Wonderland (or Nightmareland)

I had one of the most terrifying experiences of my life last Sunday, when we went to the Wonderland I haven’t been in an amusement park for, maybe, twelve years. As soon as we arrived, people decided to go to Behemoth, the new roller coaster that is the biggest one in Canada. When you are there, it stars to go up, up, up, and when you are so high, it falls. And find some nice videos in the net if anyone wants to see how it is. This animation gives you the point of view of the first car. This video in you tube was recorded there and I screamed as much as this guy.
But as scaring as the Behemoth is the Drop Tower. You can see how it is in these videos (this or this). You just fall from a 230 feet height! My hands were shaking so much after that. Look at this picture after we had felt.

However, the other rides and plays were very nice and I enjoyed a lot my day. I met two Saudi Arabs guys and a Vietnamese that were very nice. These pictures were sent by Neo and Tony and by Maria.

There were some plays that you really get wet, and we were lucky that the weather was nince, although the water was very, very cold.

The picture above is from the play that we went. The picture below is us after going in that play.

Sports in Toronto

Last week I had new experiences in Toronto. On Monday we went to see a Tennis match in Rogers Cup - a Tournament of the Master Series - as part of a YUELI trip. And on Friday, Ayana, Chie and Maria invited me to see a Baseball game of the famous Toronto Blue Jays. Actually, I had never before been neither in a tennis match nor in a baseball game. To be sincere, I barely knew baseball rules or how to count points in Tennis. But both experiences were very nice. In Rogers Cup I was surprised because the first match was with Boris Becker. This German guy I used to see in TV when I was a kid! But it was just a exibition match. The real match was between a Canadian and a Croatian player. None of them were really very good, but I enjoyed my time. It was funny to hear Puma crazy about “Federô” (Roger Federer) or hear people supporting the Canadian player (who won), yelling “Go, Frank!”
But I liked more of the Blue Jays. The Roger Centre stadium is very beautiful and I discovered that the game is not the most important thing in a baseball game. The guy who plays the organ during the breaks is so important as the player, because he keeps playing songs and keeps the people happy. At the end of the game I was also singing/screaming “Let’s go, Blue Jays, Let’s Go!”. And I discovered also that a baseball game is an interesting game. It is a very American game because it can be played by anyone. Baseball players don’t look like athletes, but they are just like a fat bus driver or an old plumber. It’s a regular men sport. And although the match was a bit boring in the middle (It lasted almost three hours!), the end was really very exciting! You can see pictures and have more information about the game in Maria’s blog.

pronunciation

Yesterday I was a bit depressed because of my english pronunciation. I went to the Library to borrow a dvd. The film was called "Out of the past" (a noir with Kirk Douglas, with a funny face). I asked the guy in the desk and I realized that he started to look for the dvd on the "A" shelf. He returned and started writing in the computer the name of the film, that he though it was "All of the best". I said again, but he didn't understand. I repeated again and he half-understood ("Out of the best"? he said). Finally, after I repeated a dozen times, trying to change my pronunciation in many different forms, he said: AH! Out of the Past! Then I realized that I really was not speaking corretly... I told this story to Don and he nicely did in the class a pronunciation exercise: live / lead, itch/ each, beach and b... , Sheet and s...

Me and my girlfriend, Paula, who's coming to Toronto in august to visit me. This picture was taken last year, when we were walking in the famous "Pão de Açucar" (Sugar Loaf) in Rio.

Chie, Puma and me in a picture taken by Maria, last sunday, in our visit to Black Creek Pioneer Village.

great movies today and before

It has passed 12 p.m. and I've just came back from the Cinematheque Ontario, in downtown, where I saw a wonderful movie. It was my second time there. I knew that there was a cinematheque in Toronto, but I didn't know where it was until last tuesday, when I went there by chance. That day I saw a great movie called Stray Dogs, by Akira Kurosawa, and took the magazine with the screenings calendar. I was curious to see this movie, Ikiru, also by Kurosawa, that would be screened today, but I almost stayed at "home" (in my bedroom in the residence), because I was very tired. But I decided to go and it was the right decision. The film has immediatly became one off my all-time favorites. It's such a beautiful story, shot with such intelligence and sensibility... I fell strange when I go out of a movie theather after seeing a great film like this one. It's almost like if the film is still inside of you, because you keep thinking about it and, at the same time, felling some kind of hapiness for such beauty that you have seen in the screen. You always carry something home - tears, thoughts or smiles. I remember of felling this way in some other times, specially when I go to a movie theater in another country, usually to see some special film, in a rare and good print. I remember, for exemple, when I was in Lisbon and went to the "Cinemateca Portuguesa" a very nince movie theather, to see a film that I had never heard about, but that was announced as a masterpiece. And they were right. The film was "The Cheat", a silence movie by Cecil B. De Mille, and I was completely astonished by the movie, a melodrama that seems they never did again after the sound came. Another experience that I had with silent films happened last year, in Madrid, in Cine Doré (in the picture), a beautiful moive theather from the beginning of the twentieth century that is now maintained by the "Filmoteca Española". They were screening a great retrospective of the american filmmaker Henry King and I went to see one of his most famous silent movies called "Tol'able David". I got completely surprised with the movie. The film touched me so much and I never thought that I would see such a impressive performance by a silent movie actor like the one by Richard Barthelmess as the young boy David. In Paris, the city of lights, of course, I have also seen many great movies, including the first time I saw Buster Keaton's The General or Murnau's Nosferatu. But what I remember most is one night when I decide to go to a small ordinary theather that you entered by a door and had to go down a stair, to see, in a marvellous print, the Ernst Lubitsch's "Une heure prés de toi" (One hour with you). I had had already seen his charming "Merry Widow", with the same enchanting Maurice Chevalier, but this film impressed me for being so lovely and naughty at the same time. For our days of political correctness, the film is so advanced (and it was made in 1932)! Well, I have been talking about my movies experiences around the world, but of course that I have also lived this in Brazil and I can remember as it was today of the day I saw for the first (and, until today, the only) time Murnau's "Sunrise". Truffaut once wrote that this is the most beautiful film of all. I totally agree with him. But there many other masterpieces to be discovered. I'm very happy because I discovered one more today and I can add one more film for this list of special moments that I have lived and an spectator. "Ikiru" (To Live), what a movie...

my first post

I´ll write in this blog about my impressions on Toronto. Before I came to Canada, people in Brazil asked me how canadian food was, and I didn't know. Well, I'm here for almost two weeks and I still don't know. They eat a lot of nuts, cookies and muffins with a lot of butter on them, and like of very much of smoked salmon. There're a lot of fast food restaurants here, including canadian Tom Horton, that I think it's very funny because they sell a lot of coffee. In Brazil people don't drink coffee in fast food restaurants... Canadian food is world food. Since I arrived here I have eaten korean food, tibetean food, greek food and some of them I had never eaten before. Of course I'm used to oriental food and in my countries there are a lot of chinese and japanese restaurants. But there, they serve always the most famous dishes: sushi, sashimi, yakisoba, spring rolls... I had never been to a korean restaurant before coming to Canada, and I liked a lot. The fist thing that called my attention is that in the table there were a big bottle of some kind of tea. After the food I realized that it was important to have something to drink, because the food was very spice. I was used to use just hashi (the short sticks) made of wood, but they used one of a different material that were much more difficult to hold. I ate a soup with noodles and meat, wich were very good, but had a bad time experience trying to catch those noodles. My table was a mess and I probably looked like a child eating (not a korean child, of course). At the end I was satisfied but tired! After that, I went to other places and the food was always spicy. I went to a italian restaurant (cafe diplomatique) and even a "gnochi a matriciana" was spicy! I had never eaten before a spicy pasta! The greek food was also spicy and even a hamburguer had a lot of pepper too. Now I know that canadian food is spicy food, no matter where it came from.