a week in the jungle

yesterday i got back into Salvador from a week long adventure in the amazon! it was such a great trip, a once in a lifetime sort of thing... but i am definitely going to repeat it. here is a play by play:

Day 1: ( thursday Oct 28)- our plane to Manaus in the state of Amazonas left Salvador at 5:30 am... So the group (8 people total) left for the airport at 1am to make our flight. Our flight was crazy, we made 4 stops before getting to manaus, but we never had to deboard the plane. new people just came on and left at each city we stopped at. I was completely exhausted becuase techincally i never slept before leaving salvador, so i slept the whole way, but of course woke up just in time when the food card passed by my seat. the food on the plane was great, none of us were expecting to have actual food on the flight. Once we arrived in Manuaus our tour company had a guy waiting for us who took us to our hotel. We landed around noonish and our offical tour started the next day, So after we checked in we walked around Manuaus, took a tour of the famous opera house there, ate food and went to bed extremely early

2: (friday)- OUr tour company picked us up from the hotel we stayed at and took us to the port of the amazon river where we had to boat across. the amazon river was really cool! two main rivers meet right in the middle, and you can actually see where they meet the lighter colored Solimoes River and the darker Rio Negro. THe two rivers do not mix, they have different PH levels, and its crazy you can actually feel the temperature difference between the two. Once we got off the boat two vans were waiting for us, an hour on the road later we got on another boat to take us to our lodge where we would stay! The lodge we stayed at was super nice, way better than what i was expecting! First thing when we got there we ate a delicoius lunch and then after when piranha fishing! I caught one :) After finishing we can back to the lodge real quick before heading out at night for crocodile hunting. you go at night becuase when you shine a flashlight in the eyes of the crocs they compleely freeze and you can get them. haha of course we didnt get out of the boat, our guides caught them and then everyone on the boat was able to touch them and take pictures. the ones they caught were not very big.


Day 3: (Saturday)- i guess october and Novemeber are the worst months to visit the amazon, this is becasue it is the less rainiy season so the river is very low which means there are not many animals to be seen... but what it really means is there is a TON of mud that you have to look out for. Since the water was so low, when we tried to go on our first trek through the jungle we had a lot of trouble getting out of the boat becuase of boat couldnt reach the shore becuase of all the mud. Tiffany, on of the girls in my group was the first to get out of the boat on to the land and completly sunk into the mug past her knees. SO treking through the jungle didnt really happen this day so we went to a locals house who let us tour their property. After lunch we packed up for the night to spend a night in the jungle. again we had a huge problem with getting out of the boat onto the shore, this time it was extremly difficult becuase we had all of our gear and the mud was SO deep. another guy from our lodge actually had to boat over to the site and help our guide out.AH how could i not have mentioned our wonderful guide! his name was Jaoquim and he was the greatests. He has lived all over the world and speaks like 7 different languages, he is originally from Manauas. When ever we got stuck in the mud he would be like.. " Oh big shit, we are completely stuck-ed" and the ed at the end of any word was pronoucned like the name ED.
Finally we got everything to the camp site, we set up hammocks to sleep in.. with mosquito net.. and started to cook dinner!

Day 4 (Sunday= HALLOWEEN) : We woke up bright and early after a tough nights sleep. I love hammocks but they are not the best to sleep over night in. Along with the combination of animal noises and snores it was tough to sleep. We ate breakfast and then immediately began our trek through the jungle. We had to wear long pants and long shirts while on the hike because of the plants and other things that could come in contact with our skin... the hike was great, just being in lots of clothes was so hard. Its freaking hot in the amazon and at 7am i was sweating like i ran 10 miles!!! I was completely drenched! After our hike we packed up and canoed back to the lodge for lunch and some rest. it was so hot that once we got back i immediately hoped into the river, filled with piranhas, other fishies, alligators and dolphins :) the water was so weird.. there isn't a set temperature, you can be swimming in a cold patch and then all of a sudden you would be in a boiling patch of water. Next we went fishing again, but this time with a net and we caught SOOO many fish! we didn't get any pirahas but lots of other cool looking ones. Once back from fishing we decided that we had to celebrate halloween by dressing up for dinner. NONE of us had costumes or anything that we could actually make work so we ended up looking a little silly.

Day 5 (Monday)- in the morning we went to a "rubber factory"! One of the local family's have been in the rubber business for a long time, so we tour a tour of his land and got the watch the whole process. Rubber comes from the sap of a tree.. who knew? in the afternoon we went on a massive "hunt" for crocodile. Basically we went on a 3+ hour canoe ride up and down the river beds to spot alligators, and we saw a lot! Monday night things got a little crazy... the plan was to not eat dinner at the lodge... but instead to actually hunt a crocodile and go fishing and had a bbq on a beach. We had 3 guys including our guide take us... but it turns out one of the Brazilians who was with us was drunk and wanted to leave us on the beach while he went off to go smoke or something. Not totally sure about the whole story but our tour guide got super pissed at this guy... so we returned to the lodge our Jaoquim made us pasta since we didn't have any luck with the croc or fishing ( i was not disappointed, haha)


6 ( Tuesday)- we went to a natives house as our last day in the amazon! the lady of the house we went too has a pineapple farm and i had no idea pineapple grows on a bush! after lunch we packed up our stuff to leave the lodge at 1:30pm to start our journey back to Manaus. our flight wasn't until 11:30pm so we walked around the city and got dinner before heading off the airport! the flight this time was a little bette because we only had a 3 hour lay over in Sao Paulo instead of making a bunch of flights!! we got back in to Salvador around 12pm-ish the next day!

The week was such a blast! I am so happy that i was able to experience the amazon... i just wish that we could have seen more wildlife, but that just means i will have to return sometime in the future!!!

this weekend i am off to Cachoeria with my entire EAP group! finally a little trip that is included through my program!!!

RIO DE JANEIRO

i just got back to salvador this morning from an amazing long weekend in Rio. Rio is an amazing city and it is by far one of the greatest places i have been to in the world!!


Day 1 (longest day ever): in total a group of 12 of us went to rio, but some of us had different flights. SO the first flight out (8 of us) all met at matt's 'penthouse" at 10pm on Tuesday night. We took a van to the airport at 12:30 am to make it on our 4am flight to rio! Such an early start to the day, but it was worth it so we had a full day in rio! After we landed we took a city bus to get to our hostel in Ipanema. the bus was freezing, and so was the plan ride! My first impressions of Rio were, wow they really like their air conditioning!!! After we got in to Ipanema and settled in to our Hostel, everyone was exhausted and decided to take naps... but mollie and i decided to do our napping on the beach. We literally passed out on the beach for a couple of hours, i don't think we even talked at all... we just immediately fell asleep. Which was a problem, because when we were asleep a huge wave came and wiped us out. We were probably at least a good 30 feet from the shore when the wave came up over us... everyone on the beach was surprised by the wave. we were soaked, and unfortunately we both had our cameras and they got destroyed :( and to top everything off, i was tanning in a strapless bikini and decided to unhook the back strap while i was lying down. Kinda a bad choice because when the wave woke me up i was all confused and jumped up forgetting about my top and ended up flashing some people. OH WELL. After the wave debacle we immediately decided to head back and try to clean up all of our sandy and wet clothes/towels.... this was by far the biggest downer of the trip, but the day got better! We hiked up pao de azucar at sunset and saw the most amazing views!! It made the day whole much better.




Day 2: Thursday. THis was a great day, filled with the tourist sightseeing that i have been looking forward to! One of the guys working at our hostel set us up with 3 taxi drivers to be our guides for the day and take us all over the city. We started with the Christo! Something that i have wanted to see for as long as i can remember! The Christo can be seen from all over the city, it is at the very top of Corcovado. We drove up through the jungle to get to the top of the mountain, and the views were amazing!!! Luckily there were not mainly clouds, so the pictures everyone took were amazing! Next we went the Catedral de Sao Sebastiao.... beautiful!!! from the outside its this cement weird triangle looking shaped building, but its gorgeous from the inside with tons of stained glass! Next we went to Lapa, were the famous steps are! its so cool, it was one of the neatest places in rio... the steps are constructed from different tiles from around the world that travelers made! they are from all over, i even saw one that had the oakland A's on it! This day was a great day!!!

Day 3: Friday. Majority of the girls + Bryant decided to spend the day at the Botanical Gardens... It was really pretty and it was nice just to walk through and be at peace. Basically the day turned into a giant photo shoot, there were so many pretty spots and with 6 girls we got a little carried away! That night we all headed to Lapa. Lapa at night is crazy, and amazing... its really hard to describe it. THe whole neighborhood area is one big party. There are tons of bars and clubs, but everyone dances and parties in the streets. Plus there are so many vendors in the street where the drinks are cheaper.


Day 4: Saturday. BEACH DAY ALL DAY!!! After we all woke up, mollie ashley and I mainly spent the whole day on the Ipanema beach while another group went on a fevela tour. It sounded cool, and everyone had a great time on the tour but i didn't really want to go into a favela. Safety wasn't the issue, i just didnt really want to see people living in poverty and invade their neighborhood... ive seen my fair share of poor neighborhoods, so i decided to enjoy the beach instead! Saturday night was kinda interesting.. but ended up being extremely fun. Our group of 12 ended up splitting off into 3 groups and me, Jessica and Wendy wound up making a ton of new friends. We ended up celebrating 2 Brazilians birthday, it was great! we sang Parabens, ate cake and the bar we were at was playing all 50's/60's american music and it was so much fun to dance to great music!!!


Day 5: Sunday. Mollie, Jessica and I headed into Ipanema for the market, called Hippie in Rio. There were TONS of stands, and i think we were all successful in buying souvenirs for ourselves and for family/friends. I bought this really pretty painting or a view of rio! Im excited to get it up on my wall back in Davis! After the market we explored Copacabana a little bit and then returned to the hostel. On sunday night the Black Eyed Peas were in Rio for a concert, a group of us really wanted to go check it out and see if we could get tickets. When we got to the venue, the tickets ended up being a lot more expensive than we though they were gong to be... so only a few ended up going. I did not. Instead i spent my money on a long awaited burrito. I was eying this place in town since day 1 i got to Rio, and it was such a great last meal in Rio! I have been missing mexican food so much, and i think everyone that went to the restaurant was extremely satisfied. It was super expensive, but definitely worth it. Our flight left this morning (Monday) at 7am... we landed in Salvador a little after 8am... and actually made it back to Victoria a little after 9am, just in time to make it to out 10am class. Extremely long day. After class i came home and immediately took a nap! and now i have a bunch of work to do!!!

My weekend was so fabulous, i am so extremely happy! I just wish i could keep traveling around Brazil and not have to be tied down in Salvador with school work!! Its not so much fun to actual study haha. But on thursday I leave for the Jungle! I cannot wait, i just have a bunch to de before i leave!!!

hugs from Brasil!!!!

Itacare = amazing!

I got back in to salvador last night from an amazing couple of days in Itacare. The trip was extremely last minute and i am so happy i was able to go!!! For the past couple of weeks a lot of people in my program have been talking about going to Lencois over this weekend (5 day weekend... tuesday is a holiday). Lencois is a beautiful town and it lies within a national park... and from the pictures i have seen it looks gorgeous, filled with waterfalls and wilderness. but unfortunately since it was a holiday weekend and there was a music festival happening the same weekend we couldn't find a place to stay. (i hate hostel-world... dont book through it). So as an alternative a group of us decided to go to Itacare!!!

Itacare is south of Salvador, to get there we took a ferry to get to the other side of the bay, and then a 5 hour bus ride! Itacare is amazing, it is so gorgeous. Its a little town which basically consists of restaurants, pousadas (hostels), and little shops. there are 18 beautiful beaches that surround Itacare and to get to the less people filled beaches its about a good 40-70 minutes walk through the "jungle" to get to the most beautiful beaches you have ever seen.

We left right after class on thursday to catch at 12pm ferry and a 2:30pm bus. We got in to Itacare around 8pm and settled in to "buddy's pusada" . the hostel was SO great. it is run by these two Irish guys who were wonderful, the breakfast was bomb and they had hammocks that i took so many naps in. On friday we decided to "hire" a guide... basically this guy saw us walking towards the beach with surfboards and wouldn't leave us alone until we agreed to pay him to take us to the beaches. but good thing we got a guide... or else there was no way we could have found this one beach called praiahina that we wanted to go to. It was about an hour and a half hike in total to the beach... but with our guides help we stopped and cool little spots to go swimming in a swimming hole and stopped at awesome look out point to get some good photos. PLus the guy was very entertaining.. you could tell that the little english he knew he learned from tourists and american songs... he sang to us the whole way to the beach, everything from lady gaga to Michael Jackson.

The beach we went to was GORGEOUS, there were not a lot of people there which was nice and the water was perfect and the waves were great! I attempted to surf... i never stood up and only tried one run. i have discovered im not a huge fan of surfboard because the long board i was using kinda hit me and took me out. OH WELL, i tried.

Saturday we decided to go rafting!!! 2 guys from the rafting company picked up us in the morning from our hostel in this crazy trunk. it was like two benches that were elevated in the bed of the pick up and it was covered... like a mix between a covered wagon and the indian jones ride at disney land. It was about an hour drive out to the river, and the river was beautiful!!! I was in the jungle, it was amazing! the rapids didn't really compare to the other rivers i have been down in the US, but it was still really fun and definitely worth the money. In the middle of the trek down the river we were able to get out and swim around and cliff jump! i think i jumped from the highest i ever had before.. and then at the very end we did some zip-lining. All in all it was a really fun day and i was so happy to do something more adventures than just going to the beach.

we decided to leave sunday instead on monday (today) because yesterday it was raining and we needed to get back to salvador. On wednesday i have a paper due and a final. Haven't really started the paper or started studying for my portuguese final... but that is my mission for today and tomorrow.

Tartaruga fotos!

Praia do Forte

HI!

Yesterday was one of the first times that i actually got out of Salvador in a while! A group of us decided to take a day trip to Praia do Forte which is a semi-nearby beach town. (a little less than 2 hours away by bus). Praia do Forte is gorgeous! and also it has a sea turtle reserve... Projecto Tamar has a museum/aquarium/preserve for the sea turtles set up right on the beach! Ive been so excited for like weeks about going! I really wanted to see the turtles, so i was really happy we were finally able to plan a trip and go!!

But besides the amazing turtles, the town was beautiful!!! It was so nice to be at quieter beach where venders dont harass you to buy what they are selling. Praia do forte was definitely the nicest town in Brazil that i have seen, it was definitely built up for tourists, but i still loved it! It was just so relaxing and simple and tropical! After going for the day, a bunch of other girls and i were talking about coming back another time and staying the night! Its just so easy and cheap to get there.. why not?!

For some reason i feel that this past week i have been a bit of a hermit... Ive been staying in most nights and loving catching up with my American shows and been skyping with friends from home a lot more. this is totally not out of the norm for me, i think i have just become a little too comfortable with my bubble in Salvador and i need to make my daily life here more exciting and get out and explore more. Which is why i am very excited about getting out of Salvador yesterday. I love everything about Salvador, but i havent explored outside of my life here.

October is going to be a very exciting month, hopefully if everything works out i will be traveling all around!!! Next weekend is a 5 day weekend (woohoo) and i might be going to Lencóis & Chapada Diamantina, which from what i have read and seen pictures of is a beautiful national park with waterfalls and tons of beautiful things!!!! towards the end of October a group of us are going to RIO and i am having so much fun researching and figuring out fun things to do.. i am beyond excited!!! then hopefully I will be spending my Halloween in the Amazon!!!!

I will post pictures of the turtles once i upload them!!!

immersed.

Oi amigos y familia!

The past week i have really gotten to know to Afro-brazilian culture in Salvador. It really funny because what we are covering in class is directly relating to my life in Salvador... super crazy and weird. In class we are learning about Candomblé (religion consisting of many different gods) , Capoeria and everything involving afro-brazilian culture.. we even had a paper due on Tuesday that was about the service jobs in Salvador. The prompt was to simply answer this question: Who performs the service jobs in todays society? and then we had to relate it back to the material covered in class. My host family's maid, Zileeta, is the one in my household who does all the laundry and cleaning and cooking and she was a large part of my paper. But whats great is that i spent all day sunday with her!

She has the day off work on sundays, and it made me feel so great when she asked to spend the day with me! Of course it was a little difficult to communicate with her, but it was so fun! We spent the day at her daughters apartment ( i got the sense that she was housesitting while her daughter is out of town..) I used the gym and went swimming there. And then she made the both of us lunch, we watched TV together, got ice cream and then i went back home! It was so great to be around her outside of the environment where she "works" for me.

Today ( wednesday) after class our EAP leader and her husband took us to his home neighborhood, ( a favela). There we got to sit in on a Capoeria class! ahhh it was amazing! the first class was a bunch of little kids ages 2-7 and they were all so cute! after the kids class was the more advanced class and it had adults and younger teenagers! it was so amazing to watch! everyone was so good and the room was full of energy!

If you dont know what capoeira is, it is related to Candomblé and a huge part of the Afro-Brazilian culture. Capoeira is a mixture of dance, martial arts and like an extreme dance battle fight. Everyone in the class was so great at it, they were doing flips and kicking everywhere. At the end of class, the capoeria students grabbed a bunch of us to "battle" and to give it a try. I gave it a try and i may have failed... it was really fun though! now i really want to get in to it more and start taking a Capoeria class!

Spending the day with Zileeta and watching everyone play capoeria really immersed me into the Afro-Brazilian culture. Living with an upper middle class "white" Brazilian family i am not really exposed to the afro-brazilian culture that salvador has to offer! But this past week it was been so great to be a part of it, i feel so welcome and i am so anxious to learn more!!

ALSO this weekend i'm off to Praia de Forte, about 2 hours out of salvador.. it a beautiful beach were sea turtles hatch! I AM SO EXCITED! and then also a group of us booked out flights to RIO for the end of october!

AMOR!


this is me attempting Capoeira!

Updates!

Salvador is officially my home, i feel really comfortable here.. i love it! This past week has been filled with fun parties, exploring the city and hanging out with my host family!

At the end of last week our professor took our class out of the classroom and took it to the streets! we went to Pelourinho and walked around and went into different museums as our professor "lectured". I am living in the State of Bahia which is known for its afro-brazilian culture and influence. Way back when, the majority of slavery took place in Bahia, more specifically in Salvador. which is why today the majority of the population in Salvador is black... and the history of slavery/identity/culture in Bahia is what one of my classes is about. So in taking the class out to Pelourinho our professor tried to connect it all together to present day. Pelourino was once the site where slaves were disciplined... but now it is the heart of the city and has the most exciting night life! it was great to finally get there and walk about during the day and see all the beauty that area of salvador has to offer.... by this point i had only been to Pelourinho at night.

Since the weekend, my host family has had a LOT of visitors. on Friday one of my host families old students they hosted from 2 years before came to visit with a friend. the two girls are studying in Rio for a semester and had a long weekend and pasted through salvador! It was great to finally speak a little english with people in my house. The two girls came out that night with me and my friends from my program and we all went to a forro. Forro is a brazilian dance, and its with a partner and its to a folk band that has an Accordion, i didnt really give it that big of a chance, so i hope to test my forro skills many more times while i am here. Also the next night we went to this bar that was free if you came before 9pm... so of course my group got there around 8:30. It was so great to go to a place that didnt have a cover charge. but anyways this place was great because for the first 2 hours we were there they played american music! Ah i have missed it so much, it was so fun to be able to dance and sing along to songs that i knew! they played lady gaga, madonna and like Nelly Furtado... ahhh it was so great!! and then they had a band who came on and sang cover songs that were american and brazilian. it was so fun!!!

On sunday I went with my host family to one of their friends house for lunch. It was probably the first time i felt completely out of my element... i was surround by about 20 brazilians and i had NO idea what they were talking about. usually with my host family i can communicate pretty well, Mary will speak in portuspanglish with me and roberto and leo usually speak very slowly so i can follow. But at lunch everyone was around old friends and the convo was flowing and i could not keep up!! one of the couples there just got back from vacation in California and they kept trying to talk to me about california and one of the guys there was an engineer so he kept asking me questions and it was crazy. Hopefully they didnt think i was some retarded american who couldnt speak. but it was fun to be completely immersed in the culture and be with brazilians outside of my host family!
my host moms parents came into town sunday night and they have been here ever since. Its been great getting to know them even though the language barrier is tough... usually Mary, RObert or Leo end up interpreting what i am trying to say to them. ok kinda weird, but it is customary to not to flush toilet paper in the toilet, but ever since my brazilian grandparents have been here... the grandpa has not even been flushing the toliet. I share a bathroom with the grandparents while they are here and every time i go in the bathroom they seat is up and it is not flushed! really strange.. maybe he is trying to conserve water? its just really weird and i cant really say anything because thats super awkward. Also, there are 6 people sleeping in the apartment but definitely not enough beds... i have no idea where leo is sleeping! haha

I have my first test tomorrow in my Portuguese class... pretty exciting! school really hasnt been difficult, so im excited that things are moving faster now! Also, me and a couple of friends are starting to plan a trip to Rio for our next 5 days weekend!!! Pretty exciting!!

After being gone for a month, i am REALLY starting to miss american food. I feel like ive been eating a ton of meat and potatoes and rice. I will kill for vegetables or something that has a little more flavor!!

Tchau!!

Morro de Sao Paulo

HI! sorry familia that i haven't updated in a while, i was gone all weekend (friday-tuesday) at a beautiful island!

On Friday morning 29 of us from EAP left from Salvador headed to Morro de Sao Paula. it was absolutely gorgeous! Its a tad rough to get there, first its about an hour ferry ride to this one island which i forget the name of... and on the way there it was such a bumpy ride because it was a little rainy. Once on the island we took a giant van to Valencia which was one the other side of the island to catch another boat. Once to Valencia we took our own boat all the way to Morro! thankfully Chris ( UCEAP director at acbeu) organized all of our travels for us so we had a guide come with us all the way to Valencia and then as soon as we got off the boat in morro de Sao Paulo we had a couple waiting for us with a sign saying "universidad de california". so it was really comforting to have everything already taken care of the first time traveling outside of Salvador. We stayed at this tiny pousada (hostel)... and honestly it was way more expensive and shitty than anything i experienced in Chile. haha but its part of the experience, it was a holiday weekend and there was a huge music festival going on at the beach which is why the prices were so high. The beds were not too great and there wasn't any hot water in my bathroom for showering... but the guy running the place was very cool and let us kinda destroy the place haha.

The island is beyond beautiful! for being the end of winter, it was beautiful and sunny! We spent 4 days lying on the beach! i had my first acai bowl, ( lindsey, so much better here than in Hawaii) and it was delicious! there were tons of guys walking on the beach with menus from restaurants along the boardwalk, so you could order and eat acai, crepes and smoothies right on the beach! After the first day the people in my hostel ( about 15ish of us) decided to start cooking family dinners to save money.. and also our food was delicious! It was so great to travel with people from my program because i feel that i came back from the island with stronger friendships!

Unfortunately on saturday night i came down with some weird sickness and was kinda out of it until yesterday... still not really sure what was up with me. But im thinking i just didnt have enough water for how much i was in the sun or maybe i ate something funny... but i had a fever and the chills for about 2 nights but i slept it all off! It was a bummer to get sick while on the island and i definitely missed out on a lot of fun the nightlife on the island had to offer, but i still made sure to hit the beach during the day! I also had some difficulties with my debit card, it was put on hold because the bank thought there was some fraud activity... i kinda worried my mom a lot. but when i got back home to Salvador we figured it all out and thankfully some great friends on my program lent me some money since i couldn't get any out!

Since we didnt have class on monday or tuesday, we only have a class 2 days this week!!! SO much more beach time to come! So far everything down here has been absolutely fantastic, although getting sick did make me a bit homesick! And this past week all my davis roommates moved in to our new apartment and i so wish i could have been there to help... i love and miss everyone!

the past couple days...

Oi!

I feel like i haven been in Brazil forever, but as i look at my calendar it hasn't even been a week! I think this is a very good sign, im starting to feel very comfortable!!!

Monday was the first day of class, but it was more like 2 hours of a get to know your professors and what to expect in the program. We were done with class by 12pm, so everyone returned home for lunch with our host family, then we hit the beach! In Salvador it is winter right now, but the beach was warm and wonderful and packed with tons of people! I cant wait till it even gets warmer and i can work on my tan :) Everyone in my program is so friendly and wonderful and everyone is just looking to make friends and have a wonderful time, so the beach was really fun, there were probably about 30 of us there total! After the first day of "class" I already had homework assignment due the next day, to read a 75 page excerpt and analyze it to find the authors thesis and all that junk... definitely a bit out of my element but it will be great!

Since class has started i have a definite routine, i have class from 10-12 then go back home for lunch and then i have class again usually around 1:30 or 2pm.. but whats weird is that lately ive been eating a lot of meals by myself. If my host parents don't make it back in time from work before i go back to school i miss them, and since dinner isnt a big thing usually i eat dinner by myself. buts its all good because usually leo is watching tv nearby so im not completely alone!!

Last night (tuesday) one of the girls from my program had a birthday so EVERYONE from EAP (all 38? of us) met up and went to Pelourinho. Pelourindo would be the equivalent to the "downtown" area... it is the historic center of Salvador and it is gorgeous! If you googled Salvador, with out a doubt majority of the pictures (besides ones from the beach) would be of Pelourindo. Tuesday nights is a big thing in Pelourindo, there were guys playing african drums all around and people were dancing, it was so fun to watch! I really felt like i was immersed into South America! all 38 of us went to the same bar where there was salsa dancing! I am definitely not the greatest, but i am hoping by december i will be like a salsa dancing master. I had a little trouble communicating my plans to my host dad, so i resorted to google translate... i typed in what i wanted to say and he read the translation on my computer, kinda lame and awkward but we figured it out! thank god for google!!!

Today after class me and a couple other people went on an adventure to the mall... it was my first time taking the buses in salvador! I was a little worried, but it wasn't bad at all. I was thinking it would be super crowded and i would have to really watch my back. but we went at like 3:30 in the afternoon so it was perfectly safe (dont worry mom and dad). My goal at the mall was to get my phone working. My host parents gave me one of their old cell phone to borrow, which is great! theres no need to have a fancy phone that only draws attention and this way i dont have to buy one! but what i needed to do was buy a sim card and then charge it with credit. No phones in south america work on a plan like they do in the US, everyone puts a certain amount of money on their chip and then calls and text cost a certain amount.... but of course when i got to the phone store i needed to show them my passport which is didn't have, so the phone adventure will have to be another day!

So instead we decided to go check out some brazilian bikinis. At the beach on monday, all the girls in my program were the only ones in normal sized swim suits! brazilians sure like to flaunt it and unfortunately none seemed to fit me... but there will definitely be some bikini somewhere that is calling my name!

this weekend acbeu has a 5 day weekend!!!! yaya! tuesday is Brazils independence day, which of course means monday is a holiday too. So theres going to be a group of us from EAP who are going to go to a neighboring island, Morro de São Paulo. I've heard that this island is so beautiful and the beaches are gorgeous, so that is what i will be doing all weekend, laying on the beach and working on my tan!!!

Im loving Brasil!

First Weekend with my Family!

Yesterday, i met my host mom after the EAP orientation at the hotel. the program directors passed each of us half of a postcard and our host families had the other half. I found my host mom right away! Her name is Mary and she has been so nice! I live with her and her husband Robert and their 13 year old son Leo.

Their apartment is very cute, we live on the 15th floor a couple blocks away from acbeu ( UC center) which is wonderful because i don't have to walk very far to get to class! I have my own room and it faces the ocean, its super nice! the apartment is about 1 blockish from the water.. and then its about 20min walk to the beach! ahh its been amazing so far! its beautiful here.

I feel like all i have done so far is eat, my host family keeps giving me food! When I came home with Mary the first thing i did after unpack was eat! My host family has a maid? I dont really want to call her that.. but i dont really know another word, she lives in the house monday-saturday and does all the cooking, cleaning, and laundry and then on sundays she leaves and returns to her own family. her name is Zeleta ( probably spelled it wrong..), but she is super sweet and her cooking is amazing! the first thing i ate was a cake she made and fresh juice! she is amazing! Its definitely going to be hard to get used to someone in that kind of a position, i wanted to bring my dishes to the kitchen to wash them and my host brother stopped me and she took the dish from me! kinda i weird, i dont want her to have to clean up after me!

yesterday my host brother had a birthday party to go to, so i went with Mary to drop him and his friends off. After we dropped him off she took me to this restaurant on the beach and we drank "agua de coco"... water from a coconut! it was SOOO good, i always thought that drinking out of a coconut seemed kinda gross... but it was SO good! after she drove around town a bit to give me a tour!

This morning i woke up and i was like oh my gosh im in brazil. haha its a funny feeling that this will be my home for the next 3 months, but i am definitely looking forward to it!
for lunch today Mary and Robert took me to what i can only describe as a Texas BBQ brazilian style. i honestly think it was the best meal i have ever eaten in my life! I kept thinking, my family back home, especially my dad would LOVE this! the best was i had a pineapple that had been grilled over the fire with like cinnamon or something, it was fantastic! ahh so good, i hope they take me back sometime soon!

the only problem so far has been the enormous language barrier.... Mary speaks a little bit of spanish and a tiny bit or English, so ive been kinda talking to her in spanglish. Robert only speaks Portuguese... so i havent really talked to him much besides responding with "tudo bem" ( which means Im fine) when he asks how i am.

My host brother seems really cool, but hes 13 so i dont really think he wants to hang out with some older girl who cant speak his language haha. but he really likes the sims and we watched twilight together yesterday, it was in Portuguese but he put on english subtitles for me!!

Tomorrow is the first day of class! and then on tuesday we already have an assignment due... we have to read like 75 pages then write a quick write up about it. i cant remember the last time i ad to read for a class, so this will definitely be an experience for me! i started working on it tonight so i can hit the beach manana!

hugs from Brasil!!!!

Boa noite!!!!