First Day of Lessons

Today was my first day of lessons in Portuguese. The school is in a house in one of the nicer residential areas of Florianopolis (not unusual, BTW; it seems that anywhere is fair game for setting up a business - zoning laws seem to be a little more lax here) and it was already pretty hot when I arrived at 8:30 this morning. I met up with Miguel, who runs the place, and he passed me off to Eva, who is a good instructor and as a bonus, kind of hot....

Felix (student from Germany), Eva, and Manuel.

It went pretty well. My feeble portuguese was exposed by an assessment exam, and Eva immediately began the task of setting things straight.

Ok, some random observations:

There are crocodiles here. I didn't know that. I saw one in a canal, in the neighborhood where my school is. Hope they warn the neighborhood kiddies.....

Croc!!

Brasilians have a different idea about home security than Americans do. They are a little more proactive:

This sign says, in a rather benign and matter-of-fact way, "Careful: energized area". It's a nice way of saying "Stay the fuck out or you're gonna get 50K volts pumped up your ass". Keep in mind, this is residential security in a nice area, not a business or military compound of some kind.

Tomorrow is day 2 of lessons. I have seen the beach, but not been to it yet....too busy. Soon I'll have about two weeks of nothing but beaches, so I'm not in a huge rush. I'm still enjoying soaking up the local culture....and the caipirinhas.....and the local women.....

Oh, one more thing: the place I am staying for the first week, the one the school set up for me, is a real shithole. Look:

Life is SO rough sometimes.......;-)