Brazil Tour 6: Pickpockets and Sweat

January 5

We were planning to go to the post office in the morning to mail our postcards, but when Sara got up to go to the hospital for her bug bites Ellie (our trip coordinator) made her call us and tell us not to go because it was dangerous. So we waited downstairs for Lauren to tell her not to go, but she was late so we went to breakfast and Catherine met us there (we saw Lauren leave a half hour later, but she came back later just fine). Also we were going to rehearse strictly Beethoven in the afternoon, so the parents and people not in Beethoven got to go on a trip to see these waterfalls. Rebecca went to the waterfalls along with Bassoon Jeff.

In the morning the tour guides arranged for these people to come exchange our travelers checks (that was the only time during the whole trip when we could exchange travelers checks and why I tell people never to bring traveler’s checks). Then I went with a couple of guys to the supermarket to get more water and a razor. (when we left Florianopolis in a hurry I left my Venus razor in the shower, and here’s a plug for Venus: I borrowed one of Sara’s disposable Bic razors for a day and it was the worst shave of my life. I might as well have taken a butcher knife to my legs. So Venus it is). So I found some water and got some Brazilian coffee and chocolate for souvenirs and then I bought a razor with a bunch of guys looking on. It was funny because-they didn’t understand why I spent so long looking at them and didn’t want to just take any old one. But since my legs were still smarting from the run in with the Bic I was inclined to be picky. Then when I tried to pay with credit card leaving they wouldn’t accept it for some reason, luckily I had cash then. The boys bought cases of beer (of course). Then we walked back to the hotel.

Then Courtney decided that she wanted to go to this open air market place to look for earrings and other souvenirs. So the group that went was: Courtney, Heather, Tony, Andrew, Eric, Mike, Pete, Sean.  And somebody else I don’t remember and me. We took a right out of the hotel and walked down. On the walk I ended up in the back which made me nervous because they were warning us that it was dangerous and there were pickpockets. So I maneuvered to be in front of Pete and Mike. We stopped under this over hang place once we got to the market and Courtney said to meet back there at 12:40 (we had to be on the bus for rehearsal at 1pm). It was about 12 when we stopped. So the group kinda broke up for a while, and I wasn’t too impressed with the stuff at the market. I have a lot of trouble buying souvenirs. Often things just look cheap or like something people would throw out. I always want to get really meaningful stuff, but if I find something it’s too expensive…Then we ran into the hot brass boys.  So then the four of us were walking around and wanted to get some food. So we stopped with them at Bob’s Burger. They were talking about how a bunch of the brass boys were going to take a plane to El Salvador after our trip was done to have some vacation time by themselves.

After they finished eating we walked back to the meeting point. Everyone else was there and Courtney was all flustered and said “We need to leave right now” so we started walking and asking what had happened. Apparently they got attacked. Some guy tried to grab Heather’s purse, so she tried to pull it away from him and he grabbed her hand. So Courtney tried to pull her away from the guy and he hit Courtney on her bad wrist really hard. And then they struggled and ran away from him. And then they spent the rest of the time looking for the rest of us but they couldn’t leave because we were supposed to meet them.  It was weird because I had forgotten to been scared the whole time.

When we got back to the hotel I ran upstairs and grabbed my cello and lunch, but of course we didn’t leave on time anyways because Paul was enjoying a nice lunch upstairs . . .  Finally we loaded onto the other two buses (my bus was with the waterfall people). The rehearsal place was really hot! No air! We were sweating so bad!  We had a really long annoying rehearsal. I hate Beethoven! One girl got “swamp ass” as Violin Pete put it. Which was when she was sitting and got sweaty the chair she was sitting on got a puddle in it.  Gross? During break we were talking about how jealous we were of the people at the waterfall. We were like “yeah, they’re probably swimming in the waterfall, yeah they’re having fun.” But then Eric said “they’re probably caught in traffic” so we felt better. Finally rehearsal ended.

When we got back to the hotel some people wanted to go shopping again. Wes (he is a Lehigh graduate who has been on all of the orchestra trips so far and he plays the viola, he’s really nice and can speak fluent Spanish which is helpful) led the way to these open air markets. I didn’t want to go at first but they said it was from a left out of the hotel so it was not the same as Courtney’s place, but we ended up making 3 lefts s(3 lefts = a right?) so it was Courtney’s place from the morning. When we got to the place I realized it was the same place and I didn’t want to go back after Courtney’s experience. I was with Adam and Catherine and Adam refused to go down there and Catherine said she didn’t really want to go down their either, she just wanted to find another disposable camera because she had used all of hers up. So we decided to just look in the stores along the street and not go down to the open air part. Two other students walked with us too. Adam got all scared though and refused to go anywhere. But I told him we couldn’t just let Catherine walk by herself and he was like “oh yeah”. But then the whole time we were walking he looked scared and kept looking over his shoulder. Then all of a sudden one of the student’s with us yelled “ow! There’s this pain in my back” and we were like what is it? And he said “he didn’t know but if anything happened there was an epi-pen in his room”. So Adam asked if he could look at his back (he’s an EMT) but the kid refused and was all weird. (Why wasn’t his epi with him?). The whole time we were walking then he was rubbing his back, and the others were looking around scared. I’m normally a nervous person, so if I’m less nervous than someone-they must be petrified! It was odd be the most relaxed in the group…Finally Catherine and I decided we couldn’t tolerate the others panicking anymore and walked home.

So then we hung out by the bar for awhile. The hot brass boys were there and Courtney was drinking a beer.   Then we got on the two other buses again (the waterfall people were going straight to the pizza place). Dinner was at this pizza place and it was that night that the bidet incident occurred.

Brazil Tour 5: Gouchos

January 4

Thank goodness someone woke us up and that we had packed the night before. We unfortunately didn’t have time to shower, just to throw our carry-on stuff together and go down to the lobby. Then we went to the breakfast buffet to grab some food.  So then we went to put our stuff on the bus and I was really tired and out of it so I was like leaning all over my cello.  That is probably the only useful thing  traveling with a cello involves. Normally it is just me trying to hold onto my luggage, enormous purse and awkward cello, but in terms of something to sit on or lean on, a heavy duty flying cello case picks up the slack. So we got on the bus and the stupid parents on the bus had decided to move around (us kids were keeping to the same seats).

A 6 hour bus ride made even longer because we had a lunch stop in the middle. I was sleeping for a bit, then Rebecca said she was feeling sick because she gets motion sick. So I went to the front of the bus and asked Linda one of our trip leaders if she could find someone to switch with Rebecca so she could sit in the front so she might feel better. Linda said she’d switch with her. So then I sat with Linda for a couple hours and went in and out of sleep. So then we stopped at this rest stop that was like fast food. But it was really confusing because they didn’t have the toilet paper in the bathroom-like you had to bring it in with you before you entered-who knew? And then we only saw the place to buy snack food first and didn’t realize that we could buy actual lunch food. Rebecca still wasn’t feeling well, but we were having trouble finding someone else to switch with her. So when we got back on the bus we finally found a couple that would switch with both of us so we sat in the very front of the bus (our bus driver was actually on a level below us). Unfortunately this was when they put a movie on (Jingle All the Way) so now I couldn’t watch it because we were too far forward. And we were next to Donna, who luckily wasn’t too annoying. (She makes this weird smile that looks like the Wallace face on “Wallace and Gromit”). The parents were being really obnoxious about trading with Rebecca even though she was really sick-why is it parents are always more immature than the students on orchestra trips?

Then after the bus ride we checked into our room which was the same set up as the last hotel (little sitting room, a bathroom and two bedrooms, one with a twin bed and then one with two doubles where Rebecca and I were). Luckily our room had the phone in it this time so we could set a phone alarm and not worry. So then we took a nap, some people went for walks and stuff.

So when we woke up we went to dinner at this Gaucho place. The dinner was TONS of meat. It was like every part of the cow (and pig and lamb) imaginable and these guys would come out with the meat on sticks and cut some off into your plate. (Needless to say I actually didn’t eat much of that). We had little coasters that said “sim, por favor” or “não obrigado” which indicated whether you wanted a hunk of meat sliced into your place. (When I was in China I heard that there was a restaurant like this in Wuhan, unfortunately I didn’t get a chance to go.)

Then the Gaucho’s did a cowboy dance thing. One of the dances was this spear dance where they had to dance over a spear but not touch it. Then they made our conductor come up and try the dancing and dressed him up in cowboy clothes. Then they started dancing and pulled people from the audience to dance with. Then we paid to leave the food area (there was always a receipt like thing that would be filled out while you were in a place and then you’d pay at the door to leave). Then Rebecca and I were looking for souvenirs. So we got this green tea stuff and this hollowed out gourd to drink it in and this special spoon straw. But we aren’t sure how to make it because the directions are in Portuguese . .. oops.

This is the Lizard story:

Ok so one night Rebecca and I were in the lobby and Sara was in the room and our friend came and knocked on the door:

“Are Sarah or Rebecca here?” Sara said no we weren’t.

“oh, there’s a lizard in my room” long pause

“do you want to come in?”

then he walks in, walks around the room and keeps repeating that there is a lizard in his room she asked “do you want me to come back with you?”

and he said “no, it’s ok”

so then he came downstairs and found us and told us and he was all upset about it his roommate was downstairs too, not caring at all and he was like “I was looking for a book big enough to crush it”

“What?! You don’t crush lizards!” I exclaimed, “it’s not like a spider! You get them out of your room, not crush them!”

He seemed disappointed, and had trouble sleeping cause he was worried about the lizard. At the time I was imagining something close to an alligator, but in retrospect I realize it was probably a tiny one…

Brazil Tour 4: We came here for concerts?

January 3

This morning the brass and a representative from each section went to this workshop for children. The brass played something and then each instrument played something too. They filmed it and put it on TV later and we saw it. It was really funny because they kept cutting to a fellow cellist of mine playing the same thing over and over on the cello and they were only focusing from her neck down.  Then we all went to rehearsal.

So then we drove to the concert hall where we took a picture in front of our billboard. Then we walked to this food court place near by and had Chinese food.  Also there were fried bananas again. Then we went back to rehearsal, but the stage was really hot-so gross. We went back to the hotel to shower and eat before the concert at 9 (the conductor got on the bus and said we had time to “shit and shower” (he meant to say shave)). We unfortunately had to play the Berlioz with Donna the crappy guest soprano.

The concert went really well-apparently we turned away 300 people since the hall was already full! The audience was really enthusiastic and whistled and cheered after every piece. It felt like we were rock stars or something. And then our conductor had wanted to take us to Studio 54 but the bus drivers didn’t want to go because they had to drive us early in the morning to Porto Allegre. So a couple of us got caipirihia’s again and we sat inside at a table. And the boys ordered Absinthe since they couldn’t get it in the US and wanted to try it. They all did shots of it and this crazy grad student did like 3. So we hung out at the bar until like 2:00 or so.

We packed that night even though we were really tired and wanted to take naps while packing. And we were supposed to get up the next morning at 5:30 because we were supposed to be on the bus by 7:00. But since there were no alarm clocks in the hotel room we were depending on our phones. Which when sleep deprived on a trip is pretty easy to turn off. And phone calls to the room were also easy to stop when the phone is pulled off the hook…Luckily we had packed the night before and one of our diligent friends pounded on our door at 6:30.

Brazil Tour 3: Bus rides are always longer than the conductor says

January 2

So again we had a buffet at the hotel and then we took a bus ride to go to this Lagoon place. But before the Lagoon we went to the mall with the overly optimistic hopes of changing our money. Unfortunately there was only this little place that took cash so we only were able to change about $20.  The traffic was horrendous though. Oh and when we got on the bus we found out we were supposed to have swim stuff with us, so we ran back and grabbed our suits from the day before but we only ended up with one towel and nothing to change into afterward-little did we know the disaster that would be later.

So we drove to the lagoon and then we got off the bus and they said we could have free time till 3pm, just meet back at the bus, but then the tour guides started leading us somewhere. So we followed on this ridiculously long walk around the lagoon and it was really hot and we were really hungry. And then we lost half the group because they got tired of walking and stopped to eat. And then we were going to tell the bus to meet us at the end of the lagoon, but since not everyone was there we couldn’t so we were going to have to walk all the way back. The restaurant was only ok, but my cousin and my favorite thing was the fried bananas-soooooo good. Our conductor discovered the vitamina (fruit smoothie like thing) which turned out to be delicious.

Ok so after lunch we had to walk all the way back to the buses, thank goodness we had sunscreen! But we were all gross and sweaty of course. Then we got on the bus and drove to Jaquina beach, but it took like an hour to get there because the traffic was so bad. So we got there at 5 and they said we had to leave by 6 because the traffic was going to be bad and we had to have dinner at the hotel at 7:30. It was cooler on the beach than yesterday and it had waves. Some of us had changed on the bus under towels. So we went in the water. I made the unfortunate decision to fully immersed myself in the water.

Then it was getting towards 6 so we went and got our stuff.  We got on the bus and some kid had bought a pina colada in a pineapple (why are drinks more delicious when served in fresh fruit?!), but didn’t want it so my cousin and I split it. Our whole bus was there except one kid so we had to wait. One of the cellists all of a sudden couldn’t find his glasses (he had his prescription sunglasses on) so we searched the whole whole bus but nobody could find it-he never found them so he had to wear his sunglasses for the rest of the trip, even for the concerts. Finally the missing kid arrived and he had been with some people from another bus. So we ended up leaving later than planned at like 6:45 I think. But then the traffic was HORRIBLE. We spent 5 hours on the bus! And most of them were still in the parking lot! It was awful because we had our wet suits on and nothing warm to put on and the air was so cold. I went in and out of sleep the whole time and was really hungry. Every time I woke up I was colder and the bus had moved about a foot. And of course the delicious pina colada went straight through me… Finally I changed under a towel into my other clothes, but they were just summer clothes so I were still cold. We got into the hotel around 10 or 11 and luckily the hotel had held dinner for us so we ate there. We were SO hungry by then.

Brazil Tour 2: Caipirinha Discovered

January 1

So we got up around 7am to shower and eat before the beach. We ate a breakfast buffet at the restaurant. We had to be on the bus by 8am. One of my friends slept upside down and she said she woke up with drool in her eye-it’s amazing how much drooling happens on a trip of overtired college students… So we went to this beach and all settled down in the same area. My cousin and I loaded up on sunscreen and even let it sink in before we got into the water (we could hear our mothers lecturing us in our heads). The sun was brutal and found any spot you missed-one kid had burnt eyelids and my cousin ended up with one of my hand prints on her back… A lot of kids didn’t put any on at all and they were BURNT to a crisp (by the end of the trip their skin was flaking like a Pillsbury biscuit).

We ate lunch at a restaurant by the beach. It was hard to order because we couldn’t understand the menu. We ended up getting “popcorn fish” and polenta (it’s like fried cornbread). All of it was very greasy, but good. We went in the water which was pretty warm and shallow so you could go out far in it. We were supposed to leave by 2 or 3, but a lot of us wanted to stay later, so those of us who wanted to stayed till about 4. The hot brass boys stayed too. They were trying to do this thing in the water where they would get on each others’ shoulders. They were trying to get a stack of 4 of them, but since the water was really shallow they were all completely out of the water and none of them were strong enough to pick three up. They tried to put a girl on top to make it lighter, but it didn’t help much. It was really funny when they fell over every time.

After the beach we went back to the hotel to shower and all. Dinner was at 8 I think. We ate outside by the pool. Then after dinner, the conductor was trying to arrange evening activities for us. He said we could go bowling at this place or to the Café Cancun which was a club. I wanted to go to the club, but it was only 9pm so it was too early for that. But it turned out to be a big issue because nobody there spoke English and the bowling alley was crowded so we had to wait about 2 hours to get a lane. We found somewhere we could be understood right away: the bar. This was when we discovered the caipirinha: cachaca, crushed lime and sugar, or our preferred version: caipiroska: vodka, crushed lime and sugar. Wherever we went in Brazil for the rest of the trip caipirinhas or capiroskas would appear on little carts by our tables. The limes were always crushed fresh right in front of us: we were hooked.