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January 26, 2006
All In a Day's Work
Thanks to what must be one of the best job perks ever, I have been hanging out at the Sundance Resort the last few days. I had forgotten how beautiful Utah is, and how fun snow can be! Whether or not a body is meant to go from equatorial beaches to a high altitude winter wonderland in the period of a week I'm not sure, but my hyper-hydration program seems to be working.
Life is good here. After breakfast yesterday, a couple of my colleagues and I went cross-country skiing. Then I headed for the Spa for a Four Winds Massage, whatever that means. Then I actually worked for a couple of hours, which included a screening of the latest iteration of a (non-Sundance) film-in-progress, edited from footage shot by National Guard soldiers in Iraq; the current working title is "The War Tapes," but it's changed a few times so we'll see how it actually gets released...
After dinner, I scored an unexpected ticket to the premiere of Neil Young: Heart of Gold, which is awesome if you're a Neil Young fan (check). I might get to go to another Sundance screening tonight, and on Friday, we're all heading to Park City to see (I think?) Alpha Dog.
How could I not love my job?
Posted by Elizabeth at 09:40 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
January 23, 2006
Brasil Dreaming
There are definitely some things that I miss about Brasil...
For instance, it's really nice to start the day with really cheap, fresh fruit juices. There were many, many different fruits to choose from (including several without translations in the Portuguese/English dictionary) at the multitude of juice stands everywhere we went. We tried to get through the whole menu at this place, which was close to our apartment in Rio de Janeiro, and didn't get close. Açaí, acerola, banana, graviola, guava, mango, passion fruit, pineapple, etc etc etc and still, my favorite was laranja (orange).
Hotels located high above busy squares are totally worth the added expense... especially if you wake up in time for breakfast. (Our room in Salvador de Bahia had the same view.)
Having a huge variety of food and drink available to you from stalls, carts, coolers, and jugs on the street and the beach at all hours is definitely a good thing... I'm convinced that anything eaten on the beach tastes better.
I also experienced what happens if you eat shrimp that has been sitting at a beach stall all day. Fortunately Araí, this lovely (and creative) woman who took us in after we arrived in the vacancy-free Praia do Forte, cured my disasterous condition with a remedy I later determined was tea made from a chunk of coconut husk.
While initially a little disturbing, hot water on demand makes a lot more sense than hot water heaters. After causing a small explosion in our Rio apartment (no casualties, but lots of noise and lots of soot and ash), I prefer these electric shower head contraptions over gas flash heaters.
Great music and dancing at any hours in any location is definitely a good thing.
Thinking about when I can go back.
Posted by Elizabeth at 04:17 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
January 17, 2006
There Will Be Maps
Because the Geographer in me has more energy right now than the Photo Manipulator, here are some maps. Photos (and complete sentences) later.
Overview:
Jan 2-3: SFO --> ORD (Chicago) --> GRU (São Paulo) --> CGH (São Paulo's regional airport. This extraneous and harrowing sight-seeing adventure through São Paulo was made necessary thanks to flight delay in Chicago, which caused us to miss the next flight. Though he miraculously never hit any other vehicles or pedestrians, the shuttle driver did run a car off the road.) --> GIG (Rio de Janeiro).
Jan 9: SDU (Rio's regional airport) --> SSA (Salvador da Bahia)
Jan 13: not sure where we went exactly, but the bus driver promised he would get us to a convenient location part of the way from Salvador to Praia do Forte (at least that was what we could gather given improving-though-still-poor Portuguese language skills), and that he did. A jam-packed kombi got us the rest of the way there.
Jan 16-17: Praia do Forte --> Salvador --> Rio --> São Paulo --> Chicago --> Home, ~26.5 hours door-to-door.
Now: sleep.
Posted by Elizabeth at 08:56 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
January 02, 2006
Merry Christmas, the Ark Departeth at 1:55pm
Somehow we pulled off an amazing feat at the U household: a rather traditional holiday season:
--All family members were present for multiple days on end, not only Christmas weekend but the weekends before AND after as well;
--A Christmas tree was procured, propped up in the living room, decorated, and eventurally stripped and removed from the premises without fuss.
--Everyone gave and received thoughtful, cool presents. Really!
--There were walks, even in the rain, and Adam's surfing habit provided a good excuse to get out to the beach to watch the sunset at least once (see below).
--Rotten persimmons were launched by all from the deck, with many actually hitting the targeted eucalyptus tree . Maybe that's not on anyone else's list of seasonal traditions, but we take rotten fruit launching very seriously in my family.
--We still didn't manage a traditional Christmas dinner, but we all did gather 'round for mom's Thai chicken curry.
I think the trick was having the requisite family meltdown relatively very early on in the process. That way, everyone got to vent their year's worth of gripes, and quickly move on to the fun stuff. I also highly recommend including non-family members--significant others and otherwise--as buffers to encourage best behavior. All joking aside, it's been a really fun couple of weeks.
***
Massive flooding may have stopped me from getting to Ethan's birthday dim sum lunch on Saturday, and various natural disasters (blizzards, mudslides, floods) did their best to stop Danny and the rest of the band from getting back from their gig in Reno. Fortunately, after only 10:15 on the road and many cell phone assisted visits to 511.org to help navigate the maze of closed roads, they arrived at the Sweetwater just in time for the New Year's party.
Off to Rio in a few hours, and the only way I could be more excited would have been if I'd slept at all the last couple of nights... Though there are scattered thundershowers in the forecast, the temperature is 80+ degrees, ahh! I'm still packing sunscreen. If, like me, you've planning to go, have never been before, and haven't memorized the Lonely Planet, this website is fun.
Posted by Elizabeth at 08:06 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack