AN OUTSIDER

Thursday 2/16/2012

I woke up in the middle of the night last night with over a dozen bug bites.  Some were really large, like I had never seen before.  I woke Daniel up and we found the bug spray I brought, and sprayed it all over my body, but we didn’t have anything for the itching. It reminded me a lot of my first weeks in Italy, and how bad the mosquitoes were.  Which made me think of how easily we forget the troubles of traveling, remembering only the fun and exciting parts. Which is probably a good thing.

Yesterday was a productive and exciting day.  In the morning Daniel and I found a restaurant for lunch, where we can fill our plate with as much as we want for only 3 reals (Brazilian Currency), which is the equivalent of about $1.50, which is pretty unbeatable! 

In the evening, Daniel took me to nine different English schools in the city to look for jobs.  I think I must now have an idea of what celebrities feel like when meeting their fans.  Being a native Californian made me an instant celebrity.  Most of them had never met an American before.  They were nervous talking to me, many of them didn’t even talk in English because of, what I am assuming, was embarrassment of their accent.  And after I would walk away or sit to wait for a supervisor, they would all gather and whisper about me. Everyone was so uncomfortable talking to me that it made me uncomfortable. I realized I can't even imagine what it would be like to meet a foreigner for the first time.

We went to Daniel’s parent’s house for dinner, which was really fun, but overwhelming.  Being around his family reminds me of that movie “My Big Fat Greek Wedding”.  Everyone has a lot of energy, and talks over eachother and there is so much attention on me, of course I can’t understand most of what is going on.  His grandma is always kissing me, and his nieces playing with my hair and climbing on my lap.  People are all arguing over what to make for dinner, or where to sit, all wanting to put on a good impression.  It's sweet.  Although it feels like half the city is his family.  Growing up I was never really that close to my extended family, seeing them once a year at most, and even that was only with uncles and aunts and first cousins.  But here, I've meet his siblings, parents, grandparents, brother-in law, nieces, nephew, cousins, cousin's children, cousin's spouses, brother-in-law's brother, brother-in-law's dad, brother-in-law's brother's wife.  The list goes on.  So being around his "family" is really being around a lot more people than you might think.


I think what I liked most about his parent's house was how South American it felt.  Daniel's mother has this really great wooden carved furniture that is so unique.  It reminded me of something my mom would love and I wished she could be here to see it.  Instead of couches they have these cute little small cushioned seating benches.  Although I must admit that so far every home I've visited has completely bare walls, which feels more foreign to me than the rest of the place.  They could really use some of my paintings.  

The dinner was very filling.  Brazilians eat a lot of meat, which I had gotten used to from living with Daniel in San Diego.  Food is at least one thing I haven't had trouble adjusting to.  All of the food tastes good, and most of it 
is pretty familiar.  However we have been eating a lot of "mandioca" which is a root used in a lot of foods here, which I also really like the taste of.