Maceio, with Juliana!
Trip Start
Apr 05, 2010
1
32
87
Trip End
Ongoing
Maceio, State of Alagoas, Brazil
Saturday, September 25, 2010
Juliana was just like me also an au pair in New York, so we already knew eachother from then.
I also met another Juliana that also was au pair in NY and lived here in Maceio, but we couldnt really agree if we met or only mailed :) anyway we definitely 100% sure met a few good times now here in Maceio!
Great to meet so many new AND old friends on my trip! Makes me feel connected to everyone, and realise how close people are even if I feel sometimes alone. It's only a state of mind, as (almost?) everything.
Maceio is a city at the beautiful Brazilian northeast coast, and Juliana lives just 1 block away from the turquoois ocean. I am not really a beach-person, but I love the palmtrees and the exotic views, and the delicious coconuts for sale everywhere! So I did walk past the beautiful coast a lot of times and enjoyer reading a book under a palmtree.
What I definitely also love is that everyone has hammocks! They are so great and comfortable, and one of the first things I'll get if I ever settle somewhere!
So, one day Juliana was at work and I was reading my book, and was considering to go for a run but the hammock felt so nice... So I already decided not to go when I suddenly read in my book that the main character grabs his runningshoes and goes for a run. I thought it was a sign! I should go to! I wish I had read further because *spoiler, don't read the next sentence Juliana!* something fataly bad happens to the character while running. And something bad happened to me too although a lot less drastic.
I ran next to the beach, on the smooth sidewalk. Enjoying sights of people practicing capoeira on the beach and practising boxing against a palmtree. The sidewalk was so smooth that I started looking around me a lot more, and didn't see a sudden manhole sticking up.
And I fell. Hard. On my side.
I was listening to my ipod but felt my body getting squeezed like an accordeon and heard the air being pumped out of my longs with a loud "umpf".
Anyway, wow, I got up, felt shaken, people were looking, I felt ok, decided to run a little further and check my boy for damage a little out of the way of the staring people. But I looked down and saw a giant dinosaur-egg on my calf, swollen up a lot. Something I had never seen before.I decided to walk home, thinking that the shock was working as an amazing painkiller.
Home (Juliana's home) Juliana's mom gave me ice and her brother was very sweet and caring.I decided it didn't hurt too bad, so I ate dinner and talked to her parents, with my leg down, not noticing it was swelling more and more again. And then it looked really freaky!
I contacted my dad, football-player his whole life and very experienced with leg-inj
uries. He told me it was an inner bleeding and would take a while to heal, he even told me my foot would turn blue (which it did days later and will stay for weeks).
This whole thing has limited me immensly now while traveling. It's not a big deal, just very limiting. The body is the greatest tool you'll ever own, and when something goes wrong you really feel how thankful you should be when everything just works smooth, and how amazing that actually is!
After resting a lot and having great times with Juliana and her friends, Amit arrived. I had last seen him in our apartment in Cusco in June, and in the meantime he had traveled the whole Amazon river down and now hitchiked down Brazil's coast to meet me before I headed further.
The three of us went to a Fechuada, houseparty where they cook a special meal with beans and meat. Juliana's friends organising this lived at Frances Beach (Praya de Frances), a famous and beautiful beach, where we went sitting at dusk till it was dark.I decided to leave on Sunday, eventhough my leg wasn't better yet but I really wanted to see Aracaju before heading to Salvador (where I had my flight back to the south Brazil in a week).
Sunday was a big day, elections! Just like in Belgium it is obliged to go voting. Kind of odd because many many people are very poor and uneducated so I wonder on what thoughts-bases they vote (I do wonder the same about belgium at times). But man the elections propaganda was crazy!!! Fireworks, crazy parades, cars with 10 giant speakers blasting, sooomany flyers, people dressed up hilarious having to carry giant flagtype billboards around there body... this is craziness!! Big elections... For presidents, governors, parlement. I've never seen or imagines anything like this, elections with a bit of carnaval in a bad way.Anyways, it ended up being too close for the presidents so there'll have to be a re-vote in the end of october. Also for the parlement a clown was elected, which wa a kind of protest-vote by the people.
Well it was time to move on, I enjoyed my time a lot in beautiful Maceio, drinking a ton of coconuts and chocolat malts, and having a new hairdo! Very refreshing and great because I cut my hair too short :)
Time to move on south, to Aracaju, and leave my friends behind, time for new people and places, again!
ML
and just a little question on the side, would people prefer this blog to be in dutch or english? In dutch you could easily google translate is. I think I can write a lot better in dutch :) this feels so boring when I read it, and I feel sorry for you guys! Or unless some people react that I should keep doing this in english? please post your opinion, thx!!!
Comments
als je beter schrijft in 't Nederlands moet je dat dan doen he
xxxxooo
English!!!
English is preferable for me but is there a way for you to write in Dutch and then google translate in English. Post in Dutch and English...?