What’s for Lunch

My wife and a neighbor walked the dogs this morning. Neighbors stopped them on three separate occasions to warn them of a mountain lion sighting. It seems that a cougar killed a deer yesterday in a neighbor’s yard and then sat with his lunch all day in the shade of a oak. Who knew that wild carnivorous animals actually killed other animals? The contractor working on the house some fifteen yards away took plenty of photos. Turkeys and deer roam in our neighborhood, mountain lions are never far away.

In other related news…
In a BBC article we learn that polar bears (even Knut the polar bear in a German zoo) actually kill fish. Germany’s Green Party is not amused.

As the writer of Marginal Revolution says, “While I can imagine valid criticisms of zoos, this is not one of them. It also should be noted that Knut’s normal diet does not consist of tofu.“

Back in the USA (MIA to SFO)

Monday March 18, 2008 Miami International Airport

We passengers got off the plane (deplane sounds so Fantasy Island, doesn’t it?) and zombied forward, toward the bureaucramaze, which is like a maize maze but not nearly as much fun.

Sergio had warned us about Miami International Airport. He was too kind.

The show run by Customs and Border Protection and the Transportation Security Administration of the US Dept. of Homeland Security at Miami International Airport proved to be an utter cluster-f**k. I may be wrong (not an uncommon occurrence) but neither CBP or TSA seem to have its act together. And, they’re not happy about it. According to its entry in Wikipedia, DHS employee morale ranks lowest in the US government departments.

There seems to be no concept that the people arriving at this embarkation point may not be operating at peak capacity, often traveling six to ten hours and overnight. Second, the agency is Anglo-centric. All signs are English. There seems to be no allowance that people may not be, shall we say, fluent in English. After my eight-hour flight, even I wasn’t able to read and follow the signs. C’mon guys how about a few pictograms to help those not totally literate in English? Like maybe those of us who didn’t ace the SATs?

Our first decision came at a bifurcation point: US citizens moved to the hallway on the right, foreign visitors into the left hallway. The purpose of this is to put you on the far left or far right (is there a metaphor in there for the US to be the far right?) of the same room. That is was the same room was not readily apparent to me (I’ll not speak for Mary) and I headed to the far left where the lines appeared to be shortest and fastest. Yes, you read that correctly, the lines. Rather than placing the two groups into (nearly ubiquitous) two serpentine lines, we were directed back into the same room with nothing separating the groups, and we had to gamble on which line would move the fastest. Mary was the first of us to notice something amiss.

Her first observation was that the people seemed to be more slender than the average American. Next, their clothing looked different. Finally, the people around us were not carrying US passports. The slender woman in front of us held an Argentinean passport.

Perhaps the most telling observation came from a man a couple people ahead of us, “You’re in the wrong line.”

A visual inspection of the Passport Control station yielded a clue: “Visitors.”

Back we went to the handful of queues on the far right. Four stations (out of maybe sixteen) were marked “US Citizens.” I’d show you a picture of the chaos but the bureaucrats do not allow photographs.

After getting through passport control, we picked up our luggage and were directed by signs to “follow the green dots” on the floor. These took us to a place that resembled the final scene in Raiders of the Lost Ark movie with the stacks upon stacks of crates and steamer trunks. People waited at various places along the perimeter. One TSA uniformed man wandered behind tape, grabbed bags willy-nilly, and tossed them into other stacks. I never saw anything move along the conveyor belt to the x-ray machine. We waited five or ten minutes trying to get him to take our two suitcases. We would move to where he was taking bags from people on our side of the barrier, and then he would move to another area—we’d follow him there, and he’d go back to where we had been.
He finally noticed us. “Follow the yellow dots,” he growled.
Someone woke up on the grumble grouch side of bed. Did I mention that Homeland Security employee morale is in the dumper?

We staggered off on the Yellow Trick Road and found an equally confusing luggage situation with an equally harried woman using the same snatch and toss technique as the guy at the other drop-off.
She gestured with her chin. “Just leave it inside the barrier.”
We scooted our stuff under the stretchy tape’s fabric. I fully expected to never see my underwear again.

After leaving our luggage to the vagaries unknown, we went in search of the line for domestic flight security screening. We found it. Just one more bit of chaotic clusterf***:
A woman pretends to look at our boarding passes and identification as we get into the serpentine cordon.

“Okays,” hollers another guy from the equally Anglo-centric Transportation Safety Administration. “I don’t speaks no Spanish, but, we’s got four lines here. If’n the person in front of you don’t see no opening, be polite, be nice, but go around ‘em. We’s got four lines here.”

“Here” refers to the lines for carry-on and passenger screening: the sprint where you take off your shoes, cap and coat, get out your liquids, and pull out your laptop, and put them in plastic bins (that are nowhere near you) in less than fifteen seconds or the person behind you knocks you down. I hate this part of air travel. It’s Theater of the Absurd without the funny bits. I believe we are no safer; simply hassled for show.

The waiting area on the other side of security didn’t hold any good coffee or pastries. It just had another group of people waiting for another flight to another place. We sat down and waited for our turn.

American Airlines flight 431 was notable only for the fact that it wasn’t notable. The only things I remember of the six-hour journey are the lack of in-flight entertainment (other than the magazine) and there was no one in front or behind me. I reclined my chair back and snoozed some more.

In SFO, my underwear and I reunite at the baggage carousel. I would have bet money and given odds that we would never see Big Blue (a hardside Samsonite) and the flower fabric suitcases before the coming of the Messiah.

Luggage in hand, I spotted a Peet’s Coffee and bought the best cup of coffee I have ever had. I could never move to Brazil. No Peet’s Coffee there. Coffee in hand, we headed off to the skyway tram to BART.

In the tram, I talked a little Portuguese with some vacationing Brazilians and wished them a boa viagem when we got off. I hope they had a great time.

People jostled at the automated ticket dispensers for BART. We got in line behind a couple of Emo types from New York (we later learned) dressing in leather and pierced/studded in at least a dozen places. To our right, a young man dressed in black with straight shoulder-length hair begins to freak.

“The f**king machine has eaten my f**king credit card!” he cries.

He has tried to put his credit card in the printer located near one’s right knee rather than in the strip reader higher up and to the left. In his defense, it’s an easy mistake to make. The printer slot does look like the reader on an ATM.

He’s quivering. “I am so f**ked! I need that card. I’m going to be presenting at a Pop Culture seminar.

“A conference on pop culture?” says one of the beleathered New York couple. “Oh, we would have totally been there if we’d known about it.”

Will you watch my spot while I try to find an attendant to retrieve it?”

We agree to keep an eye on it.

He comes back minutes later with a large woman who has the keys to open the machine up. We head for the train platform.


He tells us he teaches English and Pop Culture Studies at a college in Montreal. He will be part of a panel presentation on Emo (kids who dress all in black and cut themselves with razor blades). I ask him what about kids who were self-cutters who aren’t into Goth.
“Oh, yeah, what’s up with that?!!” he replies.

When the Yellow Train arrives, we get into the same car. The conversation continued.

One of the New Yorkers says, “I bought a Japan album on eBay—the seller said it was a rip off of Duran Duran. I wanted to send him, a like, 6-page email saying that Duran Duran evolved out of Japan, not the other way around!”

“It must be hard to be young today,” the Montreal teacher says, “because nothing is authentic—everything is pastiche.”

Maybe. But this is not a new idea. As the author of Ecclesiastes said, “There is nothing new under the sun.”

Brasil – Rio de Janeiro Aeroporto

Segunda-Feira 18 Março 2008

The ride from Buzios to Rio de Janeiro airport is just as easy due to Mario’s excellent driving.



After an hour on highway BR-101, we come upon the Rio harbor and can see the now-familiar landmarks of Pão de Açúcar (Sugarloaf) and, Corcovado mountain on which Christ the Redeemer stands. Mario negotiates his SUV into the traffic of Rio with seeming ease. Five lanes choke down to three for no apparent reason as if we had just left a toll collection booth. He doesn’t break a sweat.



A ship’s horn blasts in the distance.
“Excuse me,” I say. “Must’ve been the feijoada.”
Mario and Mary laugh. Mario speaks only Portuguese. I guess fart jokes are universal.

Rio de Janeiro Aeroporto (GIG)


Getting our boarding passes at GIG proves to be a breeze. We sat at an airport café and ate one of the tastier–if not strange–burgers we’ve ever had. In addition to the all-beef patty, lettuce, pickles and tomato, there is cheese, bacon and egg. And beber (to drink)? Mary drank a guarana and I had an espresso com creme. We looked out at Sugar Loaf and just smiled.

Mary wanted to pick up a book at the airport. She’d read the book she brought with her (The Princess of Burundi), plus four she found where we stayed: Murder at the Margin: A Henry Spearman Mystery, The Investigation, Fashionably Late, and Citizen Girl. She found a Michael Connelly book in paperback at a small loja and tossed it on the counter. It rang up at 50 Reais (about $30). We got Veja (Portuguese for “See It”) instead.

We went through Rio Airport’s security with a slight hiccup. The screener mistook my thumbdrive for a penknife. Once on the other side of security we found ourselves in a cramped terminal. There seem to be about thirty chairs for three-hundred seats. We share our claustrophobic conditions with passengers waiting to board ah hour’s delayed Air France flight.


I know that we Americans take heat about our fashion sense abroad. But…what are some people thinking? She’s in line for the Air France flight.

The American Airlines plane flight is long (eight hours plus a thirty minute delay waiting for clearance), boring, food unremarkable, uneventful. It’s perfect. I slept off and on throughout. I’m surprised by how quickly my fellow passengers spring out of their seats to clog the aisles. I know how they feel, you just want to stand up and be moving. Many have connecting flights that they are now late for. My stiff legs and sluggish brain can’t compete.

Next to me, a criança (little girl) threw up into an airsickness bag. Mary and I pulled the bags from our seat pockets and hand them to the girl’s mother. The little one upchucked again before we could get them in the mom’s hands.

The plane emptied slower than, well, a plane full of logy passengers.

We girded ourselves for the real communications problems—US customs and the officious and bureaucratically Anglo-centric Transportation Security Administration–after a red-eye flight to Miami.

Brasil – Búzios Tchau

Segunda-Feira 17 Março 2008
Búzios

We are ready to go. Packing took very little time. We decided that everything would need to be washed when we got home. Those items we had washed two days ago are still wet. Humidity is high here.

At around 11:30 AM, we were enjoying one last cup of cha on the porch overlooking the water, trying to burn the scene into our permanent memory. Rosa, one of the condo complex caretakers, walked up to the top of the hill to the condo where we are staying. She speaks no English. We speak halting Portuguese and recognize only ten percent of the words when someone speaks to us. I wish I could turn on the captions. If I could read what is said as well as hear it my comprehension rises slightly. Out of the cloud of sentences, we are able only to understand the words cinco minutos (five minutes).

Mario indeed arrived five minutes late just as Rosa explained.

Brasil – Búzios Palm Sunday

Domingo (Palm Sunday)16 Março 2008 Búzios

We hoofed into Búzios centro twice (mind you I had few complaints).


On the first trip our plan was to use an ATM, get some folding cash, a cafezinho, and wander about a bit. The first couple ATMs could not would not read our card (not on a train, not on a plane). As we considered our options, a guy slightly older than me asked if we were having trouble having our card read. The British accent gave away the fact that he wasn’t from around these parts.

“There’s a Bradesco Bank just down the road on the left,” he said. “I’m going there myself.” He had lived in the US for twenty-four years and had been now in Brazil for nearly three. He was traveling with friends and headed over to their black Land Rover.
We hiked down the street and held the door open for the man, who had arrived at the same time we did. Inside, none of the machines we tried read our cards. Not his. Not ours. One can only surmise that some sort of problem existed in accessing accounts outside Brasil at that moment. Or maybe it had something to do with the fact that JP Morgan just bought Bear-Stearns and the economy is melting.

Whatever the reason, that reduced our options to the cambio, which also meant walking back to the condo to retrieve traveler’s checks and passport. At $R1.51 to the dollar, the exchange rate was not ideal. But we had them for times when the ATM didn’t work, so it was what it was.




Reais in hand, we went off in search of (lunch).


It’s difficult to find bad food in Brazil. Lunch in Búzios is a treat. The least expensive meals are found on the praia (beach) where food vendors abound; the most expensive overlook the waterfront. We chose Boom again. We had the system down (grab plate, fill plate, weigh plate, receive coaster with bar coded price, find seat) and the food tastes great.

After lunch, we went in search of açai (pronounced ah-sa-ee) and found it listed on a menu in a narrow open-aired cafe. Brazil has many frutas e legumes that have no other names except what they have in Brazil. Incredible tastes. Açai came in 150 ml to 750 ml cups and had a list of what we suspected were toppings: mel (honey) and banana (with different possibilities for said banana listed in Portuguese that our dictionary didn’t explain). I ordered a 200 ml cup with banana and mel.

The counter-moça took my name and we passed the time talking with a university student from Israel until she picked up her order and said goodbye. Açai looks like a motor-oil Slurpee or blended coffee drink. It’s a dark purple almost black, very sweet, and can induce a whopping brain-freeze if you consume it too quickly. Mary and I found 200 ml was plenty. The cup of sliced banana on the side helps cut the sweetness and the cold.


That left one last item on our to do list: down Brazil’s famous drink, the caipirinha.


About an hour before sunset, we walked down the rua to a restaurant overlooking the praia. The first, O Pescador (The Fisherman) was playing loud music, as it had every day we passed. At no time did they ever play anything that we would say; “now that sounds nice.”

We saw dolphins swimming offshore, and we saw everyone run to the water’s edge with their cameras, trying to capture it.

We picked the place next to O Pesky and sat down at a table and ordered uma caipirinha and uma agua com gaz (sparkling water). A caipirinha is something of the national drink. It is made from cachaça (distilled sugar cane, the Brazilians do not call it rum) and who knows what else. It tasted something like a margarita. One goes a long way. They do heft a wallop.

We watched the beach close down for the day as we sipped–the umbrellas and chairs taken down and folded up for the night as each party left. The sun was setting as the bar staff started to tip the empty chairs against the tables, and our waiter brought our bill and apologized for having to close. We had thought the bar scene would be open all night, so we were glad we hadn’t put off our caipirinha any longer than we had. Another hour and it would have been too late.

Brasil – Búzios Artisan Community

Sabado 15 Março 2008

Buzios
The town of Buzios is made up three settlements on the peninsula—Ossos (Bones), Manguinhos, and Amamaçao de Buzios. There is also one on the mainland called Rasa.

Buzios is called the St. Tropez of Brazil. Never having been to St. Tropez, I liken it to La Jolla or Carmel in California. It’s slightly kitschy with trendy lojas (shops), botequims (bars, pubs), nightclubs (like the Patio Havana for jazz), pousadas (combination inn/bed & breakfast), and an artistic community.

Because of the artesaos and artistas, almost everywhere you look there are bits of whimsy. Here are a few examples (you can enlarge the picture by clicking on it):


A giraffe in high heels


The ever-present JK lounging on a bench watching the comings and goings of the harbor. Note his right foot.


A lone pescadore mends his net while sitting in the praca. The wings on top of his head are actually the pay phones across the rua.

Brigitte Bardot sits on her suitcase. (Note the wear marks from frequent touching)


Tres pescadores pull in the day’s catch.

Brasil: Dia 10 – Buzios

Sexta-feira 14 Março 2008
After the storm

I thought that at least the roosters would not crow. Neither sun, nor rain, nor gloom of night will stop these cocks from their appointed duty of interrupting the town’s sleep patterns.

I got out of cama after 8 am and walked downstairs to make some cha. My right foot splashed water as it hit the tiled floor. I grabbed a broom and towels and started herding and sopping up puddles of agua off the floor. We have fan blades whirling to dry the floor. A man is moving tiles on the roof as I post this. At the next chuvarada we will check for leaks and place the necessary buckets and pans. Forecasts call for mais rain.

Brasil: Dia 9 – Búzios

Quinta-feira 13 Março 2008
Souvenir day today
We thought that today for almoça we might just get a guarana (it’s made from an Amazonian berry and tastes like a cross between ginger ale and apple juice with a caffeine kick), burger, and batata fritas (french fries) at Bob’s Burgers.
“Our” condo lies within a block to praia de Joao Fernandes where the women wear fio dental and the men wear Speedos. We noticed quickly that lots of people were out and about hoje (today). The local policia seemed to be everywhere. Increased traffic on the ruas and on the sidewalks. Good day to pick up those souvenirs for the folks back home.

The vendedors were out in greater numbers than we’d seen previously. The reasons for the increased vendor population lay anchored off-shore, dois cruise ships grande.
As Mary and I walked along the sidewalk toward Ossos, we came upon a man taking a picture of a woman (presumably man and wife but I won’t jump to any conclusions). In halting Portuguese I asked if they would like me to take their picture. They stared at me.
“Do you speak English?” I asked. He gave a wry smile. “I’ve been practicing for nearly forty years.”
“Oh dear, you speak British. Perhaps we should go back to Portuguese.” I took their picture and we went off to a terrific burger and batata fritas.After sunset as we sat on the veranda, we saw flashes of lightning, then the rain began. Gatos e cachorros. Todos noite.

Brasil: Dia Oito – Búzios

Quarta-Feira, 12 Março 2008, Buzios.

The roosters waited until 4:30 AM to raise a ruckus. We’ve heard geese (they are great “watchdogs”) at the green house across the way. I guess that it’s the roosters and geese getting into shouting matches.

We took Café de Manha no casa (breakfast in the house) and then figured out how to use our remote control to the TV and Sky satellite so we watched Bom Dia Brasil (Good Day Brazil) When that finished we hoped we could find Rua Sesame (Sesame Street) since that’s about our speed. Not finding suitable children’s fare, we sampled a little Oprah with Portuguese subtitles. Now we know how to say “multiple orgasms” in Portuguese (multiplo orgasmo—I’m not making this up).

While watching Oprah we saw scads of propagandas (commercials). Most commercials are given in Portuguese though we caught one for a reality-TV style chef program. The chef says in English, “un-f***ing-believable” and the translation was the Portuguese word for “Incredible!” We watched for maybe an hour, then Mary did a little work and I did a little travelog writing.

After that, we walked across the street to the praia. We were solicited to buy a baseball cap with a Brasilian flag for $R25, he had dropped it to $R15 before we finally begged off. Later we saw similar caps downtown for $R8.

As we walked along the beach, we saw cheese-on-a-stick, corn on the cob, shrimp on a stick, assorted packages of food being sold from small carts, vendors carry racks of swimming suits, dresses, beach towels from umbrella to umbrella trying to make sales. The per capita income (about $7,600/yr) for Brazilians is 25% of that of Americans. Everyone scrapes to get by. It’s free enterprise.

Hoje (today) there were more vendors on the boardwalk downtown selling handmade items. We suspect that they take Monday and Tuesday off and begin anew on Wednesday.

We ate pizza, drank agua com gaz (sparkling water), and chatted with a pleasant fellow named Antonio at a restaurant. We traded English/Portuguese words and phrases. A contamenina (girl) curled up behind the counter on two chairs. It was Antonio’s four year-old daughter; she’d already been to school.

On the way back, we saw a man returning from fishing with a net loaded with fish (a package the size of a bowling ball). Later, he stood at the edge of his yard overlooking the water, his dog swam and barked in the sea below him, and the man threw waste pieces of the fish to the dog in the water.

It felt hotter and more humid today. Though I can’t prove it since Bom Dia Brasil’s weather report didn’t post the cidades on its graphics. Neither did we see any temperature predictions. It sprinkled a little in the evening and we heard thunder in the distance.

My head is full. Amanha (tomorrow), I’ll look for acerola-a cherry-flavored fruit that’s a mega-source of vitamin C and pupunha -“a fatty, vitamin-rich Amazonian fruit taken with coffee.” I need to kick it soon. Air travel with a head cold can hurt.