Fun in the Sun: 101

I learned some important lessons on my sojourn to Brazil – especially when it came to the sun.

Having grown up in a land locked area, Central New York, I was not one for going to the beach, ever! I spent my summers at the public swimming pool, so I am no stranger to sun bathing. Unfortunately the rules about the sun I grew up with do not apply in Brazil.

In New York you tan between 10 am and 2 pm. And for a dark completed Italian such as myself – trophy lotion (SPF 2) is perfect for getting that summer time glow.

Not the case when you are closer to the Equator. Brazilians in Rio do not head to the beach until 3 pm. And stay till around 6 or 7 pm. These are the best times to get what they consider “healthy sun”. Just a small footnote…there is no such thing as healthy sun – it is all bad for you.

Silly me, I didn’t heed the warnings. I mean, I couldn’t return from the tropics with out a tan, right. So I headed to the beach at 10 am, and applied some nice sun tan lotion, SPF 6. After a few hours in the sun, and a few dips in the ocean, I switched to sun block with SPF 15. I left at 3 pm (just as all the hot boys were arriving!). By this time I could no longer stand the sun and desperately needed to seek some shade.

My second mistake: Seeing as though it was winter in NYC when I left, my lips were dried out and cracked. I had been using my medicated ChapStick to help heal them. Little did I know that using lip balm was like rubbing lard on my lips.

Later that night I felt quite ill. I thought it could possibly be sun poisoning. I looked in the mirror and my forehead was bright red, and felt leathery to the touch. And my lips were all blistered. Not a pretty sight.

I still had 5 days left to my trip, and I could barely stand to be in the sun. I went to a few drugstores to purchase sun block and a lip balm with SPF. Both were insanely over priced and on principle (more like foolish pride) I refused to buy any.

So unfortunately here are the lessons I had to learn the hard way:

1)Sun yourself between 3-7pm. Allow the tan to gradually develop, instead of the fly fry approach.
2)Use of SPF 30 or higher is recommended. You can still get a tan, and not get burned in the process
3)ChapStick is bad; use a lip balm that contains SPF.
4)Bring supplies from home. It is cheaper and better to be prepared.

Nom Falha Portuguese

As usual I have to apologize for a brief hiatus from my blog – I was away in Brazil for vacation. I had access to a computer, but why would I want to spend time indoors when I could be on the beach in Rio?

As far as vacations go, this one was pretty typical (meaning it included tons of drama). One of the main reasons I went to Brazil was to visit a good friend who I have not seen in four years. It doesn’t seem like it was that long ago. But let’s just say that time flies, except when you are stuck on a plane for nine hours on your way to Brazil.

My trip began on the morning of Friday January 13th. Perhaps, this should have been an omen as to what was to come in the following days.

I arrived at LGA at 9 am and jumped on a 10am flight to Atlanta. Because of bad weather, and the fact that I was flying standby for the entire trip, I made sure to get out of NYC as early as possible. I arrived in Atlanta at noon and found a comfortable corner and waited seven hours until my 7:35pm flight to Rio De Janeiro, Brazil. One of the perks of flying on a buddy pass is that you can get upgraded to 1st class if it is available. Unfortunately, I was one person away from getting the upgrade and had to sit in back of the plane with the rest of the riff raff. Before departing for my trip I had gone to the doctors to get Antibiotics to help get rid of a sinus infection, and while I was there I got a prescription to Ambien – I can’t sleep on planes so I thought I would get some help. But I didn’t fill the prescription because my doctor also gave me samples of Rozerm (a new sleep aid). Well needless to say nine sleepless hours later I landed in Brazil – I should have gotten the Ambien.

After a long wait at customs, I finally came down the staircase to the pick-up area. I was expecting to see my friend’s smiling face waiting there for me – he was nowhere to be seen. The Cariocas (the people of Rio) are very aggressive. I was asked multiple times by multi people if I needed a taxi. Mind you, no one in the airport spoke any English. So after 30 minutes of waiting, I realized my friend was not picking me up. And to add insult to injury I had lost the piece of paper with all his contact information. So next I had to find an Internet place (they call them LAN Houses). I paid $3.00 for 5 minutes of Internet time. But I was able to get the information I needed for my e-mail. I then had to buy a $10 phone card, so I could call my friend. He had gone out the night before, got back to flat really early in the morning and fell asleep. The front desk was supposed to give him a wake up call but forgot!

Now this was my first indication that this trip was going to be drama filled. I mean why would he go out and have a booty call the night before I arrived. After all it had been 4 years since we saw each other last. I had to bargain with the cab drivers and ended up spending R55.00 (Brazilian currency) to get to Copacabana.

We spent the first few hours catching up, gossiping about people in NYC and talking about his new life in Brazil. We then took a walk to the beach, after all that was what I was there for, right?

The sun in Brazil is HOT. At 3 pm in the afternoon, you can still get horrible sunburns. Which I did! My scalp was fried, as were my shoulders. My friend ran into some of his friends at the beach, none of them spoke English. So I stood around, bored out of my mind, while he socialized. He didn’t want to translate (its gets tiring he says).

So after getting too much sun too quickly and working of off little to no sleep, I begged that we go back to the flat for a nap.

It was my first night in Rio, a Saturday, so I figured we should go party. We ended up at this club called Cine Ideal – it was in an old movie theater. The space was cool, but the crowd was not. They were all cracked out on E, K and GHB. I know that people in NYC do drugs but I had never seen so many people so out of their heads. I love to dance and I love happy house music with lots of vocals. Needless to say these drugged out queens had no appreciation for vocals and would get restless if the DJ spun a “good tune”. I wanted nothing more than to go home and sleep.

When my friend lived in NYC, he didn’t drink or do drugs. That had changed since he had been back in Brazil. And he was not a fun drunk. That night at the club, we had our first of many fights. He knew that I was exhausted, burnt and had no clue how to get back to the flat. But he insisted on staying out and kissing boys! I thought that was selfish. I mean he lived in Sao Paulo and was working in Rio and could go out any other weekend. To me, if you invite someone to visit you in your country you should feel responsible for making sure they are having fun and stay safe. But I guess that is just me.

Needless to say, I waited for him and we left the club at some ungodly hour of the night. I paid for the cab, cause he had spent all his money on alcohol – what if I had didn’t have enough on me either?

Well needless to say I was prepared to get back on a plane and go home. I had not been back to Brazil in four years for several reasons, one being the expense of it all and the other being the language barrier. And the language barrier was proving to be a sore spot for me again.

So I decided to stayed, but unfortunately went through the same scenario each time we went out. He hooked up and I was left to fend for myself. I will admit I am a survivor so was able to get back home each time. But the whole situation was not cool for me. Not being able to speak the language sucks, and then once they figure out you can’t speak, you never know if you are getting taken for a ride (literally and metaphorically).

More to write about later: Sun Burn 101 and The Good Parts of the Trip (including Monkey Sightings, Corvado/Cristo and Flying Business Elite!

New Year, New Ways to Communicate

The New Year comes along and everyone makes resolutions to work more productively at the office. My boss decided that one way to help cut clutter was to restrict the number of brokers that sent him e-mails. When one of the companies on his Do Not Contact list sent him e-mail, he sent the following response.

Dear X:

Due to severe constraints on my time and limited resources to pay brokers, I have significantly cut back on the number of brokers with whom I am willing to take meetings going forward. Your firm did not make that cut. Please take me off all e-mail distributions from your firm in the future.

I mentioned to a co-worker that it would be great if people were always this direct, especially when it came to potential relationships. I usually just don’t return people’s calls if I don’t want to see them again after a first date. I just assume that they will get the point – sometimes they just don’t get it. In an attempt to be a better communicator, I have made some changes to the letter above and will be sending this out to guys that I no longer want to date:

Dear X:

Due to severe constraints on my time and limited resources to pay for dates, I have significantly cut back on the number of people with whom I am willing to go on dates with going forward. You did not make the cut. Please do not send me e-mails in the future.

Best,
Pablo

I think this should work well, how about you?

Ready...Set...Blog

So I know it has been a minute since I last updated my Blog. And I actually had people mention that they missed reading my random thoughts on life…so I promise that I will try to update more often in 2006. That said, I am already setting myself up for failure.

So here’s what I’ve been up to:

This past weekend was a total bust. I developed a head cold and spent most of the weekend between my bed and the couch. (Real exciting, right?) I think it is a post holiday relapse. I’ve been in non-stop party mode since early December and think my body finally said enough.

I rang in the New Year at home, alone. I watched Dick Clark’s count down show. Would someone please tell me why that man forced himself to appear on TV? I think it is great that he wanted to get back on the horse and ride it, but come on Dick, you had a stroke – take a break! It was really sad to see him in that condition and the oddest way to begin a New Year. Not to mention, why didn’t someone cut out his microphone when he started smooching with his wife…the slurping noise was disgusting.

New Years Eve is not my favorite holiday. Honestly, sick or not, I still would have been home alone on the couch. For starters, I party the other 364 nights of the year. NYE is my official day off. Besides, I don’t feel like paying inflated cover charges for places that are hardly worth the usual price of admission. More importantly NYE is amateurs night. I hate being out with people who don’t know how to party responsibly (damn drunks). My office Holiday party was bad enough for that problem.
Yesterday, I spent the entire day watching the Wildfire all-day marathon on ABC Family Channel. I reviewed this show in an earlier entry. I had missed a few episodes, so it was great to sit and watch them all from start to finish. And then at 8pm the new season began! It is a good wholesome family show, um, NOT! I sat there wondering why the teenaged characters on the show were getting laid and I am not. I’ve got to hand it to ABC Family, they sure push the envelope – they certainly aren’t PAX TV.