settling in and seeing Rio

Glad to see that so many people are reading this. Now, if you could shower me with compliments about my blogging, that would also encourage me to continue writing...

I'm starting to get settled in now. My host family really is fantastic. They are basically an active recently retired couple and they seem to really want to have me in their home. Unlike other homestays I've had in the past, I'm not just a way to make money for them. They are basically taking care of me as if I were there son/grandson. My only complaint is that there is no heating (in any apartment in São Paulo), since it is usually about 70 degrees during the day (harsh winter huh?) but gets chilly in the house at night. So I'm just doing my best to fight my nudist tendencies when I'm in the apartment and piling on blankets when I go to sleep.

The first days of class have been solid. This is the low season for visitors (since it’s winter here), and right now I'm the only person in my class at the language school. So, I'm getting one on one instruction from four different professors at this point, which is nice. Next week, other people are supposed to join. My Portuguese is pretty good, but I'm kind of starting to think that although it sounds like I'm nearly semi-fluent, the truth is I'm speaking Portuñol (Portuguese + Spanish). Basically, when I don't know a word in Portuguese, I just say it in Spanish, and I think that half the time people understand what I'm saying and just don't correct me.

In between classes I have a lunch break, which I've spent grabbing a quick meal and exploring the neighborhood. The neighborhood is extremely hilly, much like San Francisco, so I get a decent workout just walking around. Today I tried a famous Brazilian pastel in a feira (street market). It was basically just a glorified hot-pocket fried with ground beef, but it was really tasty.

Once I got home after class today, I went with my host parents, Cida and Gatti, to a mall, which here they call a "shopping," spoken with a heavy accent (e.g. Vamos ao shopping. = We are going to the mall.). We had some tea and famous pão de queijo (cheese bread) at a cafe in the food court, then saw the movie Rio in the cinema there. I felt more legitimate seeing Rio in Brazil, but unfortunately for me, the movie was dubbed in Portuguese. I understood enough of it to follow the story and understand everything that was going on, but definitely missed a lot of funny moments from the dialogue. Maybe I'll watch it in English sometime to see what I missed. A final interesting note: São Paulo's traffic is so bad, that apparently they have restrictions on driving for people during rush hour. I didn't exactly understand who it applies to or how it's enforced, but apparently, today we were not allowed to drive between 5:00-8:00 PM, so we arrived at the mall before then and left after.

and so it begins: arrival in São Paulo, Brazil

So I'm going to try to keep a blog of all of my travels. If you are actually reading this, please let me know to encourage me to provide regular updates. For those of you who didn't know, I´ll be traveling in South America from May 27-August 31. I left Atlanta Friday night and will depart from Lima, Peru on August 31. Between now and then I will spend some time living in Sao Paulo and Buenos Aires, while doing some quality backpacking through Brazil, Argentina, Uruguay, Chile, Bolivia, and Peru. The title of my blog is just Spanish for "Where in the world is Jay Lanners?"

Right now that question should really be "Onde no mundo está Jay Lanners?" (That's Portguese.) After an uneventful 9.5 hour overnight flight from Atlanta that did not involve much sleep, I arrived in São Paulo, Brasil on Saturday morning. From the airport, I took a taxi to the house of my friend Bel Guarita, a rising sophomore at Davidson who was my AT for Self-Instructional Portuguese last semester. Bel and her family were incredible, giving me a place to spend the night and feeding me very well. After a solid nap, I spent most of the afternoon relaxing. That evening, Bel and her mom took me to a shopping mall to get a prepaid phone. They actually let me use one of their old cell phones and helped me buy a SIM card and prepaid plan. It was very helpful to have them doing the talking at the phone store. Anyone that wants to call me for the next 5 weeks can reach me at +55 (11) 9999-1158. After dinner, I spent the evening getting beat by Bel's little brother in PS3 games. Today, I went with her family to her grandparents' house for a delicious Sunday lunch. Afterwards they dropped me off at the apartment where I will be living for the next four weeks in a homestay.

I was greeted excitedly by my new host parents, a couple in their mid sixties. They have been very nice and seem really excited to have me staying with them. We talked for a while and had tea. Then they showed me around the apartment complex and the neighborhood. The apartment has a small gym, which, combined with the P90X I hacked onto my iPhone and iPad, should be good enough to keep me in shape despite the large quantities of delicious food that I am bound to eat over the next four weeks. The neighboorhood seems pleasant. I'll explore it more tomorrow.

São Paulo itself is enormous. There are tons of large "bairros" (neighboorhods), and it is incredibly spread out. It is very much a driving city, not unlike a bigger version of Atlanta. In the past two days I have spoken and listened to more Portuguese than I did over the entire last semester. I am proud of my ability to converse thus far. Although currently I speak very poorly and am limited to a a few tenses, I have been able to have fairly legitimate conversations with Bel's family and my host parents. Still there is a lot of head nodding and pretending that I understand what they are saying. I am certain that the 120 hours of class over the next four weeks combined with the homestay will help me improve tremendously. Immersion is definitely the key. Tommorow is my first day of class. I'll let you know how that goes.