Dani and I take to the skies this weekend on Brazil's TAM Airlines. Here's a little sneak peak of what we'll be dealing with. When Dani told me about this, I didn't believe her.
http://www.foxnews.com/travel/2014/11/24/tam-airlines-spooked-by-flight-number-prediction/
Wednesday, November 26, 2014
Saturday, November 22, 2014
Snapshots Pt. VI
Nine months in Brazil.
-The homeless family that I wrote about in an earlier post was finally kicked out of the abandoned house they were squatting in. They had been there since June. Apparently the owners of the place came by and found them. They're now back in the tiny park where they were before. All of their stuff is under a large plastic tarp. They sleep on a bare mattress every night.
-It's nearly impossible for citizens to own guns in Brazil, but if you are a police officer or a security guard here, you make it clear when you have one. Cops almost always have a hand on their holstered gun. Even when they're standing around in a group of other cops chatting, they still have their hands on them. Obviously, it's just second nature.
Last night we saw a man being questioned by the police. He had his hands behind his back. One of the two cops talking to him had his pistol drawn, stomach level, pointing at the ground. I can only recall maybe once in my life seeing cops in the US with their guns out.
Ad in the Metro for Lollapalooza Brazil. Two-day passes available for US $262.39.
-My first eight months here, we were one hour ahead of the East coast. Now, we're three hours ahead (we sprang forward, the US fell back). The part that confuses me is that the one hour difference lasted for at least eight months.
-The way São Paulo looks seems normal to me now. The graffiti. The trash. The homeless on every block. The resignation everyone has to things not working. This is the reality that no longer catches my eye. Only when I go to the US am I reminded of the other side.
Graffiti/street art a few blocks from our place.
-Brazil's economy is in a downward spiral. The boom of the 2000s (a byproduct of China's economic boom) is subsiding. Brazil's money, the Real, has grown noticeably weaker in my time here. The biggest drop came the day after the election. The Brazilian people reelected socialist President Dilma Rousseff and investors responded by pulling out. The Real has been significantly weaker since.
All of this is good news for Americans who want to get more bang for their buck when they visit Brazil. For the 200 million Brazilians spending Reais every day, inflation continues.
-It's heating up down here. Summer is on its way. Dani went to the bathroom in the middle of the night last night and came back to bed covered in cold water. I asked her if she took a shower (and why hadn't she dried off). In the bathroom moments before, her vision started to go dark. Her body went weak. She used what strength she had to stumble back into our room and fall into bed. She was within seconds of fainting. She hadn't showered. It was sweat.
Of these eight Metro card machines, you'll be lucky to find three that work.
-Everything is decorated for Christmas. Eighty five degrees during the day and twinkling lights at night. Santa is in the mall, listening to children's wishes. He speaks Portuguese.
-I suppose after all this time here I'm a different person. I'm not sure if I can say how. I think overall I'm just stronger. When I first arrived, I counted the days down to March 23, April 23 and May 23. One month in Brazil, two months, three months. They were accomplishments. Nowadays, it's just life. Months aren't trophies anymore. It's just time passing by that I need to make the most of. I'm probably the busiest I've ever been lately.
Merry Christmas from Brazil.
-That being said, one year in Brazil will be an accomplishment for me.
Friday, November 14, 2014
Wednesday, November 12, 2014
Grocery Store Run 2
1 liter of milk
3 liters of water
1 bottle (16 oz) of carbonated water
1 bushel of spinach
3 filet mignon steaks
1 package of ravioli (for four)
1 carton of (imitation) orange juice
1 bag of microwave popcorn
1 bottle of red wine
1 loaf of multi-grain bread
Total: R $53.74 (US $20.99)
3 liters of water
1 bottle (16 oz) of carbonated water
1 bushel of spinach
3 filet mignon steaks
1 package of ravioli (for four)
1 carton of (imitation) orange juice
1 bag of microwave popcorn
1 bottle of red wine
1 loaf of multi-grain bread
Total: R $53.74 (US $20.99)
Tuesday, November 11, 2014
Monday, November 10, 2014
Law Machine
If you want a Cliff's Notes guide to any culture, look at their laws. Cultures, in theory, form the laws that govern them, but those laws usually end up being a pretty messy reflection.
I'm back from the United States where I spent over two weeks--my longest trip since moving to Brazil. The US's culture and its laws rang out to me loud and clear immediately.
When I'm driving in the US, it's jarring how much of the time I spend looking in the rearview mirror for cops. In Brazil, this doesn't happen. Cops don't pull people over. I haven't seen it happen in my eight-plus months here. Why? Because cops in Brazil fight crime.
I felt the US law machine at the after party following our literary event, As Was Written. About 20 of us hung out in front of an Old Town watering hole enjoying drinks and conversation. Throughout the night, the bartenders of the place stepped outside to point out the imaginary line separating the outdoor bar area from the sidewalk. The legal from the illegal. Like worried camp counselors they asked us over and over to please stay inside the line.
Not that I blame them. They're trying to avoid hefty fines. The problem is a system that started with a good idea and then missed the point.
About halfway through my stay in the US, a construction crew showed up one morning outside my parents' house. My mom, to put it lightly, was not pleased to see them. These men were from the government and despite several efforts on her part to prevent this day from arriving, it had. They had a job to do.
When I came home that afternoon, I found this lovely addition to the front yard. It's an American with Disabilities Act-compliant curb, complete with one of those bumpy squares to let blind pedestrians know it's game time.
Only one problem, the curb isn't connected to any sidewalk. It's just there, alone, going nowhere, with no plans to expand. But can the Virginia DOT mark off another box on their cover-their-ass legal checklist? You bet.
I say all this as if the US is one big problem. In reality, the US is probably the best it's ever been. I realize that statements like this automatically lose every non-Obama voter from the past six years (and probably even half of them), but I'm not crediting Obama with anything. Or Congress. Or anyone in particular.
It's the US people. A culture that has seen meteoric drops in crime over the last 15 years (although the local news likes to overlook this). A culture where teen pregnancy is plummeting. AIDS and other infectious diseases are under control (still holding steady at one Ebola death). A people that looked at smoking, determined it was a problem and cut the teen smoking rate in half in just 20 years. In half!
There's unemployment, yes, and the breakdown of the family unit and inequalities galore, but if there's one thing that living in a place like Brazil will teach you it's that being born in the USA is the biggest lottery ticket you're ever going to win. Enjoy accordingly.
Real quick: A conversation with Daniela from a couple years ago:
Dani: "A lot of people talk crap about the US. How does that make you feel?"
Me: "You know what, a lot of people talk crap about the prettiest girl in high school."
Brazil on the other hand, has its long list of problems. But under that torrent of crises, lies a gentle, refreshing current of I-think-we-can-all-chill-outs. A system that doesn't use tax dollars to hire an army of ticket-writers to drain us of even more money. A people that will let you step outside with a beer without fear of being tackled.
The best way to live, like most things in life, probably lies somewhere in the middle. Not that we're ever going to craft that perfect society. If you're money hungry, or seriously ill, or a new parent, or poor, or rich or a budding entrepreneur, the US is probably a better bet for you.
But sometimes you just want to step out of a noisy room onto a sidewalk. A sidewalk that goes somewhere. And that's one reason I love living here and don't intend to move anytime soon.
I'm back from the United States where I spent over two weeks--my longest trip since moving to Brazil. The US's culture and its laws rang out to me loud and clear immediately.
When I'm driving in the US, it's jarring how much of the time I spend looking in the rearview mirror for cops. In Brazil, this doesn't happen. Cops don't pull people over. I haven't seen it happen in my eight-plus months here. Why? Because cops in Brazil fight crime.
I felt the US law machine at the after party following our literary event, As Was Written. About 20 of us hung out in front of an Old Town watering hole enjoying drinks and conversation. Throughout the night, the bartenders of the place stepped outside to point out the imaginary line separating the outdoor bar area from the sidewalk. The legal from the illegal. Like worried camp counselors they asked us over and over to please stay inside the line.
Not that I blame them. They're trying to avoid hefty fines. The problem is a system that started with a good idea and then missed the point.
About halfway through my stay in the US, a construction crew showed up one morning outside my parents' house. My mom, to put it lightly, was not pleased to see them. These men were from the government and despite several efforts on her part to prevent this day from arriving, it had. They had a job to do.
When I came home that afternoon, I found this lovely addition to the front yard. It's an American with Disabilities Act-compliant curb, complete with one of those bumpy squares to let blind pedestrians know it's game time.
It's still got that new curb smell.
Only one problem, the curb isn't connected to any sidewalk. It's just there, alone, going nowhere, with no plans to expand. But can the Virginia DOT mark off another box on their cover-their-ass legal checklist? You bet.
I say all this as if the US is one big problem. In reality, the US is probably the best it's ever been. I realize that statements like this automatically lose every non-Obama voter from the past six years (and probably even half of them), but I'm not crediting Obama with anything. Or Congress. Or anyone in particular.
It's the US people. A culture that has seen meteoric drops in crime over the last 15 years (although the local news likes to overlook this). A culture where teen pregnancy is plummeting. AIDS and other infectious diseases are under control (still holding steady at one Ebola death). A people that looked at smoking, determined it was a problem and cut the teen smoking rate in half in just 20 years. In half!
There's unemployment, yes, and the breakdown of the family unit and inequalities galore, but if there's one thing that living in a place like Brazil will teach you it's that being born in the USA is the biggest lottery ticket you're ever going to win. Enjoy accordingly.
Real quick: A conversation with Daniela from a couple years ago:
Dani: "A lot of people talk crap about the US. How does that make you feel?"
Me: "You know what, a lot of people talk crap about the prettiest girl in high school."
Brazil on the other hand, has its long list of problems. But under that torrent of crises, lies a gentle, refreshing current of I-think-we-can-all-chill-outs. A system that doesn't use tax dollars to hire an army of ticket-writers to drain us of even more money. A people that will let you step outside with a beer without fear of being tackled.
The best way to live, like most things in life, probably lies somewhere in the middle. Not that we're ever going to craft that perfect society. If you're money hungry, or seriously ill, or a new parent, or poor, or rich or a budding entrepreneur, the US is probably a better bet for you.
But sometimes you just want to step out of a noisy room onto a sidewalk. A sidewalk that goes somewhere. And that's one reason I love living here and don't intend to move anytime soon.
Saturday, November 8, 2014
Wednesday, November 5, 2014
Artifacts
I only ever thought I might die once. That was on a vacation on a sidewalk in Tokyo in 2011 when the world underneath me wouldn't stop heaving. It was benign at first until the 60-second mark and then the 90-second mark when it seemed the force wasn't going away without me.
That earthquake started off innocent, but many of life's rattlers also do. I woke up in the night about six weeks ago with a strange tingling sensation on the top part of my head. I didn't think much of it until two weeks later when I was having a conversation with Daniela and felt a similar sensation, only this time on my face. Both incidents happened on the left side of my head only.
Thinking of a long lost friend my age who died earlier this year of a stroke, I told Daniela what I was feeling. She insisted we go to the hospital. I asked if she was sure and she said yes. So, we brushed our teeth and walked to the nearby emergency room where we waited for hours--me refreshing my fantasy football score over and over until my phone faded to sleep.
The doctor looked me over and said he didn't think anything was wrong, but with my kind of symptoms they (legally) couldn't just send me home. He ordered a CT scan and minutes later I was taking off my belt and emptying my pockets of anything metal. The machine sucked me in, took a picture and just as quickly spit me back out.
"Everything looks normal," the doctor said. Photos of the insides of my skull flipped by on his computer screen. "But we found this." He stopped on one slide in the middle of the group. Like the rest of the images, it was colored solid gray with healthy brain matter. Except for one part. He pointed at a dark little blip in the back corner of my head.
"We think this is a cyst," he said.
"What?" I replied.
He assured me that nothing was wrong. That this wasn't causing my numbness symptoms. That it probably wasn't effecting me at all. He told me I've likely had it since birth, which made me want to say, "Well, maybe don't tell me about it."
But he did.
Three days later, at his request, I stretched out on another hospital's table and slid into another large machine, this time for an MRI. My head, throughout the process, was cradled in a plastic cage and my forehead was taped down to the board. I was asked repeatedly to remain perfectly still. The conveyor belt beneath me slid inside the mothership. I watched the grey panels pass by overhead.
Getting an MRI is exactly like the final 30 minutes of 2001: A Space Odyssey. If you haven't seen the movie, allow me to clarify: It freaks you out. What the main character Dave saw in a vortex of colors, I heard through clinched eyes, clinched fists and earplugs as the machine rattled, thumped, hummed and chirped at a deafening volume for 25 minutes. It was one of the most uncomfortable experiences of my life.
I got a "break" halfway through, although honestly it was even worse than being in the machine. They pulled me out and, without being able to move my head to watch, injected my arm with a dye that would flow through my brain and show up in their images--an idea that honestly left me much more uneasy than it should have.
I laid my head in Dani's lap in the cab on the way home. I just wanted to get back to America and get some answers.
The truth of the matter was, I didn't trust what the doctors were telling me. Cyst, maybe, but I figured these guys had it all wrong. What if it was something more? The fact that I was in the middle of reading "Shrinkage"--author Bryan Bishop's memoir on living with a brain tumor--did not help in the slightest. What timing.
Just as difficult was the numbness that continued to recur in spurts. I was back in the US by then. I felt it in restaurants during meals with old friends and on the familiar interstates I used to drive. I played the winless game of wondering if I was feeling something serious. What about now? Do I feel weird? What about now? Daniela would see on my face that something wasn't right. She asked me about it. I would just lean close, kiss her head and tell her I loved her.
Like that earthquake that started with a slow churn under my feet, the trouble I felt really ruffled me when I realized it wasn't stopping. The doctor in Brazil told me not to worry. The articles on Wikipedia and WebMD told me it was benign. I knew the odds were in my favor, but to be completely honestly, I felt there was a fragment of a chance I was about to die, or at least be told that that was in the cards.
I've been in the US for two weeks and I've been on edge the whole time.
I sat down with my American doctor and explained my symptoms. He recommended a neurologist. I went to him and waited to hear my fate. He called me into his exam room and looked at my medical report, which was written completely in Portuguese. I tried to help him translate it. Not my specialty.
"Let me see the CT scan," he said.
The doctor loaded the disk onto his computer and scanned through the 30 or so images. I knew where the cyst was in the presentation. I watched it come and go on his screen. He scrolled through the pictures a second time and again missed it.
"Where is this thing?" he asked.
I took his mouse and stopped on the slide near the middle of the deck. "Here," I said.
He looked closely, flipped back a few images and then rolled forward a few more, stopping on it each time.
"This looks like an artifact," he said.
I asked him what that meant. Was there a historically important document in my brain that I was unaware of? He said no. An artifact is essentially an error in the film. Perhaps I was moving during a brief instance of the photo's taking. Maybe some fluid in my head was moving.
I blinked and then circled back on the issue. "Okay," I said, "But what if it is a cyst? How might this affect my life?"
He said there's no way to know until there are symptoms. "But," he added," I don't think you have a cyst."
A minute later, I was shaking his hand and walking out of there making a lame joke about hoping "I don't have to see you again. Ha!" We talked more about the numbness first--a symptom, he explained, that's impossible to link to a specific cause. It could be a number of things from stress to inflammation of a nerve and unless I feel something new happen, I shouldn't worry.
I guess I'm not completely done with this issue. I'll still see another neurologist if I can. I don't blame the Brazilian doctors for getting things wrong. I was one patient in a revolving emergency room door that night. I was right that they were wrong. Luckily, it was in my favor and not something deadly serious.
I'm honestly just relieved. The thought of something foreign stretching its dark legs inside my brain was unnerving. Turns out, ironically, it was all in my head.
That earthquake started off innocent, but many of life's rattlers also do. I woke up in the night about six weeks ago with a strange tingling sensation on the top part of my head. I didn't think much of it until two weeks later when I was having a conversation with Daniela and felt a similar sensation, only this time on my face. Both incidents happened on the left side of my head only.
Thinking of a long lost friend my age who died earlier this year of a stroke, I told Daniela what I was feeling. She insisted we go to the hospital. I asked if she was sure and she said yes. So, we brushed our teeth and walked to the nearby emergency room where we waited for hours--me refreshing my fantasy football score over and over until my phone faded to sleep.
The doctor looked me over and said he didn't think anything was wrong, but with my kind of symptoms they (legally) couldn't just send me home. He ordered a CT scan and minutes later I was taking off my belt and emptying my pockets of anything metal. The machine sucked me in, took a picture and just as quickly spit me back out.
"Everything looks normal," the doctor said. Photos of the insides of my skull flipped by on his computer screen. "But we found this." He stopped on one slide in the middle of the group. Like the rest of the images, it was colored solid gray with healthy brain matter. Except for one part. He pointed at a dark little blip in the back corner of my head.
"We think this is a cyst," he said.
"What?" I replied.
He assured me that nothing was wrong. That this wasn't causing my numbness symptoms. That it probably wasn't effecting me at all. He told me I've likely had it since birth, which made me want to say, "Well, maybe don't tell me about it."
But he did.
Three days later, at his request, I stretched out on another hospital's table and slid into another large machine, this time for an MRI. My head, throughout the process, was cradled in a plastic cage and my forehead was taped down to the board. I was asked repeatedly to remain perfectly still. The conveyor belt beneath me slid inside the mothership. I watched the grey panels pass by overhead.
Getting an MRI is exactly like the final 30 minutes of 2001: A Space Odyssey. If you haven't seen the movie, allow me to clarify: It freaks you out. What the main character Dave saw in a vortex of colors, I heard through clinched eyes, clinched fists and earplugs as the machine rattled, thumped, hummed and chirped at a deafening volume for 25 minutes. It was one of the most uncomfortable experiences of my life.
I got a "break" halfway through, although honestly it was even worse than being in the machine. They pulled me out and, without being able to move my head to watch, injected my arm with a dye that would flow through my brain and show up in their images--an idea that honestly left me much more uneasy than it should have.
I laid my head in Dani's lap in the cab on the way home. I just wanted to get back to America and get some answers.
The truth of the matter was, I didn't trust what the doctors were telling me. Cyst, maybe, but I figured these guys had it all wrong. What if it was something more? The fact that I was in the middle of reading "Shrinkage"--author Bryan Bishop's memoir on living with a brain tumor--did not help in the slightest. What timing.
Just as difficult was the numbness that continued to recur in spurts. I was back in the US by then. I felt it in restaurants during meals with old friends and on the familiar interstates I used to drive. I played the winless game of wondering if I was feeling something serious. What about now? Do I feel weird? What about now? Daniela would see on my face that something wasn't right. She asked me about it. I would just lean close, kiss her head and tell her I loved her.
Like that earthquake that started with a slow churn under my feet, the trouble I felt really ruffled me when I realized it wasn't stopping. The doctor in Brazil told me not to worry. The articles on Wikipedia and WebMD told me it was benign. I knew the odds were in my favor, but to be completely honestly, I felt there was a fragment of a chance I was about to die, or at least be told that that was in the cards.
I've been in the US for two weeks and I've been on edge the whole time.
I sat down with my American doctor and explained my symptoms. He recommended a neurologist. I went to him and waited to hear my fate. He called me into his exam room and looked at my medical report, which was written completely in Portuguese. I tried to help him translate it. Not my specialty.
"Let me see the CT scan," he said.
The doctor loaded the disk onto his computer and scanned through the 30 or so images. I knew where the cyst was in the presentation. I watched it come and go on his screen. He scrolled through the pictures a second time and again missed it.
"Where is this thing?" he asked.
I took his mouse and stopped on the slide near the middle of the deck. "Here," I said.
He looked closely, flipped back a few images and then rolled forward a few more, stopping on it each time.
"This looks like an artifact," he said.
I asked him what that meant. Was there a historically important document in my brain that I was unaware of? He said no. An artifact is essentially an error in the film. Perhaps I was moving during a brief instance of the photo's taking. Maybe some fluid in my head was moving.
I blinked and then circled back on the issue. "Okay," I said, "But what if it is a cyst? How might this affect my life?"
He said there's no way to know until there are symptoms. "But," he added," I don't think you have a cyst."
A minute later, I was shaking his hand and walking out of there making a lame joke about hoping "I don't have to see you again. Ha!" We talked more about the numbness first--a symptom, he explained, that's impossible to link to a specific cause. It could be a number of things from stress to inflammation of a nerve and unless I feel something new happen, I shouldn't worry.
I guess I'm not completely done with this issue. I'll still see another neurologist if I can. I don't blame the Brazilian doctors for getting things wrong. I was one patient in a revolving emergency room door that night. I was right that they were wrong. Luckily, it was in my favor and not something deadly serious.
I'm honestly just relieved. The thought of something foreign stretching its dark legs inside my brain was unnerving. Turns out, ironically, it was all in my head.
Preparing for the CT scan. I thought we would laugh about this later. Little did I know my "cyst" was about to make its debut.
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