BRAZIL 2006: Brazil Final Days (Part 2)

Ola-

Well — it’s definitely a country of the haves and have-nots.. and for the most part we are certainly circulating with the “haves”…

Yesterday morning we took the metro to see old city — el centro…which includes a mix of corporations and banks (although most have moved into sparkling new towers in the adjacent areas of the old downtown), and homeless, and small shops.. pretty much like most large Latin American cities.. Lots of street activities and hawking…  It’s an amazingly dense city, yet it also sprawls.. to accommodate the 20 million people… So there we saw a bit of the “other Sao Paolo”

Then it was pretty much preparing for the wedding.. which started at about 7:30 last night and went until about 3 a.m.  The ceremony at the church included about 20 minutes (sort of in the pre-ceremony time when people were arriving) a rather impressive orchestra and choral group (which it turns out was part of the Sao Paolo Opera, as the brides mother’s friend is the director or maybe holds some other important position with the Opera)… so it was a mix of Wagner, Mozart… with a little “Strangers in the Night” mixed in… very robust…  then the ceremony began. It was much shorter than we thought, given that it was Catholic… but actually it wasn’t very religious…  the bride and groom each get to have 12 people stand around them on the alter…mostly family and very very close friends… They stay there through the entire ceremony.. and then the bride goes to the grooms side and hugs each.. and vice versa…

Then it was off to the wedding reception which had tons of planning preceding it… The wedding planner’s staff which included at least 8 people (maybe more.. but those are the ones I saw)…  They were all in constant communication from early morning through the end of the day by cell phone and ear pieces.. such that it looked a little like the CIA..(I heard that messages were conveyed saying who had arrived at the hotel.. who was where.. who needed to be picked up, etc.)  The wedding party (including siblings and parents) spent the entire day at the salon.. where they got quite a treatment…  There were about four photographers and videographers documenting throughout the day and through the wedding.. there were several bands… so that there was constant dancing music… Interspersed throughout the evening (which lasted until past 3 a.m. — constant dancing, which you’d be proud to know that Mike and I danced for much of it)… lots of salsa mixed with rock.. they love American rock and roll… were little “favors” that occurred on the dance floor… like passing our sunglasses during one song.. with everyone dancing with sunglasses.. or giving out hats.. and wigs… etc.  At one point Kelsey (groom) took over the drumming.. since he is an incredible musician and runs a small band for children in San Francisco… the professional drummer seemed impressed.. especially since it was all Braziliam music at that moment.

As you know it was quite formal, with lots of beaded evening gowns and tuxedos.  The American group was certainly the least “dressed” in the crowd of about 200. The dinner was fine and there was lots of drinking..starting with champagne and moving into caparinhas and hard liquor as well as wines… The dessert tables went on forever with choices of about 40 or more incredible selections (They love sweets.. )

We sort of rolled out at about 3 a.m…. and thus got a late start today.. but we went to the MASP (Museum of Art/ Sao Paolo) and then took a walk in the Jardins neighborhood, near the museum, which is an upscale section of town where shopping and eating rein supreme… Didn’t have much time to do either, since we had to go to one of the many post-wedding events.. a barbecue at the bride’s mother’s house… The focus of all of these homes is the backyard where the barbecue is located… this is serious stuff… It’s more like a set of ovens and spits built into the wall… They had a staff of four cooking the food..which was great… and a big salad bar.. followed by.. you guessed it, sweets!

The family is extremely warm and very very close.. It’s obvious that having Camilla move to San Francisco is a really big deal.. The extended family gathers every weekend and they talk daily… cousins, in-laws, etc.  Everyone was working hard to converse with us in English and we were all working to converse in Portugeese.. Somewhere we all met linguistically and it seems as if we got the general gist of conversations. (Camilla’s parents and aunts and uncles do not speak English… Most of her cousins speak some English..)

Tomorrow we are headed to one of the large markets in the morning.. and then off to Camilla’s aunt’s for another event .. This we are told, will be in the most upscale neighborhood in Sao Paolo, where some people actually have helicopter pads attached to their houses…mmmmmmmmm………….  Anyway, it’s another feast with about 40 people .. and then we head directly to the airport to get back to the Bay Area —

Bon Nuit…

Fern