One of the best things about South America is it's football. Here's a brief account of three games I've attended in the last month here.
Last month I took a short trip to Buenos Aires and Montevideo, and in the latter city I attended a game. Paying 120 Uruguayan pesos (just under £4) to watch Peñarol, the best team in the country, didn't seem like a bad idea, coupled with the fact that there wasn't much else to do on that late autumn Sunday back in April. The whole experience was very South American. The Centenario, in which the game was held, was built to commemorate both a hundred years of Uruguayan independence from Spanish rule and for the purpose of hosting the majority of the first ever World Cup's games. This was back in 1930, and not a lot has changed since. Not a single steward was visible inside the ground - the menacing police on the outside was the only presence of authority around. The fans, therefore, were left to their own devices, which consisted of flare lighting, exuberant singing and dancing, drug smoking, and general self-controlled anarchy. In other words, light years away from 21st century English football (but not dissimilar to what the game was like in the UK pre-Premiership, or some European leagues today). The game itself was an entertaining spectacle - Peñarol opened the scoring with an awesome bit of skill by their Argentine no. 10, but the opposition Liverpool managed to take the lead before half time. Cue frustration among the gathered masses, but following an equalizer after 70 minutes, Peñarol scored two in the dying minutes to provoke unbridled joy. The quality of football on display was of a good standard - but I don't see any of either teams players being the target of transfer speculation from Europe's big boys. Having said that, the price to entertainment value was excellent - when it's 10x cheaper to watch this than Man Utd or Chelsea you can't complain.
A week later I was in the Engenhão in Rio de Janeiro, watching a classico between Flamengo and Fluminense. The Engenhão is a 40,000 capacity stadium located in the north zone of the city, and is acting as a stop-gap for Rio's major teams now that the Maracana is closed for repairs. Only four years old, the stadium reeks of Ikea-Cardboard-Cutoutness - it could be put in any city in Europe and not look out of place, such is it's lack of any discernable character. This makes it look highly incongruous in relation to it's surroundings of drab lower class neighborhoods. About the only thing in common between the two experiences was the passion of the supporters - again, unremitting chanting and singing for 90 minutes. Curiously, unlike any other stadium I've been in, the hardcore fans were based at the side of the pitch, not behind the goal, but it didn't hamper the excellent atmosphere. As for the on-the-pitch occurrences, the torrential rain greatly hindered the free flowing football we were supposed to be seeing, and the fact that the highlight of the game was the penalty shootout says it all. Interestingly, halfway through each half the game stopped for a few minutes for tempo técnico - a short break for the players to gather instructions from their manager (instead of having them yelled at him from 30 yards away), and for the team to take stock of their performance so far. It baffled me at the time, but I've since been told that it's a recent innovation in Brazilian football which may well be popularised in the rest of the world
Last night I saw Vasco da Gama vs Avai in the semi finals of the Copa do Brasil. Alluded to in it's name, Vasco was formed by the Portuguese, which is shown in not only the architecture of the stadium itself (the São Januário) but also the surrounding area. You could convince yourself you were in Lisbon at times, albeit a rather rundown area. Although lacking in capacity, the stadium more than makes up for it's lack of numbers with a terrific, very Brazilian atmosphere. Living in the south zone of Rio I often forget what real Brazil feels like - a trip to the decidedly un-gringo suburb of São Cristóvão, which surrounds Vasco's ground, is a great reminder. Yet despite the packed ground and the fever pitch atmosphere, the game was let down by lack of quality - a far cry from the Vasco side, who with Romario and Edmundo beat Man Utd eleven years ago.
I hope to catch some of the national championship games (a chance to see Neymar and Ganso of Santos in Rio) before I head home in a month.
Jack
Friday, 22 April 2011
Saturday, 19 March 2011
Rio Happenings
Obama's recent visit provided some entertainment. The president visited Brazil as part of his Latin American "tour" (tour in inverted commas as the only other countries he visited were Chile and El Salvador), starting in the capital, Brasilia, before spending sunday 21st March in Rio, staying only five or so blocks from where I live. After the scenes a few days previously in the centre of the city, where large anti-US protests took place and the odd molotov cocktail thrown, I was keen to see what the reception would be like as Obama left his Copacabana hotel at 2:30pm to deliver a speech at a theatre in the centre of the city. The police presence was predictably huge, riot police, federal police, choque police (arguably the meanest police around) , the army, it was quite a sight. After much standing around in anticipation I finally got a glimpse of the man before he entered his bullet and missile proof vehicle. He was then escorted along the beachfront to the sounds of hundreds of people cheering. A note of the subsequent speech he made - the only negative reaction was from Obama joking about a Brazilian football match from the previous day, whilst the rest of his words about democracy and all that was lapped up by the 400 people given access to the theatre.
The rest of my time has been filled struggling with my dissertation and attending four hours of class a week. Given the amount of free time I have, I've been able to check out more of this vast city. Rio's favelas (slums) are a misinterpreted part of Rio, and Brazil in general. Most middle class Brazilians gaze up in revulsion at these hillside settlements, regarding them as a tropical version of Sodom, filled with gun-toting drug dealers and general Grand Theft Auto-esque activities, yet the same people base their judgements on the conservative, crime obsessed media rather than actual experience. Most people who abhorr these settlements that I've spoken to haven't actually visited one. This coupled with the fact that the most successful well-know Brazilian films of recent times have all been about favela-related violence (Tropa de Elite, Cidade de Deus, Onibus 174). It appears, somewhat bizarrely, that the paranoia of the middle and upper class here is equal to that of people back home. Vidigal, where my friend is living, is a large favela located near the rich suburb of Leblon, and based on my experience is as safe as anywhere else in Rio. There's far more of a community feel to in than a lot of the rich areas of Rio - places such as Copacabana have a noticiable, but not particularly damaging divide between the wealthy tourists/residents and the people who work in the cafés, bars and restaurants, all of whom invariably live in favelas.
I recently visited Barra da Tijuca, where I attended an Iron Maiden concert : see here for details:
http://manehead.blogspot.com/2011/03/iron-maiden-live-at-hsbc-arena-rio-de.html
Barra is one of the newest parts of the city (most of it's development has happened in the last 60 years), and one of my least favourites. I thought many parts of Zona Sul in Rio, such as Copacabana where I live, were the product of stunted tacky development, but Barra takes the mick. The place stinks of awful U.S. rip offs - gigantic shopping malls with ostentatious designs (such as Rio's very own Statue of Liberty), dire tower blocks and nothing pleasent or idiosyncratic. On a positive note, it has the highest quality of life in Rio, and is one of the safest places, but I'd rather live in Copacabana than sterile Barra.
The weather is still as intense as ever, and almost constantly sweating is grating on me a little. Any extreme of weather is the same - we all love to sledge and have snowball fights but road closures and delayed flights are a pain. Similarly here, the hot weather is great if you want to chill at the beach but if you want to get along with your daily life it is a bit of an inconvenience. The lack of seasons here isn't too healthy. In the U.K, the seasons give the year more definition - we suffer through bleak winter nights to (occasionally) be rewarded with glorious summer days. In Rio there is no suffering, no sense of being rewarded for punishingly bad weather - you can have a cloudless blazing hot day any day of the year (although less frequent in June-July).
Jack
The rest of my time has been filled struggling with my dissertation and attending four hours of class a week. Given the amount of free time I have, I've been able to check out more of this vast city. Rio's favelas (slums) are a misinterpreted part of Rio, and Brazil in general. Most middle class Brazilians gaze up in revulsion at these hillside settlements, regarding them as a tropical version of Sodom, filled with gun-toting drug dealers and general Grand Theft Auto-esque activities, yet the same people base their judgements on the conservative, crime obsessed media rather than actual experience. Most people who abhorr these settlements that I've spoken to haven't actually visited one. This coupled with the fact that the most successful well-know Brazilian films of recent times have all been about favela-related violence (Tropa de Elite, Cidade de Deus, Onibus 174). It appears, somewhat bizarrely, that the paranoia of the middle and upper class here is equal to that of people back home. Vidigal, where my friend is living, is a large favela located near the rich suburb of Leblon, and based on my experience is as safe as anywhere else in Rio. There's far more of a community feel to in than a lot of the rich areas of Rio - places such as Copacabana have a noticiable, but not particularly damaging divide between the wealthy tourists/residents and the people who work in the cafés, bars and restaurants, all of whom invariably live in favelas.
I recently visited Barra da Tijuca, where I attended an Iron Maiden concert : see here for details:
http://manehead.blogspot.com/2011/03/iron-maiden-live-at-hsbc-arena-rio-de.html
Barra is one of the newest parts of the city (most of it's development has happened in the last 60 years), and one of my least favourites. I thought many parts of Zona Sul in Rio, such as Copacabana where I live, were the product of stunted tacky development, but Barra takes the mick. The place stinks of awful U.S. rip offs - gigantic shopping malls with ostentatious designs (such as Rio's very own Statue of Liberty), dire tower blocks and nothing pleasent or idiosyncratic. On a positive note, it has the highest quality of life in Rio, and is one of the safest places, but I'd rather live in Copacabana than sterile Barra.
The weather is still as intense as ever, and almost constantly sweating is grating on me a little. Any extreme of weather is the same - we all love to sledge and have snowball fights but road closures and delayed flights are a pain. Similarly here, the hot weather is great if you want to chill at the beach but if you want to get along with your daily life it is a bit of an inconvenience. The lack of seasons here isn't too healthy. In the U.K, the seasons give the year more definition - we suffer through bleak winter nights to (occasionally) be rewarded with glorious summer days. In Rio there is no suffering, no sense of being rewarded for punishingly bad weather - you can have a cloudless blazing hot day any day of the year (although less frequent in June-July).
Jack
Thursday, 20 January 2011
Three weeks on the Iberian Peninsula
I had been meaning to do an update whilst on the road but I ended up having less down time that I thought I would. Instead I've made the most of my empty hours in rural South Wales to document the events of January.
Since I had copious amounts of time with little to do I decided to head to Spain and Portugal for three weeks in January. Although I`ve already seen a large portion of Spain there are still quite a few places I`d yet to venture, and with friends in Barcelona, Valencia and Lisbon I had an opportunity to see them again before I headed back to South America, as well as having their knowledge of the respective cities.
I left the UK on the 10th January just as I`d re-entered it upon my return from Brazil in December - shrouded in darkness and shivering in the bitter cold. I was greeted with perfect weather in Barcelona - not shorts and t-shirt by any means but anything in the 20`s in January is a bonus. Having not spoke Spanish properly for 6 months I struggled at first, coupled with the fact that Catalan is so prominent. It surprised me that Barça felt more touristy than Rio, even in low season. A notable feature of Barcelona is the influence of architect Antoni Gaudi - his work at Parc Guell is impressive and some of the buildings he designed give the city a character which sets it apart from other Spanish cities.
In addition to the normal touristy stuff I was lucky to catch a football game on my last day there - Barcelona vs Malaga, in La Liga, along with 79,999 other fans. By my reckoning it's an unprecedented event that the top three players in the world (as voted in the FIFA World Player Of The Year award) play for the same team, so it was a joy to watch Leo Messi, Xavi and Andrés Iniesta showing off and playing some of the best football imaginable, taking apart a weak Malaga side and winning 4-1. Much has been made of the passion of the Barça fans but to me it felt a lot more sedate than what I was expecting. Having said that, the result was fairly predictable, so it felt more like watching a show at the theatre than a real us-against-them football match. Bizarrely, a ticket to watch the best team in the world cost less than 30 euros - only two years previously I watched Leeds United struggle past Millwall on a wet Tuesday evening for the same price.
Valencia immediately felt a lot smaller and less touristy, even if it the third largest city in the country behind Barcelona. I spent three nights there and saw the impressive beach, the fairly new City of Arts and Sciences museum and the old part of town, climbing the 215 step tower of the Cathedral in the process.
I had been meaning to try out couchsurfing for years, and this trip was the perfect opportunity. If you search for 'couchsurfing' on google, the second most popular search term related to the subject is 'couchsurfing horror stories', however my experience of it in Cartagena was very positive. After staring out of the train window for several hours admiring the landscape I arrived in Cartagena in the late evening, and I managed to find the street on which my hosts lived. Or so it seemed, but my inability to read my own scrawny handwriting came back to bite me, as I was on a similarly named street and not the road I was supposed to be on. This resulted in lots of confusing, expensive phone calls, waiting around cluelessly, and my phone battery dying. About to give up and find some other form of accommodation I tried the next street along, where two guys approached me and led me back to their apartment. It turns out that the entire family is obsessed with heavy metal, and I spend a good few hours on youtube with one of the guys, Ryan, who introduced me to some good bands, and vice versa. Their generosity and kindness was staggering - I ate and slept better than anywhere else in Spain, and was given a bike tour of the city by the mum. Cartagena seemed pretty quiet, a far cry from what you'd imagine a city on the south coast of Spain to be like. It's a city with a lot of history - much evidence of the Romans as well as the naval base which housed a number of submarines during World War Two.
Continuing the trend of travelling to progressively smaller settlements, I decided to check out Aguilas, a small town a few hours west of Cartagena. The landscape seemed to get more and more arid the further down the coast I went, but amongst the parched hills lay huge greenhouses which exclusively contained tomatoes, apparently the only thing grown in this area. In Aguilas I spent the whole of Sunday wandering the barren empty coast, listening to progressive rock and reading Into The Wild, one of the best books I've had the pleasure of reading in quite a while. It was bitterly cold and empty and I was quite glad to leave for Murcia the following day.
Murcia was no warmer sadly, except for the almost tropical micro climate of El Corte Ingles. Murcia is the 7th largest city in Spain but doesn't have a lot to show for it - the only noticeable idiosyncrasy was the abundance of tramps in the city. There was a nice medieval quarter and cathedral, but you can say that about a myriad of Spanish settlements.
The nature of spontaneous travelling is that by compromising organisation you have to pay for lack of it on some occasions. I had run out of time to see any more of Spain as I had a flight back from Lisbon on the 1st February. So I scurried across Andalucia by bus, leaving Murcia at 10pm and arriving in a dreary Seville at 6:30am. I had no idea how I was to get to Lisbon from here but conveniently a bus there left soon after I arrived, via Huelva and Faro, that got into Lisbon by 2:15. This entire trip cost me 75 euros and left me pretty shattered.
Crossing the border into what became the 19th country I have visited in my life was fairly uneventful - I vaguely remember been awoken by a immigration officer and shoved my passport at him. Due to the time difference I had an hour to kill in the pleasant town of Faro, which looked especially nice in the first blue sky I'd seen in quite a while.
Lisbon was an interesting city, full of history. It was pretty cool to think that it was once the epicentre of the world, when the Portuguese empire was at it's pinnacle. It was interesting to see the Brazilian influence on Portuguese culture - for example, the consumption of the caipirinha, the quintessential Brazilian drink. I found it funny how the cheapest and most disgusting cachaça (spirit used in the cocktail) available in Brazil was on sale in the supermarkets of Lisbon for eight euros - four times the price as in Brazil. A note on the gastronomy was the quality of Portuguese pastries - in particular, the pastel de nata, essentially a custard tart, but better in flavour and texture than anything you'd find in Greggs.
I found the differences between Brazilian Portuguese and the Portuguese spoken in Portugal interesting. The language seems a lot purer than what I'm used to hearing in Rio, with a slight Slavic tone, and less Americanisations (e.g. the Portuguese say portatil for laptop, whereas Brazilians say...laptop). As I only stayed in Lisbon for five nights I was unable to really get back into the swing of Portuguese after speaking Spanish for over two weeks.
I now have just over two weeks before I fly back to South America, for the start my second semester in Rio, and Carnaval. The media hyperbole surrounding the event has meant that anything less than four days of pure hedonistic joy will be a disappointment, so I'm setting my expectations low and taking what comes. I find normal everyday life in Rio exciting enough as it is, especially after being deprived of it for over two months.
Jack
Since I had copious amounts of time with little to do I decided to head to Spain and Portugal for three weeks in January. Although I`ve already seen a large portion of Spain there are still quite a few places I`d yet to venture, and with friends in Barcelona, Valencia and Lisbon I had an opportunity to see them again before I headed back to South America, as well as having their knowledge of the respective cities.
I left the UK on the 10th January just as I`d re-entered it upon my return from Brazil in December - shrouded in darkness and shivering in the bitter cold. I was greeted with perfect weather in Barcelona - not shorts and t-shirt by any means but anything in the 20`s in January is a bonus. Having not spoke Spanish properly for 6 months I struggled at first, coupled with the fact that Catalan is so prominent. It surprised me that Barça felt more touristy than Rio, even in low season. A notable feature of Barcelona is the influence of architect Antoni Gaudi - his work at Parc Guell is impressive and some of the buildings he designed give the city a character which sets it apart from other Spanish cities.
In addition to the normal touristy stuff I was lucky to catch a football game on my last day there - Barcelona vs Malaga, in La Liga, along with 79,999 other fans. By my reckoning it's an unprecedented event that the top three players in the world (as voted in the FIFA World Player Of The Year award) play for the same team, so it was a joy to watch Leo Messi, Xavi and Andrés Iniesta showing off and playing some of the best football imaginable, taking apart a weak Malaga side and winning 4-1. Much has been made of the passion of the Barça fans but to me it felt a lot more sedate than what I was expecting. Having said that, the result was fairly predictable, so it felt more like watching a show at the theatre than a real us-against-them football match. Bizarrely, a ticket to watch the best team in the world cost less than 30 euros - only two years previously I watched Leeds United struggle past Millwall on a wet Tuesday evening for the same price.
Valencia immediately felt a lot smaller and less touristy, even if it the third largest city in the country behind Barcelona. I spent three nights there and saw the impressive beach, the fairly new City of Arts and Sciences museum and the old part of town, climbing the 215 step tower of the Cathedral in the process.
I had been meaning to try out couchsurfing for years, and this trip was the perfect opportunity. If you search for 'couchsurfing' on google, the second most popular search term related to the subject is 'couchsurfing horror stories', however my experience of it in Cartagena was very positive. After staring out of the train window for several hours admiring the landscape I arrived in Cartagena in the late evening, and I managed to find the street on which my hosts lived. Or so it seemed, but my inability to read my own scrawny handwriting came back to bite me, as I was on a similarly named street and not the road I was supposed to be on. This resulted in lots of confusing, expensive phone calls, waiting around cluelessly, and my phone battery dying. About to give up and find some other form of accommodation I tried the next street along, where two guys approached me and led me back to their apartment. It turns out that the entire family is obsessed with heavy metal, and I spend a good few hours on youtube with one of the guys, Ryan, who introduced me to some good bands, and vice versa. Their generosity and kindness was staggering - I ate and slept better than anywhere else in Spain, and was given a bike tour of the city by the mum. Cartagena seemed pretty quiet, a far cry from what you'd imagine a city on the south coast of Spain to be like. It's a city with a lot of history - much evidence of the Romans as well as the naval base which housed a number of submarines during World War Two.
Continuing the trend of travelling to progressively smaller settlements, I decided to check out Aguilas, a small town a few hours west of Cartagena. The landscape seemed to get more and more arid the further down the coast I went, but amongst the parched hills lay huge greenhouses which exclusively contained tomatoes, apparently the only thing grown in this area. In Aguilas I spent the whole of Sunday wandering the barren empty coast, listening to progressive rock and reading Into The Wild, one of the best books I've had the pleasure of reading in quite a while. It was bitterly cold and empty and I was quite glad to leave for Murcia the following day.
Murcia was no warmer sadly, except for the almost tropical micro climate of El Corte Ingles. Murcia is the 7th largest city in Spain but doesn't have a lot to show for it - the only noticeable idiosyncrasy was the abundance of tramps in the city. There was a nice medieval quarter and cathedral, but you can say that about a myriad of Spanish settlements.
The nature of spontaneous travelling is that by compromising organisation you have to pay for lack of it on some occasions. I had run out of time to see any more of Spain as I had a flight back from Lisbon on the 1st February. So I scurried across Andalucia by bus, leaving Murcia at 10pm and arriving in a dreary Seville at 6:30am. I had no idea how I was to get to Lisbon from here but conveniently a bus there left soon after I arrived, via Huelva and Faro, that got into Lisbon by 2:15. This entire trip cost me 75 euros and left me pretty shattered.
Crossing the border into what became the 19th country I have visited in my life was fairly uneventful - I vaguely remember been awoken by a immigration officer and shoved my passport at him. Due to the time difference I had an hour to kill in the pleasant town of Faro, which looked especially nice in the first blue sky I'd seen in quite a while.
Lisbon was an interesting city, full of history. It was pretty cool to think that it was once the epicentre of the world, when the Portuguese empire was at it's pinnacle. It was interesting to see the Brazilian influence on Portuguese culture - for example, the consumption of the caipirinha, the quintessential Brazilian drink. I found it funny how the cheapest and most disgusting cachaça (spirit used in the cocktail) available in Brazil was on sale in the supermarkets of Lisbon for eight euros - four times the price as in Brazil. A note on the gastronomy was the quality of Portuguese pastries - in particular, the pastel de nata, essentially a custard tart, but better in flavour and texture than anything you'd find in Greggs.
I found the differences between Brazilian Portuguese and the Portuguese spoken in Portugal interesting. The language seems a lot purer than what I'm used to hearing in Rio, with a slight Slavic tone, and less Americanisations (e.g. the Portuguese say portatil for laptop, whereas Brazilians say...laptop). As I only stayed in Lisbon for five nights I was unable to really get back into the swing of Portuguese after speaking Spanish for over two weeks.
I now have just over two weeks before I fly back to South America, for the start my second semester in Rio, and Carnaval. The media hyperbole surrounding the event has meant that anything less than four days of pure hedonistic joy will be a disappointment, so I'm setting my expectations low and taking what comes. I find normal everyday life in Rio exciting enough as it is, especially after being deprived of it for over two months.
Jack
Tuesday, 16 November 2010
Half Time break back in Wales
It's the 21st of December, and I've been back in the UK six days now. To think that only a week ago I was wandering around in my shorts and t-shirt on the other side of the world seems surreal. Having returned to the frostbitten northern lands of Wales I almost instantaneously caught a cold - the drop in temperature from 30 degrees celcius to below zero has been a brutal wake up call. In addition, whereas today is the shortest day of the year here at home, Rio will be enjoying a sunset later than 8pm. Upon landing at Heathrow I wondered why I had so desired to return to my homeland - we flew over grim south London suburbia shrouded in mist and looking extremely bleak and drab. Yet despite the fact that people may moan about the harsh winters we have, it's a great relief to experience actual seasons - although the minimum temperature crept up insidiously between my arrival to Rio in July till the point I left in December, the seasons don't nearly seem so pronounced - I remember scorching, overcast and thunderstorm days in each month I was there - the contrast wasn't great. In Brazil it's very easy to become complacent and take the weather for granted, yet in the UK one day of clear skies and sunshine is treated as a gift from the gods and appreciated to a much bigger extent.
Here are a few things I'd been meaning to mention on life in Rio previously:
The culture of drinking hanging out on the street is still alive in Brazil. The Boteco is the centrepiece of this. These are small informal drinking joints that appear on what seems like every other street in Rio (apart from Ipanema and Leblon - too upmarket for such places). I attribute the success of these places to several factors - the gap between the price of supermarket beer and the beer at these places isn't half as wide as the gap in England. Another reason is the fact that Brazilians are probably more social and enjoy relaxing in the heat. The place opposite my apartment is never shut, which has been very useful at 4am on a few occasions.
Another note on the scenery. It's pretty awesome that you can go from Copacabana, one of the most densely populated areas in South America, to the mixture a village like atmosphere, green lushness and barren isolation of Urca in only a few minutes drive. There is a lovely seaside path that leads down the peninsula on which the Pão de Azucar,one of Rio's most famous tourist attractions, is situated. This is awesome as it is, with its tropical flora and fauna and picturesque sea views. The paved trail morphs into a narrow path that clings to the cliffside, and before long you are overlooking the Guanabara bay with only vultures and reptiles for company and the sound of the sea gently lapping the shoreline below being the only thing you can hear.
I'm not one for basking on the sand, nor do I regularly take to the waters, but I really appreciate the beach nonetheless. It provides a natural and much needed end to the urban chaos surrounding one side of it. One of my favourite features of it is the beachside bars. They provide cheap beer and caipirinhas whilst being in an awesome location. By contrast, on the other side of the road from these places lies the most expensive accomodation in the whole of Rio. The beaches are great for a wander - walking the few miles from my end of Copacabana along Ipanema to Leblon whilst stopping for the odd agua de coco whilst enjoying the atmosphere and weather is something I'll really miss.
As for university here, I have achieved the highest marks of my life with the least amount of effort. The teachers seem to hand out top grades like confetti, in terms of autonomous learning this has to be the most hands off experience of my life. I've already managed to pass the entire year - Leeds only expect you to pass three modules in the course of a year - so until I return to England in September I'll have to do some serious autonomous learning to avoid stagnating and spending too much time on the beach. I have supplemented the pittance of uni work I have with newspapers and Portuguese translations of Charles Bukowski and Jack London's works, and thankfully I've had my dissertation proposal approved by Leeds - so I'll actually have something to do for the next nine months after all!
I'll be back in Rio for mid February, but in between I'm going on something of an Iberian odyssy, flying to Barcelona on 10th January and then flying back from Lisbon at some point after. I'm hoping to take in some cool places along the way and see some friends, as well as practice my extremely rusty Spanish that hasn't seen real action since June.
Jack
Here are a few things I'd been meaning to mention on life in Rio previously:
The culture of drinking hanging out on the street is still alive in Brazil. The Boteco is the centrepiece of this. These are small informal drinking joints that appear on what seems like every other street in Rio (apart from Ipanema and Leblon - too upmarket for such places). I attribute the success of these places to several factors - the gap between the price of supermarket beer and the beer at these places isn't half as wide as the gap in England. Another reason is the fact that Brazilians are probably more social and enjoy relaxing in the heat. The place opposite my apartment is never shut, which has been very useful at 4am on a few occasions.
Another note on the scenery. It's pretty awesome that you can go from Copacabana, one of the most densely populated areas in South America, to the mixture a village like atmosphere, green lushness and barren isolation of Urca in only a few minutes drive. There is a lovely seaside path that leads down the peninsula on which the Pão de Azucar,one of Rio's most famous tourist attractions, is situated. This is awesome as it is, with its tropical flora and fauna and picturesque sea views. The paved trail morphs into a narrow path that clings to the cliffside, and before long you are overlooking the Guanabara bay with only vultures and reptiles for company and the sound of the sea gently lapping the shoreline below being the only thing you can hear.
I'm not one for basking on the sand, nor do I regularly take to the waters, but I really appreciate the beach nonetheless. It provides a natural and much needed end to the urban chaos surrounding one side of it. One of my favourite features of it is the beachside bars. They provide cheap beer and caipirinhas whilst being in an awesome location. By contrast, on the other side of the road from these places lies the most expensive accomodation in the whole of Rio. The beaches are great for a wander - walking the few miles from my end of Copacabana along Ipanema to Leblon whilst stopping for the odd agua de coco whilst enjoying the atmosphere and weather is something I'll really miss.
As for university here, I have achieved the highest marks of my life with the least amount of effort. The teachers seem to hand out top grades like confetti, in terms of autonomous learning this has to be the most hands off experience of my life. I've already managed to pass the entire year - Leeds only expect you to pass three modules in the course of a year - so until I return to England in September I'll have to do some serious autonomous learning to avoid stagnating and spending too much time on the beach. I have supplemented the pittance of uni work I have with newspapers and Portuguese translations of Charles Bukowski and Jack London's works, and thankfully I've had my dissertation proposal approved by Leeds - so I'll actually have something to do for the next nine months after all!
I'll be back in Rio for mid February, but in between I'm going on something of an Iberian odyssy, flying to Barcelona on 10th January and then flying back from Lisbon at some point after. I'm hoping to take in some cool places along the way and see some friends, as well as practice my extremely rusty Spanish that hasn't seen real action since June.
Jack
Thursday, 21 October 2010
Travelling Up North, some Portuguese lessons
Having spent much of October occupied by travelling and visiting friends/family, I spent the first week of November sorting out my dissertation and doing a bit of studying, but finally got around to writing an update on life here.
Between the 6th and 18th October there were a sufficient number of feriados (public holidays) to justify a bit of a trip away, so I booked a flight to João Pessoa, in the far North-East, where some friends from Leeds are studying.
If you take a three hour flight from England you could reach such exotic climbs as Morocco, Greece, Russia or Iceland - all with very distinctive cultures and ways of life. However, upon taking a journey of similar length from Rio to João Pessoa, it was hardly radically different. Although João Pessoa, with just over a million people, is bigger than cities such as Leeds, it has little to do and is very calm and tranquil, devoid of the hecticness and edgy feel of Rio. You do feel very isolated up here - its the most easterly point of the Americas, and closer to Africa than much of the rest of South America. It's a very beautiful part of the country though - the beaches are glorious and the sea is populated with dolphins, turtles and sharks, all visible from the shore. The cost of living is notably different - the price of cheap accomodation in Rio is the same as a very expensive place in João. There is a mixed feeling of resignation and content here - the Northeast is second only to the tribal areas in the Amazon and the dry interior as the bottom feeder of Brazilian society. The emmigration rates are very high, in fact it's probable that there are more people in Rio from the north east than the whole of João.
The biggest contrast, however, was the university there. It had more of a primary school feel to it - no building was more than one story high, and everything was very close together. The place was littered with stray cats and dogs and the unplastered red brick walls resembled favela buildings more than an educational institution, and as for the one toilet I had the pleasure of using, well I've seen higher sanitary standards at Reading Festival. All in all, a marked contrast from the private equivilant I attend in Rio (scoff scoff). The trip to João Pessoa was a pretty interesting experience - it really made me appreciate what Rio has to offer, and as it was the first place outside of Rio de Janeiro state I had visited, it served as a good introduction to what the rest of the country has to offer.
After a week or so in João Pessoa, I got on a 16 hour bus to Salvador, Brazil's second biggest tourist destination, the former capital, and the pivotal port in which millions of slaves arrived in centuries gone by. Although the centre of town where I stayed was a tourist haven, it was probably the most Brazilian place I've visited - whereas a lot of Rio reminds me of Europe, Salvador brought back memories of Bolivia and Peru, what people might call the 'real' South America. I spend a few days here enjoying myself as a tourist - Salvador is famed for its street entertainment, such as capoeira (a dance/fight routine originating from slaves shipped from Angola) and berimbau (a one stringed traditional Brazilian instrument players. The journey home was surprisingly smooth. Although I had prepared myself for a long bus journey back to Rio, I was surprised to discover that a two hour flight was only a few reais more than the 27 hour bus - unless your afraid of flying or extremely environmentally conscious (hi Dad!) then you'd be nuts to get the bus. Maybe it would be a good idea for the government here to tax airlines to encourage a greener form of travel, but Brazil being Brazil that seems a pretty distant possibility.
Nearly 2 weeks ago marked the second and final round of the Brazilian Presidential election. It was won by Dilma Roussef, who succeeds Brazil's most popular president, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, commonly known just as Lula. Although this was expected to be a peaceful transition, as both leaders are in the same party, it made me realise that since I've been in Brazil, I've seen virtually no form of protest. This is in strong contrast to the rest of Latin America, particually Buenos Aires, where I seem to remember regular demonstrations (not including the weekly assembles on the main square regarding Videla dictatorship/Falklands fiasco). Not to mention Europe - take Athens for example,the recent protests and strikes that affected the whole of France, and the protests in London this week. Even though Brazil is booming economically and the standard of living is increasing for many, there is still a lot of issues such as massive inequality and institutional racism - you wonder why these problems are not taken to the streets.
Although many see this time abroad as a glorified beach holiday, which at times isn't far from the truth, I have definately seen an improvement my level of Portuguese. I have been reading a lot, which I find is one of the easiest ways to learn. I got myself a copy of Ozzy Osbourne's recently released autobiography a few months back and was able to learn a lot of vocabulary. For example, there is no direct translation for "to pass out" (through excessive drinking) - the Portguese use "to faint" in this context, which doesn't convey the true sentiment of the English word, but the fact that there is no equivilant shows that maybe the Brazilians don't take their drinking to the levels that us English do. In addition to this, I have been trying to read at least a few newspapers a week. In order to save money, I often buy the tabloids, which are predictably bad. They are full of the usual stories of Z-list celebrities, favela violence, bus hijackings etc. If you want Rio to live up to the image given in the film City of God, then these papers do it justice. Sometimes it gets a bit ridiculous. The headline of one of the tabloids, "Mais", which I bought today for the first and last time, was "Girl chokes to death on chewing gum". Seriously?.
In addition, I have noticed some more general idiosyncracies of the language. They have the funny habit of putting "eee" on the end of words totally unnecessarily, such as MceeeDonalds, chipeee, Pinkeee Floyd, lapeeetopeee, etc.. I've noticed a habit of reluctance to translate English words too - lanche is lunch, time is team (pronounced the same), and shopping is erm, shopping. This sometimes sounds pretty ridiculous, especially when they do it wrong, for example they don't seem to realise which is the noun and adjective in 'heavy metal'. As a result, the genre is, when shortened from 'heavy metal', to just 'heavy'. Understandably however, since the noun often preceeds the adjective in many languages. Apparently, these 'impurities' are far less common in 'real' Portuguese (as my Portuguese friend referred to it as).
Off to Belo Horizonte tomorrow, taking advantage of yet another public holiday to see friends and go to a gig. Hope all is well wherever you're at.
Jack
Between the 6th and 18th October there were a sufficient number of feriados (public holidays) to justify a bit of a trip away, so I booked a flight to João Pessoa, in the far North-East, where some friends from Leeds are studying.
If you take a three hour flight from England you could reach such exotic climbs as Morocco, Greece, Russia or Iceland - all with very distinctive cultures and ways of life. However, upon taking a journey of similar length from Rio to João Pessoa, it was hardly radically different. Although João Pessoa, with just over a million people, is bigger than cities such as Leeds, it has little to do and is very calm and tranquil, devoid of the hecticness and edgy feel of Rio. You do feel very isolated up here - its the most easterly point of the Americas, and closer to Africa than much of the rest of South America. It's a very beautiful part of the country though - the beaches are glorious and the sea is populated with dolphins, turtles and sharks, all visible from the shore. The cost of living is notably different - the price of cheap accomodation in Rio is the same as a very expensive place in João. There is a mixed feeling of resignation and content here - the Northeast is second only to the tribal areas in the Amazon and the dry interior as the bottom feeder of Brazilian society. The emmigration rates are very high, in fact it's probable that there are more people in Rio from the north east than the whole of João.
The biggest contrast, however, was the university there. It had more of a primary school feel to it - no building was more than one story high, and everything was very close together. The place was littered with stray cats and dogs and the unplastered red brick walls resembled favela buildings more than an educational institution, and as for the one toilet I had the pleasure of using, well I've seen higher sanitary standards at Reading Festival. All in all, a marked contrast from the private equivilant I attend in Rio (scoff scoff). The trip to João Pessoa was a pretty interesting experience - it really made me appreciate what Rio has to offer, and as it was the first place outside of Rio de Janeiro state I had visited, it served as a good introduction to what the rest of the country has to offer.
After a week or so in João Pessoa, I got on a 16 hour bus to Salvador, Brazil's second biggest tourist destination, the former capital, and the pivotal port in which millions of slaves arrived in centuries gone by. Although the centre of town where I stayed was a tourist haven, it was probably the most Brazilian place I've visited - whereas a lot of Rio reminds me of Europe, Salvador brought back memories of Bolivia and Peru, what people might call the 'real' South America. I spend a few days here enjoying myself as a tourist - Salvador is famed for its street entertainment, such as capoeira (a dance/fight routine originating from slaves shipped from Angola) and berimbau (a one stringed traditional Brazilian instrument players. The journey home was surprisingly smooth. Although I had prepared myself for a long bus journey back to Rio, I was surprised to discover that a two hour flight was only a few reais more than the 27 hour bus - unless your afraid of flying or extremely environmentally conscious (hi Dad!) then you'd be nuts to get the bus. Maybe it would be a good idea for the government here to tax airlines to encourage a greener form of travel, but Brazil being Brazil that seems a pretty distant possibility.
Nearly 2 weeks ago marked the second and final round of the Brazilian Presidential election. It was won by Dilma Roussef, who succeeds Brazil's most popular president, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, commonly known just as Lula. Although this was expected to be a peaceful transition, as both leaders are in the same party, it made me realise that since I've been in Brazil, I've seen virtually no form of protest. This is in strong contrast to the rest of Latin America, particually Buenos Aires, where I seem to remember regular demonstrations (not including the weekly assembles on the main square regarding Videla dictatorship/Falklands fiasco). Not to mention Europe - take Athens for example,the recent protests and strikes that affected the whole of France, and the protests in London this week. Even though Brazil is booming economically and the standard of living is increasing for many, there is still a lot of issues such as massive inequality and institutional racism - you wonder why these problems are not taken to the streets.
Although many see this time abroad as a glorified beach holiday, which at times isn't far from the truth, I have definately seen an improvement my level of Portuguese. I have been reading a lot, which I find is one of the easiest ways to learn. I got myself a copy of Ozzy Osbourne's recently released autobiography a few months back and was able to learn a lot of vocabulary. For example, there is no direct translation for "to pass out" (through excessive drinking) - the Portguese use "to faint" in this context, which doesn't convey the true sentiment of the English word, but the fact that there is no equivilant shows that maybe the Brazilians don't take their drinking to the levels that us English do. In addition to this, I have been trying to read at least a few newspapers a week. In order to save money, I often buy the tabloids, which are predictably bad. They are full of the usual stories of Z-list celebrities, favela violence, bus hijackings etc. If you want Rio to live up to the image given in the film City of God, then these papers do it justice. Sometimes it gets a bit ridiculous. The headline of one of the tabloids, "Mais", which I bought today for the first and last time, was "Girl chokes to death on chewing gum". Seriously?.
In addition, I have noticed some more general idiosyncracies of the language. They have the funny habit of putting "eee" on the end of words totally unnecessarily, such as MceeeDonalds, chipeee, Pinkeee Floyd, lapeeetopeee, etc.. I've noticed a habit of reluctance to translate English words too - lanche is lunch, time is team (pronounced the same), and shopping is erm, shopping. This sometimes sounds pretty ridiculous, especially when they do it wrong, for example they don't seem to realise which is the noun and adjective in 'heavy metal'. As a result, the genre is, when shortened from 'heavy metal', to just 'heavy'. Understandably however, since the noun often preceeds the adjective in many languages. Apparently, these 'impurities' are far less common in 'real' Portuguese (as my Portuguese friend referred to it as).
Off to Belo Horizonte tomorrow, taking advantage of yet another public holiday to see friends and go to a gig. Hope all is well wherever you're at.
Jack
Monday, 27 September 2010
The wonders of Brazilian University life
So I've been in Rio close to 10 weeks - it's nearing on the longest time that I've spent away from home. Time is starting to fly by - the Brazilian way of life is becoming more familiar and I'm slowly getting to grips with everything here. I thought I'd write a bit on Uni life here, as it is seemingly full of surprises...
I am studying a pretty diverse set of modules - Portuguese Language, Ancient Rome History & Culture, Urban Geography and Brazilian Culture. The highlight for me has been the Urban Geography module. As in most of my classes apart from Portuguese language, I'm virtually the only gringo, and I still find it very hard to understand what's going on without having someone explain to me directly. Thrown into the deep end after only joining the class three weeks into term, I was told that I was to partake in a presentation on Lapa, a nightspot in the north of the city. It turned out that one of the Brazilian girls in my group had already decided that I was to act as a homeless person, playing a peripheral but fun role in which I managed to get a 9/10 for - which ranks as my best ever grade at University level (!). Another interesting note from this class was the exam we had the other week - bizarrely, it was to be done in pairs. I hadn't really revised for it, and my partner Felipe barely knew what day of the week it was. However, the extremely relaxed and lenient nature of Brazil meant that we were able to copy the girls next to us, with the teacher just laughing at our apparent audacity. Again, I managed to get a 9/10 for this. So, is taking part in a comical play followed by a botched exam the apex of 15 years of education and a £20,000 debt? This coupled with the fact that in one of my other modules (Ancient Rome) I grade myself on my progress brings into question the integrity of the Brazilian university system. It's all in good spirit though - and being part of another culture and way of doing things is what it's all about I guess.
Thats all for now. I fly to Joao Pessoa on a 12 day holiday on Wednesday, staying with friends there for a while before embarking on a mammouth 40 hour bus journey back to Rio, via Salvador and any other places that take my interest...
Jack
I am studying a pretty diverse set of modules - Portuguese Language, Ancient Rome History & Culture, Urban Geography and Brazilian Culture. The highlight for me has been the Urban Geography module. As in most of my classes apart from Portuguese language, I'm virtually the only gringo, and I still find it very hard to understand what's going on without having someone explain to me directly. Thrown into the deep end after only joining the class three weeks into term, I was told that I was to partake in a presentation on Lapa, a nightspot in the north of the city. It turned out that one of the Brazilian girls in my group had already decided that I was to act as a homeless person, playing a peripheral but fun role in which I managed to get a 9/10 for - which ranks as my best ever grade at University level (!). Another interesting note from this class was the exam we had the other week - bizarrely, it was to be done in pairs. I hadn't really revised for it, and my partner Felipe barely knew what day of the week it was. However, the extremely relaxed and lenient nature of Brazil meant that we were able to copy the girls next to us, with the teacher just laughing at our apparent audacity. Again, I managed to get a 9/10 for this. So, is taking part in a comical play followed by a botched exam the apex of 15 years of education and a £20,000 debt? This coupled with the fact that in one of my other modules (Ancient Rome) I grade myself on my progress brings into question the integrity of the Brazilian university system. It's all in good spirit though - and being part of another culture and way of doing things is what it's all about I guess.
Thats all for now. I fly to Joao Pessoa on a 12 day holiday on Wednesday, staying with friends there for a while before embarking on a mammouth 40 hour bus journey back to Rio, via Salvador and any other places that take my interest...
Jack
Tuesday, 3 August 2010
Rio de Janeiro
Its taken a while to put this together as there's quite a lot I want to say - a lot will be reserved for a later date.
Five weeks experience of Rio has proved to render some clichés as false. The Brazilians are seeminly pretty vain - a myriad of gyms exist, including quite a few outdoor ones, and the number of health & beauty shops is staggering. Judging Rio on a film like City of God or Elite Squad is like judging English football on Green Street or Football Factory - true, but to only a small extent. Touching large amounts of wood, Rio isnt the terrible caricature portrayed by those films. Although I'm living in the confortable Zona Sul bubble (neighbourhoods here such as Ipanema and Leblon are probably as upmarket and expensive as anywhere on the continent) there are large areas in the north of the city that do shock you upon seeing them. Accidently ending up in Rocinha favela, the transition between the two parts of Rio is remarkable - you are almost going from first to third world in the space of a five minute bus ride and less than half a mile.
The setting of Rio is unquestionably beautiful - the way the city has built itself around the small morros (hills) and tropical vegetation is awesome. Though it has to be said - if it wasn´t for the lushness of its setting, Rio would be borderline ugly - Copacabana is full of high rises and chain stores, devoid of any pleasent idiosynchracies, and the rest of the centre isnt much better. The financial centre, Centro, is bizarre - you get lovely buildings like the national theatre right next to some of the most grotesque concrete mostrosities imaginable. However, the decadence and colonial architecture of Lapa and Santa Teresa makes up for the drabness of a lot of the city - these are the oldest parts of the city and have the most character and history.
Life here is both relaxed and hectic. Brazilians are in no hurry to do anything, except a) driving buses as fast as humanely possible, and b) playing football.
Less people speak English than you´d think here. I have to make a daily concious effort to purge Spanish from my mind - after a month I still say ´si´ instead of ´sim´. The accent is also tough to grasp - Portuguese here is very nasal, sometimes I wonder if putting a clothespeg on my nose would help me get understood more.
University life is somewhat different to back in Leeds. Not wishing to open a can of worms on the whole British education system, but I recieve three times as many hours as I did in Leeds - for half the tuition fees. The Uni hours are intresting - lectures at such ungodly hours 7am and 11pm are not uncommon, I'm guessing its something to do with a lack of classrooms. As a result I tactfully chose modules with more sociable hours, even if it means that I'm studying Ancient Roman Culture, and being the only non-Brazilian in the class. Lectures are more relaxed than back home - you are free to take a break whenever you want, and turning up half an hour late for class is totally fine. In fact, you're a bit of a freak if you're on time here. Apart from football, which never fails to start ao punto ingles .
Thats all for now from Rio. I'm aiming to venture out of the city soon to see more of Brazil, since I am yet to experience anything other than Rio.
Jack
Five weeks experience of Rio has proved to render some clichés as false. The Brazilians are seeminly pretty vain - a myriad of gyms exist, including quite a few outdoor ones, and the number of health & beauty shops is staggering. Judging Rio on a film like City of God or Elite Squad is like judging English football on Green Street or Football Factory - true, but to only a small extent. Touching large amounts of wood, Rio isnt the terrible caricature portrayed by those films. Although I'm living in the confortable Zona Sul bubble (neighbourhoods here such as Ipanema and Leblon are probably as upmarket and expensive as anywhere on the continent) there are large areas in the north of the city that do shock you upon seeing them. Accidently ending up in Rocinha favela, the transition between the two parts of Rio is remarkable - you are almost going from first to third world in the space of a five minute bus ride and less than half a mile.
The setting of Rio is unquestionably beautiful - the way the city has built itself around the small morros (hills) and tropical vegetation is awesome. Though it has to be said - if it wasn´t for the lushness of its setting, Rio would be borderline ugly - Copacabana is full of high rises and chain stores, devoid of any pleasent idiosynchracies, and the rest of the centre isnt much better. The financial centre, Centro, is bizarre - you get lovely buildings like the national theatre right next to some of the most grotesque concrete mostrosities imaginable. However, the decadence and colonial architecture of Lapa and Santa Teresa makes up for the drabness of a lot of the city - these are the oldest parts of the city and have the most character and history.
Life here is both relaxed and hectic. Brazilians are in no hurry to do anything, except a) driving buses as fast as humanely possible, and b) playing football.
Less people speak English than you´d think here. I have to make a daily concious effort to purge Spanish from my mind - after a month I still say ´si´ instead of ´sim´. The accent is also tough to grasp - Portuguese here is very nasal, sometimes I wonder if putting a clothespeg on my nose would help me get understood more.
University life is somewhat different to back in Leeds. Not wishing to open a can of worms on the whole British education system, but I recieve three times as many hours as I did in Leeds - for half the tuition fees. The Uni hours are intresting - lectures at such ungodly hours 7am and 11pm are not uncommon, I'm guessing its something to do with a lack of classrooms. As a result I tactfully chose modules with more sociable hours, even if it means that I'm studying Ancient Roman Culture, and being the only non-Brazilian in the class. Lectures are more relaxed than back home - you are free to take a break whenever you want, and turning up half an hour late for class is totally fine. In fact, you're a bit of a freak if you're on time here. Apart from football, which never fails to start ao punto ingles .
Thats all for now from Rio. I'm aiming to venture out of the city soon to see more of Brazil, since I am yet to experience anything other than Rio.
Jack
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