most of y’all have probably seen this already but i thought i would post it for anyone who hasn’t. pam is in brazil presently working through things to lead a study abroad there next summer. here’s her update on how things are going.
A quick note. My converter is not working (blew a fuse and knocked the power out of my whole wing of the second floor today) so therefore I am having to use the lobby computer and not my low-battery laptop, so this will be short. Arrived yesterday and went to see the Opera House, Botanical Gardens, Tangua Park, Osca Niemeyer art museum, and out to eat in the little Italy of Curitiba (lots of European immigrants here). Like no Italian food I´ve ever eaten!! No menu. You sit and they just start bringing platter after platter of food and then walking around with all kinds of meat on swords (just like the pseudo-Brazilian rest. in the US) and pasta dishes…fried chicken, spaghetti bolognese, spaghettis with olive oil and garlic, sausage, beef, grilled chicken, salad, potato casserole stuff, risotto, polenta, and my favorite–looked like steak fries but it was a kind of fried cornbread. Yummy! They also wanted me to try this local juice that everyone loves that they had in the lobby…passion fruit. I took a little cup and drank it on down and it burned like fire. I asked what it was again and they said passion fruit juice…oh, and vodka. Thanks for the heads up! It was the saki of Brazil.
Today we drove to Morretes which is a big tourist area in the Braciosas Mountains—just beautiful!! We took a gondola ride down the river and walked around. There was a street performer and we ate traditional Brazilian food—barreado (shredded beef, flour and spices cooked in a dutch oven for 24 hours—good!), rice, falafa (bacon and flour–disgusting!), the best bananas I have ever eaten, bread, salad, frango (thin lightly fried and delicious chicken breast), steak, potatoes, some fried vegetable with no translation, etc. It was all very good except the bacon stuff. Then we went back to the house of Rita~s art friend, whom I met last night when we stopped at her house to pee (yes that was the sole reason for our visit!) because she made brigadeto for us. It´s a traditional Brazilian dessert and they taught me how to make it. Condensed milk, butter, and cocoa cooked together, rolled into balls, and dipped in chocolate sprinkles. We drank coffee and ate brigadeto and cake while watching the sunset on the terrace of a local artist. How cool and cosmopolitan is that!?
I´m working on Portuguese, but it is very difficult. At the end of the day I am too tired to try. Tomorrow I go to the hospital in the morning and the university in the afternoon. Rita, the speech pahtologist here, is getting her Ph.D. in linguistics. They need a native English speaker for some research project so I am going to be a research subject tomorrow. How cool is that!? My back is holding up. I had to do some Lamaze breathing in the airport a couple of times because I was hurting so bad, but as long as I don´t have to stand too long I´m okay. Walking is a little better, but standing is painful.
Love you all—more later,]Pam
