Grocery stores: not a social scene.

What can I say? I think the shock of being here and making a temporary life is finally settling in, after six days. I have created quite a nice routine: I wake up, shower, make a nice cup of coffee in the coador (paper Melitta filter in a plastic cup-frame that fits nicely over the coffee cup), sit and read the news online, and then get dressed and preened before walking the thirty minutes to the Faculdade. Once there, I log onto my assigned computer in the Geoprocessing Lab (LabGeo) and work on my current project until noon, when Julio, the lab manager, comes and gets me. We hop into his car (small like half the other cars in Campinas--I love that!), whiz a few hundred meters down the road to CEPAGRI (a government research institute) to pick up his friend Ana, and then we whip down the hill in the Fiat to some restaurant off campus (at least, this has happened the last two days, and probably will tomorrow). There we have lunch with some other friends of theirs, a rowdy bunch of mostly-female 30-somethings. After lunch is when the interesting stuff happens, it seems. Yesterday we dropped in on the last 45 minutes of a free Forró class (a kind of countrified salsa dance) where I got to learn Forró and dance with about 10 men who didn´t know how to dance it, either (I am almost convinced that 90% of Brazilian men have no rhythm). Today, in contrast, Ana, another woman, and I dragged Julio shoe-shopping. Julio is not a big shoe fan, but he handled it like a champ. Both of those activities were done by 2pm, then back to the lab, where people work, drink coffee, chat, etc., until about 5pm. I haven´t actually worked until 5pm yet, since I keep getting invited to these research lectures, which are very cool. Yesterday I went to a 4pm guest lecture on ¨The Myths of the Agrarian Reform¨. Right up my alley.

After work, I walk home, make a cold dinner of a sandwich and salad, which is all I can eat after the heavy lunches that are customary here. Dinner also includes one or two glasses of red wine while I check email, surf the internet, write this blog, or read. I am already through three world-class novels, and am getting perhaps a little bored with the solitude of the evening part of the routine after less than a week. A symptom of this might be my frequent trips in the evenings to the grocery store two blocks away to browse the aisles. Literally, I go there to browse the aisles and watch people, maybe buy a baguette or some arrugula. I have been there four times in the last six days. This is pitiful. I think this habit is replacing my Lawrence habit of going for an evening beer at the Pig, where I know I will run into someone I know. Am I hoping I will meet people at the grocery store? Could be, it´s a nice grocery store, lots of nice-looking, mature men wandering the aisles alone with frozen pizzas or packaged sausages in their hands...I am so pitiful.

I walked by a gym today on the way home to check it out. This could be my chance to get out of my grocery store-haunting habit, so I think I am going to join tomorrow and take an evening class or something. I also know, as a friend wrote me today, that with a little more time, I will make friends, have a social life (outside the lab), and forget all about this present loneliness.

I think that is enough for tonight. I will try to remember to bring my camera to work with me tomorrow, so I can post some pictures of Campinas and the lab (exciting!) for you all to see. Also, Friday is September 7, Brazilian Independence Day. I have been invited by a nice grad student named Daniel to have churrasco and beer at his house with his friends. What a relief--I thought I was going to spend Independence Day in the house working at the computer all day! It also looks like I will be spending two or three days next week out in Guaxupé, with the cooperative. This makes me happy.