Rio / Early Return

Hello everyone!

This past weekend I spent in one of the most beautiful cities I have ever seen, and perhaps one of the most beautiful in the world, Rio de Janeiro. I will spare you the travel details… except for the flight into the city. Once I knew that we were about to land, I started to search for the omnipresent Cristo Redentor statue on top of the hill, and right before my eyes out of the window opposite my row he appeared with open arms, as if to welcome me to the new city and culture I was to experience. After arriving to the hostel where I was putting my bag for the weekend I met a Brazilian traveler and and Aussie and the three of us decided to head straight for the man in the sky. We found a guide from the bottom of the hill at Corcovado where the statue is located and had him take us up the hill, first to the area where many of the helicopter tours take off from, and then to the top. To be honest, the statue is a sight to see, but it pales in comparison to the view that you catch from all around it. Rio is set within a national park, with city life fighting its way up the hills into the jungle vegetation. When you are within the confines of the city streets, every neighborhood feels like it's own distinct community, as each piece of the city is separated by either an ocean inlet or part of the many fault lines that run through the city. From above, you can catch the scope of the city as a whole, and see how each piece fits in to the massive jigsaw of city and nature. It is a place, like many in the world I suppose, that you can see pictures of a thousand times in your life, but nothing compares to the actual sight, to feel the breeze from the top of the mountain, and to take in such a marvelous new place.
On Friday evening, after spending some time at Ipanema watching the sun set, I went with some fellow travelers to a part of town called Lapa, which holds a street party that serves as a miniature carnival full of different sights, sounds, tastes and fragrances. There were Samba bands playing in bars, doors and windows open to let everyone in on the rhythm and heartbeat of Brazil. The rhythms come fast and furious, and seem to constantly change, so while I enjoyed getting in to the spirit, I didn't by any means conquer the beast that is the samba. Every turn down a new alleyway was a trip into a different musical experience, from the samba groups to reggae to drum circles supporting the art of capoeira. The night was full of laughs and some great new acquaintances, and was one I will never forget.
On Saturday I took a guided trip into the largest favela in Rio, called Rocinha. More than 200,000 people live within the slum that is really a city in itself, it has its own commerce, laws and infrastructure. The only effective way to get up into the heart of it is to take a motorcycle, so the each member of the group was given a ride by a local cyclist who takes people up and down the hills everyday for a living. Once we reached the top, we were able to go inside a home and see the view from the top of the favela, which was as good as any five star hotel in the world. The spirit of Rio is one that accepts the fact that a vast number of people in their city have no choice but to live in the favelas similar to these, and they embrace the not only the wealthy tourist sections of the city, but the beauty and necessity of the favelas as well. Most of the people from the favelas travel into the city everyday to perform all kinds of jobs, so it is not as if they are disconnected in any way from the heart of the city, simply by location and a lack of monetary resource. From the crest of the city, we cut through the narrow streets and alleyways through different parts of the city, visiting some local shops and people along the way until we reached the end of one of more than one hundred ways to get to the foot of the hill.
I appreciated the opportunity to be able to go into the favela and see the lives of the people within it, but at the same time the whole tour felt a bit contrived and was just a made for tourists sort of attraction. It was very similar in scope to a trip I had taken into the slums of Cape Town, where you are able to see and appreciate the world in which the people live, but it feels strange to have your camera out and at the ready simply to say that you had been there. Also having the people around me snapping photos of people living their everyday lives seemed a strange, as if we were at the zoo or some sort of attraction where the people didn’t matter, only the pictures you could take and show to your friends at home.
The final day of my trip I spent in the gigantic botanic gardens that lie near the Ipanema neighborhood, in a seemingly endless array of new plants and trees that stretched on for miles, a beautiful spot for a picnic or simply a walk through the park, as many families were taking advantage of. After my time in the gardens I headed to the famed Copacabana beach for the afternoon, amongst the wildest display of umbrellas and people that I have ever witnessed. From the water to the volleyball courts that run down the beach's entirety, the beach was filled to max capacity with people of all sorts, from local Cariocas soaking up the sun to tourists all over the world looking to enjoy a day on one of the most famous beaches in the world.
At the end of the weekend, I was sorry to have to head out of Rio, as I'm sure most people are who have spent any time there, but I did get to meet some great people and experienced a new piece of Brazil very different both geographically and culturally from where I have been before.
This brings me to the next piece of my blog, which will make this most likely the last one I will post. I have decided, sadly and for a number of different reasons, to cut my trip to Brazil short. The job situation did not work out as I had expected and I made the decision that a shorter timeframe for my work and stay here would be the best decision for me. In some ways, the trip has exceeded my expectations and in others it has left me frustrated and disappointed. Nevertheless, it has been an experience that I will no doubt learn from and I will take every bit of what I have learned and experienced here and use it to move forward into my next endeavor, whatever that may be. It has been great for me to be able to come and see my friends, George and Dani, and to get to experience what their lives are like, and I am forever grateful for the time I have been able to spend with them. They have been such supportive forces for me and without them here my trip would have lacked my favorite aspect, their company, and the time I was able to spend with them in Sao Paulo on the weekends having some amazing times and being able to be a part of their lives, if only for a few months. I will be heading back to Colorado early next week, and I will be starting anew. I will take all that I have learned here, about travel, living and working abroad and about myself and hopefully put it to good use moving forward with my life. While this has been a difficult decision for me, I do not see it as an outright disappointment, but simply another step in my walk of life, and I am blessed to have had the opportunity to experience what I have during my time here. I want to thank all of you for your support and for all of you that have read the blog, I hope you have enjoyed it, even though it was a bit shorter than I had expected. I am very excited to return to Colorado and see my family and friends, so hopefully I will see you all very soon.

Paz e Amor
Conor

P.S. I still need to upload some photos of Rio, but I don't have internet access at home so bear with me and I will have some up on facebook in no time.

A Real Peach at the Beach!

Hello everybody,

Sorry it has been awhile since the last post on here, but hopefully this post will make up for it! Last weekend I was invited to go to Dani’s parent’s beach house, which is on the island of Ilhabela off the coast of the state of Sao Paulo. It was a beautiful drive out to the coast, took about 2 and a half hours from the heart of Sao Paulo, and the landscape was filled with lush jungle vegetation and scattered with small lakes and waterfalls every few miles. It provided a much needed break from the urban sprawl of Campinas and Sao Paulo. The island is a magnificent sight from across the bay, with foliage that I haven’t seen since I watched the last few episodes of Lost last spring (minus the smoke monster, of course). Once we arrived across the bay, we were greeted by Dani and her sister’s boyfriend Bruno, who whisked us up the hill in their personal dune buggy to their home away from home.

The beach house, my American friends, was everything I had imagined and more. While I had seen photos of the house and the surrounding bay and scenery, they did no justice to the view that I was privy to once I made my way through the living room and onto the patio, complete with a barbeque, a tanning deck, hammocks, and an infinity pool. What’s an infinity pool, you ask? Well check out the photos and you will get an idea, my blogging skills just wouldn’t do it justice. After a late afternoon churrasco (BBQ) and a lengthy nap (a welcome Brazilian custom), we took to the water as the sun was beginning to slide its way down the sky across the bay. I got to experience the joy that is driving a jet ski, the slight adrenaline kick when you hit top speed and the spray of salt water with every new wave or break in the bay. George and I traded spots until the black night settled on the water, and we made our way back towards the yacht club for a quick dip in the pool and some caipirinhas. The caipirinha is the traditional Brazilian fruit cocktail, made with any type of fruit (pineapple is my personal favorite) and a liquor called cachaça, which is made from fermented sugar cane. The drinks are strong, and they can be troublesome because the alcohol is so beautifully hidden behind the flavor of the fruit.

Sunday morning after breakfast we took to the high seas again, except this time we went by sail boat. I have been on the water for a decent amount of time in my life, but I had never gotten to experience the mellow drift of a sailboat. Dani’s father Rich, showed me the ropes, quite literally, and taught me a little about the science of sailing. After a two hour trek, we found our spot, dropped anchor and swam to the nearest beach. The water was slightly opaque, but just the right temperature to cool us off after lying on the scorching decks of the boat. After our swim we headed back to the house and took another delicious nap before packing up and heading back across the water for and back to reality.

The most memorable part of my beach weekend, however, was not the beautiful home, or the jet skis ripping across the bay, but the people I was able to spend time with and the hospitality that I was treated to. My Brazilian friends, from Dani and George, to their families and friends, have done so much to make me feel welcome and at home. It’s in no way possible to repay them for this feeling of warmth and the unabashed sense of family that they have given me. They are the true representation of what Brazilian culture is all about, and even if you have heard stories like mine, it is something that needs to be experienced to understand. As your can see from my last couple posts, while my life in Campinas is far from optimal, I have had some truly magical times with two of the most interesting friends I have ever come across.

I hope everyone at home is doing well, I wish you all the best in your snowy endeavors, I will talk to you all sometime soon!

Paz e Amor,

Conor

The Next Step

Hello to everyone back in the states! My last two weeks here have been magical in many ways and unexpected and challenging in some others. I finished up my time staying in São Paulo and capped it off with a trip upstate to a sugar cane farm in the countryside that is owned by the family of George’s Mom’s boyfriend Ricardo. They have owned it for over 50 years, and I could really feel the history of the land and all of the gorgeous blue buildings that made up the complex. We had an enjo

yable day relaxing by the pool and had a late afternoon churrasco, which is a traditional Brazilian BBQ where the meat is slow cooked over a wood fire. It was definitely a “where am I in the world right now, and how lucky I am I to be here” kind of day. The meal was complete with different kinds of sausages, pork and beef alongside homemade breads and desserts. I spent the rest of the day lounging in the plantation home reading and enjoying my newfound Brazilian company. Most of George’s family was in attendance, his Mom, her parents (who are originally from Greece but who moved here more than 40 years ago), George’s sister Marina and her husband and their baby boy Peter. It was a special experience to get to see a Brazilian family up close and personal, and I feel extremely privileged to have been part of the weekend with them. The Brazilian families that I have seen are incredibly loving toward one another, and just about every phone call I hear ends with a verbal display of love and kisses. And while my Portuguese skills are pretty weak at best right now, I never felt out of place in any way, as if were just another branch extending from the family tree.

Seeing the sugar cane farm in the morning was a unique Brazilian experience. Ricardo drove us around the massive fields of sugar cane that his family grows, harvests and sells, as sugar cane has become the most valuable cash crop in Brazil. I never got a description of the size of the fields, but I would venture to say that it stretched a few miles in every direction when we were in the belly of the beast, surrounded by 8 foot tall stalks of cane as far as the eye could see. It was a welcome change from the urban sprawl and the speed of life in São Paulo. Every gas station here has two different kinds of pumps, one that is everyday gasoline and another that is sugar cane ethanol. Many of the newer cars here are flex-fuel, meaning that they can run off of either type of fuel. Sugar cane and the efficacy of the ethanol that it can produce had been an integral piece of Brazil’s rise in the world economy.

I have since moved into my new home in Campinas and started my work with Wizard. I have to say, it’s not really as I had expected. Then again, how often in life does the world you walk into match in any way with what your mind has laid out for you? I was told before my trip here that I would be teaching, so in my mind I had the idea that I would get an opportunity and be given the platform to easily communicate with and meet all kinds of people. Alas, this is not the case... I have been placed in the textbook department, so I have been spending my time revising texts for the company’s english classes and trying my best not to let this job placement get me down. I suppose if we never let our mind set up expectation, then there would be nothing to worry about once you travel down the unforeseen road. This is how I will choose to see my current predicament. Not so much a disappointment as a lesson and exercise in expectation. What can one make of the unexpected? This fabric of the world and the mind which is simply a figment of our imaginations? There are limitless possibilities in our world and our lives, one simply needs to reach out to find them once we move beyond expectation and into the moment. Here’s to the reach!

Finally, I recently read this poem by John O’Donohue and thought I would share with you. It does a great job of encapsulating the feelings that spring forth from a new venture in a new world.

Every time you leave home,
Another road takes you
Into a world you were never in.

New strangers on other paths await.
New places that have never seen you
Will startle a little at your entry.
Old places that know you well
Will pretend nothing
Changed since your last visit.

When you travel, you find yourself
Alone in a different way,
More attentive now
To the self you bring along,
Your more subtle eye watching
You abroad; and how what meets you
Touches that part of the heart
That lies low at home:

How you unexpectedly attune
To the timbre in some voice,
Opening in conversation
You want to take in
To where your longing
Has pressed hard enough
Inward, on some unsaid dark,
To create a crystal of insight
You could not have known
You needed
To illuminate
Your way.

When you travel,
A new silence
Goes with you,
And if you listen,
You will hear
What your heart would
Love to say.

A journey can become a sacred thing:
Make sure, before you go,
To take the time
To bless your going forth,
To free your heart of ballast
So that the compass of your soul
Might direct you toward
The territories of spirit
Where you will discover
More of your hidden life,
And the urgencies
That deserve to claim you.

May you travel in an awakened way,
Gathered wisely into your inner ground;
That you may not waste the invitations
Which wait along the way to transform you.

May you travel safely, arrive refreshed,
And live your time away to its fullest;
Return home more enriched, and free
To balance the gift of days which call you.

Thanks everyone for reading. I hope you all are doing well, I will be sending warm thoughts your way!

Paz e Amor,

Conor

Perplexed in the City

Hello gang, I figured it was about time for me to check back in and give you all an update on how my week in Sao Paulo has been. Since I arrived, I have been treated like a prince by my friends George and Dani and their families. For those of you who don't know the connection I have with these two, George was my roommate on Semester at Sea and Dani is his longtime girlfriend who was on the ship as well. They have been great over the years about letting me play the third wheel.

George lives with his mother in one of the more upscale parts of town, called Jarjins (gardens). They live in an apartment that takes up the entire 6th floor of the building, and to my delight they have amazing air conditioning! Their maid/cook is named YaYa, and she never ceases to amaze me with her culinary delights. I arise every morning to a meal that makes me giggle inside because of the ridiculous amount of choices. I am beyond grateful for the treatment I have received during my stay, I feel the love of my friends with every meal that I eat and night that I spend in their exquisite home.

The shopping here is unparalleled, the only place I have seen that I could compare it to is Manhattan. Every store seems to be a different kind of luxury brand, even if it simply a small boutique with a few pairs of shoes and handbags. It is fun to simply walk in and ask how much a pair of shoes or a bag is just to hear how high the prices are. As you can tell, most of the shopping is geared towards women, and walking through the streets you can tell that all of the items from the stores are put to wonderful, wonderful use. I shudder at the amount of damage that my Mom and sister could do in this area. They are patiently waiting your lottery win and subsequent arrival ladies!

Sao Paulo as a whole is something that is difficult for me to comprehend, let alone describe to you. There are seemingly countless different neighborhoods in the city, some in the foreground and others stretched far on the horizon, but each one is the size of Denver. I need to try and find a spot in the city where I can have a 360 degree view so I can give everyone at home a feel for how awesomely massive the city is. I took a trip to the largest park in the city on foot yesterday, which took me about an hour, and I had merely gone from one of these neighborhoods to the next. I feel as if I could eat at a different restaurant and visit a different part of the city everyday for a year and I would be laughed at if I said I had seen it all. The population varies, depending on how much of the area you put under the label of Sao Paulo, but the best estimates range anywhere from 18 to 26 million people. Just writing that now blew my mind! It's a daunting task to experience as much as I can, but I do have a considerable amount of time, so I will just take it step by step, day by day, fresh start over, and a different hand to play. The deeper we fall, the stronger we stay, and we'l be better the second tiiiiime around!

As far as culture is concerned, there are definitely some differences. Ever since I travelled with Semester at Sea, I strive to find the connections in how we live and love rather than the disparities. It is also hard for me to describe a culture or population as a whole when I have only seen a few parts of the country and only met a microscopic percentage of the population, but I will share a bit of my experience. The most welcome change for me has been the schedule that everyone runs on here. Let's take dinner: in the States we are usually getting started with dinner at around 7, and eat for an hour or so in total if that. Here I have not started dinner before 9 and it is more of a social event. Everyone really takes their time and enjoys each piece of the meal separately, including amazing drinks called caipirinhas complete with any type of fruit your heart desires. Dinner will run for a few hours and then it's time for dessert or a late night espresso. If you are heading out to a club, you usually don't head in that direction until after midnight, and when George and I went out on Saturday night (to one of the greatest clubs in the world, mind you! check it out here: http://www.d-edge.com.br/) our return home was greeted by an immense Paulista sunrise. I imagine that my Dad would do very well here, as he is known simply as "the night owl" back at home (bahaha!!).

The truest Brazilian culinary experience I have had so far has been our trip to a restaurant that served traditional feijoada, which is pictured above. It is a bean and meat stew that is slow cooked for days and served with rice and pastries. The meat is fall off the bone tender and it really needs to make it's way to the States as it is one of the world's great hangover cures (along with a hair of the dog caipirinha).

I am excited for the transition into the next aspect of my trip here, which is to start work. I am moving up to Campinas, which is 40 minutes northwest of Sao Paulo this weekend to get settled in and I will begin working next week. I have been working towards trying to rid myself of any expectation, and as it has served me well thus far on my journey I will continue to use that philosophy when thinking about the new position I will hold and the company I will be working for. As for right now, I am heading out the door to visit one of the city's larger markets to experience yet another small piece of the puzzle that is Sao Paulo.

If any of you have any specific questions about my trip or the culture here, feel free to leave comments and I will do my best to respond in the next post. I like to simply see myself as a conduit between two worlds. I am plugged in to a brave new world full of vibration, spirit and richness that hopefully I can share with you using this blog as a vessel. Thanks for reading and you will hear from me again soon.

Paz e Amor,

Conor

And here. We. Go.

Hello everyone and welcome to the latest installment of my blogging world. I just got this thing up and running a couple of days ago, and I still haven't decided on a name. I figured that someone would come up with a good name for me, so go ahead and throw some suggestions my way, or else you are condemned to the title that have given it, which sounds like a bad sitcom (airing this fall on CBS!!). After a long few days of packing and preparing, I have made it back to the Southern Hemisphere. I arrived in Sao Paulo this morning and was greeted by my old friend George, who is kind enough to let me live with him and his mom until my job officially starts on the 17th. For the next week or so, I will be roaming the streets of Sao Paulo and trying my best to get a handle on the facets of Portuguese that I will need to use while I am out and about by myself. The city is a beautiful place, very much a metropolis that is widespread and doesn't necessarily have a designated "downtown" area. The photo I posted is the view of the neighborhood and city from George's bedroom window.

I want to say thank you to everyone who helped me prepare, physically, emotionally, and mentally for this journey, it has been a long time coming and I am so excited to see where this new chapter in my life leads me. I will try and update the blog as frequently as possible, and I'm hoping that once I start my job in Campinas I will be able to set a weekly or even bi-weekly time that you can expect a post from me. As for now, I am off to have a deeelicious lunch with George's mom, and then it's to the streets to see what this magical new world has in store for me.

Peace and Love,

Conor