Happy Port?
14 June 2005 (Tuesday) – Porto Alegre, Brazil
Today I was able to see Porto Alegre without the blurry shield of the rain. Porto Alegre must mean ‘Happy Port’. Hmmm… I did see a port out there. But happy people here? Hard to tell. Indeed, Porto Alegre is not a city for tourists, it is a city for people to live and work in. Later, I would chat with at least 3 people who live here, all claiming they love the city. So, there must be something here.
I wandered around and, although not particularly charmed by the city, I was amused by the amount of things, like crappy things, on sale everywhere, especially towards the lower (Porto Alegre is very undulating) part of town. OK, crappy things sound very vague… Things like plastic hair clips, toy-cars, plastic Godzilla, umbrellas, batteries, CD-players, plastic flowers, and shoe-laces, etc…
In front of some stores, they put a guy on a ladder-chair high up there, sometimes even on the street itself, to watch out for shoplifters, I supposed. Interesting method. So, if he spotted someone stealing, he could just hurl himself from up there onto the alleged suspect.
There were also some women and oddly, a couple of men holding on to half a mannequin (without the head and legs), dressed in bra and panties. If you quite fancy what the mannequin has to offer, just go up and indicate your interest and the person will manoeuvre you to some secret stores for you to fulfill your kinky dreams. Neat.
It really struck me here that the streets in Porto Alegre are full of stalls everywhere, overflowing with merchandises for sale. Who buys them?? Well, someone must.
And now that I am in a different country, it felt very different too. The people here shouted out their sales to the crowds on the street, creating a very different atmosphere, a more rough and tumbling mood. Compared to Buenos Aires, this is a tiny city of 1.5 million but still, it looked pretty crowded and busy in the city centre.
I walked to Usina Gasometer which is a converted gasworks that is now a cultural centre. I found lots of posters claiming upcoming or outdated cultural events but could not really find anything proper to view in the Gasometer. But I rather liked the graffiti found on the columns under the highway near the Gasometer. Very creative work of monsters and devils indeed.
By late afternoon, I figured it was time to leave Porto Alegre tomorrow. I had contacted 5 people in Rio de Janeiro for accommodations but no one replied. Nevertheless, I went ahead and bought my bus ticket to Rio leaving for tomorrow.
By late night, I got more desperate and emailed to 5 more people, hoping that over the next 30 hours, someone would be kind enough to let me stay at their place in Rio.
Tags: 02) And God Created Brazilian Women, Porto Alegre
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