Back in the U.S.A.

One of my best friends, Quinne, got married on June 27. Originally I had told her that I wouldn’t be able to make it to the wedding. But the more Kim and I talked about it, the more I realized I’d feel like a huge jerk if I missed it. So, I bought a ticket home.

Unfortunately, Kim had final exams all week, which meant there was no way that she could make it to the wedding. It was sad leaving Kim behind; it would only be a week, but we had never been so far away from each other.

My old buddy Pat had the bright idea of surprising Quinne rather than telling her I’d be coming. So on the day before the ceremony, we drove to the site of the wedding—Blue Mound State Park, a few miles west of Madison—for the rehearsal. Pat and his wife Megan got out of the car, walked over to Quinne, and said hello. Meanwhile, I stayed in the back seat, hidden by Pat’s suit, which was hanging in front of the back-seat window. Pat told Quinne that he had a surprise for her in his car. So they walked over to the door, and Pat pulled aside his suit. When Quinne saw me, the look on her face was priceless. She yelled, “Oh my god, what the hell are you doing here?!”

Surprise!

The next day, we arrived at the park a bit early so that we could decorate a cake. It was a really cool idea: they got a bunch of plain white cakes and asked several of their friends to decorate them. Quinne and Josh will be moving to China to teach for two years, so my friend Chris asked me to help him write the Chinese words for Love (愛) and Marriage (婚姻). Frosting isn’t exactly my medium of choice…but with our powers combined, we were able to make a fairly close approximation of the Chinese characters. And Pat made a cake that depicted our road trip to California in 2002; I played no role in the decoration of that cake, but I was more than happy to take partial credit for it.

After 29 years, I still can’t tie my own tie.

The wedding itself was great. Quinne and Josh had all of their bridesmaids and groomsmen give a little speech, and all of them were very heartfelt. In between the tears, there was also singing and dancing. And that was just the ceremony! At the reception, there was even more dancing. The party lasted until about 10:30, at which point the park rangers made us pack up. The party continued at a nearby bar and went on into the wee hours.

Good times

All in all, it was a great time, and I’m really glad I was there—I just wish Kim could have been there with me! Speaking of Kim, she finished all of her finals, and then she and a friend headed off to Brazil’s northeast coast to spend a few days on the beach.

I’ll be heading back to South America on Tuesday, and I’ll meet up with Kim at Iguazu Falls—one of the world’s most spectacular waterfalls! From there, we’ll begin a seven-week trip that will take us through Argentina, Bolivia, and Peru. I’m not sure how often I’ll be able to update the blog, but I’m hoping to do it pretty regularly. There will definitely be a lot to talk about. Stay tuned.

Visitors!

The last two weeks have been really fun, thanks to two visitors. Kim’s friend Carla arrived at the end of May and stayed for about a week. Then, on the same day that Carla left, Kim’s friend Katherine arrived.

Kim was extremely busy with class most of the time, so I stepped in and attempted to act as the tour guide—which ended up being great, because I got to do a few of the tourist activities that I hadn’t gotten around to yet. For example, I finally went to the top of the Banespa Building to check out the view of São Paulo. It was pretty amazing to see high-rise buildings stretching all the way to the horizon.

Urban jungle

I also went to the Mercado Municipal. It’s a lovely old building the size of a city block, and it’s filled with hundreds of vendors selling food of all kinds. I’ve recently become quite fond of olives (after 28 years of finding them revolting), so I was pleased to find a stall that had a couple dozen large bins filled with every imaginable variety.

Olives

Kim and Carla went to Rio de Janeiro for a few days and had a great time. My weekend was significantly less exciting; I stayed in São Paulo to finish up some work, and I left my apartment for a grand total of ten minutes. In fact, I think the only word I said on Saturday was “crédito,” when the cashier at the grocery store asked if my card was debit or credit.

Kim took Katherine to Rio as well, and this time I was along for the ride. We stayed at a hostel in Ipanema, about three blocks from the beach. Unfortunately, it was rather windy and cold (cold for Rio, that is), so we didn’t spend much time on the beach. The big waves were pretty impressive, though.

Windy day at Ipanema

Of course, we went to see the big Jesus statue. And unlike the last time I’d been there, the weather was wonderful and the view was spectacular.

View from the Jesus statue

We also went to Sugarloaf, which is the other major lookout point. Unlike the Jesus statue, which is accessible via a train, you can only get to Sugarloaf via a cable car that hangs a thousand feet above the ground.

View from the Sugarloaf cable car

After spending a few days in Rio, we continued east to a place called Búzios. It’s a peninsula that juts out into the Atlantic Ocean, and there are over 20 beaches in the area. I rented a bike one afternoon and rode around for a while, checking out about eight of them.

Beaches in Búzios

Then we took a night bus to Ouro Preto, which is a historic city located in the mountains. Back in the 1700s, it was the center of Brazil’s gold rush—hence the city’s name, which means Black Gold in Portuguese. The gold mines made a few people obscenely rich, and they liked to show off their wealth by building fancy churches. We went to about six of the churches, and they were all pretty impressive. But I have to admit that they all started to look the same after a while. Nevertheless, it was fun to just walk around the city’s streets. The buildings are very well preserved, so it’s pretty easy to imagine that you’re back in the 1700s—except for all the cars, that is.

Ouro Preto

Speaking of cars, we took a cab ride back to the bus station at the end of the evening. Little did I know it would be one of the most interesting parts of the day. The city’s streets are extremely steep, and they’re all cobblestone. So when our driver attempted to go up one of the large hills, the car definitely had its work cut out for it—not to mention the fact that it had rained a couple hours earlier, so the cobblestones were still a bit slick. As we were ascending the street, another car was on its way down. Due to the narrow eighteenth-century roads, only one car can go at a time, and the other one is supposed to pull over. Common sense would tell you that the car traveling uphill would have the right of way, since it needs to keep its momentum going. But the oncoming car apparently saw it differently, because he didn’t pull over. So our driver had to put on the emergency break as we waited for the other guy to go. However, once he went past us, we had no chance of making it up the rest of the hill, since we were starting at a standstill. So we had to roll down the hill (backwards) and take an alternate route.

Steep streets in Ouro Preto

It’s hard to believe, but our time in Brazil is almost over! Kim has final exams during the last week of June, and then we leave for our big seven-week trip through South America.