Yesterday I feel like we got some good research done. Richard and I have been working on the land for fuel v.s. land for food. He already has interesting regression data but I feelike we should add more variables into it such as price of crude oil among others. This is something we will do today, Tuesday.
Yesterday for lunch we went out to a restaurant across the street. I had probably the best fallafel of my life, for some reason I we found each other in Rio, far, far away from the Middle East. I have a feeling I will soon be meeting more of these ´best ever´ falafels... Even more interesting was our conversation at lunch. The five of us (Werner, Dan, Felipe, Richard and I) had some very engaging discussions, starting off, if I remember correctly, by an article Felipe was reading about Universities here in Brazil which were going public on the stock market. This meant they would be taken over by companies specializing in education and teaching.
I also learned a little bit about ethanol and it´s importance here in Brazil. Here almost all the cars run on both ethanol or gasoline or any combination of both. This is so instilled in the car culture that it is not even mentioned on the back of cars, as it is in the US, (flexfuel). Here, it is the norm. Pretty cool.
Upon our return to the apartment, Felipe, Richard and I went out to the beach (again less than a block away :-) to work out a bit. Dan came with but because his back rib was still hurting from having been crushed by a wave, he read at a caffe while waiting for us. We did a few sets of push-ups (sets of twenty), sit ups/crunches(25), and chin/pull-ups (ten). Then we went running for about twenty minutes along the water. I opted for the sprint, Felipe and and Richard opted for the long distance(either two or four miles, probably four). I kept on doing some push ups while waiting for them to come back and we did some more push-ups, again, when they returned... needless to say, today I am sore. We also went for a dip, Fe and I; the water never felt so warm. I think we might go back out again tonight. I hope Dan recovers soon enough.
After this, Dan continued to read at a caffe on the beach where he waited for us to tidy up a bit back at the apartment. Upon our return to the beach where he was reading and where our restaurant was located, we saw that he had gotten into a bit of trouble with a local. While reading his book at the beach caffe, a shoe-shiner offered to shine Dan´s shoes. Dan accepted for a price of 3.20 reais. Later, the shoe-shiner claimed to have agreed to a price of 13 reais. This is absurd given that a normal price would have been one or two reais. Nevertheless, the shoe-shiner, a boy about 19 years old followed us across the highway (LSD equivalent) and kept on saying ´you´re not going to pay me, eh?´ in a menacing way. Finally we retreated to our pizza palace sanctuary...
Ever thought of the ´all you can eat concept´ and added a pizza on top? well, it is quite cool. About every 2 minutes anothe waiter comes out of the kitchen with a different pizza and cuts you a slice, if you give him your permisson of course. I pigged out and had at least 12 slices. And that was before the dessert pizzas... WOW just imagine a pizza, minus the tomatoe sauce and cheese with a thin coat of melted chocolate and strawberries on top! I learned a new phrase: ´estou satisfecho´
No comments:
Post a Comment