Tapioca and a few good pricks

I´m a bit behind in my blogging, as I suspected I might become. Yesterday was so busy I just collapsed so, I´m writing about it today. First, I´ll start with what makes me happy--- FOOD!


The picture to the left is what I had for `cafe da manha´---breakfast. It is a pancake made from tapioca flour. It´s kinda chewy and kinda crusty at the same time; it tastes pretty good and instantly fills your stomach. Brazilians usually spread butter on it when it´s hot out of the pan to make it a bit more flavorful. Beside it on the plate there is a square of cheese from the Northeast of Brazil. Brazilians tend to like really soft, white cheese. This kind is usually browned on a skillet and rolled into the tapioca pancake. It´s quite yummy but rather salty.

Here to the right is what practically everyone eats for cafe da manha--- a toasted roll or some other kind of bread and hot, black coffee. This is usually accompanied by some kind of fresh fruit---mangos, papayas, oranges, etc. Brazilians are pretty healthy eaters in general, I find. I anticipate gaining a ´healthy´5lbs. or so by the time I return, haha.

Also, Felipe gave me my first Brazilian bus experience. We went downtown to Copacabana to my school--IBEU-- so I could take my placement test. (By the way, I scored really well. Into Level 3, which is the highest level you can start with!) Buses in Brazil are nothing like in the U.S. First of all, Brazilian drivers are insane and really seem to WANT to hit pedestrians, other cars, animals or anything that may get in their way. They weave in and out of lanes, straddle both lanes and cut one another off constantly--unlike NY, no one honks--go figure. Hailing a bus is rather scary because they come plowing at you and get so close to the curb that the front hubcabs scratch the curb. When you board a bus in Brazil you go up the steps and come to a turnstile where you pay the driver or a person sitting at a little desk to the left. Then you must sit down very quickly because they lurch forward right away. When you get off you have to watch your step because sometimes the driver starts to go while your foot is still on the last step. The subways are much cleaner and nicer-- I will probably use them more often. I guess I´m just a country mouse but, it all seems so insane (and rude) at times but a city is a city, right?

After that, we came back and had lunch at his grandmother´s apartment. Later, I got the grand tour of her place and also his Aunt Nilza´s apartment too---she has a jacuzzi!! Must take full advantage of that later :) Over lunch, Felipe´s mother tells me that she has made an appointment for me to have a facial with a woman named Fatima, who has done it for her for years. Felipe takes me downtown to her apartment and the whole way there I´m really excited because I´m thinking I´ll get: lathered up, rinsed, moisturized, exfoliated and then sent on my way. Oooohhh no, my friend. Facial has an entirely different definition in Portuguese, apparently; pain=beauty in this country. She was a very nice lady and she´s damn good at what she does but, IT HURT LIKE HELLLLL! She plucked, pricked, scraped, popped, twisted and zapped my face until my eyes watered. She said I have very good skin and that I obviously care for it; unfortunately, I had one pimple on my chin---big problem. She has a rod with a needle on the end that she uses to prick open the pore and then she has a little rod with a loop on it that she presses on while scraping it over the opening. This pushes all the dirt and other stuff up to the surface. She repeated this process on that spot about 4 times to ´get everything out´ and then she got a little machine that gives you a small electric shock that sears the open pore closed. At one point, it hurt so much I just burst out laughing. I guess I was laughing at the irony of the situation-- I was expecting a mud mask and I got the electric chair, hahaha. I heard the woman ask Felipe--- Is she ok? She´s laughing! She´s a little crazy one. That only made me laugh more until tears were coming out---again. I was worked over for an hour and a half which felt a LOT longer than it sounds. In the end, I´m glad I did it. My face looks great and feels great. Though, on the trip home from Fatima´s house, I looked as though a gang of wasps had kicked my ass---every pore on my face she had worked on was bright red. As Fatima says, `Only women pay for pain--that´s why they get married.´