NEW life and NEW things

As the title of this post suggests everything in my life is NEW!!! I have done sooo many new things here in the last week that I had to share.

#1 New Family
I am now living in Santa Cruz Rio do Pardo. I have a new family who only speaks to me in Portuguese; a mom and a dad and two younger sisters, who are 15 and 12. On my first day with my new family, as all my new English-speaking friends drove away back to the city, all I could think was OMG!!! And here goes nothing, slightly wishing that I was in the car on my way back to Sao Paulo. But I am here to stay, so I figured that I have to make the best. As I began to unpack, I went outside my room and saw that Jorge(my new dad) was writing the names of all the things in the house on little papers and taping them to the different household items, covering the house in paper. It was soo cute. It made me feel so welcomed and started to think that I could do this. And strengthened my reasoning for why I need to live here in santa cruz for a while. So this is my new house. I have my own room (below) with a balcony, which is pictured above. I might be off in the middle of now-where Brazil, but I am in no means roughing it. My family has a maid that comes to the house daily. I live like a princess, Dona Leonor makes my bed, cleans my room, cooks delicious food and washes my laundry. (jac think about the next time you wipe your ass with your hand:) She calls even me to the Brazilian version of four o'clock tea, which a sandwhich spread that she puts out for me.#2 New Food I ATE MEAT!!!!(yes colin read that again) and I LOVE IT!! So this all went down last weekend when Barbara and her roommates and I arrived from Sao Paulo. In honor of me coming, Barbara's parents threw a big BBQ called a chorrasco(pronouced sho-haska). Where all your friends come over and eat meat all day long. So in Brazilian fashion I followed suit and ate the best sausage I have ever had ;) considering I have never had sausage, but this one is going to be pretty hard to beat. To get the festa(not a typo) started, one of the guests drove his car into the backyard and blasted samba and forro music off the huge speakers he had in the trunk. With all of the commotion and noise, it was IMPOSSIBLE for me to understand what people are saying. So mainly I had to sit there until someone speaks in English to me. I felt like the loser in the corner and unsocial because I could not talk and participate. But I still had a great time.

#3 A New Drink Further continuing in my pursuit to be Brazilian I also tried a new drink called a Caipirinha. They are made out of cashaca (a brazilian alcohol), sugar(the key ingredient) and fruit. They are really good; taste

like a combination of a margarita and mojito and can be made with any fruit. At the party they made ones oout of watermelon and lime, lime, watermelon, grape, and pineapple. you pretty much just crush fruit that you have and mix with alcohol.

#4 New Way to Drive

I drove stick shift today!!!!!! Barbara and her boyfriend taught me how in the parking lot of her grandma’s hotel. We had been laying out my the pool and as we walked to the car to go back home, she said… hey why don’t you drive. I stalled about 4 times before I was able to reverse, but I go the hang of it. So I practiced by making donuts in the small hotel parking lot. After about 6 rounds and only moving to third gear once, they said, “I think your ready to drive on the street”. I was thinking.. umm no way but what the hell why not. So I drove us all the way home. It is a lot easier than I had expected, but by no mean easy. I only got stuck once on a hill, but I think I did really well for my first time.

#5 New Language

So my life is carried out completely in Portuguese. If you thought I was bad at writing or spelling before... just wait. Now I have all these Portuguese words floating around in my head that I am desperately trying to remember further reducing my spelling abilities. But then I also have a lot of Spanish words too that I are coming back to me that only add to the confusion. Knowing Spanish has helped and hurt me. It helps because I can throwout words that I know, hope that they are similar that then get corrected by my family. It also hinders my progress because I have more Spanish ingrained in my head from years of lessons, so it is difficult for me to remember to use a new form for "the"= a, o, as, os instead of la, el, los, but I think that I am progressing well. not sure though. Though I can get by, it is VERY frustrating not to be able to completely express myself or explain things to my host family. Also, there are many times when they are discussing something about me(such as my Portuguese class) and all I can do is sit there and listen trying to pickup what exactly they are saying.

Arriving in Brazil

I have been in Brazil for over a week now and thought it was time to start me blog. I have been putting this off for sometime now because I feel weird writing to an audience, especially on the World Wide Web. But I want to stay connected with everyone at home, so here goes. Also, I should give you a heads up... I am a terrible speller. So should you find crazy spelling errors such as lasaña or unclear sentences, you were warned :)

The plane ride to Mexico was pretty short, but the guy in the seat next to me was sleeping like a puppet and kept bouncing from side to side and back and forth. So I spent most of the time curled up next to the window in the little space that I had. I arrived in Mexico City and had 10 hours with nothing to. It was awful, I felt like I am in purgatory, in a never-ending cloud of lousiness. With around $2,000 of electronics in my carry-on, I was terrified to sleep though I was EXHAUSTED. So I watched old Grey's Anatomy TV shows that I had saved onto my computer around three years ago. I felt like I was in a never-ending daze. Finally, the time came to board the flight. Most of the people on the flight were Brazilian or Mexican; I was probably one of few Americans or other foreigners.

Barbara was waiting at the arrival gate with all the other families and expectants. It was so great to see her beaming face after I passed customs. Which by the way was simpler than I had expected, they didn't even look in a bag, so all that worrying for nothing. Immediately, when I walked out of airport, I spelled China. It looks a lot like china minus the neon lights and poorer people. It was pouring rain and sort of cold, and I smelled that sweet tropical rain smell.

So, on Saturday when I arrived, Barbara planned to take me out to a party for the college of her boyfriend. But the father of one of her friends had a heart attack, so she went be with her friend at a city an hour outside of Sao Paulo However, her three roommates were out of town for the weekend. But she arranged for me to go out with some of her friends from college. So my first night in Brazil, was spent in an underground bar with three random Brazilians listening an Amy Winehouse cover band. My new friends were very nice and took special care of me. We went out to a restaurant that was decorated in a bosa nova style and serves hamburgers. I ate one of the best veggie burgers that I had ever had. After finishing dinner at 12am (haha yes 12 am) we went to the bar. I arrived home at 6am because after going to the bar we went to a bakery and had breakfast. Needless to say that after not sleeping for almost 48 hours, my time clock was all messed up.

So for the rest of the week, Barbara and her roommates were busy at school or work during the day so I had all day to explore the city by myself. I mainly stayed around the major street called Avenista Paulista. Here is where most of the banks are. I went to the MASP (museum of Sao Paulo), which is the large building in this picture with the red columns. One day I went to the large park here and to teh museum of modern art, which had an exhibit of foreign artists who amde redicencies in Brazil and depicited their opinion of the city through their art.

The city of Sao Paulo is very lush and there are trees everywhere. There are skyscrapers as far as the eyes can see, as pictured here. The buildings look a lot like china. Meaning that they are more run down, built in the 60s/70s style. Thus don't have much color and are worn down. There aren't any old beautiful buildings, so it was very drab and kind of lonely when I arrived. But I can hear birds chirping amid the other city sounds.

There is a lot of traffic in the city, which doubles when it rains outside because there isn't a good drainage system. Barbara lives near one of the largest and major streets in Sao Paulo, called Avenista Paulista. The surrounding area is a pretty good neighborhood, and is 8 blocks or so from one of the wealthy, posh areas of the city. It is much more safe than the description US state department paints. Every apartment building is gated and has a guard who controls who gets into the building or not. I think that this is great because this stops people from getting into the building easily. It is not as safe as the US, but I feel pretty safe.

UNIQUE THINGS I NOTICED:

Almost everywhere that you go: a restaurant, bar, or bakery you are given a card and what you buy is added up on the card, and you do not pay until you are done and about to leave.

Glad I brought all the heels that I did, because all the women here wear heels all the time.

People are not as beautiful as I had expected, both the men and the women (especially the men). I was expecting a world of super models but it is not the case. Actually if you did not know it, you would have no idea that you were in Brazil. Sao Paulo and its inhabitants look similar to any large U.S. city. There are people here of all different skin colors. There are many Asian people; Brazil is home to the largest population of Japanese outside of Japan. The only thing is that there are people who are fair skinned and blonde, but their hair color is not as bright as the blondes from the US and there are not many people who look like this. The hair color is still brownish, much like Barbara’s.