CARNAVAL!!

OI OI!

It's Ash Wednesday today and the last day of carnival before everything goes back to normal and back to work. I've had a very hectic few days off and the holiday has been far more exhausting than work but it's been pretty fabulous and memorable. So last time we spoke, dear readers, I was very excited about dancing in the Sao Paulo parade with Tom Maior, right?!
Well, we changed samba school at the last minute because of some problem with getting costumes, so we were to dance with Academicos do Tucuruvi instead, who had a much wackier costume anyway, much more carnavalesque. But their parade was going to be Friday night, well 4.30am Saturday morning! And we have school on Saturday! We had a few doubts but the opportunity was too good to miss so we decided we would drive to Sao Paulo after school Friday, do the parade, drive back and go straight to school and teach.
The week passed pretty quickly, just lessons and stuff, also Bruno got some good news about university and he'll be going to UNICAMP in a city called Campinas :) yayy Bruno! I think it's pretty cruel how the results are done here, it's not like in the UK where we all receive results, fairly discreetly, all on the same day, instead they have to wait for lists to be published, every few days, and see if their names are on the list.
So Friday arrived and we put on our flashiest make up and drove to Sao Paulo. We got the basic undergarments of the costume which was some lime green leggings, lime green top, a hula skirt of long green leaves, with gold bits and flowers around the waist, some flowers to go round the wrists and ankles, and some very fetching green plastic shoes which were not at all the right size for us (because of our last minute costume charade) so the lady in charge of the costumes for our ala (parade group) kindly made holes in the heels to tie them a little smaller for us.
Then we waited.
And waited.
Then we got our headdresses and big flowers. We looked absolutely brilliant.


Then we found out that flowers the same colour cannot be together in the parade so I went on a short mission to swap my yellow flower. I got a red one.
Then we waited.
And waited.
And waited.
It was after 5am when we started to parade, but finallllly we paraded and it was fantastic! Very surreal, probably because of being so tired, but I loved it and I was singing along with the song, partly in Portuguese, and probably in some made up Portuguese words that sounded right to me.
On the drive back we stopped off at the old favourite, Graal, the self service restaurant place for a quick coffee before hitting the traffic covered road.
When we got back to Piedade it was just gone 10am. Usually we have lessons on Saturday from 8.30am but Carol covered for us, then I had to face my classes in my delirious state. Cayla had a TNT energy drink so she was feeling more normal I think! We took our costumes into school to show everyone! Fabulous.

Beleza Beleza Belezaaaaaaaaaa!!

A nice big oi to all my adoring fans.
It's been a while since my last post because I've been very busy with working at school, getting to grips with Portuguese and just generally having a fantastic time!
So it's time for a quick recap on my life recently since the end of January...

31st January -
Ventured out with my beautifully painted nails, courtesy of Guilia, into Sorocaba to meet the other teachers and some other people to celebrate Charles' birthday. And in fact to meet Charles for the first time. We went to a kind-of-German almost-pub but Brazil doesn't really do pubs like we know them.. but it was nice, although getting home at nearly 2am the night before starting training at school made the morning a little trickier! Charles has just got back from London where he was staying for a couple of months, and also where he discovered and became a fan of the Inbetweeners, so I now know someone here who understands the phrase 'Bus wankers!'

The start of Fevereiro was graced with three days of training at school, how to work with the books, CDs, games etc. We also did some planning for our upcoming lessons which were to start the following Monday, and got our t shirts and signs for our classrooms!!

My weekend was pretty busy too, Thiago found out he got a place at his first choice university in Sao Paulo, called USP, so to celebrate, Patricia bleached his hair, a very yellow kind of blonde!! He looked so funny, and left it blonde to go wakeboarding with his cousins! I had school on Saturday morning, just preparing things for the week ahead, then we had caipirinhas and barbecue Saturday afternoon, and a nice dip in the pool before the boys came back from their cousins' place, and Thiago ran out to get some black hairdye to restore his natural look and we headed out to Adega, the only nightclub in Piedade. The system of clubs here is a little different and I don't think I like it because it's so confusing, basically you don't pay when you go in but you are given a card, and when you get drinks the staff scan your card, but you don't necessarily know how much you're spending, because you pay when you leave and that's when you find out how much it costs. I think it's pretty normal here to use the cards and I guess the clubs can make more money that way, but I'm not keen!! I enjoyed the night though, I met my family's cousins and some of their friends and also some other people from the city who knew my family. I bumped into my pilates instructor there so I instantly adjusted my posture!! Didn't want him to think I was slacking!
My new cousin Pedro really liked my British accent, which has been pretty popular with a lot of people, asking me to repeat words because apparently I sound so cute, but I was unsure how to feel about the fact that he likened it to Hugh Grant's. I decided it was meant to be a compliment. Anyone reading this who doesn't know what I sound like, the answer is - absolutely nothing like Hugh Grant. But British accents are pretty rare here as most people learn English with American accents and everyone watches a lot of American series, like Big Bang Theory, Two and a Half Men and things like that are very popular, but British accents are a bit of a novelty! Sometimes people find it difficult to understand me because of it, but I haven't had too many problems!!
There was a band playing at Adega on Saturday, a kind of Brazilian country music which is pretty popular, and I was very happy that they played my new favourite 'Nossa, nossa, assim voce me mata' - I say favourite because I actually know it unlike all their other songs, and I can now sing the chorus perfectly!


On Sunday, a little tired from our partying, us kids ventured off to the cousin's holiday home where the boys went wakeboarding the day before. The house is in front of a huge lake and the view was so beautiful. We went out on the boat but didn't wakeboard as it was getting dark (and I still felt a bit delicate!!), but definitely going to try it another time! Then the weekend was over, all too quickly - ready for my first class on Monday morning, but very nervous!!

The first week of school passed and we all survived! I've got a real variety of classes including several 'VIP' students who take one to one classes with me and so their intentions for practising English vary but for the most part they already have an excellent grasp of the language and just want speaking practice with a native speaker and sometimes grammar/vocabulary help. Some of my VIPs are also working with books. I also have a couple of conversation groups who just come to talk. And they really can talk!! I had such an animated conversation class the other evening, with five very chatty guys, I was a little worried because it was 7pm til 9pm and I was getting a little tired but they were great to talk to and I am looking forward to next week's class with them!
I've also got a few kids groups, it's a little more difficult because they aren't all used to having a lesson entirely in English. I've been using a little of my improving Portuguese with them and understanding what they are talking about definitely helps. As does a permanent if slightly fake smile on my face and not letting them see me having a mini breakdown over the CD playing the wrong thing as it always seems to do... But I like the kids classes really. In my 9am class of young girls the other day, one girl asked me 'You like Bruno Mars?' and I replied 'Yes' and then I was subjected to a quick fire interview on my opinion of every modern pop star you could think of, which was difficult to stop to get back to the matter in hand, something to do with the various jobs of the Star Family who are the characters in the kids books we are working with and who seem to appear on every page and track on the CD but at least they all speak with lovely British accents.
One of my kids also told me I was 'muito muito branca' - (extremely pale)... so obviously they aren't impressed with my Brazilian tan so far! But I'm definitely getting there!
On Thursday straght after school (8.30pm - I know..!!) some of the teachers went to Fran and Clessio's house, the family hosting Cayla. We sang karaoke, me and Charles sang 'Nossa nossa' rather beautifully much to everyone's delight that I can sing in Portuguese now, and we had pizza, a lovely evening!
Fridays at school are pretty relaxed, there are no lessons so we use the day to prepare our lessons for the week. On Friday Charlie and I made a really big red heart for Valentines day! Brazil doesn't celebrate Valentines day in February like most of us because it is so close to Carnival, but we thought it would be nice for everyone to stick messages on the heart for loved ones, loved-up ones, lovesick ones and just loving life ones like me! :)
Friday evening, Bruno's friends were round and having a barbecue, and asking me if I wanted to try meat! Everyone always offers me meat but being a long term vegetarian, I always refuse. But by this time I had been surrounded by meat for so long, and at so many barbecues, and already had 'accidental bacon' in salads and stuff and got curious, so I tried a little piece of beef... and quite liked it! I don't think I'm ever going to become a total carnivore but as Bruno pointed out, 'it's already dead', but strangely I couldn't face eating chicken. Possibly because we have lots of adorable chickens at the house, but I haven't seen a cow for weeks!!

When Patricia returned from work she asked me if I would like to go to Sao Paulo for carnaval! Of course I said yes, it hosts the biggest carnival after Rio de Janeiro!
Then she said... and would you like to participate in the parade?!

Y
E
S
!
!
!

(I said)

SO exciting!! I called Cayla to invite her to join us in carnival fun times, and we waited to find out which samba school we would be dancing with.
And the school is... Tom Maior! They are pretty famous so that's exciting, and apparently always put on a good show (hopefully we won't ruin it! Haha) You can see their site here http://translate.google.co.uk/translate?hl=en&sl=pt&u=http://www.grestommaior.com.br/&ei=3A07T-DvL4T20gHiuZ2hCw&sa=X&oi=translate&ct=result&resnum=1&ved=0CC8Q7gEwAA&prev=/search%3Fq%3Dtom%2Bmaior%26hl%3Den%26prmd%3Dimvns

So Saturday at school I was so excited, telling everyone about the carnival, and I had some really good classes too - lots of keen teens which is helpful especially when lessons start at 8.30am!
Saturday was Adonis's birthday so a few of the teachers, some friends, cousins, girlfriends, boyfriends, drove to a town called Itu, about an hour away from here, to go to a really big club called Anzu. A guy from Swedish House Mafia was there DJing, and of course the silly drinks card system was there too, but it was a really good night. I really fancied a strawberry mojito from their drinks list but they said they weren't making them. I didn't let it ruin things.
Charlie managed to convince another Brazilian guy that he was actually British, because we were talking in English, even though his accent sounds American, and he kept deliberately saying things wrong in Portuguese and I was correcting him. This other guy totally believed us. It was pretty funny... for us! Also someone thought I was Brazilian! Apparently in the very south of the country a lot of people are blue eyed blondes like me! On the way home we stopped in a kind of takeaway with lots of fried things like chicken and these cheesy things which were pretty good, then we got back at about 6am.... SO TIRED!
Sunday evening was the carnival rehearsal, so I slept for the morning, chilled in the afternoon then we drove to Sao Paulo, and joined the parade! Me and Cayla were a little clueless as to what to do because we didn't really understand what people were telling us to do, especially as it was so busy and noisy. The organisers were kind of stressy and physically moving everyone to their places. Of course we didn't really know the song we have to sing so we were pretending to sing it so that they wouldn't notice that we didn't know what we were doing! I was on the edge of the parade closest to the audience so I was caught a few times by snap happy papparazi, unfortunately sweaty and confused is not my best look so I hope the photos/videos are not in the national news or anything..
We must have walked/danced/sang random made up words for over an hour, this is our song and it just repeats and repeats, of course played live. http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=MEhOzlBQ6DM#!   The big challenge this week is to learn to sing it!!
We've already turned 'Vem nessa amor' in our minds into 'Vanessa moore!!' so if we can do that with the rest of the song we'll be fine!
We finally got back home at 2am after a pitstop at a Sao Paulo Macdonalds... who don't even serve veggie burgers!
And so it was time to sleep a few hours then start another week, shattered once more but loving the spontanaeity of everything! :)
Tchau tchau xx

Portuguese and Pilates in Piedade

OLA!!
Blogging as promised. It's midnight, segunda-feira (Monday) night and we have not long finished dinner, got showered and now I am so ready for bed. This evening I've been to my first ever pilates session with my Brazilian mom and dad, and it was pretty good. The instructor pointed out that my posture isn't great, which I already knew, but I'm now very conscious of it and have been walking like Julie Andrews does in every film she's in, all evening. Feeling 2 inches taller.


I haven't taken any photos yet so I can't show you my house, but I'm in a beautiful location, our house is on a kind of farm, up a hill with a view for miles, and I feel very lucky to be here. There is a swimming pool, big gardens, and six dogs (Bob is my favourite, don't tell the others), as well as lots of chickens, a couple of cockerels and adorable little chicks, and even some mice who have recently had babies.  And my family are absolutely lovely and so welcoming. There's ma and pa - Patrica and Mario, and the four kids, the boys Thiago and Bruno are 18 and 17. Thiago is applying to universities at the moment and both of them are waiting for exam results from 'the big test'. Boa Sorte to them!!
The girls are Luisa and Giulia, 12 and 14. They both love dancing, especially tap, maybe they can teach me some moves! All the family speak fantastic English and as my Portuguese is rather minimal at the moment, they are helping me by explaining things. Soon I'll be speaking perfect Brazinglish. I understand a fair bit of Portuguese now when I hear and see it and I'm really keen to try out all my new words! Patricia says my Portuguese pronunciation is very good so that gives me some confidence.

So, to backtrack, I arrived at the airport in Sao Paulo on Friday evening where I met Adonis and Cayla. Cayla is the other new foreign teacher, from Canada. Adonis is a Brazilian teacher and he's Carol's brother, she hired me at Easy Way school. We then made the long drive to Piedade, getting to know each other (for example, when he was little Adonis used to have 2 pet lion cubs, but they turned dangerous - who'd have thought it - and so they had to be put down) and stopping to meet a man with some books for the school, and then we stopped at a typical buffet type restaurant where your plate is weighed to determine how much you pay, as well as a few stops to ask directions because Adonis' GPS was broken. I was so tired at this point from the loooong journey which started at 3.30am in the holiday inn Heathrow... eughh... so I was feeling kind of delirious and but eventually we made it to Piedade, and dropped Cayla off with her host family. She is staying with a young family, a lovely couple with a baby boy, Murilo, who is just 4 months old. He's so sweet!!
I then arrived at my new house and met everyone, and had my much anticipated shower during which I screamed at a cockroach who I had only just noticed chilling in the shower with me, who then scuttled off somewhere under the wardrobe... I haven't seen him since and if he knows what's good for him he won't return.

This weekend I explored the town a little bit, went shopping with Patricia, and popped into the school, my workplace to be... and met some of the other teachers and had a little tour. I'm really excited to start work, everyone seems lovely and the school itself is very cute! Then in the evening we met up with Cayla, Carol and their families and went to a nearby city, Sorocaba, for dinner at Applebees, an American restaurant. We got home at 2am! Everything happens later here, except school which will start at 8.30am. First we'll have training on Wednesday, Thursday and Friday and planning on Saturday before starting lessons for real on Monday.
Last night I made rosti potatoes with Patricia, we found the recipe in my veggie book that she asked me to bring, vegetarians here are a rare breed. But so far I have resisted the Brazilian barbecue! The rostis went down well, and I'm trying all the exciting new foods and learning the names! So far my favourite veg name is 'abobrinha' which is courgette or zucchini to my Italian and American friends.

So to sum up, tudo bem, muito bem! Slightly sunkissed and the insect bite count is currently at 1, back of thigh. I hope I won't get the polka dot bite look like I had in Italy, both summers. They just seem to love clarissimo skin... must be tasty.
OK, I believe it is now bedtime so I leave you with this song that has been in my family's heads for a few days and is now stuck in mine. NOSSA, NOSSAAAAA... "This way you're gonna kill me"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hcm55lU9knw
Boa noite, my next blog will be more fun ok, now I am too tired!! xx

Getting ready to go!

Ola!
In three weeks time I will be off to Brazil to start my adventure teaching English!
I thought I would set a blog up now to make things easier, and hopefully I will update it regularly.
Before I go I've got a few things to do, from the boring (trips to optician, dentist, bureau de change etc, and packing), to the more fun (seeing friends and family), as well as learning some more Portuguese, finishing my TEFL course and finally attending the weekend class which has so far been cancelled twice.
Best get on it then!
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Tchau for now
Katie xx