Capoeira in Paraty

Weekend in Paraty

Today is Fred's birthday (Parabens, Benzinho!) so we went to Paraty last weekend to celebrate. Paraty is a quaint and incredibly charming fishing town about 4 hours from Rio. Yes, it's a hike
but the drive is so amazingly beautiful that it only adds to the pleasure of the trip. A highlight for me was re-learning how to drive a stick shift after 12 years- props to Fred for not having a heart attack during the first hour of my driving! We stayed at a pousada that Dana and I had stayed at last year when we were here - check it out at http://www.urquijo.com.br. And of course, I made friends with the local cat, Violeta.

Aside from eating tons of amazing seafood (which is what Paraty is known for...obviously. It's a fishing town) we rented a boat for the day on Saturday and went island hopping. Our captain was a friendly, if not annoyingly talkative, chap who gave us the history of Paraty and it's surrounding islands throughout the ride. We were lucky enough to see an endangered monkey, the Titi Leon Dorado, which was one of the most beautiful animals I've ever seen. The picture does not do it justice, but it has this gorgeous yellow-orange coat with a black tail and a mane like a lion. On Saturday night while meandering the cobblestone streets, we happened upon a capoeira show...and I fell in love. If you have never seen capoeira, please put it on your to-do-immediately list. Believe it or not, you can actually find it in NYC. It's like the Tae-Kwon-Do of Brazil - every kid takes capoeira lessons at some point. It's a playful, beautiful, graceful sport and I was in awe, especially when HUGE men got out onto the floor and turned into graceful, fluid dancers. I'll post a video so you can see for yourselves...

Sunday was rainy, so we walked around town a bit and then went to the local beach. Fred taught me how to play Fresco Ball, which is a beach game involving a ball and 2 wooden paddles. Strangely enough, there seemed to be a large hole in my paddle, and the ball kept going through it! The weirdest part about this is that in high school, when I took tennis with Ms. Hill in Phys-Ed, my tennis racquet also had a hole in it!! I guess I just have bad luck with racquet sports... :)

And we headed back to Rio on Sunday night (this time with me driving much, much better...)

Why I am Here...

So, I am very happy to report that friends from all parts of my life are reading my blog (thank you facebook)! An old friend requested more information regarding why I am here in Rio...who is this guy? Why is he so great? What made you move to Rio for him? So, in this post, I'll explain. If you already know the riveting story, you can enjoy the gory details again. If not, here they are:

I met Fred last October when I was rock climbing here in Rio de Janeiro. He was recommended to me by a travel agent, so I hired him to be my guide. Of course, as soon as I got out of the taxi at the base of Pao de Acucar mountain, I noticed that he was quite cute! But over the course of the climb, I developed a little crush on him, and when he shared his apple with me, I knew it was love. Right before we got to the top, he asked me if I wanted to go samba dancing with him the next night (my last night in Rio), and of course I obliged. A funny sidenote- when he asked me if I was in Rio alone, I told him that I was there with a girlfriend (holla DG!!) - he thought I was a lesbian for the first few hours. Girls do not refer to their female friends as girlfriends here!

So, we went out the next night and had a total blast! I met all of his friends, drank somewhere between 2 and 30 caipirinhas, and attempted to samba with him (though I think much of the time it was a pee-pee dance in an effort not to "break the seal.") Anyway, we had an amazing time together and when I left to come back to NYC the next day, I had Fred on the brain. We began to exchange emails, then progressed to Skype (video IM, for those of you who are still in a vacuum and don't know Skype), and then decided to plan an amazing New Years getaway. We would meet in Monterrey, Mexico and after a few days there, go to Potrero Chico, the mecca of all rock climbing. It would be tons of fun, with no future committment because we lived so far away from each other.

On Christmas day, I left for Mexico and when I arrived in the airport and saw Fred waiting for me, my heart started beating a mile a minute! We spent the next 3 days in Monterrey, getting to know each other a little better (and taking photos of ourselves making obscene gestures with the artistic statues all over the city). We left for Potrero, ready to have the climbing adventure of our lives. On the third day of climbing, Fred was ahead of me leading a route, and I was belaying him when disaster struck. Here is the email I sent to everyone on January 2, 2008:

"I spent my New Years Eve in Mexico this year. The plan was to be in Potrero Chico, a rock climbing mecca, riding a mechanical bull and throwing back Coronas with Fred, my adorable Brazilian climbing partner. Instead, I spent the big night in the Sheraton Ambassador Hotel in Monterrey drinking hot chocolate, watching the Tom and Jerry cartoon marathon, and playing Florence Nightingale (and not in the sexy way)...

On December 30th, Fred and I were climbing an amazing route called Dope Ninja. It was a 6 pitch climb with a really cool variety of difficult and technical moves. At the top of the 4th pitch (roughly 250 feet off of the ground), I anchored myself in and Fred unclipped his anchor, prepared to lead-climb the next pitch. For you non-climbers, this requires me to stand on the ledge and feed him rope as he goes up and gets the route ready for me to climb after him.

He climbed about 10 feet and went over a protruding rock face, where he was no longer visible to me. No big deal- this happens all the time in climbing and partners communicate with one another via loud screams or pre-planned tugs on the rope to signal different things. I was enjoying the scenery around me and waiting for him to tug the rope 3x to tell me he was ready for me to start climbing.

All of a sudden, I felt a violent pull on the rope as the slack slipped through my hands. Instinctively, I "locked down" by pulling the rope downwards and behind my back. This allowed me to catch him and keep him from falling. He let out a terrified shriek and because we were in a canyon, it reverberated off of the rock and filled the air like surround-sound. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw something that looked like a body go flying past me and tumble into the canyon. Horrified, I decided that Fred's equipment had malfunctioned and he had fallen off the rock face. Or, a boulder had fallen onto him and severed his rope, sending him barreling down.

Hysterically, I started screaming for him. I was completely by myself and there was nobody around. I had to stay in the locked-down position or else the rope would go loose and he would fall. I still felt weight on my rope, so I thought there was a chance that he was still attached and it wasn't his body that I saw flying past me. However, the rope was not moving, so I was fairly certain that if he was still tied in, he was dead. I kept calling him over and over again, asking if he was ok, and got no answer. It was windy, so I had a hard time hearing anything, but finally I got an answer: "No, I am not ok." After what seemed like hours, I finally felt him moving on the rope and he started to climb back down. Somehow, I slowly lowered him down to me, and realized what had happened: as he was climbing up, he had attempted to hoist himself up onto a giant boulder. However, the boulder was loose, and he succeeded in pulling the rock out and directly onto his head. It slammed into his face as he fell and then the small-car-sized rock fell into the canyon. That was what I saw go flying past me.

His face was an absolute bloody mess and he couldn't move his left arm. I will spare all of the gory details but suffice it to say that if I was not in the medical field, I would have passed out looking at him. He was completely out of it and his eyes, almost swollen shut already, kept rolling back into his head. I had to keep grabbing his head and telling him to stay with me, to focus on helping me get him down. Fortunately, he was coherent enough to guide me through tying the knots and preparing his rappel. After he was tied in, he slowly began to lower himself down and once again, he dropped out of my sight. I had no idea if he was actually moving down or just hanging on the rope - I was still convinced that he would go into shock and pass out or die from blood loss on the way down. Due to the short leash that was anchoring me to the rock, I was able to lean out only far enough to see 3 climbers about 100 feet below us. I screamed to them to help him. Unbeknownst to me, he was so disoriented that he had veered way to the right and was lowering himself completely off of the route. Thankfully, they heard me, took one look at him, and immediately began to ascend to help him.

As for me, I was stuck on the ledge and starting to panic. Having learned the proper way to rappel myself down only the day before, I was not too confident in my ability to do it safely on such a steep and uneven rock face. And, since he was in the ambulance, there was nobody on the other end of the rope to control the rope should my rappel fail. Furthermore, even though he was off the rope and in the ambulance, the rope was still taught and appeared to be tangled in some trees.

Out of nowhere, this amazing girl climbed down from above and told me she and her partner had seen the boulder fall and they were there to help me. I broke down and started sobbing with relief. We watched from the ledge as - after what seemed like hours - Fred finally was helped to the ground and put into a waiting ambulance. And after another hour, I was back on the ground and on my way to the hospital.

Fred suffered several fractures in the frontal lobe of his skull (or, as he told me, "baby, I broke my brain"), a severely broken nose, fractured right eye socket, and needed 50 stitches in his face to close up all of the wounds. His shoulder is not fractured, but I think he may have done some damage to the rotator cuff. But otherwise, he is miraculously ok and he returned to Brazil yesterday to undergo facial surgery today.

I spent my New Year's Eve in the hotel room taking care of him, cleaning his wounds, and giving him medicine. As I helped him into a bath, he broke down and started sobbing. I asked him why he was crying and he said, "Because I am alive. Because I felt myself falling and thought there was no way you were going to catch me. I am so heavy and I had the boulder on top of me. I was falling and was sure I was dying. But you saved my life and you caught me - you are my angel and my hero." Obviously I started crying too, as the magnitude of it all really hit me.

So despite the fact that Tom and Jerry replaced the mechanical bull, it was a damn good New Years Eve. I think there was a lot to celebrate."

After that, our relationship went into high gear, and we spoke everyday, at least once per day. I went back to Brazil 3 times to visit him, and decided to finally do my "semester abroad" in Rio from August - February! Fred is doing much better, though he will have his final (of 4) facial surgeries in a few weeks. His nose still looks like he was in a bad fight, and he needs some titanium plates to repair fractures that didn't heal. But hey, where else are you going to find better plastic surgeons than in Rio????

Redecorating the Living Room

Today Fred and I decided to finally hang up our pictures in the apartment. Lucky for me, he is quite handy with tools (and I fell over the toolbox twice and knocked a wooden horse statue off of the shelf three times... so there you go).

The blinds in our living room are beige and dirty - Fred bought new blinds to hang up instead, but we haven't gotten around to hiring someone to do it. So, he had a brilliant idea - we should just spray paint the blinds we already have to cover the dirt! Two minutes later he emerged from his back office carrying "amarello sunrise" spray paint and away he went. Needless to say, it was horrendous and instead of being plain dirty, it now looked like Big Bird had vomited all over the blinds.

Deciding that this was a really bad idea, we realized we had no alternative but to move forward. So here's how we redid the blinds in our living room...oh, and we also hung up a fingerboard over our bedroom door to help strengthen our hands for climbing!! Tomorrow, we are going to buy black spray paint for the blinds...stay tuned for more excitement.

Today...

I am just happy to be healthy, alive, and able to enjoy this amazing life adventure in Rio.

Living in Leme...

Corey left so now it's back to "normal daily life" here in Rio.  I want to use this post to tell you a little bit about where I live.  We are in Leme, which is the neighborhood bordered by Copacabana and Botafogo.  If we were to do a comparison to NYC,  it's kind of like living on the Upper East Side.  It's far removed from the craziness of Centro (Midtown), not as swanky as Impanema (Tribeca) and not touristy like Copacabana (Times Square).  It's quiet, has a lot of families, and is a beautiful place to come home to at the end of the day.

Our apartment is in a quaint elevator/ doorman building on a tree-lined street.   As I type this, Fred is working hard to organize the place and get our pictures/ mirrors hung up on the wall.  Once we're done decorating, I'll post some pictures!  Our doormen are all "Paraibas," which means they are from a northern state in Brazil.  According to Fred, the Paraiba is Rio's version of a guido.  Our Paraiba doormen have frosted hair, like funk music, sport unilateral earrings, and speak with an accent that is completely unintelligible to me.  So I THINK they're nice...but I don't really know what the hell they say to me when I come and go, so who knows???

Right around the corner is the best acai place in Rio.  I'm sure of it.  For those who don't know what acai is, check out this link: www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acai.  It's a fruit and it tastes like chocolate...seriously, it does.  Don't ask me how God created such a food, but PRAISE HIM for doing so.  

My gym is a sh*thole and costs 2x as much as I pay for the NYSC.  But, it's the only gym in the area and it's right around the corner. Almost everyone at the gym is middle-aged, and most people have no idea how to work out.  If I was licensed to practice PT here, I would be handing out business cards left and right.  On the bright side, I have a new trainer friend at the gym named Fabio (though sadly, he doesn't look as hot as his name suggests he might). 

My class is pretty good.  The building is in Copacabana and is easy to get to (a 30 minute commute).  There are 3 other students in my class:  Claire, a cool girl from Amsterdam here for 3 years because her husband got a job in Rio;  Hugo, a gay Parisian who is on sabatacle from his high-powered CEO job; and Arthur, a gay New Yorker who, unfortunately, is SO weird and withdrawn  that we can't even celebrate our common Big-Apple-ness together.  

So that's basic life here in Leme!  It's a rainy day today and I just taught my first private lesson to Fred's best friend, Jose.  I have some work to do - knowing how to speak English does not an English teacher make!!  

Flamengo Scores a Goal at Maracana!!!

Here's a little clip of Fred and me at the "jogo de futebol" last weekend!

Getting Settled...

So I've been here a little over 3 weeks and things are finally starting to get on track.  I started my Portuguese Level 2 class last week at Ibeu (a language school), got my first 2 students with whom I will do private English classes (Fred's 2 best friends) and may have landed a gig recording soundtracks for an English language school ("The boy is running." "The dog is playing."  "The gringa is on the beach in a micro-bikini drinking caipirinhas."  That kind of thing... ).

My sister Corey has been here this past week, so we got to do a whole bunch of tourist things (again).  On Sunday, we went to the Fla-Flu futebol game.   There is a huge rivalry between Flamengo and Fluminese, 2 of the 4 futebol teams in Rio.  Fred (and by default, myself and Corey) are Flamengo fans.  Fred's best friend Jose is Fluminese.  So it's a big deal for all of us. Now, being a Michigan Wolverine, I am well aware of the emotional investment that one makes when rooting for a team.  So, it came as no surprise to me when Fred (and the entire stadium, for that matter) went ballistic whenever a team scored a goal.  Fireworks, smoke, singing, dancing...things we boring Americans can only dream about at our sporting events.  Ok, I know, Yankees games are "really exciting," but really, we could use a dose of Brazilian Fanfare at our venues.

We did some other things like take a van to see Christ the Redeemer (not the same as climbing up the side of the mountain and charging through the jungle-like brush to emerge at the base of Jesus, but still fun), hiking the trail up Pão de Acúcar to the summit for sunset, and going out with Fred and company to the 80's dance club,  Casa de Matriz last night.   She is leaving tomorrow and I'm sad- it's nice to have her here to do things with.

So that's kind of the recap for this week.  Now that the blog is up and running, I'll do frequent posts with more details about my daily life here.   So far, so good...