Christmas on the Other Side

I guess it was a combination of factors that led to this Christmas not feeling like Christmas at all.

Arriving in Brazil again after nearly three years meant that I had a whole world of new things, people and places to rediscover all over again.if I planned on completely evading the christmas spririt and all that comes with it, I certainly did the right thing in travelling to a country completely different to my own in which they don’t speak my first language. Because while I was absentmindedly, and naturally, in awe of the clothes and bikinis and shoes in the malls, the exaggerated and sensational Christmas embellishments which dripped from ceiling to floor of the Brazilian ‘shoppings’ went unnoticed. As did the 24 hour 7 day a week Christmas CD which was on high rotation in every single shop in the state, because when its not in your first language its incredibly easy to completely block something out of being processed by your brain. This all sounds rather dismal and as though I wanted to escape the chain of events that lead up to Christmas but its not like that at all, I would have been more than happy to be a part of the Brazilian celebration of Natal but this year it casually excluded me.

Combined with this maybe the fun of Christmas comes to an abrupt stop once you hit 19 years old and the month of December turns itself into a fly that buzzes around your head, remaining persistently airborne, in a niggling close proximity, despite your attempts to shoo it away. Eventually of course it gets bored and flies off until it comes around again and finds you the next time. I certainly hope that this isn’t the case because Christmas used to be so much fun and if its downhill from here then I’m going to need some pretty strong fly spray for next year.

Perhaps another contributing factor to my less than average Christmas is that here in Brazil Christmas is celebrated on the night of the 24th. First person wanting to break loose at this point. We had a huge dinner followed by present opening. After we opened our presents I began to sense everyone winding down, more then winding down from the night, but winding down from the whole month. I looked at Enrico and asked with a sense of hesitation, already acutely aware of the answer but not really wanting to hear it “so…is that it, was that christmas?”. He replied in his casual manner ‘yep’ and I wondered if he could sense my slight disappointment.

Upon waking up on ‘Christmas morning’ I was subjected to the vision of the rest of my family on a beach in Fiji enjoying being together, possibly sparing a thought for me, probably not.

I guess there are some things, as unexpected (by unexpected I mean the feelings that I felt, not the actual passing of Christmas in Brazil) as they may be, that have to be experienced in the process of growing up. Christmas in a foreign country without your family is probably one of them.

Breathing

Breathe…for the fist time in at least 10 days I can really breathe. What an absolute colossal sequence of days. I didn’t know that it was possible to be on such an unbreakable emotional high for that many consecutive days. In a retrospective summary, I think I can say that I have just come out of the best week of my life so far.

The lat 10 days found me in the Brazilian state of Goias which is in the middle of the country. I was staying with a Brazilian friend who I met in Australia. I was so lucky to have met Patricia in Australia and built the amizade (friendship) that we have today. I didn’t realise that by welcoming her into my country she would receive me the way she did into her country and teach me so much more about myself and the people in Brazil.

Brazilians have an amazing ability to do a lot of activities in a short amount of time without getting tired or needing a rest. So, in traditional Brazilian style barely hours after arriving in Goiania we made a two hour car trip to a tiny city called Pirenopolis. Patricia introduced me to her friend Mari and I began to relearn all over again that the warmness and convivial sprit of the Brazilians is what made me return to this country. Over a bottle of wine and some really yummy food I was beginning to think that I had known these two all my life. To be able to truly appreciate company and atmosphere like that you cant do to many amazing experiences too close together. So after I had had an wonderful dinner in the company of two incredible friends, the village of Pirenopolis helped me to ensure that I really appreciated it and didn’t try to do too much in too shorter space of time by showing me her marvellous precipitation powers. The next 24 hours were a rotation of heavy rain, driving rain, solid downpour and unyielding bucketing down meaning that this time I missed out on seeing the 8 waterfalls that surround the village. The bright side, of course is that I’ll most definitely have to return and, that I really saw the value of that night.

Our return to Goiania was a great excuse to cram in more activities and I found myself dancing in a local samba bar most of Sunday night/Monday morning. I really felt like I was being a part of the purest form of Brazilian culture that night.

Without recapping them all, lets just say that my days were so packed full of activities and my nights buzzing with entertainment and excitement combined with my Australian blood (automatically programmed to feel exhausted at 8:30pm) that tonsillitis made its way back into my life and the next few days were doctors visits, antibiotics and embarrassed recuperation (of course no one else got sick!!!).

As the end of the week drew near Patricia and I decided to travel to the capital of the country, Brasilia…The home of Larissa and Dalton. Larissa and Dalton and their 3 kids were the catalyst from me meeting Patrica back on the Gold Coast in 2007 when their family moved for 6 months to Coolangatta and patricia with them. Me being in brasil this time automatically meant that they were an absolute priority to see and catch up with. I arrived at their place in the middle of a big party, just as the sun was setting over Brasilia.

From their veranda I could see the cityscape being bathed in a blue sunset and the dim lights that would soon illuminate the capital of brasil shimmered on the surface of their pool. When I heard Larissa’s scream upon seeing me I was filled with a delirious sense of surrealism. She hugged me and looked at me and kept saying ‘I cant believe it, I cant believe you’re here’. And I couldn’t either. In that moment after already 2 weeks it finally sunk in that I was in Brasil, and I must have been the happiest realisation of my life. I don’t often cry..and crying when your happy doesn’t really make sense but upon being there at that moment with those people around me I really couldn’t stop the tears rolling from my eyes.

After a moment like that, the rest of the night becomes a bit of a blur but I remember enough to know that in hindsight it seems strange to feel like a part of a family in a foreign country, in a city that I’ve never been to, in the company of people that, in reality, I don’t really know. But I don’t think I’ve ever had a moment of feeling more at home than that.

Once again the welcoming flame of the Brazilian people was beginning to burn my skin and I was whisked away by people I’d never met from the party on a night tour of the city. Brasilia is an absolutely amazing city. Its structure and design make it uniquely intriguing and captivatingly fascinating place to learn about. The architecture has been planned to the nth degree and the city’s formation (an aeroplane) left me laughing out loud at the sheer initiative it must have taken to build the nation’s capital.

Here’s the national congress buildings…a bridge between the two makes the building appear as the letter H representing Humanidade…Humanity. Every other building in Brasilia must be shorter then these to demonstrate the core value of the city. Most Brazilians don’t know that.

Patricia and I returned to Goiania on Sunday night and it was with mixed feelings that I returned to Campinas on Monday morning. Influenced by combination of sadness to be leaving mixed with an escalating sense of excitement about the months ahead and most importantly the feeling of belonging that I felt in Brasilia and Goiania I promised myself that I would be back soon. And I have no doubt that it won’t be long before I’m back there again.

So as I said…breath. Now I’m breathing deeply again.. the breath of a content traveller, exhausted by experiences and loaded with passion and power. Each breath inhaling a fraction the intense yet splendid brazilian air.

Sorveteria Sabor e Sonho

Did you know that in Brazil, the ice cream places are self-serve?

You usually encounter the first drama when you choose the type of ‘bowl’ you’re going to have your ice cream in, things don’t get any easier from there.

I never realised that choosing an ice cream flavour could involve such uncomprimising uncertainty…low and behold ‘Sorveteria Sabor e Sonho’…(translation: ‘flavour and dreams’). In fact there are so many flavours, and so many things to choose that the Brazilians have turned the simple pleasure of having an ice cream into what can be a complicated and confusing assignment. You have to be careful not to pay too much attention to what you’re doing otherwise you’ll find yourself in a stressed state of emotional turmoil torn between the 'Ferrero Rocher with nuts' and 'Ferrero Rocher without nuts’ flavours. Brazilians of course are accustomed to these kind of shops so for them it’s easy.

Once you’ve recovered from the initial drama of icecream flavours you arrive in the ‘condiments’ area…I’ll say no more, just look at the photos.
In the end, all I could do was try my best. The result was a marvellous creation of, well…chocolate.

A Nomadic Soul-Searching Party Holiday

Dear-o-dear, is it really necessary to post this kind of thing on a blog that I know will be read by my friends and family… well of course it’s not but I’m going to post it anyway because it makes up what was the foundations of this trip and now decides the fate of the next three months here in brazil and consequently the type of journey that lies ahead, one which has now taken the shape of a nomadic soul searching party holiday.

The words that run through my head now are the ones that ran through his just over 18 months ago. How corny to quote a song but what better way to put it than this…“it was not your fault but mine, And it was your heart on the lineI really fucked I up this time,Didn’t I, my dear”

The fact of the matter is that we wouldn’t be in this situation had it not been for his betrayal the first time. And it was the long, dark funnel of hate and misery after that perfidy that has made up my mind to travel alone through Brazil, despite what may have been interpreted as a promise. I knew that the time would come when I would have to tell him that, and I thought that he would have been smart enough to see it coming…but love is a blinding force and I assume he was very much blinded.

For me it’s a matter of staying strong and sticking to my guns, I’ve got to do this for myself because I feel like it’s the right thing. My experience with you would be amazing, I know that, we’ve done it before, here in Brazil nonetheless and I loved it, but it couldn’t be perfect and it couldn’t be what it was. I know it sounds absurd but I’ve got to take the other option because I have no idea what its going to be like, I’ll never get anywhere in life if I take the easy road all the time.

You only get out what you put in..and Brazil, I’ve put it all in…

Back at Long Last

Well it seems that only after the fourth day do I have anything more than a fleeting minute to write about my journey so far…

After a very long journey to São Paulo I was met by...well…no one. See the thing with São Paulo is that there is only really one main road into and out of the city. If, per say, an accident were to occur on one this road, traffic remains locked in a jaw clenching grit until the entire accident is cleaned up. Well of course there was an accident on Friday night when I arrived! When you come through the huge black doors in Guarulhos airport you are met in the face with a huge burst of fluorescent light and lots and lots of people all waiting behind the barrier anxiously awaiting a loved one. You cross the threshold from a sterile, concrete environment into a hot, noisy and bright bustle. I began to feel my heart pump out of my chest as my eyes adjusted to the white light. Enrico and I don’t have a very good history of airport meetings, the day that he arrived in Australia 2 years ago I watched every single person walk out of the arrival gate minus him because he told me the wrong day and he wasn’t there. This time for my arrival, the outcome was the same. I don’t know what to put it down to, but a fairytale romantic reunion seems somewhat beyond us. In this case…thank God. Okay so after searching everyone of those waiting face I rolled my eyes and thought ‘typical’ and when to use a payphone to see who was going to come and get me. Alas, in the remaining frantic days in Australia I had forgotten to get some Brazilian currency, ‘tudo bem’ I thought I’ll just withdraw some money, having every bit of faith in the promise from the employees of Commonwealth Bank that each of my four bank cards would be widely accepted and readily usable.

To all those people considering travel to brazil and who are holders of commonwealth bank cards… you can’t withdraw money from atms (and since I have discovered over the last 3 days) nor can you pay for anything on a debit mastercard or savings card. My mood had gone quite quickly from one of nervous excitement, to familiar disappointment to a panic like state of ‘pissed-offness’. In this state you can't remember phone numbers, not even ones that you have known off the top of your head for years so even when someone gives you money to use a payphone you can't. Im just going to cut a long story short because in the actual version of events the next 2 hours involved a lot of sitting down, standing up, walking round in circles and swearing. But at the end of all this I was collected from the airport.

I would be spending a lot of time on the computer and not much time actually doing anything if I wrote about every situation in that much detail. So i'll just sum up the next few days in one foul swoop. I went to a city called Araraquarda, (get that outta ya mouth Aussies!!) to watch Enrico’s rugby grand final, which they won. And didn’t get home til very late that night.

Addmittingly, and against my will I had made my body endure a mixture of very very little sleep, jetlag and a 24 hour period of emotional ups and downs so it was probably only right that it felt the need to punish me with tonsillitis. Perhaps it was God punishing me, or someone up there having a practical joke with me when I remembered how I also forgot to pack about 6 months worth of tonsillitis medication (it has been a reoccurring problem for a while now). So yeah, so far Brazil has been a mixture of nerves in deep fryers, great food ruined by inflamed and pussy tonsils and beautiful weather noted from a bedside window, not to mention a sense of absolute poverty thanks to our good friends at Commonwealth Bank.

Nevertheless, its okay for me to be like this in this place, I have lots of people to look after me and I have been here before so I know that I’m not missing out on anything right now, which would make me even more frustrated, sad and consequentially sick. i'll keep you updated!

BEIJOS xxx