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.  :)