The one without an ending

After three glorious months in Brazil, it’s back the crush of four literature courses, a philosophy course, two (hopefully) internships, and a job.

As I recount my stories of Brazil, I find it difficult to say, a week or two ago so-and-so happened.  The location is too separated, my life too different.  I haven’t processed I am only a week away from having sushi at the Colinas temakaria, searching out bunnies at the “Spider” park, and buying 80 reais worth of pesto to compensate for the pesto-less state of South Carolina.

For the first time after being abroad, I’m having to readjust to the US.  In France, the culture is too similar.  For the most part, Paris is New York, slightly smellier and with better pastry.  Paris offers a language I am comfortable with, customs that suit me, and the quiet anonymity of the city.

Sao Paulo is none of this.  No, it is, in a way.  You get lost among the people, but for me, it is not in the same manner.  My freedom is inhibited there.  Wandering is discouraged for safety’s sake and dining alone is an impossibility, as the menus present a challenge.  Being there during the World Cup was even more imposing.  I never experienced the supposed preparation for visitors I had anticipated.  I grant, a few restaurants boasted “foot to the letter” translations of offered items, but, as a whole, the World Cup meant loud, drunk, young Brazilians crowding the streets, setting off firecrackers, and relentlessly blowing on noisemakers, until the wee hours of morning.

The street, bereft of the oh-so-silent football spectators.

I had little interaction in Sao Paulo.  As I wasn’t taking courses, I spent my time at home, cleaning up after the inept maid.  Occasionally I went shopping, but the Dia was only a block away, and I never came to a point where I recognized the cashiers, as I later would in São José dos Campos.

The people I did meet, the friends and classmates of Pepe, were an incredibly traveled group, many preparing to spend years of their time abroad, studying in countries where they didn’t speak the language.  “Oh, I’ll learn when I’m there” was the most common response to my incredulity at their unworried attitude. 

I’ll learn when I’m there.  It does make sense, looking back.  In three months, without being in constant contact with Portuguese, I was able to go from barely understanding pleasantries, to following stories and dialogues about current affairs.  If this was possible for me, who conversed with everyone in English, how much more would one learn while sitting in classes and conducting affairs in another language.

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The Horrors of the French Marché

I remember the first market I saw in Paris.  I was heading to FNAC to buy a class book, when I saw it, on the corner of Rue de Rennes, close to Montparnasse.  

The market cleverly hides the horrors behind vegetables.

Because, I was hungry, per usual, I decided to poke around.  Within moments, I discovered the difference between the Whole Foods and the French marché.  The French know where their food comes from.  The market was rampant with chickens, feet and head still attached, feathers bedecking some.  

Example 1

This, I am happy to say, would never happen here.  Meat comes in sanitary packages, with no resemblance to the animal it once was, and this is how it should be.  Our meat definlety doesn’t come from the sweet chick or the lamb.  It springs preformed from the shelves of the store.

In Italy, this December, I made dinner for the family.  Chicken breasts and legs.  The breasts were good.  The legs and thighs put me off this form of chicken forever.  They had been improperly plucked.  I had to skin them, tiny feathers poking me, then…  I can’t think about it.  It was truly one of the worst moments I have ever had in the kitchen. 

Though my grocery store purchase in Italy was not nearly as gruesome as the headed and feathered chickens of the Parisian market, it made me wonder the same thing.  Are all of the people frequenting such places butchers?  One doesn’t come readily by the knowledge of beheading chickens and robbing them of their plumes.  It appears that the chickens are still in full possession of their innards, what of those? And what, exactly, does one do with the sheep faces?  They can’t possibly be edible can they?

They can't be... They really can't.

Why this fascination with animals in the whole?  I saw it around Place St. Michel, a tourist district.  On a spit, in a window, slowly turning was a whole rotisserie pig.  Snout firmly attached.  The French passed by without comment.   I stared in horror.  He was garishly displayed.  The proprietor of the store had bedecked his crackling nose with sunglasses. 

After that adventure, only Mexican food would do.  No questionable animals, just cheese and chips, both apparently bought in store rather than made in house.  This was a happy meal.  When I saw the butcher’s truck, loaded with sawed open carcasses, nothing would do but vegetarianism for a few days.

It's your luck that I'm not sharing that picture.  Shudders.

A Reflection on Bread

What is French cuisine?  When I arrived in Paris last January, I was unable to tell.  For my first three days, I ate nothing by Middle Eastern food.  Halal food galore, crepe not so much.  My first Parisian dinner was a halal kebab, from a Pakistani restaurant.  Then I had a sandwich cleverly named “sandwich chicken”, once again from a halal restaurant.  Then I had falafel.  Even in my second week, I didn’t have the time for anything French. 

This ended in Montmartre, where I had a Nutella crepe.  Still, aside from this, the only French food that is constantly a part of my life is baguette, both in France and stateside.  I should have seen it coming, the lack of diversity in my Parisian diet.  It’s what normally happens. 

Afore mentioned crepe

In France, bread is more than something you buy in a store, it has life.  The people appreciate every simple nuance.  Food is an enjoyment, not sustenance.  A boulangerie on every corner, pâtisseries more numerous than McDonald’s, this is where it’s at.

Bread has life.  It is made new each day.  Fresh butter, real butter.  Its scent reaches out into the street, inviting every passerby into the arms of the warm boulangerie.  Baguette in hand, the walk home is made enjoyable by bites off the top.  This should not be done in any manner, but delicately, with attention paid to the crumbs that are sure to fall into your scarf. 

It’s easy to forget in the US, that your bread had a life before it became yours.  Here, in Paris, that life consisted of organic flour and hours of growth.  Simple ingredients becoming superb.

Bread, the center of every meal

In France, bread is part of the history.  It tells of revolution and religion.  My fixation on bread began my first time in Paris, and continues now.  It inspired a poem:

"Our Daily Bread:"

 Crusty, hard on the outside,

The baguette sits—on the counter—

In the bread basket.

Yesterday’s crumbs still on the table.

A new loaf, the top nibbled

            Off—customarily—on the walk

Home from the boulangerie.

This culture revolves around pain

It was the cause of revolution

Now, a day cannot pass sans pain

Donne-nous chaque jour notre pain quotidien

Every day an eating of bread,

Mass— an eating of the Christ-body

Religion, like bread—

Hard to understand.  Inside comforting

But if forgotten for too long—

useless.

Penguins

I have a thing for zoos.  I’m not sure if it’s because I went to too few as a child, or too many.  Whichever the case, it expresses itself through a love of them.  Though I have yet to visit the zoo in Paris, I have visited Simba’s Safari in Sao Paulo, where an uppity emu tried to eat me.  After such an exciting previous visit to the zoo, I was ready in January, when I had a five hour layover in New York.  Within an hour of touch down I was in the Central Park Zoo, carry-on in tow.  I’d run across the park from the Natural History Museum, avoiding the frozen patches, skirting the perimeter of a police line, and finally skidding into line 20 minutes before the zoo closed. 

“You don’t get a discount if you enter now… and you don’t get a refund if you don’t get to see everything.”  The lady who said this wasn’t the nicest person I’d ever met.  She growled it.  And I handed her my money.  I skipped away.  Honestly.  Ticket in hand.

I wanted, no needed to see the penguins.  I hadn’t seen them.  The zoos I’d been to were focused more on giraffes and elephants.  But, I was immediately distracted by the sea lions.  They did tricks and looked for attention.  They would come up out of the water and wave.  They’d go under and twist.  They splashed us, asking for fish in their own way. 

Look at me!

Distraction passed, I ran to the penguin house.  It was dark.  It smelled bad.  But there were so many penguins.  They swarmed everywhere.  They stood frozen, it seemed.  They swam.  They preened and honked.  They were everything I had ever imagined, though separated by a disconcerting amount of glass.  

Miniature penguin!

I was the most excited child in the room, far surpassing the little French kids babbling away.  My “take a picture” cry was just as loud as any four year old's and my disappointment at not being to pet the dear creatures was just as strong.

The one where everything goes wrong

Two days in Miami, valet parking, good food, the beach, and my SO came to an abrupt end.  The morning of the change started with luck no worse than usual.  A stop at Starbucks turned complicated when his card was declined, both at the register and subsequently at two atms.  Our drinks were already made, my card was five blocks away at the hotel, so I ran back.  Everything resolved itself and the day could only get better.

We stopped at a Cuban walk through for a breakfast burrito, which was too hot to eat.  Waiting for it to cool, we walked back to the hotel, where we tried yet another ATM.  This one froze in horror at our audacity.

Pepe had a terribly long conversation with the only polite automated bank teller I've ever heard.  Granted, the conversation was in Portuguese and the auto man could have been spouting out the most horrid of curses, but I'd rather think he was pleasant.  The conversation ended with the realization that his card had been blocked, since Pepe was out of the country.  Apparently, the bank doesn't understand that an international card is supposed to work internationally.  The card would be activated, given time.

Pulling out of valet for the last time, there was a horrid crunching sound.  I ignored it.  Once in the car, traffic began immediately and the grinding we had noticed only got worse.  Before leaving Miami proper, we were reminded by hideous yellow signs that there was a toll ahead.  A toll that only took the cash we didn’t have.  Toll one, we were able to find change for, change that included a Canadian quarter and a quarter-sized dirham coin from the UAE, but change nevertheless.

On the turnpike, we got off at the first travel plaza, where we fueled up, and both atms were out of order.  With $8 dollars of tolls in our future, we were told to continue until the next travel plaza, where the atms would hopefully work.

Before merging onto the interstate, while still in the parking lot with windows down, I noticed an odd sign, offering windshield cleaning.  This was not optional.  As we drove past, water cascaded into the car. 

But that was funny.  Enjoyable.  Unlike the next travel plaza, where Pepe’s card was declined (still not activated, give it 24 hours) and mine had a balance of $3.87.  Not exactly enough for tolls.  At this, I called my father, who didn't answer and Pepe started walking around, looking for fellow Brazilians.  I called my mother, who offered to transfer money in, once she found internet.  Pepe, on the other hand, had managed to find Brazilians.  A group of them proudly sporting some Brazilian soccer paraphernalia I didn't understand.

He explained our situation.  They gave him looks.  He asked if they could trade reais for dollars.  The agreed and we left.  One the road again, this time winding up the windows for the windshield cleaning, my father called.  After explaining the situation, he transferred my latest paycheck into checking and we were set.

The Disney music was blaring.  The traffic had disappeared.  Then, the car stopped.  Completely.  Looking back, there were signs.  The radio had stopped working ten miles outside the travel plaza.  Lights had been flashing on the dash.  My poor little Beetle stopped, miles from I-95 on the Florida turnpike.

Every bad thought ran through my mind.  In the two hours it took for roadside assistance to show up, I sat desolately on the ground.  Finally, Pepe convinced me to get back in the car, where I sulked, and he, starving (remember, no breakfast) ate Nutella out of the jar, with his tongue.

Looking sheepish

We started to see the humor in everything and sat back, watching The Middle on the iPad until the tow truck showed up.

Lightening up, despite the circumstances.

Deliverance, after hours in the suffocating and unairconditioned heat of southern Florida.

Sven the Pocket Squirrel

In lieu of studying during my two hour break last Thursday I ate with Sigma Tau Delta, talked with a friend, and chased a squirrel.  This small pitiful fellow laying in the sun next to Old Main.  Something was wrong.  As I approached, he threw a baleful glance my way.  As I drew closer, he stood and scurried off, slowly.  Around and around we went.  I would corner him, he would hiss.  I would follow (read chase) him, he would confuse me by circling a pot, or climbing the stairs.

I finally gave up.

After fifteen minutes, I finally gave up.  Class called.  Hours later, after finishing half of a rather horrific paper regarding duality, I walked up the pathway, bouncing a tennis ball nervously.  To my surprise, as I rounded the corner to Old Main, there he was.  My squirrel from before.  He hadn't moved.

I walked up to him.  He walked away.  Now though, he didn't have the energy to run, or climb the stairs.  I threw my jacket over him.  Terribly surprised, I picked up the little guy.

Equally shocked at the turn of events.

Squirrel slept in my coat the entire ride home.  He slept in a box in my closet all night.  He tried to escape in the morning.  Finally, he settled into life on the sun porch.  He had a water fall and a box and a towel and a t-shirt.  Still though, he wouldn't eat.  He was a sick puppy, with a face full of blood and snot.

Day One, or was it Two, ended with my father hand feeding the squirrel walnuts, which the latter quickly tried to bury into the bricks and towel for later.

Friday morning, squirrel became Sven the Pocket Squirrel, as he gleefully slept in my pocket.

The little guy loved it.

Sven slept all of Friday, Saturday, and Sunday, before finally rallying yesterday morning.  He darted to and fro in the sun porch, ignoring the intrinsic property of glass' solidity, in favor of ramming it with his nose.  Recuperated, it was time for Sven to go.  He did, this morning.  We let him out at home, hoping that he will come back in to sleep.

At first, he ran right past the open glass door, darting behind a box and onto the dog bed.  He missed it again round two, but finally exited, slowly at first, then with building excitement.  He ran to the ferns.  He jumped up the steps to the pool.  Smelled a bush, stood on his back legs to look around, before finally beginning to dig up the strawberry patch.

Checking out...

Everyone is currently checked out.  Students and professors alike.  Instead of focusing on the horrors of The Painted Bird or adequately discussing multi-modal projects, all my attention is invested in thinking about the drive to Florida tomorrow.

It has parts.  From home to Columbia, from Columbia to I-95, from I-95 in South Carolina to Georgia, through Georgia, into Florida and I'm almost home.

I have the plan organized.  Yesterday, I went to Autozone to get fuses for my outlet that and a bulb for my headlight that has been out for weeks.  Then, I changed the fuse, something I'm rather proud of.  Later today, I need to go back and get oil, which I have no great amount of.  But this is logistics.

I woke up early this morning and decided to pack, discovering too late that morning packing doesn't work.  It was less of a packing experience, than an all out frenzy to grab every piece of clothing that smacked even the slightest of summer.  My new cutoffs, dresses, tank tops, a sarong.  My one bag quickly became two, this without including my yoga clothes.  This is unlike me, the person who went to Brazil for two weeks with only a carry on.  But I'm embracing it.

On the drive down, I'll listen to a book and to music, until it gets too hot to drive with my windows up, then I'll be left to my thoughts, which will most likely revolve around food.  I have all sorts of food adventures planned, from the authentic Italian restaurant in Orange Park to my oh-so-favorite Columbia in St. Augustine.  I really cannot wait.

The Italian place, where the espresso is thick and the chef sings opera in the kitchen.

Add to the normal excitement of going home my quick jaunt down to Miami, where I'll pick up the boyfriend and get to spend a day in South Beach, and the next dozen or so days are complete. 

A didgeridoo player on the streets of St. Augustine.