primeiro fim de semana

The rest of the first week of class was fine. Thursday and Friday, a Korean student also named Jay was in my classes and as a beginner he kind of slowed things down, but he’s going to be in a different class this week. I’ve basically developed a comfortable routine for weekdays: wake up at 7:15 to get ready and eat breakfast with Cida before walking over to the school for class at 8:30; class from 8:30-10:00, 10:30-noon, and 1:30-3:00; and lunch in between classes at a nearby café where I read The Economist or Harry Potter y el cáliz de fuego on my iPad. After class, I head home, spend an hour or two in the gym, eat dinner with Cida and Gati, then hang out reading or on the computer for the evening. Not a bad way to live.

Friday evening, I went with Cida and Gati to the apartment of their son, Luciano and his very pregnant wife Patricia, who is scheduled to give birth this week if I understood correctly. I had a mildly horrifying experience when I met one of Patricia’s Argentine friends there. I tried to speak Spanish to her, but for some reason only (bad) Portuguese would come out when I tried and I got totally tongue-tied. Hopefully it won’t be too much of a problem when I head back to Buenos Aires in July. Later the five of us went to a pizzeria for a late dinner. São Paulo is actually famous for its “pizza paulistana,’ which was in fact delicious.

After sleeping in for the first time in a week, I hung around the house during the day Saturday. Saturday night, I met up with Lucas, a friend of a friend. I went with him to a birthday party of one of his friends, which consisted of pre-gaming at an apartment complex then heading to a club. We ended up staying there until about 6 AM (pretty standard here), and I made it home in time just to see the sun rise before I went to sleep. Everything here is ridiculously expensive, including clubs. The one we went to last night had a minimum charge of 80 reais (approximately $50), which got me 5 drinks throughout the night. After meeting a lot of new people, I’ve noticed that everyone is very surprised to meet a gringo American like me in São Paulo. Usually tourists head for Rio de Janeiro. I wanted to live and study in São Paulo because it’s the major business center in Brazil, and international business is the reason I’m studying Portuguese in the first place.  Anyway, the weekend was a lot of fun, and I'm looking forward to the week ahead.