Ola everyone, My never-ending summer, is finally coming to an end. I've had an amazing sabbatical but it's finally time to once again hit the books. School starts on the fourth of February and I'm going to have almost no special treatments. I'm getting the full exposure of Brazilian education. But more about that later. It's time to tell you about my last two months, and my first Brazilian summer. The beginning of my summer started with me presenting Alaska to my Rotary Club, Cidade Dutra. It was five minutes of me speaking Portuguese in front of about 25 Rotary members. Pretty nerve-racking, but it all turned out fine. Everyone was really interested and had a lot of questions. After I told them
I've eaten ice cream made of whale blubber, I don't think there was one closed mouth.
After a few days of going to the movies and the mall with some of my new friends, it was time to pack up and go on my second trip out of Sao Paulo. My new host family and I were headed to the country side. My host-uncle's ranch outside of a town called Cunha. The actual town itself wasn't much, but the ranch was incredible. It was huge, green, and full of waterfalls and animals. We stayed for three days, ate fish, swam in the rivers, rode horses, and roasted a goat.
It was too late for me to really attend classes at my school, but I still tried to participate in all the activities I could. One very important activity, of course, was going to Brazil's largest amusement park just outside of Sao Paulo. The name is Hopi Hari. I was able to spend time with my new friends, go on Brazil's largest roller coaster, and the most fun ride I've ever been on called Sky Coaster. It is essentially a giant tire swing, but you're the tire. You get dressed in these pretty sweet body suits, they put you on a giant hook, hoist you up to 18 stories in the air and then let go. You swing down through the trees and over a lake (with screaming girls in each ear) and you're able to see the entire park and then some. It was way better than the Sling-Shot in the Dimond Center parking lot.
The next city I visited was a city called Santos. I went there with all the other exchange students in Sao Paulo for a meeting at a Rotarian's house. We essentially ate, talked, and went to the beach. It was a very productive meeting. We took a private bus and packed it with about thirty exchange students to scale the winding road through the mountains that leads to Santos. The only things I brought back with me from that city though was a killer sunburn, and a few random photos. We took the bus back at about nine that night and arrived in Sao Paulo at almost half past ten.
I then proceded to get home at about eleven thirty, just to wake up at five to drive to Guaruja (the city right next to Santos) with my host dad, Paulo, for a fishing trip. We were going with a friend of Paulo's from his soccer club and other pescadores(fishermen). We set out on the boat around seven and instantly hit rough seas. Drained from my experiences the couple of days before, lack of sleep not helping, I became seasick for the first time since I was little. I then slept for about four hours on the boat before starting to fish. But I still did good. The coolest thing we caught was a little shark called cação(cah-SOUNG). And the main fish I caught was a strange looking one called espada(sword). I caught ten.
I had a lot of down time during my summer in which my new friends, other exchange students, my new family and I were able to go do fun things here in the city. Going to parks, museums, malls, movies, and just exploring the city by bus. It's still tricky to do because there's really no schedule that is followed, but I'm getting better. The parks here are vast, elaborate, and truly amazing. There are statues, art, places for people to make graffiti, lakes, bridges, museums, and an incredible array of plant and animal life. I think you get the picture. If not, I've included some. My favorite thing in the park are these misters stationed about every Kilometer. You push the button and get sprayed with a fine mist of cold water. Can you imaging why I like them?
On December 5th my family and I went to a place called Serra Negra. It was an amazing place that I would describe as a tropical get-away. They called it a Flat, which I think is the same thing in English. There were about ten small hotel/houses for rent there and we had the entire place. At first I didn't understand why we were going there, but it was for some significant reason other than vacation. But I just smiled and went along with it. My patience payed off. Later that same day that we arrived, we all gathered at the church for my host uncle's new baby's baptism. It was a very nice ceremony that was immediately followed by a Churrasco(Brazilian Barbeque), live band, swimming, soccer, boating in the lake, fishing, hiking in the jungle, running from ostriches and bla bla bla. It was just one huge, incredible party.
Patience is a very important skill that I am learning to master here in Brazil. "Brazilian Time" can be infuriating, and it has made me realize the importance of being "On Time". It is normal here to show up three hours late and just say, "oops". So I make it a point now to be "On Time". I know a few people who will be happy to know I've learned that lesson.
Later that night my host brother and I decided it would be a good idea to make tents outside and sleep there for the night. We made two tents and a fire and sat around talking for a while. It was really nice and really the only dangers were the occasional bug (which all ended up flying into the fire), and for some reason a very angry cow. We woke up perfectly fine the next day earlier than everyone else. And the rest of the day repeated the activities of the day before. We went on another walk in the jungle, but my host brothers decided they wanted to turn back early. So I followed the remainder of the trail that took about half an hour to trek. It was really over-grown. On my way I saw a ton of insects, some really cool birds, a little green snake, and a couple frogs. I'll never forget my trip to Serra Negra. It was short, but one of the most memorable yet for me here.
The next big events were Christmas and New Years. Christmas eve and morning were spent at my family's house in Sao Paulo, and the rest of the day was spent at my host dad's family's ranch. We ate lunch and dinner there(churrasco), and then returned the same night to get rested for our big trip the next day. I received many cool presents and had an awesome time on Christmas.
The next day we woke very early and drove south for nine hours. Not too much happened. It was a beautiful drive, but nine hours pushes it a little. My family and I were heading to a small beach town called Governador Celso Ramos(SEL-zo HUM-os). It has a very small population, but a very beautiful beach. From where we were at in our beach house we could see the mountains and jungle along the coast, and from the beach we could see Florianopolis, A.K.A. Floripa, the capital of the state of Santa Catarina. We spent a lot of time playing in the waves, sand, and hiking the vast coast. We found a nice little beach with no one on it about five miles north of ours, and decided to hang out there for a while. We were originally looking for a good place to snorkel, so after climbing the boulders to get there, we jumped right in. A freak wave quickly took my goggles and my cousin's goggles and swept them away. We searched for near half an hour but didn't find anything except a dead fish and a fishing pole. (I'm just now wondering if maybe the two were somehow connected.. hmmmm...) We hiked back home later that day after body surfing and playing on the rocks, ate pizza, and played poker. I ended up taking home more money than I spent on poker. It was a lucky two weeks. The buy in was never more than R$10, but it still felt good to go home with some money.
New Years came and went with a big bang. We all went to the beach where we jumped the traditional seven waves for good luck, and watched the fireworks show at all the different cities on the coast. There was music, and dancing, and surprisingly sleep. We ended up going to bed around 3:30 in the morning so we could be the first ones at the beach the next day. The following days included more relaxing and bikini watching on the beach.
But finally it was time to change the scenery a little bit. Vanessa(my host mom's sister), Larissa(host cousin), Inah(host sister), João(my host brother zjoo-OUNG), and I all went to the capital, Florianopolis. We explored the town, saw the beaches, and played in the sand dunes. I wasn't able to do sand boarding because it was raining, but I'd really like to return and give it a try.
After Florianopolis everyone went to a small German town called Blumenau where Vanessa and her family lives. They have a very nice house and a very nice family. I enjoyed my time with them very much. While in Blumenau I went to the mall, went fishing, watched movies, went swimming, relaxed and slept in the hammock, and went to a German festival called Sommerfest. It's like Oktoberfest, but this one happens every Thursday. It was very authentic(asside from all the portuguese) and actually had German food. But, to my disappointment, no giant pretzels. There was dancing, live music, and plenty of lederhosens to go around.
The return trip home afterwards was fairly uneventful. We made good time on the way back, just pushing eight hours. And everyone immediately settled in when we got home. Meaning everyone slept and pretty much didn't move for a day. My next trip was to Rio de Janeiro. But you'll just have to wait for the next blog entry for that story. Don't worry Big Tim, it won't be like the last time. I'm sorry to have kept you waiting. I'm not traveling now for a while and I'm starting school on the fourth. I've almost written a book on my Brazilian summer, so I hope it keeps you happy for a little while. Until next time.
