Days 3, 4, and 5

Yesterday, I saw a garbage horse. When I say garbage horse, I mean that it was pulling the garbage trailer, together being the equivalent of a garbage truck. It’s interesting how well the horse must be trained for such a job, because if I were a garbage horse, I would just run away whenever the garbage man was putting garbage in my trailer. Fortunately, the garbage horses are not like me.

On Friday, I slept in again, and after breakfast, wrote a lot of verbs in past, present and future to study. I understand more and more each day, but I still can’t talk much. When Renata came home for lunch, Irina had prepared it for us, and we ate beans, rice and chicken with vegetables, and tomatoes. It was very good, but quite salty too. I think that most of the food here is salty.

After lunch, Renata and I went to pick up the photographs from the day before (they turned out alright actually) and then we went to the clubs and registered me under their card, so that I will be able to go to both clubs when I want to. There are swimming pools, tennis courts, bocce areas, soccer fields, gyms, and artificial lakes. They also have pools just designated for playing volleyball. From what I have seen and heard so far, no girls play team sports, something that I miss about Canada already. But at least my host mother likes to walk, so I am getting some exercise each day.

Renata went back to work for a bit, and I chilled at the apartment, and then I went to the ’Cachacaria’ with Igor and some of his friends. It was interesting to meet some new people and to go out at night. I also met a girl who will be in my class at school. She invited me to many things that I don’t know if I will go to, but I think that it kind of goes to show how welcoming the Brazilian people are.

Igor’s friends thought that my name was funny, because how the Brazilians say it is Kahreeeeeen, and it sounds a lot like ‘carie’ which is cavity. So they were saying that they have a Kareeeeeeen in their tooth, and just met a cavity.

The next day, Renata, Igor, Lisa and I went to another town about an hour away from here. It is much bigger; I think it has about 500,000 people. We first picked up Beatriz, my host sister from her apartment there, and then we went to a store where Beatriz wanted to buy some shirts. I looked around there a bit, but the cheapest little tank top was 100 reals, which is about 60 dollars. I’ve noticed that many things are very expensive here, that are not expensive at home.

Driving to Rio Preto

After there, we went to the mall, where we had lunch. Everyone was very excited to eat at Burger King, or Macdonalds. I went to Subway, and got what I thought I knew from Canada, a Pizza Sub. It was kind of the same, but they had different meat, and the mustard was no good, the pickles tasted fishy and they only put 3 cucumber slices on it, and a few bits of lettuce. It was very different actually form what Canada normally has, and I guess I might have enjoyed it more if I hadn’t had high expectations that it would be the same as what I’m used to. Here they have two sizes, like in Canada, but they are 15cm and 30cm. For some reason I think that a foot long sounds a lot cooler than a 30 cm.

Lisa (from Germany) Bia (host sister) Me, and Igor (friend)

Renata bought me a phone after that, she said that she wanted to be able to find me when I go out. I offered to pay, but she didn’t let me, and I won’t really complain. It’s the cheapest that they had, but I’m happy to have a phone now so that I can text friends here when I want to. I think I pay about 30 cents a text though.

Next we went to Renner, a sort of department store. I tried on a few things that didn’t look good at all, and were pretty expensive too. As we were walking through the mall, I saw prices for Nike or Asics that were 550 reals! That’s 331 dollars… my shoes, which are almost identical to those I paid 105 dollars for. It’s really crazy how expensive American brands are here. Igor told me that I could probably sell my billabong purse for at least 120 reals, which would make me quite a profit. On our way back from there, we stopped at a touristy place to take some pictures and look in the stores. It was really pretty; they had fountains and ponds, and tourist/ antique stores, as well as a candy store where Renata bought some candy for us to try. In one of the ponds there was a fish that was at least 2 feet long, like a giant goldfish. Apparently you can eat them and they taste very good. One of the types of candy that Renata bought tasted kind of like eating a gelatinous kind of sweet sponge, and the other was kind of like fudge, but more crumbly, I don’t know what flavour it was.

Renata and I

Me and a Bird, I don`t remember what it`s called though

At the tourist place still

Some nice flowers there

When we came home, we had leftovers for dinner, and then Renata and I watched a movie (an English movie with Portuguese subtitles).

Yesterday morning, Renata, Bia (Beatriz) and I went for a walk around the artificial lake at the club (after applying copious amounts of sunblock). We saw wild pig poo, little birds called ‘Quero quero’s which means ‘want want’. Apparently if you get too close to a quero quero and their young, they will attack you. I think I will stay away from them. We also tried to feed the fish some bread, but they were not hungry. I forgot my camera on the walk, and was very mad, because I want some pictures of the lake. After walking, we went to visit Renata’s parents and sister again. Renata’s dad is a Portuguese teacher, and he teaches me words for things. Renata showed me their backyard, which has mango trees, Caju trees, avocado trees and banana trees. Then we tried some sort of bean fruit thing, I don’t remember what it’s called, but it was really sour and I didn’t like it.

After that, we went to lunch with Vinicius’ parents at a big public lunch place. It was buffet style too, and was typical beans rice, meat etc. of a Brazilian meal. I tried manioc, I don’t really know what it is, but it wasn’t bad. When we were there, a man from the newspaper took a picture of my family; apparently it will be in the newspaper as well.

When we got back from lunch, Renata and I started to watch the Bounty Hunter, but the Gabriela came over and invited me to Yan’s house to watch the Sao Paulo vs. Palmeiras soccer game. When we got there, we made Brigadeiro, a chocolate thing made with sweetened condensed milk, butter and chocolate powder. It was very good, but super sweet and horribly unhealthy. Yan gave me a Sao Paulo team jersey! It was exciting to watch the game, but also to make more friends. I had to leave before the game was over, but it was 2 to 0 for Sao Paulo when I left, so we were happy. When I got home, I showed the jersey to Renata, and she said that they cheer for Palmeiras, and jokingly, that I could not cheer for Sao Paulo. She says that Victor (my host brother that is on exchange in Australia) would be very unhappy if he saw it.

Brigadeiro

Watching the game

Bia, Isabella, Me, Yan, Pomela? and Gabriela

After getting home from that, Igor called, and he, Lisa and I went for a run/walk to the club and back. It was great to get some real exercise. When we got back, Renata ordered pizza, and her and I looked at pictures and talked for a while. I finally am able to make sentences and tell someone what I want to say (sometimes). It is a lot easier when I have a picture in front of me to help me explain. When the pizza came, we ate it together, and I told her how I like to cook. She said that Irani would love to teach me how to cook Brazilian food, and I will start to learn today. After dinner, we watched She’s out of my League and then went to bed.