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!