E x p a t r i a

12.26.2000

I'm a bad Blogger. A bad, bad, bad, remiss Blogger.
But of course you knew that. Hope you all made it through the Christmas Ho-Ho-Hectic. I can honestly say I've enjoyed the most relaxing Christmas of my life, but let me backtrack:
After the Amazon, I trundled back to São Paulo for the weekend only to be shipped back off to Campinas where I promptly had a long weekend due to the Day of the Dead. I didn't do a whole lot, but slept and wrote and such and generally recovered from the whirlwind of the vacation that spanned three countries two continents and two hemispheres. I finished up my meetings in Campinas and headed back to the Great Concrete. Much easier to establish a routine here, man o man is it nice to have a base of operations. I'm in a nice little two bedroom flat in the Jardim Europa district that has a cure little lounge-y pool area (of which I've been partaking of late) a gym, sauna and squash courts.
I have a driver again, morning and night he takes me safely to and from work. No more getting lost and straggling with cabbies and cab chits, trying desperately to give directions to my residence when I A.) Don't speak he language, B.) don't know how to navigate the city (which is renown for traffic and one way streets) and C.) Can't drive. My driver's name is Mauri - and he's a real sweetheart. I can't tell you how very welcome it is - after all of my travels and all of my mishaps and all of the low-grade stress at lack of language and travel and such - to see a sweet friendly face every morning and every night. We've come to be fabulous friends, and he has, in fact, proclaimed me to be his "irma Canadense" (Canadian sister). We've taken to bantering and such and I'm quite proud to note that my Portuguese has improved almost as much as his English. I can now not only order a cab, read my documents and avoid tuna on my pizza - but actually hold down a good, if rudimentary conversation, kid around, and imitate TV commercials.
Mom came down a couple of weeks ago, just in the nick of time. I picked her up death early on a Saturday morning, and after work that day Mauri drove all of the expats and her, I and all the other expats to Embu to do a little artisan shopping. That night we had a potluck Christmas dinner that was very nummy indeed, but by 10:30 both Mom, who had hardly managed to sleep on the plane, and I who had been up since 4:30, dragged our sorry buts off to bed. The next day, bright and early we were up again and off to Guarujá. A beach-town on the southeast coast of Brazil, Guarujá is about an hour by car from São Paulo, barring traffic and construction (which there invariably is).

A busy busy beach, but a lovely one - it's a very different experience from the Copacabana which is very busy, tourist-y, body conscious, messy and you can't walk three feet without tripping over someone who's trying to sell you something. Guarujá is mostly just locals and people from São Paulo desperate to escape the concrete jungle for a weekend or an afternoon. There are several beaches in the area, but Santos draws most of the tourists away from beaches like this one. So we spent an afternoon romping in the huge salty surf, sprawling on the sand and getting sun-baked. All of those who scoffed my lack of tan when I was home in October should see me now. Whoo!
So in the last couple of weeks all of the other expats have fled to Canada for their holidays leaving me and mom lonesome and free in São Paulo. We've tromped all over the Jardim, shopped on Paulista, ate the best pudim (crème caramel) that any baiana ever made, had an ersatz tour of Centro from Mauri. We went down to the Praça de Sé which has the very center point of all São Paulo, we did a tour of churches:

And saw the Teatro Municipal, the Praça da Isabela and Republica, Court Buildings, the first Jesuit Seminary of Brasil, and the hoards… I mean -hoards- of people. Was very cool indeed.
Christmas we spent quietly together, lazing and reading on the roof by the pool, taking turns going down to check on the turkey, marveling at how quiet and deserted São Paulo - at least our section of São Paulo had become on Christmas Day. As you can see on the right, I've been reading the Stand… so you can just imagine how very odd the sudden silence of the chaos of São Paulo had become. Heh. We did (I should say Mom did) really well for ourselves as far as dinner was concerned. Decidedly Brazilian flares such as mango salsa (we tried to decide if it was a chutney, a salsa, a confit or whatnot, but Mom's settled on salsa) made our Canadian flair just different enough to be special. All in all, it was a wonderful Christmas… and one I'm not like to repeat…. I mean how often do you get to be lazy in the 28 degree celsius Brazilian sun on Christmas day?
So, in short, we've been having a faboo time, and shivering to think of you all in "muito frio" Canada where we hear it's mighty blustery. Mom's on her way back on new Year's eve. I'll see if I can send some sun up with her.
posted by The Mo of Space and Death 09:15 (her time) @