Easter holidays in Minas Gerais

Easter weekend in historic towns Sao Joao del Rei, Tiradentes, Ouro Preto and Mariana


From Good Friday to Easter Monday I was in the historic, colonial towns of Minas Gerais, about 10 hours north by bus from Sao Paulo. This area of the country is very hilly and beautiful and was the main focus of the gold rush in the 18th century. Therefore there are a lot of beautiful European style churches and buildings, but also reminents of the sad stories of the slaves that were brought here to work in the gold mines and build the railroad. The slaves also had their own church in Ouro Preto as well and it was said that though they didn't have any money to give as an offering, they would shake their heads and clean their nails in the church in order to be able to leave some of the gold dust they might have from working in the mines. Amazing!

These towns are known for their traditional processions and flower carpets lining the streets at Easter. That along with cobblestone streets and 18th churches seemed charming, so I decided to go and visit at this time of year. It was by far the most interesting thing I've ever done for Easter - just gorgeous there! I took the overnight bus on Thursday and arrived in Sao Joao del Rei early Friday morning. I walked around the town and saw some of the churches and then took the old steam train (first in Brazil) to another mining town, Tiradentes. This town is beautiful, very well preserved and set up in the hills. When I got back to Sao Joao in the early evening they were setting up for mass on the steps of the church followed by the ceremony where they take down the cross and parade around town with this from church to church. The whole day had a very holy and religious feel to it, but at the same time was also a bit like Disney world or something very showy. They were selling popcorn and carmel apples, chestnuts and mini pizzas in front of the church at night. I almost felt like I was in at a fair from Pollyanna or some other story set in the early 20th century:) It was a beautiful atmosphere, the only bad part was the priest speaking for 1 hour about absolutely nothing. He kept repeating himself and going around in circles. I truly think that in order to become a priest, pastor, rabbi or other spiritual leader, you should really have to pass a public speaking course! But other than that, the night was beautiful and there was a full moon which added to the ambiance. See photos and videos below.

Tiradentes:










Train from Sao Joao to Tiradentes







Sao Joao


Beautiful carpets laid throughout the city on Good Friday









Amazing rising of the moon while waiting for the Good Friday procession


Crowds of people waiting for the "Descending of the cross"








Ouro Preto

The only buses that leave from Sao Joao to Ouro Preto, the most famous of the colonial historic towns, are at 6:00pm and 3:00am. Since I wanted to see the procession in Sao Joao on Good Friday evening, I had to take the 3:00am bus if I wanted to be able to spend Saturday in Ouro Preto. So after being up all night on the bus from Thursday night and walking around all day Friday, one hotel in town was nice enough to let me sit in the lobby until 2:30am when I could go to the bus station and stay up most of the night before arriving Sat morning in Ouro Preto! But it worked out okay. Julie, another American teaching fellow working in Belo Horizonte, decided to meet me in Ouro Preto (only an hour and half journey for her) and we had found a hotel to stay there for Sat night - not easy to do since the city was packed from Friday until Monday! But they had my room ready right away and I was able to sleep a little before wandering around some more. Julie arrived around noon and we went to have a huge lunch of typical food from the region - beans, rice, meat, and pumpkin soup. Excellent! We toured the city during the day and then saw the Easter vigil procession in the evening, as well as the laying out of the carpets, which begins at 10:00pm on Saturday evening and finishes in the very early morning on Easter Sunday. If you want to see the finished work of all these beautiful carpets, you have to go out before 7:00am Sunday morning when Easter service lets out beacause at that time there is a procession through the entire city and the priest and followers walk on top of the carpets. See more photos and videos below.

With Julie at Chafariz restaurant - excellent!




Laurel and Hardy!:)



Saturday, touring the city











Saturday evening in Ouro Preto




Could be the French quarter of New Orleans!



Easter Vigil


Easter vigil procession



Easter morning in Ouro Preto








Easter procession from our hotel - I love the bells, could be Salzburg!



Mariana, the old capital of Minas Gerais

On Easter Sunday afternoon before leaving Ouro Preto we took the local bus to another colonial town, Mariana, a short distance from Ouro Preto. This was the old capital of Minas and has a similar style of churches and buildings as Ouro Preto. We just walked around the town a bit and visited the Catedral Basilica da Se which holds a fantastic German organ dating from 1701. It was a very charming city and a nice end to a great weekend. See photos below.








Feliz Pascoa para todos!

Where is Cliff Clavin when you need him????:)

Well, the saga of my washing machine seems to be over (knock on wood!). After many more calls and promises, they finally came on a really rainy Saturday afternoon, a week ago. It seems to be working so far, though, and I have been able to catch up on all my laundry, so I am pleased.

Yesterday, I had to laugh because I had my first experience at the post offices of Sao Paulo. Granted I have only visited one branch, and others may be better, we'll see. But I was in awe of how difficult it was to mail just three letters (maybe that's why nobody mails anything in Brazil!). I waited 35 minutes, and that was just talking to a postal worker - there wasn't any line when I walked in! As soon as I got up to the counter, though, the line behind me started accumulating out the door, and each of those people and more, proceeded to pass through the line, be helped, and finish mailing their items before me - incredible.

People had told me that I could buy envelopes at the post office so I didn't bring one with me. But the problem was that there weren't any simple manila envelopes as I was expecting. Instead, they had these super expensive ones with hearts on them in very small sizes! Why wouldn't a post office offer basic envelopes in all sizes?! And also you have to wait until you reach the counter to ask for one of these. It would seem much easier to be able to take what you want before reaching the counter and have it all addressed, etc. The way it's set up now, you have to wait for them to find an envelope and then they wait for you to stand there and address everything, meanwhile the rest of the customers are still waiting in line.

In my case, I've never seen a postal worker move so slowly. She would tear off one stamp at a time, put it on the pad used to wet the stamps and then slowly place them on the envelope one by one. And unfortunately, Brazil doesn't do "cute" at least in terms of stamps. In the U.S., France and Japan there are so many options for commemorative stamps representing the country. Here all I've seen are animals or scary cartoon drawings, so sorry to anyone who will be receiving letters from me - no nice stamps:)

Anyway...if you want to have them print out the label with the price through a machine (instead of actual stamps), they have to go to another area and do it there; it's not connected automatically to the computer at the counter (at least it wasn't at this branch). When the woman helping me added the price to my larger envelope, she ripped off a piece of regular white paper, stamped it, and then wrote in the price herself, dabbed it on the stamp pad and added it to the envelope. I've never seen anyone do that before.

I wanted to send just a few papers priority mail to the U.S. and it was going to be R$48! However, they didn't bother to tell me the prices beforehand (I guess I should have asked) and so only after going through all the rigamarole of getting an evelope and printing out labels, did we then have to then throw everything away and start over! I just hadn't thought before of how organized our postal offices are in the U.S. We have computers that customers can look at with all the price options and the time it will take to arrive BEFORE we decide the option we want, not after spending 15 minutes finding an envelope and writing all the information on it and then finding out the cost! I should know better, though, to have asked first. I just didn't imagine it would be $20 to send some 8 1/2 by 11 papers to the U.S. Yikes!

Naturally some of the differences in convenience are simply due to lack of funds compared to the U.S., but other aspects are just complete disorganization and inefficiency. How is it so hard to do more than one thing at once and to work fast enough to help a customer in under 30 minutes! I guess they figure they are working for 8 hours and it doesn't matter how many people they help, whether it's one person for 1 hour or 20 people in one hour, it's the same thing for them. To be fair, this is a funcionario attitude in all countries, including our own, not only Brazil.

But as I wrote in another blog entry, the differences between being able to do things by yourself v. having to talk to others to get anything accomplished are huge between Brazil and the U.S. At our post offices, we also have automatic machines to do our mailing and buy the stamps, in addition to picking out stamps, tape and envelopes first before we get to the counter, leaving minimal time for communication - just the essentials. In Brazil, everything is set up so that you MUST speak to at least one person for everything you want to do.

I noticed the other day that many times the bus stops are just a post with no sign, so you have to speak to someone there to know if you are in the right place, going the right direction! Not easy if it is your first time trying to get to a new place.

And even at the bank, you have to take a number to wait in line to be helped. But often there is a man sitting at the computer who you tell what your reason for being there is so he can choose the kind of number to be printed out for you. Because of course, there is a different letter to match the number for all different services - like having your driver's license renewed v. getting a passport, etc at the government buidling. But yesterday I had to go to the bank too and speak to this person at the comptuer, and I thought, what, am I an idiot!? I can't even print out a number by myself? What is that????

There are rarely clear signs to show you where to go either. So, when I entered the bank, I had to ask the guard which floor I needed to go to, and then talk to the man printing out my wait number and then to the person who eventually helped me! If I had a Brazilian bank account, I may be able to avoid some of this by using the automatic machines. But as it is, that's not an option for me which only an international card.

I miss being able to take care of things myself, but I guess on the bright side, I am able to practice my portuguese every day; it's inevitable;)

Waiting for the washing machine repair man

My neighbor in Mpls said there was an old Firesign Theater album entitled "Waiting for the Electrician or someone like him". Well, that's what I feel like with this washing machine, although, at this point all I can do is laugh. My washing machine was supposed to be ready last Tuesday. They never called and never called and then I called at least three times on Thursday and three times on Friday. It wasn't ready because they didn't have the right part and needed to send it out to someone else who hadn't returned it to them. They said this normally didn't happen. Usually it only takes a couple of days, but of course with my luck, this is what happens. So then no news, I called again on Monday and he said he was picking up the part on Monday afternoon and would bring it on Tuesday (yesterday) at 10am. So, I had to stay home from work and wait for him. 11:30am still no washing machine. So I called again and he said he was just fixing a couple things and would be on his way. At 2:15pm he finally came.

You know, I don't know if it is just this company or a cultural difference, but why not just call to let me know one way or another what was happening? As it was, I had to call three or four times a day, spend my time and money, and basically nag them about this. One call from there and everything would have been settled. Annoying!!!!!!

But anyway, because he had only taken the top of my machine with him last time and not the whole thing, there was a chance it still wouldn't work when put back together. And naturally this is what happened. Yesterday when the water was being put into the machine, it was also coming out at the same time! But somehow this time he managed to push the door to my pantry open further and take out the whole machine! If he had just done this last time, it could have been fixed all together in one time!!! But of course that didn't happen. He took the entire machine with him yesterday and said he would have it ready by today, so I am home again waiting. Let's see when I really get it back!!! Then all I have to do is talk to the real estate agency about getting reimbursed for all of this - so easy, right??????:)

Motto for the year: just keep laughing:)

More news later

Cinema in the city

I love that on a Monday afternoon in the middle of a work day the movie theater near my house is packed! Of course, I was there too, so obviously I was part of this afternoon non-working crowd:) But the movie theaters here are like Paris, you have tons of different cinemas with different themes and all kinds of people going to see a movie at all times of day. Most of the people were there by themselves, which is great, and there were students, businessmen, movie buffs, etc. I remember David Sedaris said that when he was living in Paris, if he were homesick, he would go to the movies because there were so many options. Well, I think Sao Paulo is going to be similar - lucky me! Mondays and Wednesdays are discount days, and although I was just passing by to get a schedule, I realized that Frost-Nixon was going to begin in 20 minutes for half price, so how could I pass that up?:)

I had missed this film when I was home in the U.S. and hadn't necessarily intended on going to see it at all, but I am so glad I did. I really liked it. Nixon is such a fascinating character, especially for a Politician. As he said himself, it wasn't easy for him to be at parties, to like people and be liked. What a difficult profession to be in if that is the case. I didn't know the whole story behind this interview and I thought it was excellent. Does anybody remember watching this live on tv at the time? It must have been incredible to watch Nixon's face and hear his feelings about Watergate.

His saying "If the president does it, it means that it's not illegal", really could apply to certain Presidents' attitudes since him as well, don't you think?! But I loved how Nixon then said "I'm aware that most people do not share my opinion on this":) Crazy! The movie actually makes you feel somewhat sorry for Nixon, though, too. He really seemed like a lonely, sad person. It was a bittersweet story, but weaved together very well.

I would highly recommend this film - ****

More movies reviews to come on other discount days:)

Ups and downs of Sao Paulo

So, I have finally settled in, more or less, in Sao Paulo. I don't have many photos yet because I never seem to have my camera when I go out. But so far, I do really like the city. There are tons of things to do. They have a great bookstore down the street from me, cafes, restaurants, theater, everything is here. However, I haven't been able to enjoy all of that just yet because I have been dealing with all the fun administrative aspects of moving to a new city - getting a bank account; registering with the local police for a temporary visa card; trying to get my washing machine fixed...! Things that would normally take a day or two in the U.S. usually take a couple of weeks here. Going to the federal police is always an experience. I thought I had everything with me this time but no, they needed notarized copies of EVERY used page of my passport! How insane! Luckily, I have a new passport so there weren't too many pages:) But it took two trips to get my ID.

Actually moving into the apt was in a sense easier than last year because I already had a CPF (social security number)!:) But I was supposed to be able to move in the day I arrived from Buenos Aires. That was a Saturday, however, and it wasn't possible because the landlord wanted a notarized copy of my passport before she gave me the keys! I didn't know about this until late Friday night, but fortunately, I knew Anaisy from Londrina who happened to be living in Sao Paulo and was kind enough to let me stay with her. Of course she was way on the other side of the city, but it was so nice to see her again and to be able to voice all of my frustrations. She was incredibly generous, helping me with my luggage and all the calls I needed to make to move in on Monday. I really appreciated her help, especially at that time. Monday then, the real estate agent picked me up and we went to the Cartorio (of course there is only one place where you can have documents notarized in Brazil) and there you wait in line to explain your issue, then walk around the building to another office and sign something to allow the procedure, I guess. And THEN, go back and take a number to wait in line until your documents are ready. Why this can't all be done from one window, I will never understand! But, finally I did get the notarization and we went back to the real estate office for him to fax this to the landlord. Again, why it took longer than 5 minutes to do this, I don't know, but it took close to 45minutes! So, okay, no problem. We finally made it to the apt and everything was fine except the agent showing me how to use everything plugged my washing machine into the outlet with the wrong voltage and burned it out on the first day!

The washing machine story cracks me up because here all of the outlets are either 110V or 220V, but there is no way to know! So, next to the washing machine, not only did you have to guess the voltage, but there were two outlets with no labels next to one another! It was just like a Far Side Cartoon:) So, the real estate agent who showed me my apt was trying to show me how to use the machine and plugged a 220V machine into an outlet of 110V. It burned out the entire washing machine and I have been waiting three weeks now for it to be fixed! The repair man came once and couldn't fix it (of course, my luck), and then he decided he needed to take the machine with him to try a few things at his shop. So, he cam back another day. However, he wasn't able to get the machine out of the little pantry it was in because the doors didn't open wide enough for the machine to fit out. Somebody had put the doors on after the machine had been placed in the pantry - so ridiculous! He could have taken off the doors, I guess, but he decided just to take the top of the machine since that was the main problem. We hope! Needless to say, it should be returned by Monday. I'm just crossing my fingers it will actually work.

The school I am working at is under transition as well. There seeem to be a lot of people being let go or leaving at this time, and they are also building a new branch, so nobody seems to have a lot of time to sit down with me and decide what I am supposed to be working on this year. The one project I have been doing is helping a fellow Australian teacher, Cathy, plan curriculum for a teacher training language course for 80 teachers. This group of teachers is wonderful; they are public school teachers who will have English and methodology classes with Cathy every two weeks. I will just be involved in the initial placement and planning stage. This course, however, is about 1 hour outside of Sao Paulo in Barueri (also incredibly hard to pronounce without sounding Japanese;)!!!). The class began last Monday, the 16th. The week before we had a meeting with the director to find out the details. We literally asked the most basic of questions: How many students will we have? Where will the class be held? Are they divided by levels? How do we get there???? And the answers were "I don't know." "Well, I think there is a train, or taxi, but don't worry. We'll see." This was only a few days before and we were supposed to plan a year's worth of classes for 80 teachers!! We were both stunned that there could be this amount of information lacking at such a late notice. And the director talking to us had just come from a meeting with the school we would be at! How can you just come from a meeting and not know how we were supposed to get there???
Everything here is just go with the flow and don't plan ahead at all. Although that can be nice too at times, it is also SO frustrating when you are trying to make plans for a long period of time.

I have been at the school for three weeks and have done little more than observe classes, help in other people's projects and do some proof reading. It takes time to see where you are needed and how you can best be of use to everyone, but that too is frustrating because I know we only have 10 months and it goes so quickly!

I feel like I am definitely on my own here in terms of getting anything accomplished and dealing with all the hassles of broken appliances, changing my phone number, setting up a bank account, etc. My school hasn't helped me much at all. But I have to say that the staff of the hotel I'm staying at have been wonderful, making calls for me if I need them to, explaining things to be in simple Portuguese, etc:) And Cathy, the Australian teacher, bought me a metro pass and has taken me to all the shopping malls nearby so that I know where they are. For this, in addition to my friend from Londrina allowing me to stay at her apt here in Sao Paulo and other friends helping me move in and driving all the way here to bring me my boxes and suitcase I left there last year, I am so grateful. These things are immeasurable and I will never forget anyone who has helped like that. It's amazing how things like picking someone up from the airport or taking them grocery shopping, calling to see how things are going, etc. mean so much, especially when you are by yourself in a new city. Thank you to everyone who has helped me so far. I hope I can do the same one day for you or others in a similar situation.



With Telma and Luiz, my first visitors in Sao Paulo






More news soon.

Buenos Aires - the land of Evita and tango

In my last week before starting work at my host institution in Sao Paulo I decided to visit Argentina. Summer, who was traveling with me in Sao Paulo was going there for a conference with some of her colleagues, so I was able to see them a bit and then also tour on my own while they were working:) It was during Brazilian Carnaval so it was vacation time in much of South America, but there were only isolated carnival celebrations in Buenos Aires. But that was fine since I had already been in Rio last year. I still had one week to explore the neighborhoods of the city, try their wonderful cuisine and see some tango performances. The official tango dinner shows were extremely expensive, so I didn't go to one of those. But they did have tango in the streets in certain neighborhoods and during the evenings in my hotel. I have defintitely fallen in love with the style of tango music and dance; it's so beautiful! Unfortunately, I don't have any photos of this, I didn't have my camera at that time, but you can imagine. Buenos Aires is gorgeous. It's the South America we imagine, bright sunny days, lots of cafes, beautiful people (maybe some former Nazis too) and passion in every way. Passion for love, for life, and for politics. I visited the Eva Peron museum and cemetery and both were very moving. I wish we could be that enthusiastic for a leader once again. I guess Obama comes fairly close, although maybe close in excitement, but I'm not so sure about the drama and worshipping. When you see the images from Evita's funeral, all the people that attended, it is quite incredible.

I didn't expect so many parks and green spaces, my photos look like I was in Spain, Italy or France at times. One of the major architects who helped design Buenos Aires was French, which also makes sense because there are many wide, open boulevards too. I was surpised, however, by the garbage on the streets. It wasn't so much pieces of paper or trash by themselves, but bags and bags of garbage piled together as if waiting to be collected. Except they were on very prominent street corners and it stunk! This along with the dog poop and uneven sidewalks truly made this city European with a Latin American twist:) But I still loved it! Especially the media lunas (half moon croissants) you could have in the mornings. They were like croissant from Paris but with sugar on top - yum! Here is sampling of photos from my time there. Viva Argentina!



Having lunch with Maristela (Manaus) and Summer)



Beautiful obeslico, views from my hotel, Hotel Republica - excellent!





Gorgeous Casa Rosada





Parks downtown Buenos Aires





Sadly, a pile of trash outside another nice park - what is this???



Famous Cafe Tortoni (like Cafe de l'Opera in Paris)



With Eugenia from Uruguay at Cafe Tortoni



Rose and flower gardens in Palermo, Buenos Aires











Japanese Gardens










Recoleta church & cemetery and Eva Peron's grave







Fantastic cafes of Buenos Aires day and night

In San Telmo


In Recoleta





Don't cry for me, Argentina; I hope to be back soon!