The biggest

Yep, I can not imagine another party like this one. 6 straight days of non-stop parties. Last night was the first day of Carnaval here in Brasil. Salvador is still the place where everybody is part of the whole thing. I got to the bloco at 7:30 pm, the end of the route, along the road by the beach, was after maybe one or two miles only but it took about 5 hours to cover it. We followed the Trio Electrico (the specially designed bus where the band plays on the roof). The first group that opened the Carnaval for bloco Tremix was Rapazolla. Tremix has sold three days with three different bands. I believe there are about 10 blocos. But, at the time of the party, that doesn't matter since you have enough fun on your own bloco, besides once you pay for one bloco they give you a shirt which is designed just for that bloco so you have to stay with that group.

Undecided

I haven´t bought my ticket to a bloco or camarote....the bloco is a entry, acces, to go behind a big truck with an open ceiling and live music...a camarote is pretty much a balcony to watch the parade of blocos....I would like to do both. Money? About 150 dollars for each....I guess you are in Carnaval, the mais grande do Mundo, ( the biggest in the world) only once, or at least that´s how I think now. Anyways. I haven´t decided yet how to use my money. In the meantime I am meeting friends from different parts of the world. Diego is from Spain. Some years ago, he decided to come to Brasil for just two months but he will be spending his 5th Carnaval in Salvador this year. He asked me today if I already met a mininha (girl)...I said no. Tio tu estas lento! (Dude, you are slow!). It is ok. I am just trying to resolve my own things first, Portuguese, travelling, food, getting tanned...maybe go to a soccer match. Sometimes, I feel like working here so I can write more stories, but I guess for now everything is about me and walking around like a bum. Not too much to say, just that Carnaval is coming and I haven´t bought a ticket or anything like that. I went yesterday to a party where I needed to buy a shirt (abada) to get in. This shirt was sold initially for 40 reais. Last night they were selling it for 120 reais...No, thank you. Too bad I couldn´t hang out with Lais and her friends. Lais is Rosa's daughter, the lady who is renting me the room for this month. Lais and her mother Rosa are very nice, they take me everywhere to check out the places where Brazilians hang out. I like that. I don´t want to go where tourists go. I wonder if anybody can stay here or anywhere the way Diego did. There are times I feel like working for a big corporation, but sometimes, I imagine myself working on a bar in front of the beach, drinking beer and talking to the clients...is it that bad?
I didn´t see the sunset today but it felt really good to hang out with strangers that are becoming friends...I guess that is the way it goes...

Aulas

Today I had the classes of Portuguese for the first time in Salvador. It takes me about 40 to 45 minutes to get the Sheila´s apartment. She has been teaching Portuguese for about 10 years in Salvador. My Portuguese is `bon´but I need to learn the prepositions, conditionals and reflexive verbs mainly.
Staying at Rosa´s has been a great decision. I am practicing a lot of Portuguese with her, her daughter, friends and with other people that are staying at her house. I will be there for a month so I think that if I stay by myself in a hotel I would drive myself crazier. Rosa also has a shop where she sells and fixes `abadas´, which are shirts of different colors that people use to go to certain parties before THE Carnaval. All her clients are women, and yes, you can appreciate the beauty of Brasilian women. I have found, the ones I have been introduced to, very friendly and always helpful to tell you where to go. Sometimes I feel they are flirting but I think is the way they are: warm and attentive with people.
I hope that as I continue to write here, the ideas will come easily and I won´t get overwhelmed by the memories I got since I arrived to Brazil. There are so many already.
There are so many places to go here but I have chosen to spend most of my time at the beach, after all it is summer here so why not? At the same time I want to get tanned and the first signs of sunburn are present on some part of my body. I used sun-block for the first time but the application was not even. I have marks of my fingers on my back and part of my belly. My shoulders didnt´get exposed so my upper back looked like a whippered windshield...I guess this is one of the times I wish I didn´t come alone. The salty water is also good for cuts. I got my first ones playing some beach soccer, although not a big field, just an informal pick-up game, (bate baba). I definetely have gained some weight on the last 4 months in Seattle, I could feel it when I was trying to keep up with these kids...Of course they play all the time and I am not used to play barefoot on the sand. In any rate, it was satisfying to play here, specially when you know ´futebol´is the sport Brazilians breathe, you just don´t want to mess up. They were friendly also, they were actually the ones who called me when they saw me walking alone on the beach at 7pm. `We´ll be here next week, so come´. Yes, I will play with them again.
For now I will go the beach. I can hear it calling my name anytime I turn to my right from this internet restaurant. Perhaps I´ll stay until sunset and if it gets to be as the perfect sunsets you only see on post cards or National Geographic, the ones where the sun turns totally orange and you see exactly half of the circle, no clouds, and as big as almost half of the horizon your eyes can capture, then I would applaud with the rest of the people... as they did last Friday. I saw the perfect sunset.

Seahawks...

The day has come. I spent the day with a dear friend of mine in San Francisco. Good thing we are still in winter time in USA so I didn't have any problem finding a room at the hostelling in downtown. The ride in train was good, long but relaxed. I definetely felt I needed my own room at one point. The little kid crying and the corridor light in my face were somehow tiring. Meeting Alberto, an Argentinian who was checking Seattle before proposing to his American girlfriend, was, in a good way, distracting from my regular thoughts. You find sometimes people with the same ideas you have and you get a little surprised that perhaps you´ll never see them again. My Mariners shirt didn't help during the game...