Rio Gringa

When Two Worlds Collide, Chapter 2: Brazilian Boy Tours with the Parents

Today was Day 2 and after sifting through our options we finally decided to take the rents out to Zona Oeste, the west part of the city.

We had some slight problems with timing and wound up waiting a while for the cab to pick us up at home. In the meantime, we saw the cops on our street bring in two very young girls, probably between 11 and 14, handcuffed to each other, wearing skimpy clothing and one sucking a pacifier. Depressing.

Finally, finally the cab came and we got my parents and we were off. First, we decided to go to Vista Chinese, the Chinese Lookout Point, in Sao Conrado. Except the cab driver didn't really know where it was and we kept driving up, up and up into the forest on these tiny windy roads, and everyone was thinking, "Are we going to get lost in the jungle?"

Then, we experienced my first blitz.

A "blitz" is when cops stop you and check you and your car, and quite often ask for a "tip" to let you continue on your way. We played dumb gringos. The cop opened the back door and saw us and said in broken English, "Where are you from?" I told him a bit too earnestly, "NEW YORK!!!" He laughed and said "World Trade Center!" and shut the door. And that was that.

Some time later, we made it to the Vista Chinesa and the view was completely worth it.

 

We also saw some lizards and some fluorescent blue butterflies while we were up there. PS: Full photo set available in my new album, Parents in Rio.

After that, we went to Barra Shopping for a quick lunch. I'd actually never been inside before but my impression was that it's just a mall. It also happens to be the biggest one in Latin America, but whatever. My mom and I got Asian buffet and Eli and my dad got pizza.

Off we went to Prainha, one of my favorite beaches in Rio. My parents loved it and seemed impressed by the incredible beauty of the place. At one point my mom goes, "Can we get some alcoholic drinks?" and I was like well sure. So Eli and I got a caipirinha and a caipimaracuja and me and my mom were sailing for the rest of the afternoon.Later, Eli and I wandered around as he looked for rocks to climb, and we came across these two guys playing a bizarre instrument that looked like two steel drums placed on top of one another. It was weird but made beautiful sounds. We also came across a guy climbing a huge boulder with nothing but a bag of rosin and some climbing shoes.

Eventually, we decided to tear ourselves away from the beautiful beach and set off into the terrible traffic, which crawled for over an hour but eventually cleared up. Eli and I hung out at the hotel while my parents changed, lounging in some seriously amazing hammocks overlooking the beach, and then we went back to our place to change (and to show it to my parents for the first time). They seemed to like it, probably because it just had a deep clean thanks to our awesome new cleaning lady. Then we went to our favorite churrascaria, and I was seriously impressed by my mom's willingness to try almost every meat they put in front of her (except for chicken heart). My dad and Eli exchanged language tips (Portuguese, Hebrew, and Arabic) and my mom and I shared dessert. My dad attempted to use some of his new skills on the waiter by saying "I'm done" (estou satisfeito), and the waiter kind of just looked at him.

Another day in Rio and my parents and boyfriend are co-existing peacefully and happily. And tonight, for some reason, the whole city smelled liked jasmine blooming.

Awesome.

Check it out...

Two quick shout outs:

1. Thank you to Typepad for featuring my blog today!!

2. Check out my Portuguese blog for some good travel tips.

When Two Worlds Collide, Chapter 1: Brazilian Boy Meets the Parents

Today was the day. It's been eight months since I've seen my parents, and eight months since I left home. And it's been over a year and a half since I met my boyfriend, and my parents didn't meet him until today.

I had to give two English classes, go to the office, come home, wait impatiently, and then we finally left for the airport, when in true Brazilian form, our taxi driver told us the entire story of his life, about how he's worked since he was 10 and was unemployed for awhile and is new to the job and is about to graduate from college and wants to leave the country and work abroad because everything is so shitty here. Uplifting.

Anyway, we waited FOREVER at the airport (maybe over an hour), which was torturous, but at least entertaining. I love the internationals arrivals gate, especially in Brazil. There were a whole bunch of beautiful young Brazilians arriving from working/traveling abroad to visit their families, and were met by sobbing mothers crying "MAS VOCE ESTA LIIINDO" and beaming fathers and occasionally little kids. I was a little taken aback by an absolutely stunning woman dressed in kind of cheap clothes meeting what looked like her daughters and her mom (model? stripper? who knows). There were also the groggy European backpackers, the wide-eyed American tourists, the many American businessmen, and a large Chinese family of tourists. I loved watching the families reunite, until I was the one reuniting!

I think the moment Eli came over to meet my parents was simultaneously one of the most nerve-wracking and wonderful moments of my life. I knew everything was going to go well when Eli offered his hand to my dad and instead my dad gave him a big hug. It's weird it's been so long since I've seen my parents, but it felt totally normal to be with them, even here.

We got them checked into their hotel and Eli and I waited around as my parents got themselves somewhat oriented. I realized that second to the airport, hotels are pretty good people watching, but instead of being sentimental reunions it's mostly really skeevy goings-on, at least in Rio. We saw an American guy and two Brazilian "colleagues" interviewing people for one of those programs where Brazilians pay a small fortune to get a job in the US so that the host company will help them get a visa and help keep them in blissful indentured servitude. Gross. We also saw an extremely odd scenario: a gay European couple arriving from the airport with a fABloyant Brazilian man, who at first I thought was a local prostitute but had a few suitcases with him (the Europeans did not) so I was kind of confused. Anyway it was a pretty ridiculous thing to see, mostly due to the fact that no one batted an eyelash at the spectacle.

After my parents got themselves ready, we headed to Leblon for lunch (getting slightly confused along the way) but finally found one of my favorite little places, Juice Co, which impressed my parents with the fun decor and yummy food and delicious juice concoctions. Since we were near the temple where I brought my grandma, we decided to swing by to see if we could take a peek in so my parents could visit a real Brazilian synagogue. However, the security guard flipped out and muttered that we had to make an appointment and you can't just show up and yadda yadda. He called "someone" who said in order to go inside we'd each have to pay R$18. I understand the security concerns, but the nerve of asking us to pay was just too much for me to deal with.

Lesson: Beit Lubavitch Synagouge in Leblon, Rio de Janeiro does not accept even it's own people. FYI.

Anyway, then we went to Pao de Acucar, my dad grumbling all the way about being tired and disoriented, but I think both my parents enjoyed it, especially since we caught a gorgeous, gorgeous sunset and even saw some really cute mico monkeys. It was my fourth time but the view still makes me catch my breath.

We also had a funny experience when my dad asked a bunch of Israelis to take our picture, in Hebrew. The guy was completely taken aback, and had that "Wha?" look on his face to see this big bald American dude speaking to him in Hebrew, but he regained his composure and asked with a completely straight face, in English, "Jesus, or no Jesus?" (Referring to including him in the picture) I was the only one who found this completely hilarious and giggled the whole way down to the parking lot.

Then I took them to Hortifruti, so my mom could poke and smell the tropical fruit like I do, and she bought some stuff to bring back to the hotel, and then I proceeded to warn by parents it was not a good time to get back to the hotel due to traffic but they insisted they were tiredblabhblahblah and so we took about an hour to get back.

At one point in the day, my mom pulled me aside and said, "He is REALLY cute." [read: Eli] I was expecting to hear that but it was another very good sign.

Now I'm back in my apartment, exhausted out of my mind, with a pile of presents from my parents and aunt (thank you L!!), peanut butter, toiletries, medications, underwear, an obscene amount of candy, and a fair amount of donations for the ballet school.

But today was such a good day. My parents haven't met Eli's parents yet, but so far our worlds are colliding quite smoothly.

When Two Worlds Collide: Opening Tomorrow

Round-trip flight NYC-Rio: $2000
Tourist visas for two: $260
Pile of medications, contact lenses, peanut butter, and other necessary goods unavailable in Brazil: $230
Suitcase: $150
Sunscreen: $10

Meeting your daughter's Brazilian boyfriend for the first time in the Cidade Maravilhosa:

priceless.

The story of a New York suburban girl and a Carioca surfer boy, and the uniting of their families in one big smorgasboard of simultaneous translation, wild hand gestures, and severe awkwardness.

Opening tomorrow at a computer screen near you.

news briefings

• Rio's Metro announced that as of April 2nd, the fares will go up AGAIN--the second fare increase in 8 months. It will go up to R$2.55 and then in another matter of months, up to R$2.60. As someone who has to commute around for one of my jobs, this is very bad news.
• A Petrobras helicopter crashed off the coast of Rio, bringing 17 people between oil platforms. Three people have been declared dead and two are still missing. Apparently, the helicopter had to make an emergency landing in the water, and some people managed to escape on floats. It's not clear why they had to make this landing since the weather was fine and they'd been cleared for take-off with optimal conditions. Is this related to the Petrobras top secret robbery scandal???
• A gas explosion caused nine injuries and luckily, no deaths, in downtown Rio yesterday. Firefighters rescued people trapped in the ruins of the building, and hugged each other each time they managed to pull someone out. Some firefighters openly wept. I love Brazilians.
• Yesterday, the dollar hit an all-time low since 1999: R$1.684 to the dollar. I don't even want to touch my credit card. I want to hide it away somewhere. And cry a little.
• Rio may have a lot of thieves, but it also has its fair share of moronic thieves. Yesterday, a man carjacked a family's car in Botafogo, but was unable to drive it because he didn't know how to use the clutch, and wound up backfiring the car a bunch of times. So he gave up, got out, and stole another car. Except by that time, what with all his puttering around in the first car, the police had already tracked him down. They arrested him and put him in the police car, except Mr. Genius tried to escape by jumping out of the car and running, except for some reason he fell over and hit his head on the pavement. He was booked at the police station on my street.
• In Santa Catarina, a man unearthed an 18-kilo mandioca root. It looks like huge dragon claw to me.
• A family in Belem found a 3 meter-long snake in their bathroom. Sick!

 

there are those days

There are those days when you start the day knowing full well that you are perfectly healthy enough to be out and about but would have been much better off staying in bed all day.

Case in point: 3 English classes, each an hour apart, one of which I had patience for because he's advanced and I just let him talk and ask him questions about politics and current events and bask in the glory of semi-fluent English.

Today I also had some awkwardness at the kilo lunch place I usually go to. First of all, at busy lunch places like that are buffet-style, there are frequently not enough tables for everyone, so total strangers will sit together. It's also funny because if you sit down at someone else's table it is polite to say "Excuse me" (com licenca) as you sit down AND when you leave.

I don't mind too much when the person sits diagonal from me, but today I had three people sit at my table and I found it profoundly irritating and uncomfortable, and downed my food so I could get the hell out of there. Also, in my haste, I slipped and fell on the stairs on the way to the ground floor, which wouldn't have been so bad if a) it hadn't been one of those slow-motion falls where you can feel yourself going down and can't stop yourself and b) if the people downstairs hadn't noticed and gasped loudly, AY!.

Anyway, I'm pretty clumsy so I've grown accustomed to such embarrassing moments.

So there's a lot of interesting stuff in the news which I'll add later. For now, the news is that a maid is cleaning our kind of gross apartment to make it spick and span because...my parents are currently en route to Rio.

UPDATE: The maid asked if she could take home two shopping bags, one from a fancy book store and one from an upscale clothing store. I'm not sure if she knew where they were from or not, or if she just liked them because they have handles. I said of course. After all, carrying around nice plastic bags from stores is a status symbol here, and if it makes her feel good, all the power to her. Additionally, she did a way better job than the first maid we hired awhile back, whole left everything all out of sorts and unplugged.

Rachel Insists: Sebastiao Salgado

Rio Gringa insists you check out Sebastiao Salgado, at his website or by googling around or even Wikipedia. I went out with my American photog friend today and we were rummaging around that bookstore I'm now obsessed with and we saw one of his books and she said he's one of the best photographers out there. In the world. So I was like ok, and then I checked out his stuff and OH my god. I wish I was this guy.

Sebastiao is Brazilian, (a mineiro to be exact) and got his master's in Economics in Sao Paulo, worked for the World Bank for awhile, and then decided, hey, I think I'll be a photographer. He has shot all over the world, mostly in the developing world, and focuses exclusively on social issues, including migration, war, urbanization, inequality, worker's rights, health, the environment, and local indigenous cultures. He is AMAZING.