It's been a very rainy week.

Last night I went to to see my friend Maurício's band play at a little bar in Vida Madelena (the bohemian neighborhood). The ensemble included a Mandolin, a guitar, some percussion, a flute and female vocals occasionally. All of the musicians were extremely talented.

On that note, Mauricio is a star on the Mandolin and at the age of 22, I think a prodigy. During the show it rained and rained and after, it was pouring so hard that we couldn't leave. No worries though, I returned home safely.

It's true that you need a connection to access cool people and places in this enormous city(a Brazilian girl told me this). Maurício has a plethora of friends and acquaintances and they're almost all artists of some sort (dancers, film makers, painters, other musicians). His best friend happens to be studying Afro-Brazilian History and dropped a lot of history on Salvador last night. It was all in Portuguese but surprisingly I understood most of it.
On Tuesday night I met a group of Brazilians who had all spent some time in The States(random places like Texas and Oklahoma) and spoke English which made it easier for me to prove that I actually had a personality.
For some reason they knew a ton about Missouri. One guy asked me about Silver Dollar City and then told me he had been there. I think only my Missouri friends will understand how ridiculous that is.

Mostly it's exciting that I've been able to find people like me in this city of 10 million people. I'm only here for two more weeks but I'm glad that I'm starting to feel genuinely comfortable in São Paulo. Beijos.

-B