Floripa

@Derick: as they say, practice everything in moderation, except moderation.

@Hugh: Just because you use large, complex words like “lobbyist” and “noun” doesn’t mean you can correct my flawless grammer and speling. After all, everything after the first paragraph is essentially filler as no one actually ever reads to that point. I like it that way: I have a place to write my secrets where no one will EVER find them.

So last weekend I took a trip to Florianopolis, a beach city about 5 hours south of here by bus. I went with my friend Robert, who is an American from Bolívia who is also studying abroad here. It was typical tropical paradise stuff, you know, untouched white sand beaches, friendly locals attending to our every need and desire. Quite boring really. We went sand surfing, which was one of my few recollections from my last and only trip here, 10 years ago (whoa it feels cool to say ’10 years ago’).

The city itself is actually pretty amazing. It’s built around a series of gorgeous, navigable lakes and lagoons, which are all on a large offshore island on a, of course, perfect coastline. The effect is a wonderland of water, large rock formations, white sand dunes, and very charming little towns here and there full of mostly fishermen. All of which means, of course, that it will all soon become a hypercommercialized, overpriced, overcrowded tourist trap. 

We stayed at a hostel full of absolutely crazy English, irish, and Australian people. They partied EVERY single night, weekend or not, rain or shine, until dawn basically. I don’t know how they did it. The place was a little wacky - all the employees and the owner are young (about the age of the hostelers), and they partied harder than anyone, usually leaving no one sober to man the front desk or do anything else of value except cause a ruckus. I have a sneaking suspicion that the entire operation is a party-creating machine for them, and exists only to provide an endless supply of revelers. I slept in a room with 4 other people, and about 8 people in two rooms shared what we in the U.S. would call a “guest bathroom.” It was actually pretty cool.

Bone to Pick

First of all, I was really happy to hear that you all enjoyed the tales of my misfortune so much. Apparently you all love hearing about my public humiliations, my near-death green tea experiences, and my unintentional disruptions of religious events. I’m really happy for you, really. No, really. By the way, for those of you who wrote in, don’t worry, I’ll be sure to get it on tape if I’m robbed, kidnapped, or otherwise violently assaulted, and post it on YouTube for millions to enjoy. In the words of one loyal reader, “why keep such priceless entertainment to ourselves, right?” You sickos...

In other news, did you guys hear about this recent episode in the White House? It is so typical of Bush. It appeared in the memoirs of Lewis “Scooter” Libby, Dick Cheney’s chief of staff, who was convicted of five counts of perjury recently. The President’s staff and advisors were sitting in the Situation Room, giving the president his daily briefing on U.S. military activities around the world. An aide was reading news from various conflicts and said, “Five Brazilian soldiers were killed yesterday...”, to which Bush responded with “Oh no! That’s terrible!” Everyone sat shocked at this rare display of emotion, as Bush covered his face with his hands and slowly exhaled. After a few minutes of uncomfortable silence, President Bush looked up and asked “How many is a brazillion?”

Ok, just kidding, that was a joke. Ha ha. I can’t take credit for it though.

By the way, I have a bone to pick. For those of us born in the United States of America, everywhere we go in the world we’re known as Americans. Now some people *cough* bleeding-heart liberal America-haters *cough* get mad when you say “Americans,” because they say it implies that the United States is the only American country that matters and is somehow representative of all “true” continental Americans and this is just one more example of the U.S. extending its imperialistic claws into other sovereign nations seeking to dominate the hearts and minds of a generation addicted to the poison of MTV and Coke and other American fabrications. Or something.

But the real reason we’re known as “Americans” is quite simple: the English language does not have a way to make “United States” into an adjective. In Portuguese, unlike in English, there is actually a way to make “United States” an adjective: estados unidense, which is both the longest and coincidentally the ugliest-sounding word in any human language. No one uses it. Americans’ attention-spans are not sufficiently long enough to permit its use in everyday speech.

So first of all, blame the British for their not flexible enough language, and secondly, blame the video game companies, for allowing us to raise our kids with hair-trigger attention spans. But even if there’s some blame left over, don’t look at me. If you really think about it, the names of countries are by definition ethnocentric. Do we respect the spelling conventions of Portuguese and spell “Brazil” with an “s.” Nooooooooo. Do we respect the French origins of “The Ivory Coast” and call it “Côte d”ivoire”? Don’t think so. In reality we translate ALL country names into our OWN language, and so does everyone else. If we called countries by how they see themselves, Japan would be 日本国, Germany would be Deutschland, and France would be God’s Gift to Mankind-Land.

So next time someone says that you shouldn’t call yourself an “American,” remind them that they’re being ethnocentric by insisting that you conform to their particular international political nomenclature system. If they make it to that fourth multi-syllabic word without passing out, you know they’re good. You can then point out that if they insist on calling us “people from the United States” instead of “Americans,” then they also need to call Brazil the “United States,” since the country’s official name is “The United States of Brazil.” Oh snap.

Anyway, I’ll keep this one short. Have a good week

I didn't know I was so stylish

Interesting experience I had the other day. I was walking down the street, minding my own business, and all of a sudden a group of kids started calling out and making remarks in my direction. What I heard once I started paying attention really took me by surprise: “Hey emo! Emo! Cry for me, emo! Waaaaaaa.” 

Now for the record, here is a picture of me in my getup soon after the incident.

Pretty standard Orange County attire, wouldn’t you say? 

Sure, I’m wearing those flat shoes, the jeans are maybe a 

fraction of a centimeter tighter than normal, and the sweater 

has a hood. Wow, guilty as charged (sarcasm). For the record again, the shoes I hijacked from my dad, who I think got them at GAP. The jeans I got from C&A, a large retailer here similar to the GAP. The shirt is a standard, plain, fruit-of-the-loom t-shirt. The jacket I got at Marshall’s. Do any of those sound particularly edgy? No, I didn’t think so. 

Now there’s nothing wrong with being emo, but seriously? Emo? If I’m going to be publicly ridiculed let it at least be something I actually am, like, I don’t know, nerd or gringo or something. 

That way at least I can feel indignant and sorry for myself. Geez. Interesting though, that this comes on the heels of anti-Emo violence across Mexico, which was followed by pro-Emo marches in major cities across the country (I swear I’m not making this up. See article here). Maybe we’re witnessing the birth of a new world order, the rise of an elite class of Emo ninjas who are able to manipulate and control us through their uncanny emotional sensitivity. I, for one, welcome our new Emo ninja overlords.

Anyway, after a good cry and some cutting I was as good as new.

Let’s see, what else of great import has happened lately. Oh! I found what must be the worst drink in the known universe. It’s mere existence is surely an abomination - I’m pretty sure it alone has pushed up the coming of the Anti-Christ by at least a couple decades. Behold:

“What’s wrong with green tea?” you ask. Fool! This is no ordinary green tea! This is green tea with pineapple and mint!!! Just try, just try to imagine what this foul libation tastes like, and you will know what it is to stare death in the face. I’m in the final stages of launching a weight-loss plan based entirely on this drink - a sip of it will kill your appetite for days. For more extreme cases, simply drink a full bottle and if the ensuing sickness doesn’t cause you to lose 70% of your bodyweight, your money back!

No honestly, it wasn’t that bad.

So I spent Easter in São José dos Campos, a city about 8 hours north by bus, near São Paulo. On Easter night I went to Mass at a Catholic church with my friends, the Domingues’. We were sitting in the pews and a lady asked us if we would help with the collection during the service. Since none of us could find the courage to refuse such a request on Easter Sunday, we complied. 

We lined up in the room behind the altar, got our baskets,

 and marched out at the appropriate time. As I took my position in front of the congregation, basket held open, and began to collect the offerings, it slowly dawned on me that the entire congregation was looking at me. And I don’t mean it felt like everyone was looking at me. I’m sure I must have looked like some mischevious demon, with spiked hair and my bright purple shirt, sent by Satan himself to steal the offerings on Easter Sunday and distract the faithful from their prayers. About the only thing I didn’t do was light the curtains on fire using the candles, grab the incense burner from the priest, and swing it in a wide arc over my head while standing on the altar and yelling expletives in four languages. But apparently I thought about it. Meanwhile, my three friends were dying of embarassment, forced to stand obediently in front of a congregation composed of their friends, teachers, classmates, and neighbors, which was, of course, more than enough reward for my troubles. Yes, there is a special place in hell waiting for me.

Unfortunately, I don’t have a picture of this incident. The closest thing I have is my friend Daniel working the front door before the mass started. The video is of a night out with some friends. Unfortunately, you’ll notice the babes are on one end of the table, and the guys....well, the guys are on a different end.

This is neat. On the way out of Renner (I think), you see this device. It has three buttons - very

 satisfied, satisfied, and insatisfied. You press the one that best applies to you, and that way the store management has an objective, clear, fair-and-balanced measure of customer satisfaction. Right? Um, right? Uhhhhh.......no. The system is totally rigged, because they put a beautiful yet conspicuously shy woman right next to it. So it’s clearly rigged, can’t you see? No? Well obviously no guy is going to press a button called “unsatisfied” while staring deep into the eyes of a gorgeous Brazilian woman. And the women are afraid of hurting the feelings of this poor shy little thing, and so they too inflate their scores. Sad, just sad. Plus the letters, which seem to simply be abbreviations of what it says below, spell “Miss” when rearranged, subliminally implying that this decision is to be made based on the woman standing right in front of you, and not on your insignificant feelings about your shopping experience which we don’t really care about anyway. Don’t believe me? Just look at those numbers. Do you honestly believe that 94.9% of anyone anywhere is satisfied with anything?

Actually, to be fair, it was only 94.7% before my friend Pedro and I pushed the “Very Satisfied” button. Don’t judge me! 

Besides that, I saw a cool modern dance performance at the Guaíra Theatre, because this whole week was the biggest theatre festival in Brazil, here in Curitiba. I also stayed up until 5 in the morning making up names for Herbie, my friend Daniel’s fish (the best one we came up with? Herbie...........the fish), discovered a full buffet for only 3.90 reais close by home, watched an Elvis impersonator perform at a local church for surfers and other extreme sports enthusiasts, and visited the famous Botanical Garden of Curitiba. Pictures, people.