First uni day

My hosts at the University of Sao Paulo are quite chill. They agreed to host me three months ago and then never replied to my repeat emails asking for some details on what I’ll be doing there, whom I should contact further, or what I should prepare. When I still had nothing a week before departure, I called them to confirm if this is even happening. Rogerio, who has been in touch with me, wasn’t worried at all and kept me in the international call line for five minutes to slowly explain how he was on holidays and how the carnival is making everything slower. He promised me details by Wednesday. On Thursday he promised them by Friday, and by Saturday all the details he gave me is where I’m meeting him on Monday, and that there might be something happening on Wednesday, too. Monday not early morning, of course! 2pm.

So it’s Monday. I decided to play the game, had a lazy morning and slowly walked toward the campus around 11, hoping to get a little stroll or perhaps read a book in the park. The campus is odd – it took about five minutes from entering before I saw any buildings, as the place is really sparsely built and has massive areas of green or just unused space everywhere. The first thing I found after getting to the more central part were about ten different bank branches. That is all. Literally, a street of banks, nothing else. I searched and searched, but didn’t find a simple grocery store on campus.

Anyway, I spent some time chilling in a campus park which is, you guessed it, massive. Today I didn’t forget to apply sunscreen – got quite burnt yesterday as I underestimated the sun thinking it was too cloudy to burn. How silly! Now my face hurts.

I had lunch in a really cool looking cantina – all concrete, industrial looking, falling apart and covered in graffiti. In fact, a great deal of buildings can be described in this way here – basically, Brazilians were hipster before hipster was cool.

The first meeting at the uni was chill and smooth. Not much happened besides introductions and some vague suggestions as to what I might be doing for the rest of the week. Yes, there is still no plan. But the people are all lovely and frankly, I don’t mind having a bit more free time. 

And thus as we finished for today after two hours, I just went back to chill on the grass and read my book. I need some chill holidays.

Soon I heard drums again. And then more! But this time it wasn’t a parade – there were a few small samba groups practicing in the park, just 50m apart or so. Then as I was going home, I saw five more groups just standing and practicing by the road. Now I know why Brazilians need all this unused empty space between buildings! 

I went home early, doing a bit shop on the way. I want it to last me until Friday, because there is no nearby shop where I can just quickly get some essentials. I was planning to buy a mains adapter and some sandals as well, but didn’t find any shops that would sell them – except in the centre where I was on Sunday and they were closed.

I got home early, read some more, did some studying, and passed out before 10pm. I’m now not sure as to whether I should keep doing that or go out in the evenings – people keep telling me conflicting things about how safe or not safe it is after dark.