with those who supply it.
Advice is a form of nostalgia,
dispensing it is a way of fishing the past from the disposal, wiping it off,
painting over the ugly parts and recycling it for more than it’s worth.

But trust me on the sunscreen…"

Baz Luhrmann - Everybody is free to wear sunscreen.

Was really an interesting experience J.

“Chiclete com Banana” (Chewing gum with banana flavor J ) is a very famous band here in Brazil, and the music simply doesn’t let you remain passive… its rhythm invites you to dance J… and so we did ;).

 

The concert started… hmm… I don’t know exactly when… but we got there about 10pm and there was already a band singing… Chiclete started to sing at about 12 pm – 1 am for about 2 hours. Cool!!!

 

Before and after their show there were some other popular bands like “Enemigos de HP” (I love them!! J ), “Jeito Muleque” and some other… We stayed there until 6 in the morning (my feet were killing me!!!) and we really enjoyed it!!

 

I love the fact that almost everybody knows the lyrics of the songs… and they all sing with the band… it’s so nice… Cannot say that I entered in this category L… but I’m working on it!! J

 

There are nevertheless some interesting and +/- traditional things happening at this kind of concert (“show” – as they call it).

 

-          Kissing… were you already thinking about it??? Well… it was one more time a (nice) surprise to see how much Brazilians love to kiss J. If somebody would have looked at the stadium from above, I think it could have seen some “waves” of guys going from one corner of the place to the other, slowly  :P… as they were stopping on their way to kiss the girls close to them… the only way to prevent this (if you wanted to) was to keep a close circle (as we did). This kind of concert (not in all of them happens like this, but the ones of Chiclete com Banana are famous for this kind of “phenomena”) are known as “micareta” and/or “pegação geral” (meaning something like “everybody kisses everybody”). I must say that there were moments when the singers were actually saying things like: “this is a good song to kiss the girl near you”, or “now is the time to kiss” … and other stuff like that.

-          No copyrights J - it seems pretty common here for bands to sing songs of other groups. I have been told this happens when a band doesn’t have very rich discography and they want to “fire up” the spirits… so they start singing very popular melodies of other bands. It happened like this at this concert also: I think that all of the bands sang some of the most famous songs of Chiclete… most probably you would not see this happening during such a big concert (26.000 tickets were sold) in Europe… but then again – here is Brazil… and it was really great!!!

-          Special moves for dances – for my AIESEC friends this might not be something new J - but I find this really nice here: there are a lot of songs (not only of Chiclete) that have special moves that almost everybody knows. And this I noticed also in the disco’s where I’ve been until now. It’s really nice to see that when a popular song starts, everybody sings and does the moves… I love it!

-          Abadão – this is a T-shirt that you normally receive before going to a Brazilian concert and sometimes (I don’t know if always) you have to pay for it (besides the ticket) or to give some food in exchange – in our case we had to give 1 kg of food (cans and stuff like that, that will last for long time) and the organizers were giving it away to poorer people. I think is a good idea this one. So… what’s the story with this t-shirts? You cannot enter at the concert if you don’t have them.  They are not of very good quality, not very nice and they were only one size – L or XL L (at least the ones we’ve got). But here comes the nice surprise: I think about 95% of the girls at the concert modified the t-shirts… and some of them in a very nice and creative way. I was really surprised of all the models they created!! We did the same, of course J. I got lucky because a colleague at work (Thank you, Lana!) did it for me (during working hours J and with the advice/feed-back of my boss J - nice company, isn’t it???). They told me that now, after wearing a modified “abadão” I am turning really Brazilian J … well…. I guess I still have some things to learn (like… dancing samba J ) but I still have time to get there J.

 

Now… after this 100% Brazilian concert I cannot wait to go to another one (probably a Ivete Sangalo concert, another very popular singer here)… But until then… I’ll have U2 concert on February 20^th and the Rio Carnival at the end of February!!!!!!!!! Yahooooooooooo…. Really cool J

 

Until then, if somebody has the opportunity to find on the net (oDC, KaZaa etc) some of the popular songs in Brazil, here is a short list:

 

Chiclete com Banana

-          Não vou chorar

-          100% Você

-          Quero Chiclete

 

Babado Novo

-          É Saudade

-          Amor Perfeito

 

Enemigos de HP

-          Eu preciso dela

 

Ivete Sangalo

-          Poeira

-          Arerê

-          Pererê

 

 

That’s all for now, my dears. Keep in touch!

 

 

“I’m dreaming of a white Xmas” was a song that I used to sing during the Xmas and NYs holidays that I had starting with December 23^rd until 3^rd of January, when I started work again…

 

Well… a white Xmas is the only thing that you cannot have here in Brazil J - it can be maybe in the South of the country… but rarely (that’s where the temperatures are lower normally).. or it can be white because of the sand of the beach J.

 

Nevertheless, what you can have here is a sunny weather, just perfect for beach, and some nice traditions to add the salt and pepper for the period. Nothing like the cold (less than 0°C) weather at home, the snow and the hot tee/wine that will make your blood run through your vanes again.

 

In the end, I spent Xmas in Sampa and NYs in Ubatuba, a beach near São Paulo... it’s traditional here to spend “a noite da virada” (the night of December 31^st to 1^st of January) at the beach and to “jump the waves” (“pular as ondas”). I’ll tell you more about it immediately.

 

Xmas

 

The people of the “Friends of the UN” group that stayed in Sampa for Xmas joined for a dinner on the 24^th J.

We had already had the Xmas party in the same group some days earlier and we did the “Secret friend” (as we also did it for the Xmas party within the company J ) again. I’ve got some really nice presents… so I must have done something good this year… is just hard to remember what exactly J

 

The dinner on 24^th was nice, excellent food (we had there the mother of our host, a Columbian called Fernando and the parents of another friend, Alex, Mexican – and they all cooked for us)… Yummii…

 

We also had nice music (danced a lot J ), talked a lot… and… damn.. there were much thinks that happened and I wanted to share but… now that more than one month passed… I don’t remember that well L. Well.. I must get used with getting old…

 

Between Xmas and NY’s I finally had the chance to rest (I slept a lot J ). As most of the trainees and other foreigners were not in town, we didn’t have so many parties J. I walked around in the town (better said, only in the center… The town is sooooo big that I don’t think I’ll get to know all of São Paulo even if I’ll spend 5 years here…).

 

As I hadn’t still received my first salary, I couldn’t consider spending the holidays in other regions of Brazil or at home, in J, as some of my friends did. Even like this, it really helped the fact that AIESEC here has a special account for AIESEC trainees, and they can borrow them with money to use until they receive the first salary from work. This was also the case for me, and I must say it was more than useful!!! (Thanx a lot @ GV!!!). It was quite difficult with the money here in the first month, as prices are a lot higher than in Bucharest L and I also had to pay already twice the rent for the apartment before I’ve got my money.

But because of this AIESEC money I could afford to go out of São Paulo, with a friend from work and her boyfriend. It was really cool the fact that in the last day of work before the holidays I still didn’t know what I could do for the NY’s and I was already kind of depressed thinking about spending the NY’s in SP… This colleague of mine, Carol (ex member of AIESEC GV) came to say goodbye and to wish me “Happy Holidays” and she asked me if I have already where to spend those days… Of course I hadn’t and so she told me about the place she was going, arranged for me to have accommodation at the same low price she had negotiated for her and her boyfriend (here there is also a system, that if you or your parents are part of an association or smth like this, you can have discounts for accommodation, etc) and so.. in less than half an hour I got nice place to spend my NY’s J.

 

There are a lot of things to say about how it was there, but I will try to make it short… but still there are some stories you need to know J

 

The place we stayed was quite far from the beach (but for us was ok, as we went by car, and we could go wherever we wanted and it didn’t cost us much, as we also shared the costs of gasoline) and was more or less in the middle of the nature… very very nice (not top quality J but for the money we paid was more than ok).

Now… funny thing (scary for me at that moment) is that in the room you could find some very interesting creatures (especially that during the day I used to leave the big door from the balcony opened and we were at the ground floor)… creatures like lizards (I actually found 2 of them… one very very small – about 2 centimeters on my bedroom’s ceiling and another one – about 7 cm on the walls of my bedroom… brrr… but that’s nothing compared with what happened in the first night!!!

 

I use to catch my hair with 2 hairpins, black, about half centimeter thick. I left these 2 hairpins on my bedside table. About 2 or 3 in the night, I woke up… Could not sleep, so I started to stare at the room.. It was dark, could only distinguish shadows… I happen to see that on the floor it was something black (or at least it looked black J ) … about half a centimeter thick… and more or less the same length as my hairpins… Guess what? I thought that during my sleep I touched my hairpins and one of them got on the floor… I believe by now you can imagine that actually it was not like this… I got down from my bed and I grasped my “hairpin”… F---ing shit!!!!!!!!!!! It started to move and hooked slightly against my finger!!!!!!!!!!! Bleahhhhhhhhhhhh!!!! I yelled and threw it away… I turned on the light and I saw it was a kind of black worm, with way too many legs!!!!!!!!!!!! Brrrrr!!! If you remember the clips from Prodigy… it was something like that!!!! Totally diiiiiiiiiisguuuuuuuuuuustiiiiiiiiing!!!!!!! I don’t remember ever being so shocked and so brrr… scared…  I don’t want to remember anymore… I think I washed my hands about 10 times (used a lot of soap J) and still after one hour (could not sleep anymore after that) I was  feeling in my fingers the impress of that poor animal… damn… I love nature… but I must say that not in all its details… some are better to remain unknown for me J.

 

Well.. but let’s skip this and pass to some nicer stories… like…

 

We had a lot of fun during those days… We spend our time either at the beach (we visited 3 beaches in the aria – Praia Vermelha (Red Beach), Praia da Almada, and the central beach of Ubatuba). We ate a lot of fish and shrimp and in the evenings we used to go at a veryyyyy nice house of some friend of Ri and Carol, with a lot of hammocks, a lot of churrasco (grill), a lot of nice beer… Just perfect!

 

A noite da virada

 

It was with all this people that I spent the night between 2005 and 2006 (“a noite da virada”) in a very nice disco near the beach where I got the chance to gain a “deeper understanding” of the Brazilian way of spending time in a disco J … I think I commented about this issue in a former post so I will not go through it again… It was fun J 

 

What I really liked about the traditions they have here for the New Years is that they all (or at least 95% of Brazilians) use to dress in white in this night, adding some strips of different colors signifying what they want to have in the next year (girls must use lingerie of that certain color):

-          Red = Passion (I received the advice of not wearing red at sight, as the young Brazilians, very friendly and willing to help as they are, might think to offer me from the first night of the year a lot of … passionate kisses… more than one could take for a night ;)… I believe it could have been the case, as during the night there were a lot of guys forming a line (looking very similar to a police line trying to stop demonstrators…) and stopping the girls, offering to give them the first kiss of the year J )

-          Pink = Love

-          Blue = Hope

-          Green = Prosperity

-          White = Peace

-          Yellow = Money

 

Another tradition I liked here was the one where you were supposed to jump 7 waves (good that we were at the seaside J ) and make a wish for every wave you jumped… You’re supposed to do this anytime you can between 00:00 of 1^st of January until 23:59 of the same day. They call this “pular as ondas”.

 

They also use to eat “lentilhas” (a type of vegetables – see the picture) they use to eat in the NYs night, because of the coin-shape they have, believing it’s going to bring success on the financial field.

 

 

I ate also some of this “lentilhas” at the house of one of the girls in this new group of friends. Yummy! We also ate a type of food cooked with salty “bacalhão” (recipe the Portuguese brought in Brazil)  that I used to love while I was in Portugal J.

 

To conclude this “short” story of my “winter holidays” (here it’s summer), I must say that even if I missed the snow I’m used to have in Romania (or at least the low temperatures we have there during this period) I really enjoyed the celebrations here, getting to know new customs, make new friends and… new wishes for the year to come. I’m sure 2006 will be a “year to remember” J!!