Well, we’ve manged to find an inter­net cafe near our hotel. It only charges BR$2.50 per hour — about US$1.25 — but the con­nec­tion isn’t exactly the fastest. I’m not sure if I’ll be able to post any pic­tures from here, but I’ll give it a try another day.

Any­way, our trip here was fairly rocky and ended up tak­ing us about 38 hours, all told. When I get back, I’ll explain in more detail. We’re hav­ing a pretty good time so far, although the orga­ni­za­tion of the fes­ti­val leaves some­thing to be desired. Things seem to be get­ting bet­ter as we go, though. It’s a lit­tle tough get­ting around, as none of us speak Por­tuguese, and not all of us have back­grounds in Span­ish. We’ve made it work, though. The peo­ple here are quite friendly, and always seem will­ing to help break through the lan­guage barrier.

I’d write more, but we’re about to head to a con­cert by an Argen­tin­ian wind ensem­ble. They’re play­ing some stan­dard band stuff — Vaughn Williams, Fes­tivo, etc., but they’re also play­ing the theme from Schindler’s List and a Star Wars suite. The rep com­bined with the gen­eral con­cert expe­ri­ences we’ve had so far (more on that later) should make for a fun time.

Adeus!