Minha Vida no Brasil: I can't think of what to call this, but kind of overdue.

So, I thought it was just a couple days since I last wrote, and then I realized it’s been more than a week. Since then, I started school, ate a lot, went to an Orientation for Exchange students in another city, ate a lot, then ate some more. I really need to find a sport to do here, or else I will explode from ingesting excessive amounts of delicious food.

Sunday before last, I went to a fishing place/ restaurant for lunch. It was super yummy; greasy battered fish, with rice (of course) and fish head gelatinous soup. It was a fish farm kind of place, and you can pay to fish there, and then you have to let it go, or else pay for the fish by the weight. We didn’t fish, I thought it funny to pay to go fishing in a fish farm… Anyways, after that, we came back home, and Renata and I watched a movie (when I say watched, I actually mean slept while a movie played, cause I slept almost none the night before).

Monday, I started school, way too early for my liking, but I guess I’ll have to get used to it. The school is about 2 minutes’ walk from my building, I think it takes as much time to wait for the elevator and go down as it does to walk to the school, which is really nice. My class has about 25 people in it, I think, and they all seem really nice and welcoming. The classes work differently than Canada, my class stays in the same room the whole day, and different teachers come and go to teach their subjects. After most classes there is a ten minute or so break, where you can buy food, or hang out in the common area. I don’t understand much of anything the teachers say, but everyone talks in class, so it’s not too boring. After school, I made banana bread, which, even though I ran out of bananas, and had to use pears, turned out yummy.

Tuesday, went to school at the regular time, 7:10 am. During the classes, Bia de Lucca, taught me vocab from around the room, then I copied all the vocab from her English textbook, and learned lots of words. After school was done, I came home, and then packed up to go to the orientation for exchange students.

Renata and I went to the federal police to register me here, cause apparently if I don’t, I will be deported within 30 days… Anyways, it took more than an hour for them to look at my papers, decide if they were good enough, and then fingerprint me. After that, we went to Wal-Mart, and bought some things so that I can do some baking, and also PEANUT BUTTER! I was really excited to have some, and I definitely have been missing it. After that, had dinner at subway, which was a lot better than last time I tried to order a sub, then met up with the family I stayed with during the orientation.

The family consisted of Fabiola, the mother, Cacau, the father, and Julia and Joana daughters, 17 and 13. And, the craziest dog I have ever met. It has no training at all, and at meals it runs around the table barking until it gets food; they actually bring cookies to the table just for the dog. Also, if you leave any bag on the ground he pees in it, and in order to leave the apartment, you have to try to trick him with treats in a different room, or else he forces his way out the door barking insanely. Also, he bites, and smells. Anyways, other than the crazy dog, the family was nice.

On Wednesday, I went to work with Fabiola in the morning. She works at a cultural school, and there are dance classes, art classes, capoeira classes there, it’s too bad that there isn’t a place like that in my city. I hung out there all morning, then she drove me around the city, showing me a lake, and some pretty places in the city. In the afternoon, me and Julia went to the gym, then I went for dinner with all the exchange students in the district.

We had dinner at a Pizzaria, the best one I’ve ever been to. There’s a big buffet of every kind of food, then a salad bar thing, and a pile of cheese and salami. Then, the waiters walk around offering everyone pizza. After the main course, they bring dessert pizzas, some with chocolate sauce and chocolate sprinkles, some banana and cinnamon, and some with white chocolate. They were amazing, I ate way too much.

The next day, I went to the mall with some other exchange students. There is an ice cream company here, I don’t know how to spell the name, but they have really sweet, chocolately and yummy ice cream, and its cheap too. Actually, most food here in cafes and things is pretty cheap. Anyways, I had ice cream, bought a shirt, then went back to Fabiola’s for lunch. After lunch, I went to the orientation meeting. There, all the exchange students introduced ourselves, and a bunch of past exchange students talked to us. When that was over, I went back to Fabiolas, watched TV, some Glee, and then went out with most of the exchange students. There was live music, and good people, which meant it was a fun night.

The next day had the orientation again, and a travel agent came to talk to us about the trips that we can do while in Brazil. I want to go to the Amazon and maybe to the south of Brazil too. The trips sound really exciting.

That night, we went out for Italian, which was amazing!!!!!

Saturday, I went to a churrasco (bbq) after I got home from the city. It was at a party place, where you can rent a building, with barbeque, bathrooms, a pool, soccer field, kitchen, tables and chairs, and a bedroom. I think it’s a neat idea to have this kind of place, cause then you can have a party, without having to clean up your house. Anyways, it was good fun; I played pool for a while, and somehow actually played well… not sure how that happened really. Hanging out with Brazilian friends, time passes really quickly, and at about 9, I went home.

Sunday, I became a chef for the day, which I had a lot of fun doing. First Renata and I drove around looking for a supermarket that is open on Sundays, then finally we found one, one block from our house. So, I bought the things necessary for quiche and salad, then cooked up a storm. I made quiche, with broccoli, red pepper, bacon, mushrooms, sundried tomatoes, and cheese. It was delicious. This time, the pastry turned out perfect too, which may have been because I had a way of measuring things. I also made an attempt at a greek salad, but I didn’t have any feta, so it wasn’t as good as it could have been. After eating way too much quiche, Renata and I went to visit her sister, and there, we ate some pastry things, and a banana strawberry smoothie. After, we went to Renata’s other sister’s place. She lives on a farm, and has cows and horses, and about 600000000 mangos on a huge tree and all over the ground beneath it. So, I felt I had to eat a mango, its really hard not to feel up to a mango. When we got back home, we went for a walk, then I made eggs for dinner. I showed them how to make ‘frog in a hole’ eggs, with the egg cooked in a hole cut out of the bread. Renata was really excited about it, because she already knew the words frog, and hole. Actually, those are practically the only two english words that she knows, so she was happy. Also, she thought putting the egg in the bread was the most amazing thing ever.

Monday, back to school as normal. I still didn’t understand much of it, but I enjoy the social aspect of it. After lunch, I went out for crepes with Bia de Lucca and Ana Laura and Marina, friends from school. I had banana cinnamon with sweetened condensed milk crepe, and it was amazing. They use condensed milk in so much here, it’s really yummy, but scary fatty. After that, I came home for a bit, and then went to Bia’s aunt’s birthday dinner. We had little appetizer things, which are pretty typical party food here. They’re all little bread things with meat or cheese fillings, or croquette meaty things.

Tuesday, school again, then Bia, Ana Laura and Marina came over and we made delicious chocolate chip oatmeal cookies together. The only thing they lacked was chocolate chips, I had to chop up a chocolate bar instead. They had never made cookies before, apparently its not normal to make cookies here, just to buy them. After we made cookies, we hung out in my room for a while. As much as an afternoon making cookies and just hanging out sounds pretty average, it was a lot of fun. After cookie making, I went for a run, which was definitely necessary, after the amount of cookies I ate.

Today, I actually understood most of school today, funny though, the class I understood the least was English. The other two were biology, and chemistry, and I already learned the things that they are doing now, and the words resemble English a lot in sciences I find, so it was easier to follow along. After lunch, I walked to the club and swam for a while, then walked home. Its about a 15 minute walk I think, and its super-hot today, so I was really happy to get to the pool, but my hair was practically dry and I was sweating again by the time I got back. This morning, I got an air conditioner in my room, and I’m thoroughly enjoying basking in the cold of my room currently, and it sounds like there is a whistler outside my balcony, but its just the wind being crazy strong.

Finally, after 4 days of trying to get this post written, I’m done. I guess it turned out pretty long too, hope you enjoy, and I miss you all!

PS. The photos are in reverse order...