June 10, 2003
Self Portrait - JFK International. June 9 2003
All I have is a tall stack of books and plenty of clothes. Oh yeah, and my iPod...I can't live without that. I threw everything into a duffle and garment bag on Sunday afternoon, got a ride from my dad to Union Station, DC on Monday Morning and headed to Penn Station, NY. I hauled my summer living off of the Amtrak and onto the C train going uptown to 50th st. where I walked to Uncle Vanya's Russian restaurant on 54th where I was to meet my friend Pete for lunch.
He got some sort of dumplings with sour cream and I got beef stroganoff on kasha. There were three Russian yuppie types eating in the corner, but they took off after a little while and we were left alone until Richard Gere, Susan Sarandon, and an unidentified third man walked in for lunch. I swear Susan was checking me out as she slurped her cucumber soup (eat your heart out Tim Robbins!). I gave Richard (or 'Dick,' as I call him) a nod as Pete and I walked out.
Pete and I said our goodbyes and I humped my luggage back down to 47th st. where I met up with the great Tim Valentiner who happened to be in town with some friends. We chatted, taking advantage of our happenstance simultaneous visits to the Big Apple. Off we went to catch the A train. He went uptown and I went down...way down and out past Brooklyn to JFK international.
I got on one of the worst looking planes I've seen in a while. The seats were cramped and everything looked dirty. I shouldn't complain, the flight cost me $550, but I couldn't help but wonder how such a busted vehicle was being used for such a hefty flight as JFK to Sao Paulo. The bright side of the story is that I had a seat and a half to my self. I was on the left side of the middle three seats and I shared the middle seat with a lady law student from Paraguay.
I couldn't help but think as she sat down, "wow! A girl my age sharing these three seats on an international flight, well! Twice in a lifetime!?" Well, nothing. She was busted, to say the least. I think she kept trying to catch my gaze throughout the evening, but we barely conversed. It doesn't matter though because I was already wearied by my day's travels and soon found myself twisting my body into whatever positions seemed to favor sleep. Our arrival to Sao Paulo couldn't have come soon enough.
On my way to customs a guy about my age struck up a conversation with me, asking me if I lived "around here." I told him that I was off to Brasília to work at the embassy. He told me that he came down for the summer in an effort to insert himself into the design scene. It didn't take long for me to figure out that he had served a mission in Brazil. He was a BYU alum and had been living in NYC for the past few years, but suddenly decided to follow an impulse to come down here and get involved with the Sao Paulo design community. Props to him! I salute such ballsy dream chasing. We parted and I waited for my connecting flight.
I arrived in Brasília at around 10:30 this morning to be welcomed by a Brazilian man with a sign reading "US Embassy." I hit him with an awkward Portuguese salutation and he directed me to meet two Texans that I'd be working with this summer: Sally and Rosa. Sally is the secretary in the political section of the embassy where I'll be working this summer, and Rosa is my new mom. We drove to Rosa's home where I was left to settle in until a driver would pick me up at 2pm.
I'm lucky to have a computer in my room, so I sent some emails off and put my things away. I took a much-needed shower, ate some leftover lasagna and chicken milanesa, and lied down to read Orwell's Homage to Catalonia. Before I knew it I was being awakened by Rosa's son, Ivan. The driver had arrived, and I was to report to the embassy.
The driver and I spoke: me in halting Portuguese and he in halting English. We were met at the gate of the embassy by a guard who searched under the hood, in the trunk and under the car for any suspicious looking artifacts. It's apparently a standard practice. He dropped me off at the front door and...
I didn't know what to do. I didn't really know where to go or where to begin, but I remembered the name of Susan Pratt, the human resources official who had been my primary contact as I prepared to come down here. I dropped her name to the blank faced marine guarding the door behind a pane of tinted bulletproof glass. He looked at me as though he thought that I thought that he might know what I should do, but duh! Obviously he didn't. Finally I explained to him that I wanted to see this woman and he let me in and told me approximately where to go.
The rest of the afternoon was spent being ping-ponged from woman to woman and bureau to bureau on a paper trail. I got my ID badge, I submitted all of the proper paper work, and eventually I met my bosses. I'll be working with a team of political analysts all summer. They don't have anything set for me to do, but I'll get to tag along to meetings and lunches. I get to watch the diplomats dance. And essentially, in their words, I get to join them as they "watch Brazil." For the rest of the summer I'll spend my morning hours reading several regional newspapers and will eventually end up researching whatever interests me most. If I'm lucky, I'll be able to produce something worth publishing someday. Everyone welcomed me aboard and went back to work. Rosa was going to give me a ride home, but I had time to kill until then. I read the paper, but my mind wasn't up for struggling through all of the tilde covered a's and hooked c's. I was tired and I fell asleep in the armchair that I waited in.
Rosa left me at home with Ivan and a friend of his as she went off to ex-pat ladies' game night. The two kids promptly took off to buy some cold cuts for dinner and when they returned we all chatted over chester (some sort of lunch meat made of chicken and turkey), pastrami, mustard, and cheese sandwiches. The two 18-year-old culinary masters then treated me to a shake made of chocolate ice cream, chocolate pudding, chocolate syrup, chocolate pop-tarts, and milk. I think I'm going to go blind, but it was real chocolatey, and hey! I'm in Brazil, so why not?
I don't expect that all of my posts will be this ebullient, but I look forward to writing more about this beautiful little remote capital. Brazil is an interesting place.
music listened to while writing: M83's Dead Cities, Red Seas & Lost Ghosts