Brazil Part 1: Arrival

About 2 weeks ago I got back from an absolutely amazing trip to Brazil. It was a fantastic adventure, and at many times quite blog-able. I went down to visit my friend Rob who I have know ever since we lived on the same floor of Markley hall our freshmen year. After 4 years of friendship through college Rob moved to Peru for a year. He then came back to Michigan to get a masters degree and graduated last December. He accepted a job to work for a consulting firm and requested a 6 month delay to his start date. He then packed up his things and without trepidation moved to Brazil.

After I got back from DC in March, I realized that I would have a large amount of travel pay coming my way.  Since I didn't do anything special to earn this extra money, I had no inhibitions to spending some of it frivolously. So I told Rob that I would come down and visit. He then looked up which weekends would have the most outrageous parties and that's how I decided when to come down.

My first few steps off the plane in Brazil

The hardest part of the trip was getting a Visa. Since the US makes Brazilians get a visa and pay about $150, the Brazilians make the Yanks do the same thing. It turns out my nearest consulate is in San Francisco, but luckily you aren't required to apply in person. The only other pre-trip errand was an ingenious plan to smuggle drugs into Brazil. It turns out that muscle milk is 2-3 times as expensive in Brazil as it is in the US due to some crazy taxes. So as a house-warming gift of sorts, I ended up taking 6 pounds of suspicious vanilla scented powder with me.

It took over 24 hours to get from Seattle to Florianopolis. My overnight leg between Dallas and Rio I was lucky enough to have an empty seat next to me. Once I landed in Rio I had to clear customs and change planes. I had neglected to learn any Portuguese before coming down and I instantly realized how hopeless I was by myself. The two words I had bothered to learn we're 'cerveja' (beer) and 'partido' (party) until I later learned that 'partido' is not actually the word for party (it's fiesta).

I finally made it to Florianapolis and landed at the airport. Rob picked me up and we took a cab back to his place. Florianopolis is a city on an island right off the Brazilian coast. It's a very modern and clean city (for South America). At least that's what I hear because I've only ever been to two cities in South America.

The first half of my trip was in Floripa, as the locals call it

After we dropped my stuff off at his place we decided to go out around the town. We walked around the city stopping in for coffee and visiting with some of his friends. After his old roommate got off work we went out for Cervejas with her. Although it turns out that draft beer is called 'chopp'. The beers we were drinking were served in 350 ml glasses so I felt like I could drink hundreds of them.

Colonial Florianapolis

After the beers it was already 8pm. So we grabbed some of the most delicious street meat I've ever had and went back to Rob's place. Rob's place was something of an interesting apartment. He lives with 2 guys who go to the local university. I took some pictures of the place for you. Note the table on cinder blocks and TV from 1985 and the Zebra striped fridge and my favorite: the non-functioning stage lighting. It was like everything was at least partially broken. The one armrest on the couch was held in place by an unused toilet, I'm not even joking and I wished I had a picture of it.

It's furnished like the BOX house of Brazil.

Every kitchen should have a Zebra striped fridge

The barely effective hot water heater is part of the shower head.

I was fighting some sleep issues and jet lag so I took a quick power nap. I work up at 9:30PM and ready to fiesta. We got picked up by this girl rob knows through the couch surfing community. She had two couch surfers with her; a guy from Sao Paulo and a Frenchmen from -surprise- France. We went out in La Goa which is a little neighborhood between two lakes on the island (It's on the map above). We went to a Mexican bar where the DJ was spinning the latest Katy Perry hits and Rob and I challenged some Brits to a dance off. After a tough contest we won the right to the floor. We danced and drank while the frenchmen sulked in the corner. He wasn't very interested in the bar and didn't really drink anything or talk to anyone. We didn't make it home until 4AM when we were well drunk.

Tequila and Mango Juice before heading out on night 1

Saturday we woke up and hung around the house with Rob's roommates. Both of his roommates spoke English and seemed like pretty good guys but I could never get a good read on them. In the afternoon we decided to - as Rob calls it -  "troll for mall ass". We went to the local mall and grabbed a quick bite to eat before setting out on our quest. Everyone was so nice down and friendly that Rob had no trouble getting some numbers from the hot female clerks while I either watched or browsed the store looking like a sexy American.  The mall wasn't much different than most malls in America which somewhat surprised me. We caught an afternoon showing of American Pie Reunion which was shown in English just for me. Actually they show most movies from the US in English and sub-title them. It was a very interesting movie to see with people who didn't grow up in the US. I'm not sure they got some of the jokes and references.

The view from the mall food court

After the movie we had to come home to get ready for the big party. After all it was a Saturday night in Brazil. Up next: Part, 2 in which I do something that I am explicitly warned not to do.

*As a side note I lost my backup iPhone on the flight home and had to wait for the random dude who found it to mail it to me. It had all my pictures on it, and thus the delay in getting these blogs posted. I think there will end up being 3-4 of them total coming out in a few day intervals.