Pao de Acucar!

Over the weekend, the other exchange students and I went to Pao de Acucar with Rotary! It was a HUGE group thing, and it was a lot of fun! We planted trees to help preserve the flora and fauna of Brazil, and we watched a Rotary presentation, in which Matilde, the girl from Denmark, played her flute. :) Pao de Acucar, of the Sugar Loaf, in English, had an amazing view of all of Rio de Janeiro, and of Niteroi as well. It was very cool and worthwhile, though I enjoyed Cristo Redentor more. 

Just catching up...

Today I woke up an hour before I was supposed to, because I forgot I am allowed to sleep in on Fridays. Awesome... So now I'm wasting time before going to school.

The language is getting easier and easier, and I'm learning more and more. I try to talk to people on Facebook in Portuguese a lot, to practice my conversational Portuguese, and I almost never need the translator for that. A lot of times, the hard part is getting the structure of the sentences right. Sometimes when you're just tired and don't want to be speaking Portuguese anymore, you just throw all of your words in a sentence, and hope the people can understand what you're trying to say, because you just don't want to have to think anymore.

The people in school are finally starting to speak to me in Portuguese... sometimes... However, in my volleyball class, people say even the simplest words to me in English. Things such as "go!" and "hello" and "I'm sorry." I know they probably just want to be able to practice their English with me, but I really wish they wouldn't, so I could learn Portuguese!

Tomorrow, all of the inbound exchange students are meeting to hike Urca and go to see Pão de Açúcar as a Rotary trip. I'm really excited to spend a day with the other exchange students, and to see such a famous landmark of Rio.

In school, it is the second semester, and after just coming back from winter break, no one was very focused or ready to do work. Now, however, things have calmed down a bit, and people are started to refocus on schoolwork and grades.

It is starting to get hotter in Brazil, as winter comes to an end. Two days ago, we had record breaking temperatures for the year in Rio, 44 degrees Celsius. (111.2 Fahrenheit) (I didn't even know it was that hot until I converted it just now... WOW!)

5 weeks and 6 days in Brazil today!

Celia :D

Just some quirks... Quirks. That's a good word.

When you are in traffic, people walk through the cars trying to sell things to you. They sell anything from candles to cold drinks.

There is an abundance of "suco" here. Suco is juice, and everyone is crazy about it. There are hundreds of juice shops (essentially) all over my neighborhood alone, and they make pretty much any fruit into a juice.

On the beaches, you can get "agua de coco": take a coconut, cut a hole in it, stick a straw in it, drink. I'm not a fan, but most people are.

Food! I have yet to have a lunch where I didn't have rice. I have had maybe 3 without beans, but rice is definitely a constant! The food here is sooo amazing, and I haven't tried much I haven't liked, save the Globo Biscoitos. Eu não gosto deles.

Cariocas, or those born and raised in Rio de Janeiro, have a different dialect of Portuguese than the rest of Brazil. It is hard to explain in words, but for example: Portuguese in Portuguese is Portugues. (Say that 3 times fast.) The Cariocas say it "Porh too gaysh" whereas people from Sao Paulo say "por too ges". Two is dois. Carioca: "doish" Sao Paulo: "dois". And so on.

That's all for now!

:D

Some observations

I've noticed some things here in Brazil that I thought were worth pointing out.

• For every meal, they don't just have a couple of foods to eat, they have many different types. They almost always have rice and beans, plus some sort of meat, vegetables and a starch. 
• They almost always "sobremesa" or dessert. 
• When they eat a meal, they try to get all of the different foods on their forks; nothing is eaten separately
• School is different from school in America, because they have different classes every day. 
• The women, for the most part, never go out of the house without their hair done and their faces made-up. 
• Most apartment buildings have a floor called a "playground," the sole purpose being for parties
• Bars do not card patrons, they serve to minors. 
• Many, many women wear bright or patterned bras under white shirts. 

My Third Week Has Come and Gone!

My third week in Brazil is officially over, and I've had such an amazing time in Brazil thus far! I have gone out to parties, gone to the beach, and yesterday, I biked around Lagoa (the lake, 8 km around) for the first time. This week, I attended a Portuguese course, from Tuesday to Friday, 9-3:30. I attended it with another American girl, and a girl from Denmark. After the course, I went home and then went to volleyball on the beach, from 5-7, which I do Monday - Friday every week.

Some simple volleyball words:

• Passou 
• Used when the ball comes over the net before the third touch, we say "it's over!"
• Foi mau! 
• I'm sorry, or that was bad, if someone makes a mistake
• Boa (or boa bola)
• Good, good ball, when someone makes a nice hit or a nice point, or in sarcasm, if they make a very stupid mistake
• Vai vai vai vai vai!!! 
• Go go go go go! The little kids aren't very motivated to move towards the balls, a lot of times
• Levantar
• To set
• Manchete
• To pass
• Sacar
• To serve

My Portuguese course was in downtown Rio, or Rio Centro, and I took the Metro there every day. It is a very nice, historic part of Rio, and everything is very old there (relative to other parts of Brazil). 

On Friday all of the exchange students had a mandatory Orientation in Rio Centro, so we got to meet each other and spend time together... listening to our YEP Chairman talk about the rules and homesickness and such. 

So far in our district we have: 

1. Matilde - Dinamarca - Living in Petrópolis
2. Mathilde - Bélgica -  Living in Petrópolis
3. Peter - Alemanha -  Living in Rio
4. Leandra - Suíça  -  Living in Petrópolis
5. Kathryn - Estados Unidos  -  Living in Campo Grande
6. Nina - Estados Unidos  -  Living in Rio
7. Tellie - Estados Unidos  -  Living in Rio
8. Celia (ME!) - Estados Unidos  -  Living in Rio

Two more are still in their countries, having trouble with visas, one from Austria and one from Taos, NM.