Culture Fair - The whole story!

It was a sunny day in Houston, Texas. The birds sang, the trees swinged their leaves quietly to the slight breeze, the resident squirls of the Rice University Campus engaged in their normal mid-day activities (running around like crazy while surveying for potential food sources). But something was cooking. Several things, actually. At the culture fair, food from all over the world was being tasted by hungry crowds and bits of culture were traded and shared among very different people, just like that. As if it was a very simple thing, really. None of that "my country was attacked by yours" kind of talk that usually gets you nowhere. People just wanted to show what was good about their countries, and everyone was entitled to enjoy that.
It was a very nice atmosphere, and the pictures speak for themselves. I'll just add some comments here and there...


The African Students Association at Rice.


A flower dance from somewhere. One of the girls (the blond) is Michelle, an undergrad in our lab!


Japanese dance, my kind of thing. :) Domo arigato gozaimasu. It was particularly funny because one girl was very good and the other sucked but was utterly unpreocupied about it - she laughed the whole way through the dance. It was more or less like an example - "ok, and here is how NOT to do this dance". I liked it!


Our belly-dancing teacher, Victoria. She's really good. Damn, it's a difficult thing to do...


Aha! The Indian Students stand was dressing up people in beautiful typical hindu costumes, so we decided to give it a try. Here we are, Clea and me, looking totally ridiculous in such beautiful clothes... We're just not the type, I'm afraid.


This is Charlie and Camila, two people I met at the Portuguese lunches of Prof. Suzana. He's obviously american, but speaks perfect portuguese, with a strong brazilian accent. She is from Rio!!!! Totally "carioca", from tip to toes, and very nice. Through her I found out brazilians also have a passion for codfish, they inherited it from the portuguese. Funny, huh?


Clea decided she would sing. Then she decided she wouldn't. Then she went back on that last decision, and forward again, and back again. Etc. Marco (an italian friend of hers not shown on the pictures) and me weren't very supportive, i think because we were both afraid she would get nervous and screw it up... Then she decided to go, and that was her last call. She went and sang "O sole mio". It was amazingly good. I had already heard her sing before, but not in front of so many people. I was impressed at her nerve, and at how good she can sing opera without having had any previous training... Amazing. Some people are just born like that, I guess. That was the only Italian representation, actually, because despite there being A LOT of italians at Rice, they are all too lazy to organize something, or at least this was Marco's explanation... "hey, we're italian!"... What more can I say?
No, I didn't go to sing fado. Are you nuts?????! Ai Mouuuuuuuurariaaaaaaaaaaa... I leave that for the shower. Ehehehe. Portugal WAS represented, together with the brazilian stand, there was a flag there and all.


Here's the photo of the flag. It's underneath the Brazilian flag. Look carefully or you might miss it. I guess we also have the italian spirit, because we didn't bother to do much. But we can always blame it on excess of work... Yes, yes... On the left is Manuel, the other portuguese student here. He looks guilty, doesn't he? Perhaps because he spent the whole fair eating food at other stands instead of standing by his flag, right arm against his heart singing the national anthem? Could be, could be...

Ok, that's it for now. I hope the blog still works with these many photos!!