Barack O-Brahma

The title of this entry, I cannot claim from my own cleverness, it is rather, that of João. Instead of using actual English words, he thought it would be fun to appropriate them into known Brazilian words. Brahma is a brand of beer here. Jokes aside, everyone here loves Obama, and it was a happy victory. I was sick this past week- like antibiotic, throat-almost-closed-on-me sick- and then I was allergic to the medication. As a result the picture on my Brazilian Federal Police ID is less than flattering- my cheeks were still sort of swollen. I am great now, everything is back to normal, and I am back to being ready for anything. Waking up last Wednesday to hear Obama won- priceless.

So, the party pictures in the latest set were from a University party called a cervejada. There were tickets, and its basically a huge open-bar party on a farm. A stage with a great band, beer tents, lots of people- muvuca. Isabela's friends are really great, I haven't had a bad reaction from anyone upon finding out I am from the states, which I thought was a bit surprising. Though, I guess it just proves the point that Brazilians really are the coolest, happiest people in the world. They certainly know how to throw a party. The music was a mix of samba beats and technorock, they called it Brazilian funk- it was great to dance to and everyone knew the words to the songs, which added to the awesomeness. One dance had moves that went with it- it was hilarious to watch; a sort of combination of humping to the beat and football huddle tiptoe excercises. They were telling me about all the "sayings" about these kinds of parties- that it is common to kiss 4 guys at one of them, that it is not a place to come with your boyfriend, where pretty much anything goes, and no one is judging. How great is that? Bottomline, cervejadas are great but I think it's mostly the people that are great.

I'm starting to appreciate the attention to detail and finishes that Marlene and the firm pay attention to. The resulting product is absolutely beautiful, every project that I have visited. Concrete construction here is so nice, monolithic in a good way. Clean lines, undisguised. Bricks here are square, kind of strange but they do their job. I really like working in metrics, inches are so tedious, especially in scaling things.

Until next time- tchau