Food, etc.

São Paulo has the largest Japanese population anywhere in the world (other than Japan, that is). In particular, the Liberdade neighborhood is the center of Japanese culture, and every weekend there’s a market in the square. So this past weekend, we stopped by to check it out and treat ourselves to some Japanese food.

Liberdade

Last week was “Restaurant Week” in São Paulo. Basically, that means all the fancy restaurants in town offer specials where you can get a three-course meal for R$39 (18 bucks). That’s a pretty good deal, so we took advantage of it three times. At the first place I had a salad, lobster, and ice cream; Kim had salad, filet mignon, and cake. At the second place, I got risotto and Kim had lasagna. At a third place, they informed us that they weren’t taking part in Restaurant Week anymore—which was a shame, because no fewer than 14 of us showed up expecting to get a cheap dinner. But their steaks turned out to be R$40, so we figured it would be a wash. Someone ordered wine for the table, though, and the waiters just kept refilling our glasses. By the time dinner was over we were all feeling pretty jovial, and we didn’t even care that our wine ended up costing twice as much as our steak!

Speaking of food… the peanut butter just keeps rolling in! A couple weeks ago my good friend Chris surprised me with a care package, which included two bottles of sunscreen, a few canvas bags, and EIGHT POUNDS of peanut butter. Then, a week later, we received a care package from Kim’s mom—and it included a two-pound jar of peanut butter! So, just in case anyone was thinking of sending me peanut butter, I think I’m good for a while. I was making a sandwich the other day, and my roommate Helena was laughing at the enormous jar.

Family portrait

Oh, I think I forgot to mention this on the blog: we got two new roommates on the first of the month. Both of them are Brazilian, and their names are Helena and Renata (however, due to the crazy Portuguese pronunciation, it sounds like Elena and Henata). So now we have a full house. Actually, if we’re using poker analogies, I guess it would be four queens and a king.

Kim had her first volleyball game last weekend. Technically, I suppose it was her second game. She had one a couple weeks ago, but the other team didn’t bother to show up—so Kim’s team won by forfeit. But this time they had an opponent, so they played an actual game. I forgot the camera, unfortunately, but just imagine a medieval dungeon and you’ll get an idea of what the gym looked like. Anyway, Kim’s team won the match, 2 games to 0.

Victory celebration

Kim’s teammate Louisa invited us out to celebrate the victory. It was the first time we’ve been out with just Brazilians; every other time we’ve gone out has been with other exchange students, so we always speak English. But most of the Brazilians weren’t super-comfortable with English, so we actually got to use some Portuguese. It didn’t last long, though. Their mediocre English was still far better than our awful Portuguese.