Sao Paulo, My ´´Home Away From Home.´´

Last time I came to Sao Paulo, I was lucky enough to have locals showing me around in a car, because I was ultra paranoid that I was going to get mugged or robbed at every street corner. This time in Sao Paulo, I realized as dangerous as Luiz claims it is (which I don´t doubt), I probably won´t get mugged at every street corner. haha. 

We arrived into the city late--like 11pm--so I tried asking the guy giving me my bag off the bus if it was safe to take the metro this late.  It took us about 10 minutes, and me saying every synonym I could think of for the word danger, plus pretending to mug him for him to realize what I was asking, and he laughed, and told me things were perfectly safe.  Then, being like all Brazilians--SUPER NICE--he pointed the way for us to go, and even took us part of the way to where the entrance to the metro was.  I shouldn´t have been surprised when I looked up from the ticket booth and I saw him waiting for us.  He had decided to come and escort us all the way to where we were going to catch the subway while explaining to me how to use the subway and where to get off.  So nice! I mean, at this point I already knew what I was doing, but it´s the thought that counts!! I thought it was such a nice thing for him to do, and a great way to start our stop in Sao Paulo.

What we didn´t know was that Sao Paulo has been experiencing quite the rainy spell--they had had 48 consecutive days of rain before we got there. Fantastic! We go from sunny and clear, no rain in sight, to 48 consecutive days and flooding!  I guess it wasn´t completely bad though, considering I was definitely in need to do my laundry and this weather was the perfect excuse to pull out the only clean clothes I had--longer sleeves and longer bottoms.

Jen and I spent the day walking all over the city.  I took her to the main street in Sao Paulo--Paulista Ave.--which is basically the business district.  The modern art museum there had an interesting display of naked women on the ground below the building.  I will never understand modern art. We continued our walk and actually ended up walking through a super ghetto, shady, seedy area of the city where all we saw was grafitti and homeless people.  I knew it was bad, but not until we were well into the walk--so there was no use in turning back I figured.  Luckily for us, nothing happened.  We made turkey sandwiches (hot dog bun + turkey + mutard = turkey sandwich) and had some fruit from a grocery store at what seemed like an ok area (we were wrong), and while Jen was using a pay phone, I sat watching our food and happened to make eye contact with a local who took it upon himself to come sit next to me and just start talking to me. What the heck.  I don´t understand why this keeps happening. haha. In every other city I didn´t mind so much at all since they were either helping or I was not in the ghetto so I knew they were ok people.  Here, this was the ghetto. And this guy sat and talked to me for a good 15 minutes even though I kept telling him I couldn´t understand him.  Turns out, he really was a good guy.  A hoodlum-ish kid came up to us while we were ´´talking´´ and wanted to take my food, and I said no, and then he warned me that there were lots of people who might try to take my food and that I should call the police if they did, and he pointed them out to me, although I already knew where they were.

My new friend finally left, and Jen decided to head back to the hostel, so I went to the Japantown of Sao Paulo because Sao Paulo is home to the 2nd largest Japanese population outside of Japan.  It was a pretty neat area.  There was a really nice church, but a lot of homeless people around, so I couldn´t take many pictures. The bank even looked like a typical Japanese house you would see on tv. Just imagine it because I couldn´t take a picture bc of the homeless. haha.

Back at the hostel, Jen had befriended a set of english brothers who were nice enough to cook us dinner that night.  It was fun to talk to them, although they reaffirmed that Americans more or less stink--at least all the ones they´ve met--and our health care system is absolutely ´´bollucks.´´  Tell me something I don´t know boys. Health care has been an ongoing discussion since I´ve been down here--no one can seem to understand how our system can be SO BAD.  Unfortunately, I can´t really give them an answer. Luiz´s cousin, Eloa, showed up to the hostel to give us some suggestions on what to do in the city at night.  We got some tasty dessert with her, and after getting caught in a ridiculous amount of rain that rendered my umbrella useless, we got ready for a night out with some caiparinhas and headed out to a club called Vegas. The night life in Sao Paulo is supposed to be insane. It seemed kinda crazy I guess...apparently the club we went to was open until 8am.  We left at 4:30am, and I realized the reason why my cough wasn´t going away had a lot to do with all of these late nights. haha.

Next morning, Jen decided she wanted to go to Paratay--a town about 6 hours north of Sao Paulo--so she headed out that afternoon, and I stayed back in Sao Paolo so I could head out to Florianopolis.  I spent the day with the English brothers, Pete and Phil, and we spent over an hour traveling to the Snake Farm in Sao Paulo which is supposed to be this super cool place where they milk snakes and make anti-venom and everything.  I thought it would be SO COOL to see something like this in person instead of on the Discovery Channel, and I figured it would be awesome to tell my parents about.  Well after taking forever and a day to get there, we get into the park and we realize we only have 1 hour to see the museum which was set to close in 30 minutes, and the park which closed in 60 minutes.  Holy crap! We power walked up this ridiculous hill, only to find that no building was marked clearly and the ´´snake pit´´ only had 2 snakes! WTF!  We booked it all over the park struggling to find the snakes, and finally we´re at the completely opposite end of where we started and I ask a woman in ghetto portuguese, ´´Onde feca the SNAKES?´´ with a snake sound effect. haha. She points us back to where we started all the way at the other end of the park! At this point, we´re so sad, because it´s basically 4:30pm, and we feel like there´s no way we´ll see the snakes.  Luck was on our side, and we were the last ones allowed in, but wow, after ALL of that running around, the snake farm was CRAP.  It was just a bunch of snakes behind glass in really small boxes.  WHAT A WASTE OF TIME. I should just stick to the Discovery Channel.  I can´t believe this is a main attraction in Sao Paulo though.

We spent another hour or so getting back to the hostel, and then I left to stay at Luiz´s cousin´s house since the hostel had no more space for me.  Man, that was the best thing that could have happened to me.  Luiz´s family is absolutely amazing, and his Aunt Sandra heated up rice and beans for me to eat, which doesn´t seem like anything special, but if you remember my turkey sandwich from the day before, you can see how a home cooked meal would be absolutely amazing in comparison.  I got to take a shower without sandals in a clean place for the first time in weeks, and I got to do my laundry (which is good bc I had NO underwear left!), and I got to sleep in a nice bed.  I was living the dream. Luiz´s uncle even made me fresh mango juice before I went to bed. So tasty.

I spent the next afternoon catching up with Luiz´s extended family at his Aunt Terazenia´s restaurant.  Some more amazing food for lunch and fresh mango juice. They spoiled me. =)  I even had a dessert which I actually liked, which means something since last time I came here, his aunt let me try every since dessert from her restaurant and I don´t think I liked any. It was a passion fruit custard or pudding I had--it was sooo good! I´ll have to try to find more of that before I leave Brazil.  I hung out with Eloa and her friends until it was time for dinner with Luiz´s parents.  We went to what was actually one of Lu´s favorite pizza places in Sao Paulo, and we had a good time sending him pictures of the food while he sent us pictures back of being sad.  I ended the blissful day and a half of my time with Luiz´s family by getting dropped off to the bus station by his parents.

 Sao Paulo doesn´t have much to do for tourists in my opinion, and I wasn´t planning stopping there at all because of this (and because I´d already been), but I am so so so so so GLAD I did stop there.  It was absolutely fantastic being able to hang out with Lu´s family, and they are so wonderful for hosting me.  A big THANK YOU goes out to them!

Next stop, Florianopolis--aka Floripa--in the southeast of Brazil.  I´m expecting the 12 hour bus ride to be worth it because I´ve heard nothing but praises for the beaches there. One last set of beaches before I hit the middle of South America. Maybe I can learn how to surf...

Rio is ''litrally mental''

Rio. Rio. Rio. Rio. Rio. omg Rio. I want to live here one day. Or at least have a vacation home here. This city is absolutely amazing, and I don't think I would ever get tired of being here if my life was anything like what it's been like the last week.

The bus ride down from Salvador ended up taking 30 hours. Sounds absolutely terrible, right? The distance is about the equivalent of the distance between New York City and Miami.  Luckily for me, South America is big on bus travel, and long distance buses are generally good, and are definitely fine in Brazil.  The seats are spacious, they recline almost all the way back, provide a leg rest, plus blankets, ear plugs, and movies. It's just like being on a plane, and almost better since planes are so cramped.  I got onto the bus to see that a cute girl was in my seat. I figured it wasn't a big deal, so I went and sat by some friends, expecting that it wouldn't be a problem. But this is my life, so of course at the next stop, a man comes and tells me I'm in his seat so I get kicked out of it.  I move up a few rows and settle into my next seat and within 10 minutes, the guy who kicked me out of my first seat has moved to a new set of seats near me.  What the heck? Ugh. Fine. I let it go. I'm thinking the odds of me having to move again are slim.  Wrong again.  Next stop, I am ONCE AGAIN in someone else's seat.  This time, a friend I've met from Scotland who's been volunteering outside of Rio helps me kick the 5 year old girl out of my seat because I felt too bad doing it.  I settle into my new seat, surrounded by a family of girls who are staring at me and talking about me in portuguese and saying that I don't understand it anyway when their mom scolded them. The mom is carrying an infant in her arms, and it was really cute, but I knew with the way my luck was going, when it was time to sleep, I would not be getting much. They're actually a really cute family of girls, and they offered me a sample of any cookie or snack they were eating.  The first one was horrible, but they got much better once they started eating cookies. They rejected my Soy Joys though. At some point during the trip, I noticed that the girl I was sitting by was breathing pretty heavily and it sounded like she was crying.  I tried to figure out what was going on then because she had a towel up against her mouth and I was really hoping she was just trying not to cough. Nope. She had thrown up or spit something up into the aisle and into the towel she was holding. Ewwwwww.  Thank god her sister cleaned it up asap and she made it to the bathroom before any real damage was done to my breathing space. But 10 minutes after the crisis happened, the mom had the bus driver pull over and the entire family of 5 women got off in the middle of nowhere. So weird! I hope they´re ok.

Just like Salvador, Rio was hot and muggy and just another sweat fest waiting to happen.  I got to my hostel and the first thing I noticed when I walked in was this huge Israeli flag.  I have nothing against Isreal, but I have yet to meet an Israeli who is fun and friendly.  I was so worried that the hostel was going to be full of antisocial Israelis..haha.  It wasn´t though--thank god.  I was actually supposed to be in room 6, but the owner moved me to room 8 because there weren´t any girls in room 6. I thought that was nice of him, and ended up meeting two Swiss girls who I hung out with.  We went to a samba club in Lapa which is where the craziness of carnaval happens.  I attempted to learn how to samba, but I was pretty unsuccessful.  It was amazing to watch the Brazilians go at it though!  They´re so fluid and smooth, and they need at least 6 feet of space all around them.  I think they´re all just born with this innate ability to dance.  Plus they´re born with good looks and big butts.  Nice life. 

Next morning, I was told I would have to move to room 6 but 15 minutes later the owner´s wife, said I wouldn´t have to. Okkkk. Another day with the swiss girls.  We went up to see the Chris the Redeemer statue. It´s really big. haha. No, it´s quite beautiful, and it gives great views of Rio.  Unfortuantely, the Swiss girls stink at taking pictures, so I was really unhappy because they never took a good picture of me at the statue. We spent the afternoon walking around Centro, the business area of Rio (I even saw the library!) and finished off our afternoon with some frozen yogurt from my new favorite place in the world, Yoforia (what an amazing name. haha.) and some time at Copacabana beach. What do you think of when you hear Copacabana?  That fun song?  Really pretty sand and water?  Well my friends, it is not as great as we thought. ha.  It was disappointing actually.  The water was not that pretty azul blue you see in pictures, it was actually a brownish color. I hoped that Ipanema would be better. I didn´t go out on Friday night because I ended up meeting people and talking to them for too long. No worries though.  I met new friends and took a day to recharge myself before the real craziness started.

Saturday morning and the hostel owner´s wife tells me I really do have to switch rooms because they asked someone in my room to switch and the guy had refused.  She said I could talk to him and maybe convince him to move to the room with all boys if I wanted.  Turns out, the guy who I´m supposed to have move is the guy who I just helped out getting settled into the breakfast routine. I was nice to a guy who was retarded and refused to switch rooms with me.  So I moved into a room with 5 guys--3 english and 2 sweeds.  Interesante.  Turns out, it was the best thing to have happened to me.  I hit it off really well with the English guys, and they became my new friends for the entire week.  The hostel owners always saw us together and kept asking if I was doing ok and telling the guys they had to take care of me. It was kinda funny.  We went out that night and were out until the sun came up that morning (our first sunrise of many more to come).  We went to Copacabana on the way home at 6:30am and ended up meeting some others from the hostel and we did a sunrise swim in the ocean. 

I spent my days with the boys just hanging out at Ipanema beach, watching the sunset there, and comparing things back and forth about England and the States.  They thought the way I talked was hilarious, and I had to point out that the things I said were pretty singular to me, and definitely not representative of America as a whole.  I´m pretty sure most people in America don´t say ``What the shit?!`` and ``O-m-g, that´s f´íng crazy!`` or `´j.k j.k.´´  The only thing that ever came out of their mouths to describe anything was ´´That is literally mental!´´ in the english accent of course where the ´e´ in literally is erased.  We went to the Sambadrome one night to watch the samba schools, and it was insane!!! The costumes, the concepts and the floats were absolutely amazing and beautiful!! I befriended the woman sitting in front of us, and she started to teach me how to sing along to the theme song of my favorite samba school whose theme song involved singing about books..haha, why I am I not surprised?  She was impressed with my pronunciation, but grew disappointed everytime she´d tell me to start singing along and I´d mess it up.  I can barely speak portuguese, I´m not sure how she expected me to be amazing at the singing. haha.  I´m bummed my favorite didn´t win--they even had a religions theme segment where they included hinduism. Yes those are Ganesh-es you see. Apparently, the owner of the winning samba school wins $10 MILLION. woah. I have some videos of the sambadrome (there are 100,000 ppl each night!).  Will try to get them up on fb.

I met Jen, my irish travel buddy, at 7am after our sunrise dip in the ocean. She is really sweet, and was super excited to meet me. It was really nice! Unfortunately, that was more or less the most time we spent together the entire time we were in Rio because we were in different rooms and both doing different things. I guess there will be more time to meet her later...the first being our 18 hour bus ride to Florianopolis. I also met 4 Americans and none of them made a good impression on anyone. One of these Americans was indian and our conversation went something like this:

Drunk Indian:  You´re American? Where are you from?
Me:  Chicago
Drunk Indian: Where in Chicago?
Me: Streeterville.
Drunk Indian:  Where in streeterville?
Me: Off Michigan Ave.
Drunk Indian:  Where off Michigan??
Me: Do you want my exact address or something so you can show up at my door? I live near the Water Tower Mall.
Drunk Indian:  Oh but you´re not from Chicago.  I bet you´re from Naperville.
Me:  No, I am NOT from Naperville. I´m from Indiana.
Drunk Indian (sensing the irritation in my voice): Oh I didn´t mean to offend you--you just look like the Naperville type.
Me: What does that even mean? Nevermind.  Nice meeting you, have a good night.
Drunk Indian Idiot:  Oh can I give you some advice?  I feel like I need to give you advice because I would give advice to my sister if she was alone in South America.
Me: No, I don´t want your advice, and I´m not alone. I am with these 3 guys here.
Drunk Indian: I really want to give you advice.

At this point, one of my english friends notices my annoyance and comes over and escorts me away from the idiot.  What the heck was that? And he wasn´t the only american to try to bascially get my address in Chicago by trying to pinpoint my EXACT location in chicago. Americans are weirdos abroad, and so far, no one I have met has made a good impression, and unfortunately, my foreign friends feel the same way about the ones they´ve met. Ugh. Good one America. Way to send weirdos to represent us. (not me though!)

I ended my stint in Rio peeling like crazy (ew), super tired, and with a cough that still won´t go away.  Unfortunately, Jen and I were not able to get a bus down to Florianopolis because there was only ONE seat left...so we´re detouring to Sao Paulo and we´ll head down after.  Overall, Rio was completely amazing, and although I didn´t spend carnaval in an inebriated state like 99.9% of the city, I still had a fantastic time, and cannot wait to come back! World Cup 2014?? Olympics 2016??

Morro de Sao Paolo: Why are there peas in my hot dog?

Morro de Sao Paolo can be summed up into: beautiful beaches with lots of (israeli) tourists.

We just barely made the two hour boat ride to the island, and we showed up with no place to stay and the backup plan of sleeping on the beach if we couldn´t find a place. I figured this might not be the smartest way to travel, but since I was with 4 other people, I could give this a try.  Not having a place would have been no big though.  The place is ultra touristy, and sleeping on the beach would have been completely safe and probably more comfortable than a room without air conditioning.

We found a nice hostel and settled in to lots of fun in the sun. I have sun burn worse than I´ve ever gotten before, but it was worth it. The beaches here look like they are straight from a post card.  I should consider investing in a summer home in brazil. haha.

I zip lined down a cliff that was 300 meters high that ended in the ocean.  Super fun, except when my tush hit the water, my bottom slid right off--not all way since there was a harness, but enough to expose my butt. haha. Luckily for me, only 70% of the people on the beach saw most of which were families, and my bottom was only exposed for about 2 seconds. There were some sleezy guys in the water who also unfortunately got a peek, but oh well.  Note to self for next time: wear shorts even if you´re going to end up in the water.

Hit up a beach party at night, which was lots of fun.  Apparently, Morro is a huge Israeli vacation hot spot. Who knew? My diet has been mostly just fruit for breakfast, and pasta for dinner.  Lunch doesn´t usually happen, but mostly because I am doing things, and my breakfast is pretty filling.  Hit up a beach party and thought I was getting some of home when I ordered a hot dog from the stand. I was wrong. The mustard was flourescent yellow and there was some sort of cheese product gluing the bun shut. My friend got a hot dog that ended up having peas and corn inside amoung other questionable hot dog toppings. Not trying that again...

I missed my bus to Rio, so I´ll have to take one tomorrow.  But I did manage to get to the bus station and get my ticket changed all by myself in portuguese. I wish I had someone around to give me a cookie.  In the meantime, I´m back in Salvador at a new hostel. I met a guy from Montreal at the bus station who helped me out a bit and brought me to the hostel he was staying at.  Nice guy for the help, but overall he´s pretty obnoxious and condescending, and I just wanted to kick him most of the time.  He didn´t help me carry my bags ONCE the entire time we were walking through the bus station and on the streets to the hostel.  All he had was a bottle of water. Idiot.  He did introduce a group of us to some brazilian cuisine called macaquaco which was not bad, but he still doesn´t get points.

There´s always a street festival here in the center on Tuesdays, so I might check that out and relax before my bus journey. Luckily friends from Morro will be on the same bus tomorrow so I´ll have company the whole way.

Salvador, ´´You´re beautiful!´´

Alo!!

It´s been a couple of days and I´ve settled into the beautiful city of Salvador! There are so many things to remember I´m going to have to start carrying a notebook around to jot down my thoughts! Cold showers are my new favorite thing, and I wish I could take 15 a day because the humidity here is crazy!  I´ve already gotten mosquito bites (good thing I have malaria meds!), but overall, I´m managing quite well.  Being alone here is not as hard as I thought it would be.

My first night of sleep was definitely not as restful as I´d imagined bc of all the heat.  I woke up sweating every hour, and do the same every night now.  I get up and ready and am down to breakfast by 8:30am every morning.  My parents would be proud. My first day in Salvador was a day of solo traveling.  I expected to hit the beach with some people, but decided to go into Pelourinho, the city center to do some sight seeing.  I took the bus locals take and it was a hot and sweaty ride.  I went to the water front and there was a mother-daughter pair there who asked me to take their picture.  I did, and they started talking to me in Portuguese, so I had to tell them I don´t understand it of course.  They asked if I was alone in Salvador, and when I said yes they were so shocked. The mom was so amazed that she asked to take a picture with me. haha.  Next thing I knew, I had two local tour guides taking me all around the center and we managed to have small conversations about where we lived and the city. The girl was 11, and she even brought up High School Musical and Hannah Montana (who neither of us like), and Beyonce who is really popular here. It was great.  I never figured I´d make friends with the locals so quick! It was fun walking around and taking pictures together.

After, I headed to the beach where I caught some rays and people watched.  I love Brazil bc it doesn´t matter if you´re fat, tall, small, old or young--everyone wears a bikini and really skimpy bottoms, even the men.  I think you would turn more heads in a one-piece bathing suit than if you were 50 lbs over weight in a bikini. It´s amazing how comfortable everyone here is with their bodies and the women here most definitely seem to be embracing their curves, courtesy of their african heritage.  I also noticed that even the pigeons in Brazil look good! They´re all skinny and you can see their legs, and they can actually fly instead of waddling around like the fat ones you see in western countries.  Another thing I learned was that if you are a straight guy, you should tan standing up doing model poses instead of laying down to tan as that is a ´gay´ thing to do. haha, funny stuff.

Day two was another trip into Pelourinho, but there was a group of us who went so it was nice to have some company.  We got to watch some caipoera dancing and there was a young samba group that we started to watch.  We waited in the blistering heat for 20 minutes waiting for them to start some dancing.  Unfortunately, all we got to watch was their warm-up session. Friday nights in Salvador are lively, and with carnaval coming up here, there are so many more things that happen at night.  We joined in with a street parade and it was so fun watching and dancing along with all the people.  They are all so friendly here, and really happy to help you out, or at least try.  There were women well into their 50s in realllllly short shorts just shaking everything, there were young kids, really old people. Everyone really likes to have a good time Salvador--I could definitely get used to this place.

We´d been walking for a while and I´d noticed 3 guys that kept staring at me.  Finally, one of them had the guts to come up to me and strike a conversation.  He said something in portuguese, and I again mentioned I can´t understand so he switched to english and preceded to tell me that he thought I was the most beautiful girl in the entire street parade and that everyone should be clapping for me.  Awkward..  It went on for a good 5-10 minutes while we were walking, and I thought it was really sweet because he looked like he was 15 years old. He tried to tell me he was 26, but his retainer and his friend´s braces kinda didn´t help his case.  I indulged him with small kiss on the cheek and thanked him, and he left only to come back because I was so ´´irrestible´´ and he just had to tell me how beautiful I was.  By now, I was getting to be pretty uncomfortable because it was so weird, but it didn´t end there.  He preceeded to tell me that I have ´´a brazilian body and the kiss of an italian´´ and then he said, ´´I don´t want to have to sing, but like James Blunt said, ´You´re beautiful!´´´  Ohh my. haha. He was not quiet when he sang either. haha. So awkward.  By now a Scottish guy in the group noticed because of the singing and he came and helped me out.

Our group started to walk home at around 3:30am but the parade was still kicking and heading down another street. Brazilians really do enjoy partying. You can buy beer by the can anywhere, even at the internet cafe I´m sitting at right now.  The beer isn´t great though--it is really watery and kinda reminds me of Key Stone. ew.

I wrapped my last day up in Salvador hanging out with some friends from the hostel and at the beach.  I´ve met some really amazing people here, including this one guy Thij (pronounced Tyse like mike tyson) from Holland.  We´ve had some really great discussions about things that go on in our respective countries, and it´s been a lot of fun doing that with everyone.  English is spoken by almost everyone staying at the hostel, so it´s been really easy and fun to hang out.  There is only one other american here, from Michigan, but he´s pretty cool. He´s been living in Rio for the last few months in a favela (slum) teaching english. Other wise most of the group is european, aussie or kiwi.

Heading to an island two hours from Salvador today with some new friends, to a place called Morro de Sao Paolo. If these first few days in Salvador have been any indication of what is to come, than I am really excited. The people in Brazil have been wonderful.  :)

akoori omlette? no thanks air canada.

part one: 
don´t fly air canada. nothing really against them but their food is disgusting..at least the vegetarian options are. no, i am not a vegetarian, but i figured that would be the better food option considering the brazilian food had some sort of meat concoction that never smelled good. either way, the akoori omlette and the daal curry were gross, and i didn´t have much to eat. thank god nina gave me 100 calorie packs. haha. those things were life savers.

getting to brazil was definitely not easy. i never got a window seat on any of my flights and every single person who had the window seat in my row was a fat older person who was either sleeping while we were flying over the cities or blocking the view with their mass, so no aereal city photos for me! My first foreign conversation happened as soon as I sat down on the plane.

the woman i sat by on my flight to sao paolo looked at me and asked, ´´Ce Brazilian?´´ 
Me: [shakes head] ´´No. Americana.´´
Woman: ´´Oh.´´
End of conversation.

haha, we resorted to rudimentary hand guesters and sign language and even that didn´t work out well.

the flight to sao paolo was long, but bearable since i had two seats to myself. didn´t get to sleep much, and unfortunately my seat happened to be the ghetto one that only let me hear movies out of one of my headphones. i tried to sync the seat next to mine with the same movie so i could hear the movie normally, but the other seat played all the conversations like chipmunks. seriously? after that, i gave up and tried to look through the lonely planet guide i bought. I LOATHE THAT BOOK. it is SO heavy and it takes up so much space, I am seriously considering just ditching the stupid thing.

after getting through customs in sao paolo i headed to catch my next flight to rio. unfortunately, i was misdirected and ended up in the wrong place where no one seemed to know which flight i was trying to get on. eventually they figured out that my flight was boarding and i needed to ´´hurry!´´ i got to the line to get my new tickets and it was ridiculously long. luckily it was full of ppl also trying to get on the same flight as me. they held the plane for an hour and we finally got on our way. i happened to sit next to a guy from nobelsville, indiana. go figure. he was nice, but he bragged too much about how rich he was and how many countries he´s visited and how his kids were awesome atheletes. flight was short though, so i didn´t have to talk too long.

the next problem was that i had to go through customs AGAIN in rio and it took me forever to get an officer guy to let me leave the line since i´d already done it. mind you i have another flight to catch to salvador, and i still have to get my bag on the carosel and re-check it. at this point, i am still wearing my fleece, scarf, and all the layers  i had on when i left snowy chicago. i was sweating bullets. i had to run through the airport (yes, i was THAT girl) trying to get checked in and there was no way i could take the escalator with the stupid cart i had so i had to wait for the elevator which was too full the first time it came, and then stopped on every floor. the elevator lady whose job it is to push the button didn´t seem to care about my rush and took her sweet time. then i´m running to the airline to get my bag settled and these two girls working FINALLY grasp that the flight i should be on is well into boarding. One girl tries to go to another guy to help me cut the line and get going, but the guy is being yelled at by this other guy who is really mad about something, and she finally gets his attention and he has to radio the gate to wait for me. They told me to leave my bag and just RUN to the gate. So i did. i didn´t even wait to see if it got sent behind the counter. i just took off and i was again the tourist girl with a big blue turtle backpack running through the airport.

but i made it! sweating and out of breath, but still i got on. well actually, i had to wait to get onto the plane because an american woman was blocking the doorway to the plane bc she was complaining to the flight attendant about some sort of book that was lost or stolen. for five minutes i´m waiting to get into the plane bc this woman is making SUCH a big deal about this book, so i´m thinking it must be like a wedding album or something that is actually worth all this trouble. the ´´book´´ turns up after we sit down. Identity of the mystery book: a $7.99 golf magazine. seriously? what the heck?

i finally make it to the airport and my driver whose name i can no longer remember and had a hard time pronouncing is waiting with a sign with my name. Cool!  But then he tells me he´s been waiting more than an hour for me, which is not cool since i get charged for that. But I figured out someone gave him the time my flight was departing not arrving. so he did not get extra from me. but he was really nice. he tried talking to me in portuguese so i told him i didn´t know any, and we tried switching to spanish. i said ´´Habla MUY POCO espanol.´´ He starts talking to me like I´m fluent. haha. I tell him I don´t know what he´s saying and he switches back to portuguese like i know what he´s saying. finally i whipped out my pocket spanish guide and tried asking a few questions. I´m pretty sure he has two seven year old twin sons. and he really likes Pres. Obama--as evidenced by the Obama cheers and thumbs up-- and he really hates former Pres. Bush--as evidenced by the throat slashing--haha. it was hilarious.

part two: great ball of fire

got to the hostel, and got settled in.  my god it is SO HOT here! not trying to rub it in since you´re all stuck in winter, but good god! i have been sweating non-stop since i got to brazil, and i´m pretty sure i´m well on my way to lose half my body weight at this rate.  cold showers are my new best friend. met a girl who thankfully spoke portuguese so we went to the mall and found an internet cafe and tried to find a phone.also met two brits who are really nice who i´ll be hanging with the rest of the time in salvador and probably down to rio. the hostel has no ac, just fans that don´t do much at all. i´m sleeping in a girls dorm which is 8 bunk  beds in a small room. no other americans here. i´ve met people from holland, ireland, england, lithuania, mexico, and italy. they are all chimney smokers. ugh. we were hanging out and they all had at least 5 cigarettes and i was like eww. but the packs here are interesting bc they show really sad pictures to try to discourage smoking. not sure it works, but it´s one method.

sleeping was not as easy as i thought it would be since i was so tired. the heat is really unbearable, and i feel sticky and nasty the minute i walk out of my shower. heading to the beach today. yay!

i would write more but i only have one minute left on the computer. byee

leaving on a jet plane...

leaving in a few hours! holy crap. it's snowing in chicago and toronto..a sign? haha. nope. although the mud slides in peru are a different story...hopefully that part of my trip works out..

i have about 24 hours of flying and airport time ahead of me. by the time i reach my destination i'll have been in 5 airports. should be a good time for me to finally read the lonely planet guide i bought.

leaving chicago at 6:17 pm on Feb. 2 and my final destination is Salvador, Brazil at 4:30pm Feb. 3.

i'll miss everyone plenty, and i hope you'll keep in touch! i'll try to update this thing when i can and when i have something cool to tell you since these last posts have been pretty dull. 

in the mean time, my friend v said it best when she wrote:

peace, love, good vibes, and on-time flights.

take care everyone!