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.
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