Cup of Tea at Sunset

Cup of Tea at Sunset
Originally uploaded by Blue Dragonfly Girl

A few weeks ago, I enjoyed a cup of chocolate-mint tea in the rooftop cafe of the Casa de Cultura (House of Culture) Mario Quintana. The beautiful pink building in downtown Porto Alegre was once the Hotel Majestic, where I have been told the poet Mario Quintana used to reside.

Yesterday while in one of the city's gazillion malls, I happened upon a book of his poetry and thought it only appropriate that I buy a copy.

And here is a snippet (translated likely roughly, by me - feel free to offer better more nuanced translations!) of a poem titled, "Para olhar por outro ângulo" (For looking from another angle") that I thought was amusingly appropriate to all my musings about the new, sometimes different, sometimes seemingly "exotic" things I'm experiencing here in Brazil...

I'm suspicious of those tourists that consider the places they've visited to be exotic. They stay outside, seeing the picturesque in everything: the houses, the clothes, the customs, the beliefs...
And they aren't even suspicious that only exotic note in those defenseless countries is precisely themselves!

 (Desconfio desses turistas que consideram exóticos os países visitados. Ficam de fora, vendo o pitoresco em tudo: nas casa, nas roupas, nos costumes, nas crenças...
E nem desconfiam que a única nota exótica desses indefesos países são precisamente eles!)

I'll leave you with a photograph of the poet himself inside the Casa de Cultura.