Brazil and Back

I'll say a few words about Curitiba, Brazil. And, I really mean a few because I only spent 3 1/2 days at a conference there. I attended and presented at the Southern Cone TESOL Conference combined with the mid-year fellow conference. I didn't get to see much of the city due to the fact that my plane was delayed for a day, I was battling a chest cold, we stayed in the hotel and conference venue most of the daylight hours, and it was cloudy/rainy for two out of the four days. However, I will say a bit about my impressions.

Friendly meat cutters

Brazil has more salad for one thing. It seems to be very popular to get food salad-bar style and then pay by the kilo. Nice! Not to be alarmed though - Brazil has its meat too. I just don't think it's as obsessed with it as Argentina! Also, the people are louder. I almost felt like I was back in the States a couple of times. Loud voices, loud laughing, and screaming kids. It made me realize how quiet and composed Argentines are in comparison.  It was amazing how little Portuguese I could speak, as in none, and that I could actually understand some bits and pieces. The hotel staff spoke not a word of English, so I spoke to them in Spanish, and they answered in Portuguese. Yes, there was a lot of pointing and writing going on, but we managed to get the dates, breakfast time, and the rates straight on the room.

The Tube

A group of us went to a couple of nice restaurants, and one of the fellows, Anna, encouraged me to walk the city the last night. It was great as I was able to catch a few shots of the city which has, in fact, won city planning awards and is famous for their transporation system - check out the "tubes" designed for those waiting for the "tube" which is the name of the city bus. Speaking of transportation, the 40 minute ride to the airport only costs $8. Cheap in comparison to the prices of everything else - much higher than Argentina. The pedestrian walk near our hotel was charming with mosaic sidewalks and well-manicured parks.

I met a lot of nice people, especially the other fellows from my program and grantees based in Chile, Uruguay, Paraguay, and Brazil. I learned a lot about the kinds of technology folks are using in opposite ends of the country to collaborate on projects. In fact technology was also the popular theme at the local conference I attended here in BsAs Thursday and Friday. Another popular topic was "vulgar English", but I won't get into that.

Building near our hotel

Now, back in BsAs, my last piece of news is that we ate a paella feast last night at a colleague's flat. Joe played guitar and young and old sang numbers from Mama Mia to Bad Moon Rising. It was mostly a request night, but he managed to squeeze a few originals in. It's hard to believe that Glee is so BIG here; getting our hosts' daughters to choose from the soundtrack proved the perfect way to keep all generations happy with the song choices. If you had told us we were going to stay up till 3:35am singing songs, drinking wine, and speaking a creative mix of Spanish and English, we never would have believed it! Are we becoming Porteños?