Obession?

So we are about to start October where i am from i am used to the nice fall leaves, colored trees, apple cider, and a very good excuse to go shopping for cute scarves, pants and jackets. BUT...that aint happening here in Brazil, i just spent the day yesterday sweating in class then going to the mall to buy bug spray and 2 more bathing suits. In total now i have 12, and it has been only a month. However each bathing suit gets smaller and my tan get darker. Its kinda cool i think, at least at Christmas i will be tan instead of the porcelain doll white that i usually am. I think i am started am obsession though because, i love bathing suits almost as much as i love pens, which is a lot. I do have a number of obsessions here that have started in Brazil, bikinis are taking the top, flip flops, fried bananas, earrings, and nascau chocolate milk. They all pretty much make my day better!

We are all going to Praia de Forte tomorrow morning, which is a huge beach ( i think) with these 300lb pound turtles that can live past 100 years. I am not sure how i feel about a giant reptile that can kill me, but i am going along for it, we might even get to go scuba-ing...( if that's a word)

I am also debating whether or not to go on this amazon trip for 5 days for about 1000 dollars with everything included. I mean i don't have shots, or amazon clothes and i getting eaten by bugs here but yet it still sounds like it would be fun to go. I think this novela (soap opera) that i am watching that is placed in the amazon is temping me to go. But i still am not sure, because i don't like sleeping on the ground in general, but i don't like the jungle ground even more. (or at least i don't think i would).

Anyways we just finished a module in culture class so i don't have that much homework this weekend! YAY party haha this week was very busy with homework, awesome huh? i am in south America and i have to read inside when the beach is calling me...

SO many bugs!

Since i have been here for a month, as of yesterday, i have been getting bitten by more than mosquitoes! They are everywhere, it think, i mean i actually haven't seen very many of them but i know they are here because i have evidence all over me! And besides the bug issue i have magically appearing bruises that are beginning to worry me, like i know i am not running into things when i sleep, and i know that i don't hit anything when i am awake, but i wake up with bruises that gradually appear worst and darker as the days pass. such a mystery.

Today the weather was weird, because yesterday was super sunny and i almost died of heat stroke on my run and it was real hot when i went to the beach. BUT today was cloudy and then it rained, and then it was cold. Weird, they told us that the rainy season stopped over a month ago but whatever, its Brazil and it is a tropical area sooo anything goes.

Today we had a very weird, interesting, and frustrating culture class today. First of all we have a different teacher, and although i didn't like the first teachers methods, this one is worst. She never gets through more than 4 slides of her power point per day and goes off on tangents. But ill deal with it. When i thought it was going to get better she didn't give us a break, so i took one myself. then our class had a discussion about race and Salvador, which was more like a battlefield of to who was right or wrong. It was pretty much awful. But hopefully it wont happen again. tchau i have to do more of homework that i have !

Nescau or Bread?

First of all it is my daddy's birthday tomorrow! yay! happy birthday! and he is in love with his ipad i am sure, and acting like a child in a candy store with no chance of cavities.

Yesterday we had a pool party in one of the apartment complexes, it was nice to go into the water without the chance of sand getting everywhere, but i am sure that will change today and the sand will get everywhere like it always does when i am anywhere near the beach. I hope there is a lot of sun today because yesterday was a little cloudy, but i feel that i still got at least a little tan.

Anyway.... last night we went to a reggae bar in rio vermelho, it was a chill place, they had a black light and by chance i was wearing white shorts and shoes, it was cool. They also had a lot of art work on all of the walls that looked really cool, and of course i took many pictures of them! Oh but one of the best things was that molly brought me some nescau and it was so yummy, the sad thing is that i had some earlier in the day and then i had nescau cereal in the morning and then i had some again after i got home last night too. AAAAAAAAAAA addicted. Its so yummy. i think it is a trade off, i tell myself that if i drink that i wont eat bread, which has been working so far! But one of the best things about being tan is that you look toner, even if you are not, and its always better that way too, exotic i think or something. There has to be a reason why there are so many tan Brazilian models in the world.

Well here goes another week of school to. I have to look over some Portuguese contractions and then read about 100 pages about African candomble ceremonies and orixas. Oh and i have a paper due sometime soon about an orixa, which i think have a lot more in common with western religion that some people think.

Brazilian Butts?! what is it here!?

So i know that i already posted today but i simply had to share this with the world. I am almost positive that beans and rice make only your butt grow. It's official. I have been eating it for a month now and my butt is growing. Although it was already kinda large for a Eurasian girl, its growing. or maybe its in the family, Stephanie's is plumping up too, but don't eat rice and beans it just expands! Or maybe it is simply just because i am in Brazil, and it is like a right of passage or its in the water. Anyways i bought another bikini top today on the beach, its hot pink i love it, i gave up on finding the red one, i bet you when i am not looking for it anymore, i will find it. But i am up to 7 full bathing suits with me here and 3 extra tops to mix and match! excited for this summer in California to show them all off! Hopefully i can get tan enough to December in order to keep it till June... hopefully, key word. So i have a pool party tomorrow! first pool of Brazil! yay!

SORE!

As you know i have been working out. or trying to everyday at least, the thing is that i feel fatter than i did when i didn't work out. I think i am bloated or something, maybe im eating to much fruit. I also think my host family put me on a diet, but that is ok with me, i cant eat rice beans and meat forever and stay slim. So anyways besides the fact that i feel bloated, i am really sore from working out, like i cant walk normal sore! And i think i am doing something wrong because my back is killing me, but i stretch alot so maybe i am just getting older or something.

My mom told me today that i can go to her 2 beach houses her in Bahia, which is exciting, i have never been to a beach house and i think Brazil would be a good place to start that kind of a trend. One of them is on an island and the beach house is almost 10 meters from the coast, and the other is in Salvador and has cute cobblestone roads with white picket fences in front of the gardens. Sounds perfect doesn't it? But i mean it is Brazil... its hard to believe that i am still here, its almost been a month and it still hasn't sunk in yet, but i think it never does until you leave, when i go back to America. lol

so i hope my body gets used to running and i get to go to the beach soon, this whole tan thing worked for a couple of days and now its fading :(

Work out!? or more chocolate ?

So i haven't worked out in a month and surprising my body has not gone into shock eating rice, beans, meat and cake here in Brazil and it didn't com bust in the week i was in Argentina eating pizza, empanadas and alfajores either. But i decided that i should start working out a little bit because i was losing weight(muscle, mind you, not fat. So i ran about a mile on Sunday and then i ran a mile in a half this morning, i think i am going to run every morning because it wakes me up and i don't feel like a lazy piece of fat everyday. Going to the beach a couple times a week helps i think as well, or at least it gives me the illusion of looking slimmer because i am tanner. To bad i have been have the craziest cravings for chocolate milk, ice cream, and chocolate cake every hour of the day. No matter how skinny you are, that cant be good.So to balance out my huge sweet cravings i am going to start working out, i think it was also a mistake not to bring my running shoes to matter how expensive they were and besides the fact that they didn't fit in my suitcase, my calves hurt and i want them! But running shoes here in Brazil are super expensive (as i was told) so i think i can endure the pain and not break the bank for 250 US dollars.

besides my food dilemma everything seems to be going well, i am confused sometimes in school and class, not because of the language barrier but because of the lack of direction at times. I am actually picking up Portuguese faster than i picked up Spanish when i studied in Argentina. Maybe its because i have Spanish as a background language.

Anyways i am trying to go on some cool trips coming up. There is a 5 day weekend in October that many of the kids in the group want to go to the national park called lencois, it is suppose to be like the grand canon of Brazil, i am super excited if it goes through. I am down for some multi-hour hikes and waterfalls. If that works, i will be going to Rio de Janiero the weekend after for 5 days, which should be fun, traveling in a group and staying in hostels is always an adventure and going to a city that you haven't been before is always one as well. We have a big group so it should be fun! But I am still debating whether i should go to the amazon, because i cant remember if i got a yellow fever shot and i am not to sure how i feel about jungles yet, but i really would like to say that i spent Halloween in the amazon, i am pretty sure that would top anyone Else's plans for the holiday this year in the States. And then 2 weeks after that my host family is going to rio de janiero to a family members wedding, i am pretty sure that i am going as well, it should be an adventure and i am sure it will be totally different going with Brazilians rather than Americans. Oh and i also think that Brazil has more holidays that any other country i have visited so far, almost every other weekend you take a Friday, Monday and/or Tuesday off of school or work. Anyways if all of that goes well i will be traveling non-stop for all of October and into November, pretty crazy.

One thing that i am saddened by is that Brazil ISNT as cheap as the other Latin American counties and my money doesn't last as long :( boo. no worries i wont go broke but it just isn't as exciting because i like cheap things! lol The brazilian "real" and "rieas" are only 2 to one dollar. but ill suck it up and not buy any extra food so i can stay slim and be cheap at the same time! tchau!

The week long birthday!

Do you remember how i said that a couple of my friends and i were going to go the airport to buy tickets to go to rio de janiero? well that was a entire day adventure, we all met at 1230pm and decided to catch the bus to go, well in Brazil there isn't a bus schedule...you just stand there totally available for any car to take you out as you wait to wave down the bus that may or may not come. Well it did come eventually after 45minutes, and it was only around a dollar (which was the only good part)and it took about an hour and a half to get there. And we went around to even company and found out that the tourist agencies actually have the best price, so we bought our tickets for 255 reias (125 dollars) to get there and back on the 20th-25th of October. I am excited because that weekend there wont be as many people and the prices wont be ranked up because of the holiday. But the way back was brutal... it was almost 2 and a half hours on that bus, lucky we were sitting next to people that we knew... but it was packed tight and a drunk guy came on the bus with his beer just to say hi. So we left at around 1pm and came back at 730pm, and most of the trip was in transit. But i got back in time to change and shower to go out to my moms birthday.

So i have realized here that when you have a birthday, it isn't one day... its as long as you can stretch it out. my moms birthday is actually today but it started on Tuesday, my friends and i went out to salsa and she said that she was going too! she is really fun and all my friends were impressed that she was so cool. Anyways we all went out to a nice restaurant where there was live music and good juice and food, and a lot of the family came out. Leo came with me, which was good to not be the only one who spoke English, but he was a little overwhelmed by all of the people, as i was the first time. But we had a good time, and the singer was so animated that i couldn't help but think about the only Latin guy in the movie "proposal" that played the exotic dancer, priest, the tool shop owner, and who knows what else, but he defiantly looked exactly like him. After we all ate and drank, my brother and i went home and my mom went out to go party somewhere else with her friends and cousins. She parties hard.

This morning Leo called me to wake up, i sleep through so many alarms even here when they are so loud and annoying, i seem to be able to press snooze without remembering every 5 minutes that i had already pressed it. But i manged to get up and go to the beach for a couple of hours today, although there wasn't that much sun... it was really hot. Then i came home and at lunch with my family and had the best chocolate cake ever! They told me that they are going to a wedding today at a nice place that i don't really remember the name but they said they will be out until 6 in the morning and i think the 5 days of partying out of 7 a week might be getting to me, because i just might go out to a movie instead. but i want some more of that cake as i am writing this. So i think i am going to get some, tchau!

Why can't i get tan in Brazil?!

So today a couple of friends and i are going to attempt to buy tickets to go to Rio de Janiero, the issue is that they're are so many prices that we are confused and trying to get the cheapest one possible. We are going to go to the airport, which is an hour bus ride in the most crazy traffic ever, but its only a dollar for the ride, so i cant complain that much.

It is my hosts moms birthday tomorrow so we are all going out for her birthday at some bar, she is such a partier! I went out with my friends to salsa night and she was there too! she is so Brazilian and fits right in with the amazing dancers, that i swear Brazil breeds and something is in there water that makes all of their butts huge. She said that even though her birthday is on Saturday, that it started on Tuesday! Awesome right? Anyways i hope there is as good of food there as there is here at home when she makes it for me.

The last couple of days in class haven't been the most enjoyable. I had a tour of pelorinho yesterday, which i feel like i could give a tour now, because of how many times i have been there. No matter how much i love history, 10 museums in one day will tire anyone out. I also had a test in Portuguese, which went surprising well i think, it wasn't as hard as i thought it was going to be, which i was happily surprised. In my culture class, i have a paper due on Tuesday about race and social rankings. I am not sure where i am suppose to go with this because i am sure that my mom does everything the same as my maids do, but i have 2 maids, and i am pretty sure are friends, but i don't know how or if they get paid, it is all so confusing here. But i just take it how it is because otherwise my head would just hurt to bad.

So my Brazilian tan isn't working out the way i wanted, i am still pale in Brazilian standards. I went to the beach on Monday and on Wednesday, but i guess i have to go more because it isn't working so far. I barely have any tan lines! But i am sure that i will catch up before i go back to the united states, and my Christmas card we be awesome, ill be so tan. But i do have a havaiana tan line... that means some progress at least! Well we will see how this weekend goes, between planning my trip to Rio, writing a paper, celebrating my mae's birthday, and getting tan... i will be learning Portuguese! tchau ate logo!

Gay Pride, Parties, and Doggies

So today i went to the Gay parade in Salvador, it was an adventure. (By the way gay marriage is legal here in Brazil) I have never seen so many people dressed up so much that you cant tell who are girls or guys anymore. Anyways it is huge, and still going on at the moment, i just returned back home because it started to rain and i had already walked through it for about 2 hours. I guy walked up to leo and i and preceded to tell leo that he loved him and grab his hand to start dancing... and although he was up to see what the parade was about (because when else are you going to get the chance to go to a gay parade in Brazil?)he thought that it was time for him to leave. So we met up with more people from the group and a couple of girls and i wondered through again, and surprising for a GAY parade a lot of guys wanted to touch our hair and grab our hands. Maybe i will never fully understand Brazil, but i know that totally naked girls dancing on trucks, guys showing everything to the cameras wouldn't exactly be OK in the United States, or at least to the extent of my knowledge.

This weekend was the first full weekend in Salvador, because i went to the island last weekend. I think i might have to slow the night life down because i have gone out 3 nights in a row and my ears are ringing from the music still. I am not really that tired, which is surprising because i feel like the day and nights never end here and you only sleep when you are tired because there is no set time to sleep like my schedule in the US. However besides Brazil being a never ending party, i am losing weight, i am not really sure how this is happening but it is. I eat everyday 3 full meals and don't really exercise and my clothes are getting loose, and i know that it is not the whole absence of a dryer ordeal because when i was in Argentina... it made them tighter and stiffer. But whatever... maybe its the dancing and walking that i do everyday, who knows...

But i got a surprise today, i have been bugging my host brother Paulo, about a dog because i love dogs and he has one at grandmas house but it lives there... but today shaky is here! That's the doggy's name, he is a poodle around 10 years old but he is cute and just lays with me everywhere, i even held him while i was washing dishes, he is around 5 lbs! well i have a test tomorrow in Portuguese class and i think i am going to just think in Spanish and just change it into Portuguese slowly... that way i know i will get at least the grammar and sentence structure correct.

Fee Capital of the world: Brasil

So today was exciting... our Portuguese homework was the hardest and most diffucult thing ever, we have to meet at a different city for our class tomorrow and then we learned that we have to pay a 180 dollar tax to registrar with the police. It for sure was the not best day in Brazil for me. But i cant really get out of it because i have to do my homework, and i have to go to class, and i am not going home yet so ill deal with it. Brazil i swear is the fee capital of the world, we have to pay a fee to go to the island of 10 reias and a tax to leave the island... crazy! ugh.

Anyways i had to go the bank today... boo i just don't like banks that much, i wish the atm was in the computer some how, that would be so useful. But one thing that was cool today is that my host mom, carla, said that we are going to rio de janiero for a wedding of her cousin in November, and i am excited to go with people who know where they are going and speak the language! We have a really long holiday weekend in October as well and its during Oktoberfest in Santa Catarina in the south so i will try and convince my friends to go, so that i don't go to Rio twice. Or maybe we can go to Sao Paulo or something, they also really want to go to the Amazon... but i am not sure if i would be down for that because i cant remember if i got the yellow fever shot when i went to Argentina. But maybe i did and i forgot, but some people say that you don't even need it, but i am not to sure how i feel about getting a topical disease in Brazil.

Other than that, it is going to be quite easy to buy Christmas presents for everyone here, especially the girls because they're are so many cute Brazilian stuff for girls. But the space thing is going to be the problem...because i don't have that much, seeing that i packed my bags to there maximum capacity. Oh well we will see how it goes! tchau... i have to go now... (if you were wondering that is the only English line to a Brazilian song that they play in the clubs everywhere)

Estava em Morro de Sao Paulo

So i haven't written in a week because i haven't had internet access, because i have been in Morro de Sao Paulo in Brazil. So it is pretty much the most amazing place Ive ever been too. We left on Friday morning at 730am, we all met in front of the hotel to take a taxi to the ferryboat station to get to the island. So when i say that it is an island, it is exactly what you would think an island would be. Palm trees, sand, 6 beaches, fruit and music everywhere. To bad it is difficult to get to, on Thursday morning we all took a taxi and then caught the ferryboat for an hour where we arrived at another island to get a bus for 2 hours to meet a speedboat for 45 minutes that will get you to the island. Difficult yes but totally worth it. So we get there and take our bags off the boat and walk onto the island and realize that the island has no roads at all but everything is wheel barrel accessible. Yep wheel barrels, they even say taxi on them, and it is the way that they carry everything from incoming goods, luggage, even hungover tourists. We booked a hostel for all of us, around 29 people went on the trip, 10 guys and 19 girls. In Brazil hostels are called pousadas and ours was the coolest one ever. It would be hard to find at times but it was right across from a alcohol store, fruit stand, and market, so everything that we needed and wanted was no more than 10 steps away. These neighbors were awesome too, they would play Brazilian music all night long and even in the daytime too, i don't think they ever slept, they were always awake! After a while they started givning us stuff because we had bought so much stuff from the stores that we boosted thier economy.
We ate out the first day because we had just arrived and had a diffucult journey. It was around 210 reias for about 14 people for dinner. So the next day we made breakfast in our hostel because our landlord came back cleaned and showed us how to use the kitchen. Breakfast was awesome so we decided to buy some food for lunch and cook it there, and then we did the same with dinner. It was crazy how much money we saved but cooking all together rather than eating out everyday. And it was a lot more fun to work together to do something. The real crazy part was that we made all of our own drinks before we went out to the concerts and clubs because we wanted to get creative, and those were so much cheaper too. The guys that owned the store right in fron of the hostel partied with us too, they would sell us discounted tickets as well as just dance and party with us in the front before hand. It was a lot of fun to meet the different Brazilian people and try and talk to them.
I'm sure that the group got to know each other a lot more closer because we did spend 4 days and nights together for every minute of the day going to the beach, shopping, and eating. Its amazing how well you get to know people when to share common space and time.
One thing that i never pay attention to in the united states is the sunrise or the sunset, many it is because i cant see them at all or because they are a different times than here. I have never seen such beautiful sunsets and sunrises as in Brazil, everyone is so amazing you just cant help but stare, even if it hurts your eyes. I woke up early today, or i stayed awake until 430am so i could see it, and it was so amazing and beautiful i could start my owe postcard business with the pictures i took. another thing is that the beach is totally different from the day to night time, i don't know how you would think it changes that much but it has 2 totally different vibes, i like that though, Brazil is showing me things that i would have never thought about back home in elk Grove. And only 3 months left. :)

Danca do Brasil

I think this is my 6th day in Brazil and i think i just want to stay, its amazing. Yesterday we had class and it was okay, but i little boring for me because i was in the intermediate but then i moved today to advanced so it was all good. The classes seem long but only 2 hours at a time and we have a break so it isn't bad, and it doesn't seem like a real class because we only have around 12 people in the Portuguese and then its the program in the other.
Yesterday almost the entire group went out the this bar in the city for salsa night, the bar was African, the band was Chilean and we are in brasil, crazy mix that totally worked out! The music was amazing and everyone was dancing it was so much fun, nobody really cared and there was no problems :) we stayed out until 3, because it was one of the girls in the group's birthday, and she turned 21, so we simply had to celebrate hard! when we got home i tried to go in my apartment complex and the guard said i didn't live there but i had never seen the guard before so how do i know that he doesn't really work there, anyways i finally got in.
Although i didn't get much sleep last night i woke up today without a headache or even really feeling that tired, which is weird for me cause i am so used to a agenda. Maybe my body has found out that i am on vacation and its coping well. So after school a couple of us went to the mall to try and buy phones, which was a fail because we didn't know that you needed a passport for that kind of thing, but brasil need identification for everything, they would probably check your blood type if they could. So we also tried to buy some swim suits for the weekend because we are going to a small island off the city called morro de sao paulo. So we ventured into foreign territory and bought the tiny little bottoms that don't even cover your bottom, but oh well we are in Brazil and we must do as the brazilains do!