Exit Stage South

On Friday I made a second attempt to find Cafe Porto, the only free wifi cafe in Porto Alegre, apparently. This time armed with the right address I met with success and spent a few hours catching up on email, news and blogs. The other customers were notable for the fact that they were almost all tall attractive women and none of them were using a laptop. It was as if there was a modeling agency next door. It is certainly not what I'm used to in the free wifi cafes in San Francisco.

Later that evening I met up with a friend of a friend, Fernanda, who lived in NYC for five years where she met my friend Thomas at a school for the arts. I was Skyping with Thomas a few days before heading to Porto Alegre and he mentioned he had a Brasilian friend and that he would get in touch with her to see where she was. I told him "Brazil is a HUGE country, there's no way she´ll be anywhere near me." Of course the day I arrive in Porto Alegre I get an email from her saying she lives in Porto Alegre.

So I met her at her apartment and we went to a cool party called Baga-Sexta at a nearby place called Cine Theatro. The music was an extremely eclectic mix of old and new domestic and foreign tunes and throughout the night the music would stop while a local comedy troupe did quick skits. Much fun! Also met many of Fernanda´s friends which included a lot of dancers (she's an actress and dancer). She kindly played tour guide (and translator) throughout the weekend.

Saturday afternoon she picked me up and we drove around a few spots including Ipanema beach (yep, they got one here too) and then that night I went to a modern dance performance she and her troupe put on at a local club. It was a birthday party for the guy who composed the music for the troupe's current production. Some Marilyn Monroe look-alikes sang a breathy Happy Birthday to him, and there were some other very entertaining performances. Afterwards we went to another birthday gathering for Ivan (whom I had met Friday night at Baga-Sexta) and ended the night with a trip to a 24 hour buffet place with Ivan, Fernanda, Leo and his wife (whose name I forget). Leo is highly regarded hairdresser in the Porto Alegre area and had done everyone's hair there except Fernanda who had her appointment scheduled.

Sunday we ate vegetarian Indian brunch at Ocidente and saw and Indian dance performance. Then checked out a local park which featured a lake with Swan shaped paddle boats and a nearby street market.

On Monday I was able to finally get all the legal documents filled out and fedex'd off! I spent most of the day after that either in my hotel room or at a nearby internet cafe that allowed me to plug my laptop into their network, although I had lunch back at Cafe Porto (the food is as good as the view there).

Today (Tuesday) I finally met the lovely and talented Marta for lunch and a coffee. She's so busy because she is reaching the final months of production on an animated film she and her co-conspirators have been working on for years called Wood & Stock: Sexo, Orégano e Rock'n'Roll. We had a yummy vegetarian buffet lunch in the basement of a huge church near Ocidente. I tried some tasty Brasilian cuisine including a yummy desert called Blood Wine (or something like that).

Later I found some more street art I really liked. The whole set from Porto Alegre is available here.

Tomorrow Fernanda's dance troupe heads down to Rio Grande for another performance. They invited me to ride down in the van with them which sounds like a lot of fun, so that's what prompted me to keep heading south for a bit instead of going back to Garopaba.