First Photo Sets

Hi everyone!

So its about time I started this so-called blog I promised I would create. Well I found blogger which makes things so simple and now theres no excuse anymore. Laziness is a tough one to use when you have no job and nothing really to do. Though theres something about laziness in this purest of forms that takes on that sort of rare un-diluted quality.

I´ve posted quite a few pictures since I started travelling and now that I have one dedicated space for everything, here are all of the ones so far.

In order to get the best results, make sure to hit the "Slideshow" button when you get to Picasa. Otherwise the pics come out too small in my opinion.

Brazil Parati	Brazil Rio De Janeiro	Brazil The North	Argentina Part Uno

Travel is wonderful but I definitely miss you all and miss my city.. the greatest city in the world.

Happy New Year!!!!

-Asaf

Brazil - No Shirt, No Shoes, No Problem

Many countries highlight their natural and cultural treasures by designating them a national title like the official bird or the official flower. Well, i'm not exactly sure what the Brazilian bird is or the Brazilian flower is, but one thing I can tell you is that here in Brazil theres a national body part and thats the Ass and the national pastime is the display of the Ass. Now, lest you think that this unfairly limits only the lucky few of society who have been either been blessed with, or surgically augmented the kind of ass that would, in good taste, lend itself to such display, this is not an ass meritocracy. Brazil is an equal opportunity culture where a thong bikini (the national garment) is all that is needed to instantly promote an ass of any size, shape, age or relative proportion into the spotlight on the national stage (the beach).

Lest you think I'm exaggerating, a Brazilian model named Melanie Fronckowiak actually holds this years international title of worlds best ass. In November, upon finishing a steak dinner at a local restaurant one evening, I look up to the tv to find that the results of the ever important Miss Bumbum International are being announced. A tense silence filled the room, forks dropped, glasses held still.... seriously folks, you just can't make this shit up: Video: Miss Bumbum 2008 (a.k.a. The Ass from Ipanema)

So, having spent 2 months in Brazil, what can I say about this tremendous country? Well, mostly its those little anecdotal things you tend to remember the best. One thing I really love about Brazil is the universal use of the thumbs up sign. The thumbs up is the veritable swiss army knife of benevolent hand gestures and can be used in an amazingly versatile set of situations. A well timed thumbs up in its correct contextual placement can efficiently replace any of these sentiments:

* I'm okay / I'm good / I'm set
* You're okay / you're good / you're set
* Thanks
* No Thanks
* Yeah, i'll have another one
* Sweet!
* Sorry / My bad
* Your sister is hot
* I didn´t mean to spill your beer but I don't plan on buying you another one


I arrived in Rio de Janeiro go without a hint of Portuguese and into pouring rain for days on end and a completely empty hostel. Needless to say my first 5 days were utterly depressing and making me wonder “What the fuck? Is this Rio or London in February?” Having come a long way since then there is no better event to symbolize this journey of acclimation than having my first argument a month later, entirely in Portuguese. It went something like this:

Hostel: “Checkout was at 12pm, its now 5pm, you owe us R$26 extra.”
Me: “What? I no know this, why you say me no?”
Hostel: “It says it right here on this sign behind me”
Me: “Oh, Uhh, oh, but I no existing in hostel today in morning. I am walking, you go, they come back, no have using bed”
Hostel: “Huh?” . “Whatever dude, I just work here. Fine, its okay, you don’t have to pay.”
Me (making pretend I understood what he said): “But this not correct!, I not pay for you!”
Hostel: “Its okay its fine, I said don’t worry about it”
Me: “Let me speak to your manager!”

Far above all else though, Brazil is defined for me by its people and its culture which I love. Anyone whose been to a supermarket checkout line here knows that life is not taken so damn seriously down here. Brazil to me though is music and rhythm, around which all the other emotions seem to orbit... sexuality, love, kinship. It's impossible to go anywhere in Brazil without hearing that polyrhythmic pulse filling the air or a lone acoustic guitarist playing MPB at a restaurant with everyone always singing along... or a Pagode performance where there are no boundaries between the musicians and the audience. Everyone participates whether by singing along, sitting down and picking up an instrument or just dancing around the band. Music here is oftentimes less a performance art than it is a participatory experience.

As the ass culture would dictate.. people here just feel free to be out in the open. And those of you who know me well will appreciate this.. i've finally found a country for me.. where I can be shirtless in peace! (my tshirt says "I stop at speedos") Nothing seems out of bounds here, especially public displays of affection. It's not an uncommon sight in Rio to find a couple groping each other in the middle of the street in broad daylight, with their tongues so far down each others throats you would think they were looking for the cure to the lastest dengue fever outbreak in each others esophoguses. My friend Louise once classicaly described that being kissed by a Brazilian guy felt like "kissing a plunger with a slug in it".

Check out my pics of Brazil on the right hand side under the pictures section!

Knocking the Fantasy Down a Notch

When you think about my experiences on the road, travelling and seeing new places, its easy to romanticize it as one long incredible fantasy but I assure you that budget solo travel comes with its fair share of horrible days! Like when youve just spent the entire day packed like a sardine into some god awful minibus with no air conditioning in 103 degree heat, stopping at every street corner between you and your 200 mile destination only to end up in some Brazilian gulag somewhere where the newest hotel in town looks like they should also hand you a some rope and a wobbly chair with your hairy blood stained towel.

One such experience comes to mind... I was in the wayyy north of Brazil taking small minibuses across various states of terrain throughout these small fishing villages trying to get to a beautiful national park called Lencois Maranheses where they have these spectacular sand dunes. I spent 12 hours in a strange daze of semi consciousness, falling in and out of sleep in states of twisted positions, sweat and transfixiation on the passing terrain out the window. Robotically, I followed orders all day, getting off the bus on command and reboarding other sad looking ones with new sets of sweat ridden faces. I found myself in various bus stations amongst bustling plazas in numerous non descript shit hole towns all over the state of Ceara. At Parnaiba I had enough time to sit down for a Prato Feito (a cheap set course meal) and chat with the owner who was eager to talk. I ate a horribly over salted serving of unidentified chicken parts and smiled when I was asked if it was tasty.

After an entire day of this, I finally arrived in the small city of Tutoia with my backpacker friends I met along the way; a pair of couples, one dutch, one brazilian. Its dark when we get off the bus and look around somewhat bewildered and I know immediately this place is going to suck really bad. Tutioa is obviously not catering to tourists and at best, is a stopping point on the way to the National Park at Lencois Marerenhas. It’s another typical impoverished looking, Brazilian city, exuding that ascetic charm of the exposed single blue light bulb illuminating endless scenes of gray concrete and plastic tables. All the buildings are in various states of decay and drabness. We spend a good 30 minutes checking out different Pousadas (hotels) as if somehow the one befitting the image in our mind with the blue lagoon swimming pool would magically appear, standing out amongst the landscape like the monolith from 2001, a space odyssey.

At one of the more expensive posadas (about $20 a night), the night manager takes us to the "deluxe rooms" with the "sea views" to show us inside. We stroll past a concrete courtyard pocked with craters to the outside of another blue light special. The sea view is more like a sea sound which is even worse. What blocks you from seeing it is a big crumbling concrete wall with barbed wire above it. The Dutch and Brazilian girls scream when they find that their doorknob is occupied by a small frog which the night manager non-shallantly swipes away with his flip flop. He turns the lights on in the room, revealing a double bed occupied by some more frogs. He says its no problem to get rid of them but mentions that there are bugs from time to time and the frogs tend to be good to keep around to eat them.

We finally agree on this one place that was close to where the bus dropped us off. I've seen sanitariums from the 20's that had more charm than this fucking place. The blue light hallway went passed gaping holes in the structure that was probably meant for something that never got built but now just looked liked a construction site where the builders left behind their materials at least 10 years ago.

The lady from the posada leads me to my room, through a parking lot, down a dark row of motel-like rooms to the very last one, a dark, dank corner number. The door handle is useless and she has to jiggle the key in the lock in a special way to get the door open. The room itself is another ascetic gem. A single light bulb (at least yellow this time) illuminates a thoroughly depressing looking scene below. Two wires whose purpose and current state of voltage is unknown, dangle from the ceiling and disappear into a mysterious hole. A broken rusted ceiling fan stands still giving way to its replacement which is mounted just next to it. My bed is covered with only the finest cloth. Okay, in fairness i'm no primadonna and I don´t need the 500 thread count egyptian cotton but I'd prefer anything to the 60 grit 3M sandpaper they called a bedsheet.

And for some reason, toilets don't really flush well in Brazil.. anywhere... and i've become well accustomed to the sight of a good number of floaters. This puts me in the somewhat strange but informed position to proclaim that lack of fiber in the Brazilian diet is not currently a national health concern.

I'll leave you with that image for now...