August 7


Yesterday was yet another sunny day, and I decided to spend it outside, even though the flu still was bugging me…
It was time to finally stock up on books of the Brazilian literature, and Diego Dos Santos, who majored in the subject in college, was the man to help me. At my request, he has been meticulously preparing the short list of books to go for - not an easy task, considering the amount of fine authors this country produced over the centuries.
We met at the City Hall, situated right next to the central market, climbed up a few blocks, crossing the Rua da Praia, the main drag in the center of the city, and hit the street which sports a good dozen of "sebo's", second hand book stores.

Pretty quickly we found the desired books by Aluísio de Azevedo, Lima Barreto, Machado de Assis, Guimarães Rosa, Nelson Rodrigues, Milton Hatoum and Moacyr Scliar. Some obvious choices were left out - Jorge Amado, Erico Verissimo - because I already have some of their books.
Even two books of the elusive Hermilo Borba Filho - the author of the famous tetralogy "Um cavaleiro da segunda decadência" - were finally found, thanks to the friendly connections of Diego. I was completely satisfied by this little book hunt; it only remains to hope that Lufthansa will see this in the positive light too - I already moved very close to the allowed weight limit. And there are some music books, copied by Dunia, still coming my way…

After this major effort, all we could think of was where to go for lunch. The decision came very quickly, and off we were to the favourite churrascaria of Diego and his friends "Grelhatus", for the second time for me. Once again, the quality of the meat was amazing, and we spent good 4 hours there, chatting, drinking beers and consuming amounts of meat any doctor would consider to be nearly deadly.

Here is Diego and one of the super friendly garçoms.

As we crawled out of the restaurant, it was still sunny and warm. We decided to go to the heart of the Cidade Baixa and find a place to sit outside. The part of the Lower City we went to is all about nice bars, scene cafe's and places to hear live music. We settled on the bar "Pinguim", occupying a corner table outside. Combined with the sun and all the folk on the streets, it's a great place to sit outside and enjoy the view. The feel is very European or Downtown New York. Another 4 hours of chatting, beer drinking and observing the crowd went by quickly. I decided not to go to any club, still feeling the flu, but the day of dolce vita, no office stuff, no rehearsals or whatever, did me good...