It all came up Adrienne today, really.
The rain finally ceased and I awoke to a beautiful blue bird sky. I 'obtained' the latest episode of Game of Thrones and watched it first thing over coffee. GoT got me off on the right foot with the Hodor name origin reveal and that evidently there are weird time loops happening within the GoT fantasy world.
I got myself ready for the first full day of the conference and waited until the Lavenderia (laundry place) opened, which I had no idea when that would be. I was also hungry again. Basically I have been hungry since I arrived in Curitiba with all of my meals revolving around someone else's schedule. ADRIENNE IS HANGRY. I began to walk around the streets and look for someplace that maybe, just maybe, might be open for food and coffee at 7:30 in the morning. It was not looking promising, with all those garage doors on the store fronts continuing to be shut up tight, cold and unwelcoming. I was still wearing the same sun dress as the day before and my Havainas and, even though the morning sun was beautiful, I was still freezing my little tush off and envying the kids on the way to school wearing peacoats and nice warm woolly Uggs (which I'm also against on principle but gawd would take in a heart beat right now).
With no luck after some 15 minutes walking around the neighbourhood, I saw an old lady sweeping the street and asked her, in perfect Portuguese, where I might find some food to eat. She provided me with an earful of instructions, none of which I understood until I heard the word "Igreja"... I excitedly said back to her "ah Igreja??"...and she made arm gestures to the right and so I understood: turn right at the church that I had passed earlier. So I did just this. I walked down the first block and saw nothing and then the second block and just as I was about to think, you're full of shit lady, a corner panificadora with hot coffee and hot breakfasts came into full view.
After satiating my hunger with a delicious egg, ham, and cheese sandwich, I walked back to my apartment, past the Lavenderia to see if it was open. To my jubilance, it was. I walked in and asked (again in perfect Portuguese) how long it would take to have my laundry ready and he said 24 hours. I gave him a double thumbs up and went to grab my dirty laundry. Now the dude at the counter was kind of a creepy looking dude so I removed all of my intimates from the bags and decided I'd just take a shower with them later rather than have him sniffing my panties....probably that is what he'd do, of course. I mean, what MAN could resist that??
I dropped off my laundry and asked when they would be ready for pick up and apparently 24 hours actually means 36 hours so I'd have to pull out my sundress for a frigid day three the next day. Then I asked (well, I think I asked) if the clothes would be washed AND dried. He said (well, I think he said) that they would not be dried and that they only dry clothes when there is enough kilograms of clothes. Soooo, I'm not sure but I half expect to pick up the clothes tomorrow afternoon in just a wet heap.
I spent the morning at the conference and got my conference lunch and then headed home to nap and practice my big presentation for the next day...mostly I just napped.
I had been invited out for a big dinner party by my friend Dais who is from Brasilia but was a visiting professor at UBC during my first year there and we had randomly met in a workshop on developing a teaching portfolio. She also happens to be one of the conference organisers. What I thought was going to be a dinner with me and a bunch of Brazilians turned out to be this magnificent dinner of about 20 people from all over the world at a beautiful Italian trattoria. Some of them were even what one might call "big wigs" in the public health and health promotion world and I was a teeny tiny bit starstruck.
But I charmed my way through it and eventually ended up hangin' with two of these "big wigs", a saucy boomer English man and a handsome middle-aged, Australian academic (married). There were no taxis outside the restaurant and so we three walked to the Radisson, where they were staying and where I could ask the front desk people to call me a taxi. I talked these hot shots into a last caipirinha at the bar. Here we ran into another woman from the conference, a Scottish lady who had just completed her PhD and, get this, all of her research around health literacy was done through Second Life. She did all of her recruiting and interviewing through the use of an avatar in a virtual world, basically in a different dimension. Eventually her and the Englishman retired for the evening and the Aussie and I finished our drinks and chatted more and I learnt a new term: wankademics. Love. With the bar closing and things bordering on potentially professionally inappropriate in a not entirely uncomfortable way, we got me a taxi and parted ways. I finally understand how conferences, especially these massive international ones, could indeed become escapist, secret orgies and sordid affairs.
Overall I had a great first day of the conference, douchily hob-knobbing! I'm very adept at this, evidently. I'm also really starting to get this Portuguese thing. With the day starting with asking and receiving directions in Portuguese, to making cheesy jokes to taxi drivers in Portuguese, to texting via whatsapp to order a taxi in Portuguese, to ordering drinks and asking for wifi in Portuguese...and no one looked at me like I was speaking gibberish. NAILED IT!
The rain finally ceased and I awoke to a beautiful blue bird sky. I 'obtained' the latest episode of Game of Thrones and watched it first thing over coffee. GoT got me off on the right foot with the Hodor name origin reveal and that evidently there are weird time loops happening within the GoT fantasy world.
I got myself ready for the first full day of the conference and waited until the Lavenderia (laundry place) opened, which I had no idea when that would be. I was also hungry again. Basically I have been hungry since I arrived in Curitiba with all of my meals revolving around someone else's schedule. ADRIENNE IS HANGRY. I began to walk around the streets and look for someplace that maybe, just maybe, might be open for food and coffee at 7:30 in the morning. It was not looking promising, with all those garage doors on the store fronts continuing to be shut up tight, cold and unwelcoming. I was still wearing the same sun dress as the day before and my Havainas and, even though the morning sun was beautiful, I was still freezing my little tush off and envying the kids on the way to school wearing peacoats and nice warm woolly Uggs (which I'm also against on principle but gawd would take in a heart beat right now).
With no luck after some 15 minutes walking around the neighbourhood, I saw an old lady sweeping the street and asked her, in perfect Portuguese, where I might find some food to eat. She provided me with an earful of instructions, none of which I understood until I heard the word "Igreja"... I excitedly said back to her "ah Igreja??"...and she made arm gestures to the right and so I understood: turn right at the church that I had passed earlier. So I did just this. I walked down the first block and saw nothing and then the second block and just as I was about to think, you're full of shit lady, a corner panificadora with hot coffee and hot breakfasts came into full view.
After satiating my hunger with a delicious egg, ham, and cheese sandwich, I walked back to my apartment, past the Lavenderia to see if it was open. To my jubilance, it was. I walked in and asked (again in perfect Portuguese) how long it would take to have my laundry ready and he said 24 hours. I gave him a double thumbs up and went to grab my dirty laundry. Now the dude at the counter was kind of a creepy looking dude so I removed all of my intimates from the bags and decided I'd just take a shower with them later rather than have him sniffing my panties....probably that is what he'd do, of course. I mean, what MAN could resist that??
I dropped off my laundry and asked when they would be ready for pick up and apparently 24 hours actually means 36 hours so I'd have to pull out my sundress for a frigid day three the next day. Then I asked (well, I think I asked) if the clothes would be washed AND dried. He said (well, I think he said) that they would not be dried and that they only dry clothes when there is enough kilograms of clothes. Soooo, I'm not sure but I half expect to pick up the clothes tomorrow afternoon in just a wet heap.
I spent the morning at the conference and got my conference lunch and then headed home to nap and practice my big presentation for the next day...mostly I just napped.
I had been invited out for a big dinner party by my friend Dais who is from Brasilia but was a visiting professor at UBC during my first year there and we had randomly met in a workshop on developing a teaching portfolio. She also happens to be one of the conference organisers. What I thought was going to be a dinner with me and a bunch of Brazilians turned out to be this magnificent dinner of about 20 people from all over the world at a beautiful Italian trattoria. Some of them were even what one might call "big wigs" in the public health and health promotion world and I was a teeny tiny bit starstruck.
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| Barolo Trattoria, Batel, Curitiba |
But I charmed my way through it and eventually ended up hangin' with two of these "big wigs", a saucy boomer English man and a handsome middle-aged, Australian academic (married). There were no taxis outside the restaurant and so we three walked to the Radisson, where they were staying and where I could ask the front desk people to call me a taxi. I talked these hot shots into a last caipirinha at the bar. Here we ran into another woman from the conference, a Scottish lady who had just completed her PhD and, get this, all of her research around health literacy was done through Second Life. She did all of her recruiting and interviewing through the use of an avatar in a virtual world, basically in a different dimension. Eventually her and the Englishman retired for the evening and the Aussie and I finished our drinks and chatted more and I learnt a new term: wankademics. Love. With the bar closing and things bordering on potentially professionally inappropriate in a not entirely uncomfortable way, we got me a taxi and parted ways. I finally understand how conferences, especially these massive international ones, could indeed become escapist, secret orgies and sordid affairs.
Overall I had a great first day of the conference, douchily hob-knobbing! I'm very adept at this, evidently. I'm also really starting to get this Portuguese thing. With the day starting with asking and receiving directions in Portuguese, to making cheesy jokes to taxi drivers in Portuguese, to texting via whatsapp to order a taxi in Portuguese, to ordering drinks and asking for wifi in Portuguese...and no one looked at me like I was speaking gibberish. NAILED IT!
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