florianopolis

/is/beautiful.

/tip/do not make long travels with people you do not normally spend a lot of time with.

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.]

concusion?

/sitting/outside at a bar never appeared so dangerous. i was sitting at a table with some friends in my exchange group. i get wacked on the head. fall out of my chair. lost almost all the blood in my head. [not a good feeling.] in bewilderment. i grab my head and look around for whatever man just beat me with a bat. see nothing. we look around. the table next to ours holds up a nice wopper-sized mango.

/mangos/are very dense. heavy. hurt when they fall 30 feet out of a tree on your head. taste incredible. 3 fell. 1st one. had no victims and i got to eat it. it was the best mango i have ever had. 2nd one. i was not so lucky. 3rd one pelted the table. we promptly left.

/naked/men were the key attraction of the play. CIEE, the study abroad program. took us to a play about racism in bahia/brazil. it was interactive with the audience. somehow. [unfortunately. i understand 3/4 of what is spoken. slash. not that much. quasi nada when they were singing.] 1 naked man comes on stage very proudly strutting his stuff. singing. speaking. a choir is formed and the men start singing - in english, ´´sucky my dicky.´´ meanwhile. the women are groaning singing.... more extreme racial and sexual things are said. 4 naked men take the stage dancing as much as possible. while. a woman sings, ´´eu sou super-legal´´ = ´´i am super-cool.´´ enough said.

/ps/celesse and i spent 4 hours planning our trip. rio to iguazu falls. visit the brazil, argentina, and paraguay sides. bus to buenos aires. arrive the 23rd for the burthday of andrew parker... yes. [see nadi and kate!] boat to montevideo in uruguay. back to brazil. porto seguro. [i hear it has a rollercoaster you can control the speed?!] florianpolis on the island of santa catarina. back to rio for indira´s bday. holla.

finally get internet.

/today/was a bit frustrating... so has been everyday i try to go to classes. finding which campus. what building. what room, what prof. what time. [in that sequence] just to walk 45 min to accounting class just to find that the professor decided to teach a stat class instead. this is all confirming my appreciation of the US´s efficiancy and how much brasil is still developing.

/music/is very present in salvador. just unfortunately i dig more techno/house/pop/alternative which is a little more scarce here. live screaming crowds who can sing-along every word [ex:ballads] are more popular here. really getting sick of axé and págode. but there was a pretty neat live music 24-hour concert for the past few saturdays and this past one was the last. coolest part: one stage was out in the bay and we, two new found canadian friends and i, tredded water and watched it from there. bit of an exercise and entertainment.

[24-hour concert in porto]

/internet/is my access to BabelFish translator when my little dictionary doesn´t have whatever word i´m in need of. youtube really is a nice break from studying or when i just wanna relax and find some new good music. and w/o the web i can´t blog or check fb/e-mails... those are somewhat important.

/new/friends, making some everyday. love to discover new things, short-cuts to class. love to be introduced to a new favorite food, coconut popsicles and beijús. love to use new found words to get my feelings more accurately across to the portuguese-speaking world. overall, loving this new life here, classes, sweat and all.

[garota carioca club featuring... axé]

/carnaval/music is still going strong everywhere. salvador is a small carnaval everyday. still cannot really believe how crazy and eventful that week+ was. not missing it. it was a neat experience though...

[carnaval with some of the many cross-dressing men fishing for some kisses]

/portuguese/class wasn´t high enough on my list today. it is just 14:18 and i have already been to 3 classes in 3 different locations today. not about to go to another. well i mean, until later when i give the acct class another shot - they better have found a professor...

and... i will be making a better effort of posting.

/starting now/so, i´m 2 months behind in posting. a lot has happened.

/são paulo/was an experience. [on some chart´s] it has the 2nd largest population for a city in the world. [a said 20 million people.] that´s saying a lot. this just translates in daily life that it takes much longer to get anywhere. you will get lost [about once a day.] buses and roads are mysteries. and everyone wants to mug you. [ok, maybe just give you the look.]


/culture-shock/didn´t hit when i was in rio, but came a couple weeks after my arrival in são paulo. #1 item: brazilian men are not shy abut letting you know they want you. meaning. making noises. telling you. touching you. and yes the hair and innopropriate ways. but what do i know. i´m a woman in a men´s playground. atleast that´s just about how i feel.


/graffitti/in são paulo is outta this world. truly. it is on another level. the entire city is just one enormous cement playground of skyscrapers. that are all being slowly covered in graffitti of incredible ingenuity. i suggest you make a trip around the city just to look at all the masterpieces.
/classes/have commenced. i have one 4-credit hours course comprised of 5-days a week of daily 4+ hours of basíco II portuguese class and a... man i´m starting to forget. maybe it was a 2-days a week brazilian culture class. btw. it was taught by the most biased professor i´ve ever had. he let us know exactly what he was and what he thinks. black. gay. marxist. very sweaty and smelly. pretty much sums him up. my portuguese professor was an awesome little spunky brazilian woman. i learned more than i thought was possible in a month from her. and our culture class was in PUC [poo-ky]. don´t remember what that´s short for.


/another/side of large-ness. são paulo has about 1,391 million museums, 15 million restaurants, and a butt-load of clubs and bars. maybe not literally. but definitely feels like it. always something great to eat. fun to do. new to see.


/as/for what i´ve been doing.´[i mean was doing in são paulo.] sleeping a lot. eating a lot. learning a lot. meeting a lot of people. a and a whole lot more. probably the best thing socially was meeting fernando de sousa pereira when i was in rio. we were staying at the same hostel for one night and became facebook friends. the rest is history. managed to get a hold of him when i got to são paulo and meet up with him and friends just about every/other night.

/psiu!/i have really discovered in salvador - the use of the word/sound. psiu! really nothing could be uglier. and it´s used for/by everything! basically meaning: look at me/shush/buy my stuff/you are sexy.