I Have A New Blog! (take 2)

Well, I actually tried to do an initial "new blog!" post earlier--like 2 weeks ago--but obviously (in keeping with the theme of this whole endeavor) it was Not A Success since it didn't actually ever show up. Anyway. I've decided that this one will be less existential rambling about life and less excessive use of the f-bomb in relation to my job, and more fun stuff like lists, books, pictures, etc etc.

So! To start with: a few pictures from my recent trip to Rio de Janeiro, Buenos Aires, and Austin, Texas (the last one being the most foreign, of course). Below is the view from the sidewalk cafe directly outside of our hotel. It was on Ipanema beach (yes, the Ipanema of the famously irritating "Girl From Ipanema" elevator song).


A half-mile away, Rio's other famous boardwalk/beach, Copacabana, at night. Freaking gorgeous. (The famously irritating "Copacabana" Barry Manilow song, which, btw, I have mostly memorized, was not about this beach.)


I hadn't realized quite how beautiful and yet ridiculous the layout of Rio was--the whole port side of the city is divided up by these incredible, abrupt mountains, which means that that part of the city is segmented into little coves of beach, hills, lagoons, and enclaves of buildings. Most amazing is the way the buildings--in the rich areas as well as in the favelas (Brazilian ghettos)--wind their ways up the hills. Despite the incredible grade, buildings are just packed on top of each other all the way up.

This is the famous bonde (tram) up to Santa Theresa, one of Rio's old, bohemian neighborhoods. It's the last working tram in Rio. You can see the kids (and some older people) clinging to the sides. The rule is if that you grab it as it's trundling by (instead of at a stop) and cling to the side for dear life, you can ride it for free. I think that's supposed to be limited to the local kids, but I definitely some rather muscle-bound and mustached "fourteen-year-olds" if they're gonna stick to that story.

Jare and Dad wait for the bonde like good little (?) tourists.

We had some freaking incredible food at a little restaurant perched on the Santa Theresa hillside. Succulent, succulent pork. Even Jarrett's vegetarian meal (mmm fried cheese) was tasty.

We also went up to a smaller town called Petropolis, north of Rio and into the mountains. This is where Rio's royalty used to go in the hotter summers, and also where they scurried away to whenever disease hit the city. Anyway, the point is that we got to this crisp mountain town in Brazil ... where we encountered a German heritage celebration. Yup. Those are Brazilians in full lederhosen. They are twirling each other. There were also a substantial number of flower-bedecked carts, pulled by goats. See exhibits A and B below.

(Exhibit A. See the twirling?)

(Exibit B. You're right. That IS a small dog in a handkerchief and cowboy hat, being pulled by a goat.)

We also hit Corcavado, a high mountaintop where a huge statue of Jesus sticks his arms out benevolently and woodenly (or granite-ly?) over the city. I'm just saying. He doesn't exactly look comfortable.


A few days later, we headed to Buenos Aires in Argentina next. BA was cold--in the 50s. It's winter down there, hence the coats you see on everyone. BA felt surprisingly like a European city to me. It gave off very Parisian-slash-Dublin vibes. Probably all the cranes and the cold, grey weather. But seriously, does the street below have a South or Latin American vibe to you? Me neither.

That's probably just my ignorance though. BA was settled by the Spanish, of course, and a long time before America was even thinking about getting around to statehood. And oh look, here to educate us of that fact is a very Spanish-looking statue of Pedro de Mendoza, who founded what became the current Buenos Aires in 1536 (he wasn't the first Spaniard to get there, but earlier colonies died out under Indian attack, starvation, etc etc. Actually Mendoza's did too, but eventually people came back to the place he'd settled; ergo he gets a statue). And, in a nice nod to veracity, in the background we have an incuse of an indigenous woman throwing up her hands in supplication to the gods, probably to save her from smallpox blankets. Or maybe that was us up in North America.

And in lighter news, here's a picture of me in front of a ginormous steak at a parrilla. I'm not actually a huge steak fan but you can't go to Argentina and not eat it. Unless you're Jarrett, and the waiter definitely had a hard time understanding why he only wanted salad until he whipped out the "soy vegetariano"s.

One of the coolest things in BA was Recoleta, the huge, sprawling cemetery. These people take their mausoleums seriously--everything you see below is a house of the dead for a family or person. You (literally) need a map to navigate through the cemetery, which is laid out on streets. Some of these things were serious pieces of architecture, and even the "smaller" ones were the size of, say, a bedroom in a New York City apartment. Despite the fact that Recoleta wasn't begun until the mid-1800s, it's essentially full now. Many of the mausoleums were quite old and untended, and with the broken glass and crumbling marble you could see coffins stacked on each other, and smaller chests for cremated remains propped on top, when the room ran out.

I like how in this picture, the city of the living is only a foggy presence in the background of the city of the dead. Which has a streetlight, natch.

And here's a picture of Congress. Just for you. Somewhere inside, Cristina Kirchner is stamping on the export rights of farmers. (Actually, there was a lot of "Cristina is Evita Reborn!" graffiti on the monuments nearby. But who knows--that could have been from 6 months ago when she first took office and her ratings were higher.)


And lastly, one of me and Pop in front of Casa Rosada (the "Pink House"), which is the presidential ... uh, building, I guess ... from whose balconies Eva and Juan Peron gave rousing speeches. It's pink because back in the mid-1800s after Argentina had declared independence from Spain, but before the country had really gotten its feet beneath it, the president at the time painted it with the mixed colors of the unionists (white) and the federalists (red) in an attempt to get everybody to stop fighting each other and start fighting the local tribes. I think.

And finally, a few Austin, Texas wedding pictures! Angela, my best friend from high school, got hitched to Andy, this guy who's barely worthy of her. Just kidding. It was a really nice wedding. They had it at the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center, and half of the reception tables were outdoors. There wasn't a lot of fripperies and adornment--they just kept it simple and used the surroundings. It was really pretty, as evidenced below.

Here's me and two of my other HS BFFs--Jenn Cheng and Karen Wang. Jenn is now married and Karen is engaged. SIGH. FINE. I'LL GO BUY MY CATS SOME MORE FANCY FEAST.

Angela looked gorgeous as always, but strangely, all of my pix of Andy were ... terrible, though whose fault that is, I'm not entirely sure. Note the one below in which he is throwing a gang sign while holding a baby. This bodes well for the marriage, I think.

Okay, here's a cute one. This is them handing out candies as the relatives leave. No, but seriously, they're a really good-looking couple and only someone who works as hard as I do at f*cking up pictures could have come out of this wedding with a roll of what amounts to outtakes. No applause necessary. I try hard.


Okie that's it for now! Soon to come: a list of sequels I really want the authors to freaking sit down and write. And maybe some amazing passages from Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell. Sofa king good, that book. Read it now if you haven't yet.