Exhaustion

First morning waking up in São Paulo! And I feel slightly crazed. Traveling yesterday was pretty rough on the old system, on top of which we stayed out dancing last night until about 2am, and I had to wake up at 6:30am. Needless to say I need a nap. But we get a few hours of down time today thankfully.

Debora and her friend Adriana picked me up at the airport and drove me to the hotel, which was really sweet of them. It was refreshing after struggling through customs with my (massive) bags to sit down and have the warm wind coming through the windows for an hour. It wasn't raining when I landed, nor has it really stormed yet like it was supposed to. However Debora said the rains have been causing tons of problems for the city and surrounding areas.

I said tchau to Debora and Adriana, and after checking in and putting our bags in our rooms, all the students who had arrived at that point went out to lunch together at the mall down the street with some CIEE program leaders (who are actually Brazilian students our age). I've gotten to know some pretty cool people, and I've met even more people whose names I can't remember. I imagine I'll get to know them better in time, but so far I have a few go-to friends and they're really fun. Kelly (girl I knew from my Portuguese class at Vandy) is my roommate while we're in the hotel, so it's nice to be with someone familiar.

After lunch one of the Brazilian students took us to buy cell phones, which takes an absurd amount of time when you arrive at the tiny kiosk with 20 people. Debora said she would lend me her old phone so all I had to buy was a SIM card, which I did, but now I'm going back today to get a phone because I don't really know when I'll see her again. Anywho, we had an orientation meeting at 5pm yesterday, then dinner at the hotel. We left to go dancing around 10pm, en masse, which proved a little embarassing. If we didn't already stick out enough, just imagine the attention a tour of 35 or 40 people walking down 5th Avenue would attract, if 5th Avenue were in a society where people not only made eye contact but tended to stare unabashedly. I can't wait to move into my homestay and not feel THAT much like a tourist anymore.

Our enormous party walked throughout the city for what seemed like about 3 miles to a club that turned out to be closed, so we took taxis to another club called Geni (shown below). There was a live band and lots of people were dancing. It was pretty fun/funny; our whole group kind of finally let loose. Really entertaining getting to witness timid American boys dancing within inches of saucy brasileiras. Also interesting was the mix of Brazilian and American songs the band played. And all the Brazilians knew all the words. They may not all speak English, but they can sure as hell sing some Sly and The Family Stone.

I've met several Brazilians around town at this point, and speaking with them is so exciting, because they're so excited that you want to speak Portuguese. I've gotten some enthusiastic feedback about my Portuguese, so hopefully they're not flattering me too much. However, any slight criticism in this culture is considered offensive so I doubt they would correct me if I made a mistake. Also, they like to respond with any English they know when they find out I'm American. Oh well. I'm trying!

We got up early this morning for some more orientation and to take a Portuguese language placement test which will divide into two classes, A and B, for the rest of this month. It wasn't too hard. I'll find out how I did tomorrow. We just had lunch in the hotel, and now we get a few hours to do whatever before another orientation meeting at 4:15pm. Then we meet our host families for dinner at 8:30pm. So excited to meet Ana Paula! Hope she likes me. Hope my conversation skills are up to par... yikes. In any case, I get to move in with her tomorrow yaayy! Finally be able to unpack for real. Trying to keep a suitcase together while living out of it for 48 hours is difficult.

I'll try to sit down and write some more stuff once I'm settled in the new apartment. Can't wait to get comfortable and get to know the neighborhood. Wish me luck!