The Hotel Gym

My apart-hotel in São Paulo has a small gym, which is comprised of two treadmills, one stationary bike, one rowing machine, and one weight machine. Today I hopped onto the treadmill, which has a decent 3-sided view of the tall city buildings. With the treadmill at my desired speed, the machine itself seemed like a 300-pound man that had just run a marathon for the first and last time. Now, I run to get a good workout, but I was definitely not sprinting. Whatever 9.0 corresponds to in American-speed terms, it's not that much. I turned on my i-shuffle to drown out the horrible buzzing sound, and tried to ignore the image of the machine stopping suddenly and violently bucking me forward into the odometer & timer. The guy next to me seemed to also have this fear, because he would periodically punch the air in front of him, preparing for a quick defense. At least the hotel is consistent; the sound complements the piercing 10-second screech of my toilet after it's flushed.

As I ran, I thought about the night before. After hearing a band at a club, Henrique and I split off from the group and grabbed some food at a 24-hour bakery. All-you-can-eat soup, bread, fruit and dessert upstairs - how fabulous for a visiting American! San Francisco needs more of these late-night/early morning places. All we have are a few pizza places & crappy diners open until around 2.

Business ideas everywhere I turn...like the flanelinha, the guy who stands in front of your car and guards it, with or without your permission. When you return, you're silently pressured to giving him money for this "service." What a way to make money. This guy doesn't need a resumé, referrals or interview. He's automatically hired whether you like it or not.

I learn that the cheese paired with the popular formed guava jelly is known as "Romeo & Juliet." Cute. I wanted to put it on bread, but because bread and cheese are both "masculine" objects in Portuguese, I decided not to change the innocent teenage duo into a wild, dirty threesome with two males. (It was 4:30 in the morning and I was tired.)