July 27

Morning flew by occupied by writing emails and organizing some rehearsals.
For our scheduled hour of Portuguese José had a wonderful idea - using the great weather today, he drove me to the Fundação Iberé Camargo, an impressing museum build by the famous Portuguese architect Álvaro Siza. Even though it reminds a bit of Guggenheim New York, the building has it's own qualities which impressed me quite a bit.

Even the subterranean parking space has the dignity of a Greek temple.

The museum is mostly dedicated to the work of the famous gaúcho painter and artist Iberé Camargo. The strategically placed windows offer great views on the Lago Guaíba and the downtown Porto Alegre.

Here is my teacher José Fernandez in front of some works of the maestro.

Today I demonstrated amply that I am learning and internalizing the Brazilian culture - I came back from this little escape good 35 minutes too late for the lesson of pandeiro and a rehearsal with Mimo Ferreira. And it was no problem whatsoever!! The mission accomplished, cultural exchange is full in swing...

Mimo brought back my new pandeiro - he treated it with several coats of the Nivea cream on both sides, stretched the skin some and made it come up some, so there are more overtones happening. We looked today at two seemingly quite similar traditional rhythms - baião and coco - both hailing from Northeast of the country.
I'll try to keep up the regiment of practicing. On Saturday I'll go to the next practice of batucada at the MEME.