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.