Tudo Beleza

Oi! Yesterday marked my first day of language intensive classes at Pooky, but so far it seems that the most intensive thing about them is our classroom's air conditioning. Don't get me wrong, the class is already moving plenty fast and will continue to do so for five hours a day, five days a week, but the fan is serious overkill. "I'm a penguin," our teacher explains in Portuguese. On the bright side, this may mean I will actually get some use out of the sweaters and pants I brought.

As if I haven't raved enough about my host already, I have some more Dora updates. Namely that I love her. Our concert adventure the other day was a great success; it was really funny and interesting seeing her totally in her element with all of her fellow free concert-loving older lady and gentleman friends at the performance, which turned out to be at a museum in the Centro area of Rio. During the more lively pieces, Dora danced spiritedly in her chair and on the bus home after the concert she told me some hot gossip about the other concert-goers. Later that day, when I returned from the beach tired and sunburnt, Dora noted that I looked sad and gave me a big bowl of chocolate coconut ice cream. Que legal (how cool)!

One of my favorite aspects of carioca culture is the system and interpretation of time. This morning, my alarm failed me and I woke up at 45 minutes after my class began. I was kind of expecting to have my head bitten off when I finally arrived at school more than an hour late, but the teacher just kind of shrugged and suggested I try and go to sleep a little earlier tonight. As someone who has a history of struggling with punctuality, I found this reaction refreshing. I'm currently phoneless and watchless, which means that I am almost never thinking about what time it is. Since I am never thinking about what time it is, the hours of my day seem to slip by much faster than they did when I used to check my cell phone for texts and missed calls every ten minutes. And I love it! I'm avoiding getting a phone for as long as possible, but the peer pressure is slowly mounting and I am beginning to realize that I can't expect people to wait for me at specific street corners at specific times to meet up forever.

Another little thing that tickles me about Brazilians is their use of the phrase "tudo beleza?" It's a way of saying "how are you?" that really means "is everything beautiful?" The typical response is simply an affirmation: "sim, tudo beleza." Isn't that nice? I've been using it a lot lately and it makes my innards smile every time.