Sept. 8

Today we went into the old town part of the upper city and walked around. It’s very pretty and the semi-seedy aspect of part of it is just part of the experience. A friend and I had some errands to we went to the mall here. Taxis are pretty cheap and the only real way to get around. The mall was huge but filled with tons of small stores that basically only sold the same style clothes. Electronics were ridiculously expensive and all the pharmacies and Target style places sold the most variety of the candy Mentos than I had ever seen. The stores all had like 9 different types of Mentos oddly enough. There were tons of shoes, electronics, bags and even clothes that you could purchase in payments (like car payments), like 5 payments of R$19 for five months. Apparently there’s no interest on the payments and every month an amount is just taken out of their credit cards. Credit cards are huge here and debt is becoming a big problem for Brazilians. On the way back to the ship our cab driver spoke very little English yet knew all the words to the American songs on the radio- I’ll always remember our Brazilian cab drive singing “How deep is your love” through the streets of Salvador. I still feel like I don’t know that many people and really don’t get along with my roommate so still have a ways to go.
At night I went out with a couple of students and faculty to meet up with a former inter-port lecturer (someone from a particular country who gives a presentation upon embarkation to the students about that country). We went to this very swanky bar/restaurant and met up with Javier (who’s originally from Spain) and his wife and Brazilian friends. Javier and his wife and extended family and friends were from all over and the epitome of the warm, vivacious Spanish and South American people. It was a beautiful modern bar over the water. It had glass on three sides with sliding doors but unlike what it would be like in the U.S. the sliding doors opened and there was about a foot of cement and nothing else between you and the drop into the water. I tried a caperienia (sp?)- the Brazilian national drink of a cane juice alcohol with lime and water and sugar. It tastes sort of like a really strong not slushy margarita. It was great hanging out with a wide range of locals (most spoke good English). It made the experience somehow more personal.