From Alberto, April 5, 2000 |
| Oi! Greetings from down south. What an amazing time Iīm having. Where to start. Itīs hot. Not right now as Iīm sitting in an air-conditioned room, but generally, all day long itīs sunny and hot. I could list everything. I could just write about impressions. Impressions wins. Nice things. Dinner last night with my host family. Chatting in English and Portuguese - my Ptg. gets better every day, especially when I venture out on my own. When weīre in a group, we all speak English together of course, but when I wander, I get into all sorts of situations and have to speak Ptg. which is excellent. My host family. Dad mines bentonite, son helps out. Two daughters are living in the States right now, studying. The house is beautiful. 3-4 servants. Someone just to cook which I canīt get used to. I keep thanking her, which no one else does. The city music store today. Small but filled with Brazilian instruments. Took me forever to find it. Might buy a pandero and/or cavilcinho, but probably will wait until Recife or Salvador. Today we visited two industrial plants. A huge graphic design and printing shop. Like the size of 3-4 football fields. Nice paintings on the wall, and the head of the place toured us around. The workers are treated well and seem to enjoy working there. The man was very kind to us and served us an incredible lunch. Fruits, little sandwiches, cafezinho (little coffees which are very strong and come at all times of the day) juices, more fruits, cakes, you get the idea. The second place was a coffee and snacks factory. Cafe do Braz Brasil. Big urns of coffee being roasted. Reminded me of when I lived in Hoboken near the Maxwell House factory. Itīs funny, when Iīve traveled in the past, many things reminded me of others and of course itīs happening here, too. But, the comparisons are not as easy and things are really different here. Hard to explain. So, of course we drank more coffee after that trip. Had to don white coats and netted hats for that tour. We have a digital camera with us and hopefully my next report will include a photo or two. They are not large files, in fact thatīs a problem weīre still figuring out. Why are the files 10k. Donīt answer that, weīll figure it out :) Yesterday we visited the Antarctica Beer factory. Got to drink beer from the bottom of a large dispenser. I think it had over a hundred thousand liters of beer in there. Very fresh. Fresh beer is strong and half a glass (OK, I had a whole one) made me tipsy. Or was it the heat? Or the humidity. Tonight we watched the sunset by the Paraiba river after a short visit to a local fort. The Dutch fighting the Portuguese, guess who won in the end? I got to jam with a great musician there. Heīs a guitar teacher and he like others is really into jazzy, moody music of the 70īs, which I can follow along with and play lead, but the chords are always challenging. Iīm getting the idea of what these folks are into, though. The other night I got to play with a famous local musician at a club. It was a beautiful scene. We were at a table, and I had my guitar. The guy had been singing for a while, and I asked him if I could come up and play lead. He invited me up and a eventually, after some jamming together (thank god, my guitar has a pic-up), we all started swapping songs. The neat thing about it was that it was raining and we were on a stage separated from the others by many chairs which were out in the rain. So, we couldnīt see the audience that well. We had a great time for a couple of hours and then I rejoined Georgina who waited for me to finish. Then I played some more songs. I hope to go back as all of the musicians who I was playing with were top-notch and I believe they are there all week. Did I mention sunset on the Paraiba River this evening? That was pretty amazing. They play Bolero at all of the cafes by this river and itīs a beautiful scene. Tomorrow we visit a cachaca plant at 10am. Thatīs the very strong liquor thatīs in the popular drink here called caiparina. Limes and cachaca. Our crew has had a fair bit of these. Thereīs so much more to tell. Itīs great to speak the language and I continue to learn. The colors, the beaches, the food, the music, the house, Iīm a bit overwhelmed by it all right now. If you have any questions, please write them down as I have limited e-mail access right now. Sorry this isnīt more personal. But for some perhaps it is too personal. Thatīs all for now. Ate logo from Brasil. Alberto |