3 countries

/buenos aires/now!! and looving it! the city has a looot of green space still and is more spred out that sao paulo, which it litterally JUST skyscraper for miles and miles to the world´s edges, here it´s more like the old pittsburgh buildings just three to 6 stories and made out of really pretty old stone and designs.

/yesterday/arrived here from iguazu falls. (it was a 18-hr ride, and arentina`s highway is only two-lanes (one lanes for each direction) so they are expanding it now by two lanes, which they don´t pave the temporary side routes around where they`re working so we went through dirt roads a lot of the way... in the future i`m sure it`ll be a lot faster travel.

/long drive/... saw nothing but cows and flat land... THAT`s A LOT! i mean not even crops. or a single house. i think that´s about a lot of south american countries. some brazilians explained to me how you have to be rich to live in the country, but then if you`re rich you probably don`t want to/still need to be close to a city for business.

/left/for BA at 7:30 pm two days ago (it`s now 8:35 am) from Iguazu Falls, that same day we woke up at a hostel in Brazil but spent about the whole day in Paraguay... Paraguay´s Ciudad del Leste and Brazil´s Foz de Iguacu has really interesting dinamics!

/talked/to some braizlians and paraguayans, they say almost everyone who lives in foz de iguacu works in paraguay. and really, i`ve never crossed a river and had the world around me change soooooooo much!!! it was INCREDIBLE!

/guy/on the bus warned me- ´´why are you taking a bag? you`ll have to watch it really well! paraguay is a verrry poor country and everything over there is diiiirt cheap, so everyone goes over there to shop.´´

/asked/him why ´ppl don´t want to live over there on the paraguayan city, he said ´´you´ll see it`s really dirty and violent and a lot of people everywhere´´ (which is a HUUUGE contrast to foz de iguacu, when we were walking around there was never a single other person in viewing distance... except when we were at mcdonald`s) but when we crossed the border- PACKED with ppl and vendors and people walking back across the border carrying maaaany new enormous bags of newly purchased items.

/i/wanna live in paraguay, even though it`s i`m sure exponentially more violent, the government is almost nonexistent, and saw lots of guns... enormous guns on ppl lots of places... it was really really neat, exciting, and i even thought pretty.

/crossing/ the border to paraguay there and back - we just took a bus and successfully made it. :] which was exciting, cause we illegally entered w/o a visa. but they checked the bus and guess we didn`t appear english speaking, pretty much all english-speaking ppl need a visa there... oh yeah our bus broke down leaving paraguay.. so we were in paraguay a few more hours than we thoguht we`d be.

/getting/ into argentina took not too long. zack, laura, and me were approved quickly but celesse was denied. had to go talk to them... cause sao paulo entered her as a tourist and she`s here as a student. so that was quickly corrected.

/this/adventure has started off incredibly. already taken a plane. city bus. top-floor front-seats of a traveling bus. train. taxi. been to 3 countries: brazil. paraguay. argentina. 2 languages: portuguese. spanish. =touuugh transition. we are only 3 days into our 2-week trip!

who sleeps before a trip?

/not/me. i think there has been few. probably can count them on one and. nights that i've slept before a flight. long drive. big change.

/tomorrow/we. ciee exchange students. all go to rio. it's part of the deal. how cool. i love rio. but what's even more exciting is seeing my brazilian friends.

/i/arrived the first week of january. stayed by myself in cabanacopa hostel. met some great people. made some great friends: fernando. mag. [and since being in salvador. char. indira.] reuniting is always great.

/after/rio. laura. zack. celesse. i. take a plane to iguazu falls. step in paraguay. 22-hr bus through argentina to buenos aires. party w/nadi. kate. andrew parker. [it'll be his bday.] boat to montevideo. that's in uruguay. another bus. not so long. back to brazil. porto alegre. flight to an island. florianopolis. flight back to rio. party w/indira for her bday. 3rd of may: back to salvador. hopefully i will have missed all the rest of rainy season.

/lette/turned 21. her party was at a club. a lot of us ciee folk made it to the event. i got a bottle of skyy. bottle of fanta. dumped the fanta. (skyy bottle was too heavy.) successfully tied the fanta bottle of skyy to my shirt. undermy skirt. saved so so much money. i went out a little too hard though. made it a shorter night.

semana santa

/jj/turned 21 this week. quick summary: almost all of us study abroad kids hung out on the beach. eating. drinking. provided by our new ´´friend.´´ capoeira-instructor. bartender. man of the favela. Juca. [i mean we did pay. but you just wish you new Juca.] his little stand on the beach appears to be the lemonade stand i had back in the day. legit. caiparinhas. some fish okra mishmosh stuff. on the beach. what more to ask for. after hung out at an outside bar in rio vermelho.

[note: juca is to the left of jj. you´ll know who jj is.]

/walked/ in a club/bar. requested lady gaga. denied by the dj. b/c? ´´i hate her.´´ after i ask why. ´´she´s ugly!´´ exact words. yes. they were said in english. whaaaut. since when does the dj get to bring in politics. more exactly. he´s not allowed to deny a request. esp a lady gaga request. don´t be takin her music for granted back in the states.

[right before some of the ppl had to be escourted home]

/just/enough money left to get us a cab back to barra. buy some grub. more specifically. get us to suco vinte-quatro horas [24 hrs.] for some açai and xis-burgers. walking home. tiffany almost got robbed by a little kid. peter chased him off.

/today/is good friday. i am left here in salvador knowing quasi-no one outside of my host-family that are still here. appears a lot of reading will happen. good thing. reading in portuguese takes a while. i have to look up ever other word. well had to. i´ve got it down to about 5 words a page. improvement is improvement.

/i/ feel like i´m reading shakespeare in portuguese. i am in the middle of reading ´´the posthumas memories of Bras Cubas´´ [in portuguese of course]. interesting reading a dead man reminense about his life from his funeral backwards. [i should probably spend time to read it in english sometime.] i am told and have read that it is the best piece of literature out of all latin america. it is over 130 years old.

/chocolate/enormous eggs. filled with individually wrapped regular sized versions. incredible. my host-mom gave me one yesterday. it is gone. i am going to buy one now. [easy to find. they are everywhere. all sizes. all types of chocolate. i think i´m going to buy the ferrero rocher. expensive. oh well.]