Uncoordinated

So it's 11:43 and I just woke up and I'm eating some Skarchitos (aka Frosted Flakes but the Brazilian name is far more appealing, no?) in the living room of the guest house. Sometimes life here is mundane, too.

Yesterday I played my first extended game of futbol with the children. They quickly learned how unskilled I was at soccer and set me up for shot after shot so I could feel better about myself. They, on the other hand, are of course all amazing (the skinny 9-year old girls could outschool most teams the All-Stars have gone up against). I played barefoot with them and didn't remember until I came home from work and the bottom of my soles were BLACK.

Last night, Wednesday, in true Carleton fashion, I went out with a group of people from the house. Rio is really interesting because each night of the week has a pretty popular club for youth to check out: Sunday night Casa Rosa, an old brothel in Santa Theresa, is happening, Thursday night, Casa de Matriz in Botofogo provides kind of a Brazilian hipster house party, Friday is Lapa, Saturday is samba school performances that start at 1am, etc etc. UNFORTUNATELY Wednesday night here is usually the night of rest; the first club we checked out, Fosfobox, is apparently really cool when it's happening (it's in the basement of a shopping center) but it was not happening last night. We ended up in Democratico, this samba club in Lapa, and for the second time of the day I demonstrated a total lack of coordination while attempting to follow the lead of men who know how to samba well. I met a cute one who tried all night to teach me (1, 2, 1, 2, nao nao nao). Sidenote: this nice boy gave me a piece of candy, but I didn't want to eat it at the club because I was afraid it was rufied so I gave it to my friend Max to hold. He ate it and didn't fall over, so really it was just that the guy was sweet. Apparently it was a big chocolate with a whole walnut in it. Anyway, it was a good thing that I was a girl, because the men are willing to teach whereas the guys we were with were shoved away as soon as the Brazilian women found out they couldn't samba. We closed the club at 4am and then got (what else?) meat on a stick outside. I love this city.

I was going to go to the beach now, but for maybe the second day of the 20 I've been here it's cloudy, so I'll probably watch Project Runway and go Saturday instead. One of the girls I'm living with asked me somberly this morning "what will we do when we can't just go to the beach at least a few times a week?" I don't know. I just don't know.