Today was the first full day that I spent in Fortaleza following a night of a minor exhaustion-induced hallucination. After passing out last night for about 45 minutes, I woke up around 9:30 PM asking Ben and Matt the whereabouts of the "fourth person of our group." Perhaps I was asking about Brady but my guess is that it was a figment of my tired imagination. I took a quick shower to remove the layers of sweat that the humid 85 degrees adheses to your body and slept for nine hours of pure uninterrupted dormance.
 |
| Wheelhouse of Far Far Away |
This morning we woke up, had a nice breakfast at the hotel, got picked up by Flavio and drove around the shipyard. He showed us the different ships in the yard which is a good size, though substantially smaller than HHI so there is a different production process. Most of the work for each project is done at the respective build site rather than rolling out grand blocks from a centralized panel assembly shop. This means that all of the work is centered around the ship and the steel cutting shops are quite small.
Between office visits with all of Flavio's family (his grandparents own the shipyard), we had the chance to go aboard the Brazilian Navy cutter, "Macaé" as well as an explorer yacht, "Far Far Away" about two months away from delivery. During these tours, my height advantage finally came into effect as I could clear all of the doorways without ducking (yay genetics!).
From a non-technical standpoint, today was a great day for exploring Fortaleza. This driving tour gave a fascinating perspective of the wealth disparity that exists in Brazil, as Matt talked about in one of his early blog posts. In the U.S. there are typically clear indications of "good areas" and "bad areas." From Cleveland and later Detroit (via Ann Arbor), I understand the issues with a downtown lifestyle. I have traveled off the beaten path in Chicago and seen sketchier neighborhoods. Fortaleza differs in that there is no "beaten path" per se. The areas were impoverished people live are called favelas and I gather are somewhat akin to ghettos. They appear directly across the street from some of the most expensive high rise real estate in Fortaleza and only magnifies the economic climate here.
Something that will take some adjusting is the sun's personal agenda. Since Fortaleza is very far east and I believe that it should be one more time zone removed from EST, the sun sets around 5:30 every day. It's not that the days get shorter because of the winter since we are so close to the equator, but that it is just that far east and there is no daylight savings time change permanently applied. We figured we would need to rush to the pool after work to hang onto the last hint of a sunset, but since it is lit up and stays warm all the time from the intense sun during the day (the water would be charred if it were meat) it is a nice place to go for a swim even at night as long as a towel awaits your return so you don't have to cope with a breezy air dry. My brain says that sundown = dinner time, but not only is that far from the truth, but Brazilians also tend to eat very odd times. Dinner at the hotel is served starting at 7:00 PM (1.5 hours after the sun sets) and continues until midnight. This means that working through lunch to get out of work early is rewarded with an evening of hunger.
Following our 7:20 dinner (we may eat early due to our American dining tendencies), we took the hotel's shuttle to the Beira Mar area where we walked along the beachside path. I also earned my first Brazilian beer bottle cap although we decided to sit for this one even though Brazil has no open container laws so there is no problem walking along the beach with a beer in hand. The one thing that stood out about the area is how many people were out running. Presumably since the intense sun, which I swear is actively searing my retinas every time I go outside during the day, comes up so early it makes sense for the people to wait until after work when the sun is already set to go outside and run in a much cooler but still well streetlight lit environment to get their exercise on.
Flavio also told us that the purpose of ice in a urinal is that it keeps smells at bay because stinky things are typically intensified due to heat and they are more visually appealing than typical urinal cakes. As a negative result, you can clearly see where the man before you has done his business in a very well defined hole in the ice chips. On a final note, it has been pretty difficult to score well on the melt-the-ice game since we have sweat so much due to the heat so we will have to super-hydrate on a cool, breezy overcast day to set a high score (much like Whose Line, there is no real point system).
Until next time,
-David Rood
No comments:
Post a Comment