Shipping drums

Spent yesterday racing around starting my mega-packing job. Sorted out ALL my stuff into: bring on airplane; ship to US; "why the hell did I ever bring this in the first place, I didn't even like it when I bought it"; give to friends; give to street beggars; see if I can sell (all my electronics - ipod, camera, Edirol recorder & laptop). Went through all those zillions of little pieces of paper that somehow accumulate. Ripped all my new cd's.

After the usual inefficient scramble of not knowing how the post offices work in Brazil (see below), and after several late nights of haunting grocery stores after midnight to beg for boxes, I successfully shipped off my capoeira pandeiro, shekere and a disassembled caixa today, with a pile of clothes and sandals. And returned my two borrowed congas to the kind friend who had lent them to me for so long - god, that was an all-afternoon workout for sure! Of course, as soon as they were gone, I immediately felt an INTENSE desire to practice conga! The repique is going Monday...I have one more repique lesson scheduled for Friday with Jonas, probably my last lesson here, and box it up and away it goes.

Also scooted down to American Airlines' office at the Copacabana Palace Hotel, and, miracle of miracles, they found me the perfect flight - eliminated my godawful airport change in New York City, eliminated a stop in Chicago, and lengthed my NYC layover. For free!! Also found out that American has lightened their extra-bag and overweight-bag fees, so I'll bring more stuff on the plane. Now I have 12 full hours in NYC and once I clear customs, the bags can be checked right away and I don't have to haul them around! I immediately set up a lunch with two of my old VamoLa drummer buddies who are now living in NYC, Robyn & Fernanda. And I'll see if that beautiful big black horse who I rode last time in Central Park (in October, on my way to Brazil) is available for another ride. Falstaff was his name. The last thing I did in the US was go galloping around Central Park for an hour and a half with Falstaff, on a beautiful crisp October morning. Somehow it seems like it'd be cool to come full circle and have another ride on the same great horse to finish my trip.

Here's the scoop on shipping stuff.
- You have to use the Brazilian post office (Correios). "There is no other way" to ship boxes, said my friend Macapa, who does this sort of thing full-time. (He ships Artcelsior drums to any country; and makes incredibly good straps, too.)
- There are only two ways to ship large boxes: Express and Economico. Obviously you want economico.
- The post offices are nice and are dotted all over the city. Look for the yellow "CORREIOS" signs. They are quite helpful. They don't have the brown paper that you'll need (see below) but they have some empty boxes for sale and they usually will let you use their own tape, and often will help you wrap the box.
- Sum of length+width+ht of box must be less than 1.5 meters. (Some surdos are too big.)
- Here's the thing I kept forgetting: your box HAS to be completely wrapped in plain brown wrapping paper. A plain brown box is not good enough - it has to also have the plain brown paper. The plain brown paper, and tape, is for sale in any papelaria (paper store). Ask for "papel parana" (accent on last syllable: paraNA) and "fita para embalar" (tape for
wrapping).
- Be prepared for the shipping to be expensive! The approximately 20-lb box I sent yesterday to the US was 130 reais (about 60 dollars). It is more economical to send more stuff in a bigger box than two smaller boxes - the price per additional kg declines. You also want to balance this against your airline's extra-bag fee (currently $80 per extra bag on American, for up to three extra bags. After that it gets more expensive.)
- You gotta pay in cash. No credit cards.

Hmm... now that I know American only charges $80 for an extra bag up to 50 lbs ... and up to three extra bags allowed .... that's kind of a bargain! ... and no airport change ... maybe I should go down to Casa Oliveira and buy a bunch more drums!