AltSci Blog

It's the weeks leading up to Carnaval in Rio and it's the rainy season. It's raining. It's warm, but not too warm. Do you swim in the beautiful ocean when it's raining? Sure, why not? I haven't swam in the ocean yet, but I will. I haven't seen Cristo Redentor yet, but I will.

A new friend told me about Blocos in Rio which will be interesting. Blocos are a block party with tons of people in the street. The music is samba. It's something pretty unique. My friend told me that between Christmas and Carnaval is pretty much mired by parties. Imagine the entire month of January being a slow month because people are partying too much. I could deal with that. In Seattle, January is a fairly slow month usually because it's too cold. But that's never stopped me from working, mostly it has stopped me from partying.

Lavandarias. It's time for a talk about laundry. I'm wearing swimming trunks right now because of a laundry problem that has been following me since Friday. I've been wearing dirty clothes for 4 days now. You can blame this on me not being prepared, but that's not the real story. I have 4 sets of clothes. Like my father said, "shirt/pant/short/sock/day". So on Friday I have one set of clean clothes. Time to do laundry, right? It's São Paulo's anniversary, so the lavandaria is closed. No problem, they'll be open tomorrow. Saturday I show up on their doorstep and they are closed again. I go to a different lavandaria six blocks away. They quote me 100 Reals ($50). I'm ready to pay the extortionary rate because I don't want to wear dirty clothes for 2 days. They say, your clothes will be ready on Monday morning. It's 10am on Saturday. Could you please finish them by 5pm? Não. I lost it quietly and walked out of there with my dirty clothes. 100 Reals and 2 days? Remember that laundry in America involves $5 in quarters and 1.5 hours. I take the bus to Rio and arrive at 7pm. Lavandaria is closed of course, because they close at 5pm. How many laundry's survive only being open 9-5? So I buy some clothes to wear. This morning I go to the lavandaria at 10:30 and I hand over my clothes. It's only 30 Reals. 5pm tomorrow. Can you wash them by tomorrow morning? Não. She thinks I don't understand what she's saying. Amanha cinco tarde. It must take 16 hours to wash clothes at that lavandaria.

For those who read too much Reddit, you've probably seen this fly to the front page: Nightclub fire kills at least 245 in southern Brazil. My heart goes out to those affected by the fire. I hope that this event will encourage more safety in construction of venues.

Sunday was so different than any other day. Bicycles were abundant, most shops were closed, and São Bento Metro station was closed. But that isn't close to all. I went to a samba party in República and afterward (I was more tired than I have ever been) we went to a Carnaval preview party in Anhangabau by Vai Vai. It was so incredibly packed that I could hardly believe it. It filled the street for a block and a half. It was at the bottom of a large hill, so you could hear and see it for blocks despite the buildings.

Carnaval is not universally loved however. It is mainly a thing for lovers of samba and lovers of big crowded parties. Who doesn't like samba? Many paulistas (people from São Paulo) have specific musical tastes, like anywhere. Some people just don't like big crowds. I can sympathize, I don't like crowded dance floors any more than they do.

I'm thinking about going to the beach next week. That probably means Rio de Janeiro or Florinopolis. It will be a pretty big diversion but I'm not getting a lot done in São Paulo.

Jan 17, 2013

I'm in Brasil now. I already posted a blog on my Brasil blog.

Short story time. Twitter doesn't work in the subway and I didn't want to write interesting stuff to Twitter after it ate a message, so here are a few notes about Tuesday night in New York.