1st Week in Buenos Aires

Portenos!

Me on the Subte (subway)

My first week in BA has been exhausting, and a lot of fun. Its great to be learning so much about a country in such a short time, and knowing that your going to be staying here for 5 months! This is such a pretty city filled with beautiful people (Portenos). Tuesday I had to take an oral and writin exam to see what section I was placed into for Castellano class (Porteno spanish)- I was placed in the lower one of course. But thats prob a good thing. After orientations we visited the Obelesco and the gardens of Palermo- so pretty (lindo)! And of course I tried the cafe de leche, and dulce de leche, carne, and many other foods of which are musts in BA.
Thurs night is a popular night for parties, as well as Fri and Sat of course. Nora and I met up with some Portenos thru couch surf, so we met up with Juan and his friends to attend a small fiesta that his friend was hosting. This fiesta was fun, but had to be moved because people my age- and up until 26, live with their families until they get solid jobs, and the mother of the house came home early. Ha! She wasnt upset- I guess this happens a lot in that house, but she just told us to leave. The fiesta went to la casa de Ivan and we ended up staying up till 5am- pretty early over here. All of Juan's friends were great to talk to- I tried really hard to speak only Castellano even tho they all wanted to speak english to us! But Juan and a few others obliged to our request, so we got some good practice in. I plan on doing 3 weeks of laundry tomorrow and get some sightseeing in while I have the time.

Last Days in Brazil & Argentina

Bea's perro that looks like Snoogs

Cows left over from the parade of cows...?

Lake in Sao Paulo
Sao Paulo

Marta's Perro

Joana, Nora, some friends, and I

Sunday we arrived via bus to Sao Paolo to visit Bea- Nora's friend. We went for a wonderful walk in a massive park and tried not to get ran over by skatboarders and people on bikes. We then took a dip in her pool, got some burgers and interesting Brazilian chips for dinner, and went to get a famous Bob's Malt milkshake (interesting that a place called Bob's would ONLY be in Brazil) but this milkshake was GREAT! We then walked around Sao at night, which was really pretty. We then headed back to watch some WeddingCrashers and sleep a few hours before our taxi picked us up for the airport.

Random note: so in Brazil this really shady act of "people watching your car" when you park on a public street is so bizzare. Basically, you pull up to an open spot and shady looking people ask you for money to watch your car, if you don't end up paying them, or tell them that you'll pay them, you'll come back to stuff taken out of your car, a keyed car, or no car at all because they'll call their buddies to mess it up. SO STUPID! It bugged me when my friends paid these guys to not mess with thier car and I was only there a few days, just imagine dealing with this all the time!

ARGENTINA! Our trip was pretty intense- we almost missed our connecting flight in Montevideo, Urugauy because our plan from Brazil took off late. I spent both flights sleeping. When we arrived in Buenos Aires we saw an advisor from IFSA Butler holding a sign with Nora's name. We found out she was here to take Nora to her host family, and I was like... what the heck are you going to do with me?! SOmehow they had no idea I was joining her, so with a few phone calls I was also shuttled to my host mom.
I live in the neigborhood of Caballeto- its a pretty nice hood, cute and filled with nice people. I love my host mom, Maira! She lives alone, has 2 kids, and 2 grandkids (ninetos) that come over every once in a while- Lucas y Ana. SHe is soooo sweet. She treats me like one of her own kids I feel very welcome here. She cooks well, we had empanadas, ensalada, pasta con albondigas (meatballs-new word for the day), cereal with raisins for breakfast and lots of good fruit... yum!
Orientation is pretty boring! Its nice meeting a lot of different people, but I want to meet Portenos (people from Buenos AIres)! We get a lot of breaks during orientation, so its nice to chat with fellow Americans and escapade around BA. Nora, a few others, and I all shared a pizza grande for Lunch today, which prop equalled to be 4 USD for everyone, and it was so yummy.
I took the subte (subway) today all by myself too, which was kinda nervewracking, but I made it back home safely. I came home to find out that my interntet finally works! Thank goodness. My host mom had her son come over to fix cable and modem for me, see how lovely she is! So now I have wireless and am connected with the outside world.
My head is spinning from all the espanol I am using, I have to take an oral exam tom to see where IFSA should place me during our orientation-intense span sessions. Kinda nervous!
But I'm super sleepy now, so off to bed to wake up early and run with some Americans at a park at 7:20am tom. buenas noches!

Friday and Sat

I arrived back in Indiatuba, Brazil Friday early. These past 2 days have been pretty relaxing and chill. Friday I skped, watched the olympics- finally understand curling now- ha, went for a 25min run!, and went out for pizza. Today we went swimming a suntanning for most of the day, brushed up on some Spanish, had coffee and some really good Italian chocolatey bread and conversation with Marta and her husband (JOana's aunt and uncle), had a model shoot with Joana- she loves to take pictures, and we went for dinner and drinks with joana, Gabriel (her bro), Bruno (her bf)- we were gonna go clubbing, but everyone else wanted to eat instead of dance. Ha! It was a fun night. But I am wiped out! We have to catch a bus early tomorrow to go to Sao Paulo, to meet Bea- Nora's friend, and then Monday we head to BA 4 orientation!

Thurs, last day in RIo

Nora and i got up early to a horrible downpour. We planned on chillin at the beach the whole day, but this was cancelled, and headed to our 2nd home, the hostel to look up some museums we could check out. We decided on Niteroi's Modern Art Museum, and figured we could see Gabriel afterward for dinner. Well we took the metro, we took the ferry, and we thought we walked down the correct street when we got off the ferry-but this wasnt true. We couldn't find the museum we were looking forward to going to, but we did go to a buffet on our own. Where they weighed the food by 100 grams, it was just ok food, interesting though, and ended up costing only 9 Reis. Frustrated by asking multiple people and not getting a clear answer about the wherabouts of the museum we gave up and went to a mall mainly to people watch, and to not be out in the rain. We met up with Gabriel and Tolga (the Turkish dude who lives in Buenos Aires) and we walked over to the Museum, only to find by the time we got there, it was closed. We went to dinner that had the best view of Rio -because Niteroi is across the ocean from Rio. We had good sanwiches there, where they put pineapple slices on all- and it tasted good with my chicken sandwich!

We then took a bus to catch our bus to back to Campinas, only after stopping in to get our last Acai (a Brazilian treat-Acai, fruit, ice, yummy goodness in each spoonfull). This was another overnight bus ride, but we slept like babies.

Sorry not many pics- forgot the camera.

6th Day in Rio (Wed)

We woke up fairly early and went to this pretty lake- which now the name escapes me- but its in the shape of a heart! We also had a date with Jesus later that day... we went to see the Cristo! The usual crew of Gabriel and Christene joined us on our adventures to see Rio's trademark. Cristo was pretty cool, but the view from atop of the mountain was incredible! See for yourself. We had to take tthe metro to catch a bus to buy our little tram ticket, get to the base, and walk up some stairs until we got to the top... but we made it, thanks to Gabriel. In the pictures you can see the Heart shaped lagoa (lake), the famous massive soccer stadium, Niteroi (across the ocean from Rio, also where Gabriel lives), the Favelas, Copa and all the other towns, cathedrals, and much more!

5th and Sadly last day of Carnaval

Woke up late again and ghetto-style cooked our lunch- there was no pan, and we had leftovers we were dying to eat. See the pic. We spent a lot of time at the beach again, and didn't get burnt. Yay! We then went to our final Bloco in Lapa where we munched on Pipoca (popcorn thats really sweet- 10x better than carmel popcorn!) and tried not to get hit by either firecrackers or these crazy people dressed in big clown suits running around with balls kinda like num-chuks and whiping them at the ground at each other. Crazy! This bloco was tamer compared to the rest, I think everyone was worn out from the frivilities of the last few days. We were also pretty tired, so we headed back early and went to sleep around midnight that night to the sounds of a nice nearby bloco in Copa. Zzzz....

4th day of Carnaval (Mon)

We woke up pretty late- went to 'bed' at 8am. we met up with Gabriel and Christine, as well as Odrigo, Gabriel's friend. We went to a Bloco in Impemena again, not as fun as the day before, but better company. There I tried some type of red liquid with Chastasa?? in a really long tube- it tasted pretty bad though. We then walked 3 miles (we thought it was only a mile!) to meet up with Nora's mother's co-wokers' husband for dinner, his name is Len. He's a nice guy, and we had a great dinner ( I had Parisian chicken with fruit salad for dessert. Our 1st dinner experience. Yum! He told us of his time in the Sombodromo, and suggested we should try going. So we made our plan to scalp tickets later that night. It worked! We went to the gates around 11;00pm, it started at 9pm, and didnt' end till 5:30am. It was pretty shady business, but with the help of Meliana (our newly acquired friend after she asked what time it was, and was waiting for a friend) we got the tickets at midnight for 50 reis (bout 28 USD)! IT WAS INCREDIBLE! The energy in the Sombodromo was excellent, you couldn't help but dance and sing along with the different schools performing. We ended up seeing 3 schools, and the ending of another. 6 performed that night. And 12 schools performed total. apparently, there are over 2,000 categories that the schools compete 4 points, and Tijuca was the final winner- this wasn't one of the schools we saw. It was totally worth it to go! Again, we got back really late, and stayed up for sunset at Copa. No Marcos this time, but we met a Columbian, and a Peruvian man that apparently danced for one of the schools.

3rd Day of Carnaval (Sun)

We went to Praca XV for another Bloco, after getting lost after taking a bus. We ended up 2 towns over, and had to take a taxi- which ended up taking us forever cuz we got stuck in traffic (the traffic was from the Sombodromo floats- see pics) we tried to meet up with another CS (couchsurfer) but her friend fell ill, and we were unable to meet up. But we found the Bloco anyway, and the energy there was amazing! We were on the steps enjoying ourselves with the others. We then were heading back to Copa, then everyone said there was going to be a good Bloco in Ipamena (really nice beach popular to Cariocas). So we took the metro (our best transportation friend) there. This was by far the best Bloco because we were so close to all the action. There were amazing dancers, singers, and fun there. We then met up with Gabriel and Christine and Jared (student from UofI) and went to Lago de Machago for some great music.

We then went to Lapa (town that never sleeps) after dinner. We danced some more here and went to the famous steps that Snoop Dog shot his video (Beautiful-Snoop with Pharrel). Now its famous for its scenery and a suppposedly many people get high here. We also met Victor, Gabriel's friend and his friend Paula. Victor hung out with us till 4 in the morning, he taught us how to Gringo-hunt. Ha! Ya we kinda sucked at it. We then went to catch the metro, because we suck at taking the buses- and it was closed! So we chilled in Lapa some more and waited till the metro opened at 5am.

We then figured we would just stay up till sunset (6:30am). So we chilled on the beach till sunset and met Marcos, a very interesting Carioca, who just plopped down beside us with a drink in his hand and began to speak Portuguese. Ha! It was an interesting 'conversation' we had. He kept pointing to his empty ring finger and to us, we ended up having a sand fight, and we let him try our 'bad water' to make sure we were correct.... ha that's Carnaval for you. We then took our bad water back to the store we got it from and demanded our 2.25 reis back. i really don't know how we got our $ back, but we were pissed and kept saying AGUA NO BEM. Ha, we were proud of ourselves for that one. We then headed back at 8am for a few hours of much needed sleep.