The "gap" Semester
6 months of doing nothing
Y2K
Ben M. came down from the USA for New Years in Rio. His parents were still posted there, so he was staying at his old house, just up the hill from me. It was great seeing him again. We smoked pot all day, baked under the Ipanema sun, and listened to Rock and Roll all day long.
As was customary by now in New Year's Eve, we all got together and walk from Leblon beach, past Ipanema beach all the way to Copacabana beach to watch the fireworks. But this time was different. It was the end of the Millennium. No more 19-ninety-whatever. For the first time I felt like time was relentless and unforgiving.
It was also the year of the Y2K bug. When midnight hit and nothing happened.. that was disappointing. What a fiasco. But we partied like it was 1999 no more.
Outro Preto
The new Millennium had started and I now had 6 months to slack off.
Ouro Preto is a small colonial town in the countryside of Minas Gerais, a state in central Brazil know for it's huge farms, cheese, pão-de-queijo, doce de leite and other delicious foods. Ouro Preto used to be a huge gold mining town back in the days of Imperial Brazil, but now it lives off of tourism and it's Federal University. It's basically a college town in a UNESCO World Heritage site.
We took a night bus from Rio all the way to Belo Horizonte, the capital city of Minas Gerais state. Ouro Preto is about an hour's drive from there and many taxi drivers are willing to drive us there. So we took a cab. We got there at a little past 5 AM. We didn't have money to pay for a hotel or a BnB (not AirBnb. This is the year 2000. It would still be over a decade before that came into play), so we booked a República, which is what they call what would be equivalent to frat or sorority houses; a literal house where the university students lived. They occasionally rent out spare rooms.
Most of our time there was spent visiting museums, churches and other historical sites during the day. At night we'd go bar-hopping to try all the different cachaças they had there. We'd visit other Repúblicas where we new people and stay for a churrasco.
Upon returning to Rio, life was fairly dull. My friends who had gotten into university in the first semester we all very busy. My friends who were still in school were busy, too. April was a lost month. Mostly staring at home, playing music, watching movies, reading books...
But the year 2000 was also a special year.
Dublin
2000 was the year my father and Chuchi would officially marry. So in May I went to Dublin to meet up with them and my sister. I got there just in time for my brother's 2nd birthday.
Coming from Rio, the Irish summer is very cold in comparison. My dad was still at work and my sister was wrapping up her school year. So I spent a lot of time at home and wondering around town by myself. I loved walking around Dublin. Taking the train and the bus, going to the movies… “The Virgin Suicides” was still playing at the cinema in Stillorgan Village shopping mall. At one point, my father took me to C&A to buy a suit for the wedding. It was and Irish wool suit. Crazy. But it's all I had.
Chuchi was all about the wedding preparations and she soon left to Madrid with my brother to take care of things there. Once my sister's school year wrapped up and my dad was finally on vacation, we met up with her in Cordoba.
Cordoba and Wedding
My grandparents and aunts made it to Cordoba soon after. It was great being with them there. We did all the touristy stuff and visited all the sites.
The wedding itself happened over the course of two days. On the first day, the ceremony took place at the Alcázar de los Reyes Cristianos, the caslte where Christopher Columbus used as his base of operations between 1486 and 1492 while lobbying the Catholic Monarchs for funding. Funding which eventually for him to "discover” the Americas. And it was presided by the former Mayor of Córdoba, who had been Chuchi's boss around the time she met my father. Today, in typical politician fashion, he tells the story as if he had been responsible for them meeting. Though the truth is far from that.
Unlike Dublin, summer in Spain is unbelievably hot. And in Córdoba, especially hot and insanely dry. It's like hell on Earth. Wearing a wool suit was madness. But it's all I had.
The second day wasn't as tough because it was the reception and dinner party. At night, the heat wasn't as bad. We danced and smoked cigars and ate a lot of good food.
And that was it. My aunts, my sister and I took a train to Madrid, a plane to Rio and my sister I got home while they continued to Brasília.
After my sisters visit of a few weeks, she went back to Dublin.
And for me, finally college.
