Friday, March 03, 2006

Back in Curitiba

Well, after a lovely and exciting two weeks of vacation, which including too many flights, one landing-gear problem, a lot of sun, and a beautiful day trip to Porto de Galinhas, I'm back in Curitiba.
As much as I loved being away and as much as I definitely loved being in Recife (favorite city in Brazil so far, by far), I'm kinda glad to be back where the food and showers are free, and also in the city where I know my way around (including the streets, buses, etc.)
When I got back (about an hour or so ago, just had lunch), Onuki was gone (I already knew he would be leaving the 24th), but there was a new student from Japan. Her name is Midori (which means "green" in Japanese, hence the name of the drink Midori Sour, which is a green and sweet/sour mixed drink in the US, and probably other places). Apparently there is another student coming, but I'm not sure if they'll be staying here or down the street.
Anyway I think I might take a nap since flying has sucked all the wind out of me. When we got to Curitiba we were getting ready to land then the pilot pulled back up. I was all like "oh snap we're gonna die" but really I just knew it was probably a problem with the landing gear. They didn't say anything until we landed, though, to keep all the women from freaking out and the men from becoming heroes. It was cool. When we landed I was all "this pilot better hit the ground or we're gonna go off the runway" and sure enough, the regular brakes weren't enough. He hit the brakes hardcore close to the end, because we were really really close to running off. Maybe I should have been a pilot.
So in all I flew from Curitiba to Sao Paulo, Sao Paulo to Salvador, Salvador to Recife, then Recife to Rio de Janeiro (layover for an hour) then Rio to Curitiba. I'm thinking about catching a cruise ship back to the US. This flying thing is getting old. Although I still love takeoff. "Damn, I wish my car had this much horsepower!" :-)
Anyway, I have about 36 pages of written stuff that I'm gonna type up while I lie in bed, then email it to myself so I can paste all of that here. I'm also going to upload some pictures. I'm not sure how many in total I have, but I do know it's more than 250. I'll pick the best ones then upload them for everyone to see.
A lot of what I wrote includes some social commentary, some compare/contrast because culture of the US and Brazil, and just boring stuff about what I was doing or what I was thinking when I decided to write.
I know everyone is so glad to see something here again, but don't get too excited as I have a whole lot more on the way, including a whole helluva lot of pictures from Sao Paulo, quite a few from Salvador (although not really too many, it's not too good of an idea to take your camera to a street party with 3 million people), and a few others from Recife and Porto de Galinhas (an hour bus ride from Recife.)
I bought some shirts, some more keychains to add to my worldwide collection (worldwide meaning San Diego, CA and a few cities in Brazil). I also bought something special for someone special because when I saw it I was like "oh shi... this person would love this!" So I bought it.
Anyway, everyone have fun and you'll be getting a lot of stuff posted here soon, because I'm not really gonna be taking many pictures over the next week or two since there probably is nothing new in Curitiba.

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