Sunday, February 1st

Sunday morning, the First of February, or 1 de Fevereiro, we got up quite early to go sight-seeing. Bruna, Nanda, and her little cousin Mariana hadn't really seen a lot of the places we visited that day, so I didn't feel too much like a burden. Also, Bruna's hilarious friend Rodrigo ("Hod-ree-goo") came with us. We started at the Forte de Montserrat, then hit a museum of old nautical and military artifacts. There's this church we went to called the São Francisco Church and convent where you can't take pictures inside because the pictures are copywritten and because it oxidizes the gold and the paint inside. It is by far the largest and most elaborate church I've ever seen. They say there are millions of dollars of gold paint inside, and it's probably 40 feet high inside. Seriously, find photos online, it's utterly enormous in detail and in size. After my jaw finally made its way back to my chin after dropping so far, we went next door to another church to check out some old Portuguese cultural church stuff. Over 10,000 tiles painted in Portugal with Biblical scenes and scenes of high culture from Europe were shipped over the Atlantic to be installed in that Salvador church alone! Portugal used to be the richest nation in Europe at one time, and much of the benefits of that wealth were felt in Salvador. All this takes place in the large section of town called Pelourinho ("Pay-lo-reen-yo"), which is the oldest area where all the rich Europeans used to live in a younger Salvador. It's like what Old Sac is to Sacramento. I really can't even describe the entire experience. The architecture, the uneven brick and cobblestone roads, the almost nonexistent sidewalks, the one-church-per-block ratio, the thin buildings without alleys, the orange and black roofs, the live musicians playing on every street, the quaintness of it all sent my mind to a place in the past. There has almost literally been no new construction there in decades or centuries. The name Pelourinho itself has an interesting, albeit depressing, history as well. At a place where two roads converge into one, there is a large triangular plaza that can accommodate maybe 2 or 3,000 people. In the days of slavery, it was customary to publicly punish highly disobedient or criminal slaves. So the owners would make a day trip out of taking their insubordinate slaves to this town square, where they would be strapped to a whipping post called the Pelourinho and receive their punishment in front of anyone who happened to be there. At the time, it was downtown Salvador, so it was always very full. Oy, times certainly have changed! I don't know why the Portuguese named the part of town like they did, but it's named, essentially, Ceremonial Whipping Post. After cruising around that historic center, we went and saw the Lacerda Elevator, which used to allow people to go from sea level to the upper city for a small fee. At one time, it was the largest in the world. Overall, the experience of the history of that place was very authentic and interesting. We decided to leave then and go visit Fernanda's grandmother. There, I met about four new family members whose names I forgot already (whoops), but it was still very nice. They are all so accommodating here. I did, however, meet Nanda's older cousin Fabiana, who we have spent more time with since then. She is very sweet and softspoken and is expecting her first son in May. She's a little lady with a big belly right now. We thought we were going to go watch the Superbowl at that point in Bruna's father's pizzeria, but we felt like skipping it. Rodrigo really loves American football, but the rest of us felt like relaxing. Nanda and I went home and stayed up til 2:00 am teaching and learning each other's languages. She did more teaching than learning, obviously, since her English is really very good and I've only even looked at Portuguese since I've been here. Another day over with.
If you're reading this and have another couple of minutes, surf onto some Pelourinho informational sites and check out the architecture and stuff. Way cool.