been a bit tired

I will start this post with a list of things that have broken in the last 7-10 days or so:
-my glasses
-my sunglasses
-1 of my apartment building's two elevators
-the shower's hot water
-something else that broke but I can't remember what it is

I'm not sure where this list is leading or what's next, but hopefully it's not a limb or my morality. Just kidding, I don't see how being in Rio could ever break my morality.

The past week was relatively slow. Monday through Wednesday especially were pretty quiet because I slept for significant portions of the day. That probably had something to do with waking up before 6:15 for 3 out of 4 days around that time. The adults reading this are probably like, big deal I'm always up then, but I'm definitely not used to it so it threw me off.

The first day waking up that early was last Saturday, when there was a field trip organized by the University to go the city of Petropolis, which is a little over an hour away from Rio. Petropolis is known as the Imperial City, and it was the former summer residence of the emperor during Brazil's colonial times. The city is pleasant, with various palaces and nice looking houses. The trip was a bit frustrating/boring though, because staff from the University kept us on a tight leash. I would have rather preferred to do my own thing there. The main sights we saw were the Imperial Museum, which was the emperor's palace, a grand cathedral where the emperor and his family are buried, and the house of this guy named Santos Dumont. Santos Dumont is heralded here as the father of aviation. Apparently he was the first person to take off on his own, whereas the Wright Brothers' flight was propelled by a catapult. Santos Dumont was also an inventor; I read that he invented the wristwatch, and that Cartier comes out with a special edition watch every year called the Santos. Anyway, the house itself wasn't really that cool. It was a pretty ordinary house with some pictures and letters hanging on the walls. The most interesting thing that I took was that Santos Dumont's bed was also his desk. Or his desk was also his bed. Not sure which one's right. But he basically slept on a hard wooden shelf. I guess that's how geniuses roll.

The next early wakeup was Monday morning, when I had to be at the University at 7 am to take a van to the airport where I had to register with the Federal Police here. The early morning was a bit tough to handle considering I had been up until nearly 2 the night before watching the football playoffs, with which I'm happy with the outcomes. The University assigned all exchange students to a group on a certain day to go to the police, and my day was Monday. All students need to register with the police within 30 days of arrival here in order to be here legally for whatever reason. However, when we got to the airport, we were told that we couldn't see the police because they had already given out the maximum number of tickets for the day. Apparently the police only give out 60 tickets per day, and although we got there at 8 am, they had given out all the tickets already and would not accept us. After waiting around for about an hour (if you recall from a previous post, waiting around is a favorite Brazilian pasttime) we headed back and were told we would need to come back tomorrow. I was just thrilled, so thrilled in fact that I removed my sunglasses from my head and hurled them at the airport wall; thus, that is how they broke. (Just kidding, that isn't actually how they broke. But they did break at some point during that experience, so I thought that would be a fitting story.)

Due to Monday morning's invigorating experience, we were informed that the next morning we would have to report to the University at 6 am in order to arrive at the airport early enough so that the police didn't run out of numbers. So I had to wake up about 5. We got there about a quarter to 7, and by the time the last of us was finished it was 1:00. It was a lot of waiting for a 5 minute process. The police registration is one example of a number of Brazilian processes that I have noticed are absurdly and remarkably inefficient. We didn't even get the worst of it, however; the group that went the next day didn't return until 6 pm, and the group the following day came back at 4:30. Pretty ridiculous.

So, now you know why I did so much sleeping during the days and evenings this week. To recuperate, I spent Thursday and Friday afternoons at the Copacabana beach. There were some very big and powerful waves both days; it was fun.

My Portuguese class was very frustrating this week; it was exceedingly slow and boring. We really need to pick up the pace. There were multiple times where I would have rather banged my head against a wall or jumped off a cliff than sit in that class. At least that old guy in our class continues to be entertaining.

During much of the time that I wasn't sleeping this past week, I planned a trip. Our Portuguese class ends this coming Thursday; later that afternoon, I will take a bus to Sao Paulo, where I will stay through the weekend. The bus ride is long, 6 hours, and I will arrive late Thursday night. On Monday afternoon, I will fly to Florianopolis, which is farther south and is supposed to be beautiful. Florianopolis is on a large island and is full of beaches. I have heard only good things. I'll stay there until Friday afternoon, when I'll fly back to Rio in time for the start of Carnaval. I'll be traveling with two guys from California and a Norwegian. I think the trip should be great.

Tomorrow I'm attending a soccer match at the Maracana stadium between Flamengo and Fluminense, which are the two most heavily supported soccer teams among Rio residents. To add even more intensity, the teams are tied for first in the league standings. People have said that games at Maracana, especially between these two teams, are incredible to experience. With a lot on the line, the game should be fascinating.

I didn't forget

Just as you all were thinking, "Jared really should update his blog by now," I was thinking the same thing. I haven't posted anything in quite a while, partially because not much exciting happened especially soon after the last post, and partially because I've been exhausted most times I've had the opportunity the make another post.

I've now had 1.5 weeks of Portuguese. I'm definitely learning, and I can tell already that there's a difference between where I am now and where I was upon arrival here. However, of course there's much more to learn, and it's proving to be a difficult language. The class is from 8:30 to 1:00 with a 20-30 minute break. It often seems to drag on for a while, but it is productive most of the time. There are two teachers who split teaching our class each day, and I think they are both very good. One sounds quite similar to Borat, though, so I often have a bit of a hard time taking him seriously. There's also a 34-year-old guy who owns a strip mall in Cleveland in my class. I don't know what he's doing on our study abroad program, but I enjoy his company in our class because he's always a bit behind the rest of us. It seems like he's on a perpetual tape delay of about 30 seconds to 1 minute. The class has already moved on, and this guy asks a question about an activity we finished a while ago. He also says many ridiculous things, but they're funny because they're unintentionally ridiculous. I've started writing down the things he says so that I
don't forget them, and I've got a pretty good list going. We have a test this Friday actually, but it shouldn't be bad because it's been pretty basic so far.

Towards the end of last week I didn't feel so well; I think the contrast between the high heat and then cold air conditioning, and also a shortage of sleep finally caught up to me. I slept for most of the afternoon on Friday and then just stayed in.

Saturday I met a few kids in Flamengo, which is near my hood, and we played basketball along the Flamengo beach. Eventually some Brazilian kids came to the court, and we got a full game going. It was cool to play with the Brazilians, and I think they go there pretty often, so hopefully we'll play again soon. Saturday night I went out to Lapa with a group, which if you recall is hot nightspot in Rio. It's crazy how crowded it is; there's people everywhere. It's a pretty cool environment. We eventually went to a club and stayed there until pretty late. It got to the wee hours of the morning and the group I was with showed no indication of getting tired or wanting to leave anytime soon, so I finally left when the music got pretty bad.

Sunday I slept in late and spent the whole day at this Irish pub in Ipanema to watch the football playoffs. In between the game I took a break to go across the street to look around this square/park where on Sundays they have the "Ipanema Hippie Festival" or something, and there's a ton of vendors selling all kinds of things. It's interesting.

Monday afternoon I hung out at the Leblon beach . I rented a chair and eventually drifted off to sleep, but I was awakened by the guy who rented me the chair at 5:30 because he needed it back. I don't know what his rush was to go, but he woke me up in the middle of a dream too and I can't remember what it was. That night I met another guy for dinner at a Thai restaurant. Thai cuisine isn't very popular in Rio, but this place was very good. My dish was great, but it wasn't as big as I had hoped. It was nice too because I broke a string of getting some pretty cheap food that wasn't always good.

Yesterday afternoon I was misled and deceived into going on a hike. I went with a group who said they were going to walk to the waterfalls located behind the Jardim Botanico (Botanical Gardens). I thought, sure, that sounds cool. What they didn't say was that the waterfalls were located up a mountain in the Tijuca National Forest, it would take over 2 hours to get there, parts of it were life-threatening, and part of the trail is unpaved and you have to climb up and down rocks. So I went with this group, soaking my shirt with sweat. Also, I was wearing flip-flops. Mind you I was expecting a leisurely walk. So eventually we get to the Tijuca forest and find a waterfall. But then someone in the group said wait, there's more, and starts climbing onto a rock and going up a steep mountainous trail. I told them I'd wait for them at the bottom, but they screamed at me until I followed them. Oh, and most of them were wearing flip flops too; I thought they were crazy. The trail was pretty rigorous too; there were a few times I thought my life might be in danger. When it was finally time to leave, one girl took us down part of a challenging descent only to realize that we couldn't actually get down that way. So then we had to climb back up and go back down the way we came. Needless to say I took a bus back.

Last night I went out because today was a city holiday and we didn't have class. I took a taxi to meet these guys at a club in Botafogo. Problem was the taxi driver didn't know where it was, I didn't know where it was, and the guys who I was meeting that were already there didn't know where it was either. So I was wandering around Botafogo alone for a while trying to find it, and eventually after about an hour and asking a few people I got there. I think I did more walking yesterday than I have in the past 2 years.

Today on the day off I went to the Jardim Botanico. It is beautiful; I've passed by it everyday on the bus on the way to the University, and the front is lined with rows of tall palm trees. But today I actually entered and walked around most of it, and it was very nice. There are many different nice plants and cool trees. We also saw a few monkeys. There was an orchid greenhouse inside, which my guidebook said preserved 1000 different orchids, but I only saw about 25. I don't know how that discrepancy came about. But overall the Jardim was great.

Gotta get up early for class tomorrow. Boa noite.

The pictures

Hi everyone. I finally posted pictures. I am at a computer in a computer lab on the University campus. It took me a very long time, and this website does not really cooperate. The pictures are very oddly spaced, and there was very little I could do about it. I tried to number some of the pictures, especially those that were closely space. Unfortunately, the captions are very messy and aren't all on the same line for each separate picture; I previewed the post, but the preview gave a false preview of what the final product would look like. So, I'm sorry that the page is so messy, but I hope you can follow the pictures.

The first section is the views from Sugar Loaf, then the Sambadrome, then downtown Rio, the Maracana soccer stadium, and the urban forest.

The pictures are the last post before this

Now I'm going to the Leblon beach for a few hours. Bye

Pictures

1. A large lizard

2. Downtown Rio and Flamengo Beach

3. Me and Copacabana

4. District of Rio called Niteroi, across the bay

5,6. Central neighborhoods of Rio

7. Botafogo Beach and central neighborhoods

8. Copacabana area with Ipanema in the back

9. Copacabana Beach

10. Copacabana and mountains

11. Some islands and ocean

12. Statue of Christ zoomed in considerably

13. Statue of Jesus

14. Part of the city

15. Copacabana

16. A funny looking monkey

17. Houses on the bottom

18. Looked nice

19. In the cable car up to Sugar Loaf

20. Downtown District and Flamengo Beach

21. Zoomed out downtown

22. Sugar Loaf

23. Sugar Loaf

24. Carnaval Float

25. Carnaval Sign

26. A girl in our group in a Carnaval costume

27. Carnaval costume

28. Carnaval costume

29. Some random people in Carnaval costumes

30. Random guy in costume

31. Sambadrome bleachers

32. Sambadrome alley

33. Sambadrome Alley

34. Bleachers at Sambadrome

35. Picture from the road

36. Building in downtown Rio

37. Walkway/alley downtown

38. Alley downtown

39. Start of Alley

40. Where the water used to come up to

41. Not sure what this is

42. Old Imperial Palace

43. Old Imperial Palace

44. Old convent from the 1590's

45. Statue

46. Cathedral

47. No significance; from the road

48. Church

49. Nice picture of downtown

50. From the road

51. Pele's footprints

52. Ronaldo's footprints

53. At field level

54. Goal at field level

55. Group picture in the warm-up room

56. Warm up room. It has special lights that simulate the actual heat on the field

57. Trainer's room

Baths

The next few are the urban forest and the waterfall

The next 3 are on Copacabana beach

A few pictures of the university campus

A couple pictures from the van from the airport

Some pictures of Maria's apartment. The one with big bed is my room.