Monday, July 7
Ouro Preto
Due to a lack of time and some mild technical difficulties, I am forced the monstrous post full of gorgeous pictures that I hoped to have ready by now. I got back late last night from a magnificent trip to the state of Minas Gerais (which literally means General Mines). I have a fantastic new camera and my soul is bursting with joy thanks to such a great trip. The pictures and story of one of the best weekends of my life will be up by tonight.
Before I sign off completely, however, I'd like to clear up something that I wrote in my last post. I explained that Brazilians consider January and early February to be 'the end of the year' because their year revolves around Carnaval. My friend and colleague, Alessandra, read my post and informed me that this is not entirely true. While the Brazilian year doesn't really begin until after Carnaval, she claims that she still considers December to be the end of the year. She also thinks it's strange that we say 'oh' when referring to the number zero. Yeah...whatever, Alessandra.
One other thing: this site occasionally receives visitors from search engines and I have the privilege of seeing what people are searching for when they are referred to "Homage to Brasilia." Some of the searches are as follows.
* "things to do in brasilia"
* "john basedow sexy"
While this is disgusting, I'm almost positive that this search was performed by Mr. John Basedow himself, which makes this even more disgusting.
* "m83 dead cities mp3"
* "totally blinged"
This one is my favorite because Google provides the following synopsis of my page in their results:
... It was totally blinged out with a bagpiper at the front door, a knighted ambassador to receive me, and several kinds of cheeses, breads, hams and smoked fish. ...
*"portuguese men wearing speedoes in apartment"
*"shakira acoustic"
*"topless ecuadorian models"
Wednesday, July 2
Capitol Reef National Park, Utah
So, I'm recycling pictures from my old website until I get a new camera. New pictures of Brazil should be up by next week.
Yesterday, I wrote about a few quirks in the Brazilian language. I knew that I had three to write about, but I forgot what the third was. Well the long wait is over, I remembered! Here it is:
#3. I was talking to a girl at a party and she told me that she was going to visit the United States at the end of the year. I asked her if she was going in December, and she said, no, that she was going in January. OK, so I thought that was a little strange and I asked her why she said the end of the year if she's going in January. Well, she explained that the year revolves around Carnaval down here, so the end of the year is actually around January/early February, right before Carnaval.
Other than that everything worth mentioning (or not) happened after work. I got a hot dog from a street vendor last night. Brazilian hot dogs are topped with shoestring potatoes, peas and carrots. Bizarre, and not too great. I bought a Brasilia-an flag. I don't know how to say that, but it's the federal district's flag:
I got my hair cut by a woman so obsessed with detial that I'm sure she has obsessive compulsive disorder. Geoff, Alessandra and I watched Old School at my place, as I had received the DVD in the mail yesterday afternoon. I'm flying to Belo Horizonte today to go to a seminar and I won't be back until Saturday night.
Music listened to while writing: M83's Dead Cities, Red Seas, and Lost Ghosts