fuck you globalization.

Being an American abroad in a place that has a high salinity of globalization kind of sucks sometimes. We travel the world to see new lands, experience new cultures, speak new languages, hear new musics, etc. and what happens? We end up being exposed to ridiculous amounts of American culture-- music, stores, language, food, television. And the worst part is, the Brazilians don't seem to mind at all.

If you turn on the TV, no matter what time of day, you're bound to find at very least one American television show that's dubbed. Subtitles are used, but are less common. Here they love "As Visões da Raven", or "That's So Raven", dubbed Bugs Bunny cartoons and the like, among others. They also have MTV here, which I find myself watching, and it's similar to the States because they dont't play very much music. I find the MTV here to be more activist/politically focused than the one we have in the States. They also have "Mix TV" in which music videos are played all day long. Maybe one in fifteen videos are Brasilian videos. The rest are American, usually with one or two European artists thrown in randomly.

In order to hear Brazilian music at most clubs here, you have to go on a specific day of the week. If not, you'll be doomed to old American pop or House, which I can deal with, but certainly not for hours on end. It's a shame too, because I really love Brazilian music. MPB (música popular brasileira), samba, funk... all this stuff is amazing. That's why I'm here! It just sucks that I actually have to seek it out.

Want McDonald's? They have that too. And they just opened a Burger King. The kids love "Mackie Donalds".. haha that's how they pronounce it. In the States, I'd say more people hate McDonald's than love it by far. And I don't hate McDonald's here for the sheer fact that it's American. I just hate it because it's the worst part of American culture. It represents everything that's wrong with America. The gluttony. Hyper-consumerism. It's a big corporation that pays its workers nothing, but has a bullshit philanthropy to try to promote a positive image. If they really gave a shit about humanity, why not sell healthy food and pay your workers the right amount? I've refused to step into a McDonald's since I've been here (oh wait, I met a Brasilian friend in one ONCE but didn't buy anything) so I don't know how much things cost, but from what I hear, Big Macs are like R$8 or 9 (like US$5). Um. Gross. And people here are buying it. And "loving it." Oh, and get this! I was walking by a McDonald's and in big letters I see "30 de agosto-- Dia de Comer Big Mac! ( August 30-- Big Mac Eating Day)" and then in tiny, tiny letters, "Day to help kids with cancer"... so small that I could barely even see it. If the cancer was what they were really trying to prevent, wouldn't that be the main part of the ad?

The readings in one of my classes are exclusively in English. Yeah of course, it makes my life easier, but the Brazilian students who can't read English very well are basically fucked. In order to succeed in their class in their very own country that's verbally taught in their own language, they have to speak English. For someone who's trying to learn Portuguese, the language of a different culture, it hinders my opportunity to learn the new language.

The strength of American culture for me, a curious American, is a problem, but for the Brazilians I've spoken with, young and old, is not a problem at all. They like that they can listen to Usher, eat Big Macs, while watching That's So Raven, and reading the texts for their classes in English. Go figure.

Anthony

update o rama

Life in Rio is going to be expected, I guess. Nothing too amazing going on in life right now to be quite honest with you. I'm still really familiarizing myself with this city and the people in it. Trying to understand this culture more and more every day. It's funny how learning a language works. Some days I think I've learned so much up to this point, and then other days I feel like I know absolutely nothing and I should know a lot more for the time I've spent here already. The situation is this. I have a lot of friends that are non-Brazilian, and if they're not Brazilian, chances are they speak English, and for this reason, I haven't been speaking enough Portuguese. But honestly, it's not easy. Imagine sitting in class all day-- 5 hours a day or more-- listening to lectures in a language you really only started learned 6 weeks ago? It takes such a toll on my mind at the end of the day I can't speak any language... instead I just smile and nod. OK, I'm being a little dramatic, but it really is super difficult. Honestly though, the Portuguese I know so far has been pretty rewarding.

The Brazilian people I've met here, the friends I've made, seem to be amazingly loyal, fun people. They're constantly calling me and texting me and messaging me letting me know about plans that they've made or plans they want to make and I absolutely love it. Of course I have conversations with them and we laugh and do stuff, but I want to be able to communicate with them even more. That's why I really am trying to spend some time each day learning vocabulary and asking questions and just putting myself out there.

In other news, I'm starting to plan some trips throughout Brazil for the next few months I'm here.Definitely want to go to the South of Brazil (Florionapolis, Blumenau, and Porto Alegre) and Sao Paulo, and the Northeast.

Classes are in full swing. Hoorah. Not.

Love-
Anthony

classes commence

As exciting as classes should be in a new country-- they're not. I like my classes, don't get me wrong, but having to spend time in a classroom when the sun is shining and the beaches are so close to school is just a tease. Miami-itis, anyone? Anyways, I'm taking Antropologia da Arte, Intro a Economia, Educacao e Sociedade, Portugues IV, Musculacao (gym), and maybe a couple of others that I haven't decided on yet. I was thinking of also taking a new language, like French or Hebrew, but we'll see about that. I also want to join some clubs to do some volunteer work so I'm going to look into that as soon as possible.

Classes are pretty much the same here as they are in the states-- except all of mine are in Portuguese. I had the option to take some in English but I honestly didn't see the point. When the time comes to start handing papers in that's going to be fun.

Something different here that I like is that students don't spend hundreds of dollars on textbooks. They have these little kiosks that make copies of the readings we have to do and we just pay something like R$.10 per page. It's pretty amazing.

In other news life is fine...

Tudo joia,
Anthony

Vacation's all I ever wanted, vacation happy to get away

In light of the ending of the month-long intensive Portuguese class I took in Rio, Sarah, Lauren and I decided to take a little vacation before the actual semester starts. At first we were planning on going to a tropical little island called Ilha Grande, but changed our plans at the last minute to go to Itatiaia National Park... this beautiful place in the western part of the state of Rio de Janeiro. We took 2 buses to get there and 5 hours later we arrived. The first night was hard because we were hiking through the forest at night time looking for a cool pousada (bed and breakfast-type thing) to stay at. We did find one, but it happened to be a little bit outside of our budgets so we kept on looking. Luckily, the women at that pousada pointed us towards a cheaper one a little bit outside the national park.

The next day we woke up early and went exploring through the forest. Itatiaia is known for its beautiful cachoeiras, or waterfalls, so we made it our priority to see them. The nearest cachoeira was about 8 kilometers into the park, and we decided to take the bus-- but that didn't quite work out because we missed the only one. So, we decided the only thing we could do-- walk all the way through the forest on foot. After about an hour we decided that this idea may have been a little ridiculous because we still weren't in the park after all that walking. So we went to Plan B-- hitchhiking up the mountain. Within minutes of devising this fabulous idea a pick-up truck with plenty of room in the back picked us up and drove us up the mountain to the place where the bus would have dropped us off. Pretty lucky, huh?

After that we enjoyed the beautiful flora and fauna of the tropical park and had a pretty amazing day. When Sarah posts pictures I'll put them on here but it was pretty amazing.

After spendig the day in the park we decided to move on to a place that I read about in my guidebook called Maromba. I read that it was a hippie hangout with cheap lodging so I knew this had to be a pretty cool place. The bus ride there was absolutely terrifying because of the fact that we were hugging the sides of mountains for almost two hours on a gigantic bus in the pitch black.

On the bus we met some pretty cool dudes who showed us to a really cheap pousada and chilled with us in Maromba. The day after we arrived we ended doing some more hiking and enjoying being outside in the mountains. Maromba literally ended up being on road with about 30 buildings in the middle of the forest with artists and musicians living there. Really, really cool. At night people took out their instruments and played guitar and stuff... some people had wooden flutes that they were playing.

All in all, it was an amazing weekend that I needed before school starts, errrr.... tomorrow :( .