"Watch out for that signal, when life as you know it ends"

BRASIL! (those are cracker packages)

Graduation!

This is how you celebrate it here in Brasil.

Jill's birthday.

exchange students! (Charleen: Germany, Jill: Germany, Me, Juh: Outbound)

delicious cake with passion fruit mousse. :)

Here we go again...

November 11 (terça):

My uncle's car broke so mãe gave us a ride to school. We had lunch at Vó's because my other uncle that lives in the south was in town for his daughter's graduation from medical school. It was rainy all day, cutting out my run and ending tennis right on time. Then I got ready for a birthday party of the German exchange student, Jill. She lives in a gated area (called a condominium here) and you have to show you id and everything to get it. It was very nice, small but lots of noise and activity and new friends. We sang happy birthday in Portugues, German and English. :)

November 12 (quarta):

My principal gave the workbooks everyone uses and now I get to follow along and actually participate in class. Lunch was at Vó's. Rotary was good, and José Augusto was the speaker. He was an inbound to Canada when I was an outbound. It was great to see his slideshow because I knew all the exchange students in the pictures. They had elections for the presidents of the upcoming years and Jorge (the guy I ate dinner with at Maccaronda Italiana) won for the next year and Maria will be his secretary. Terezinha, my couselor, will be the president the year after that. I was going to go straight to bed, but Harry Potter got the best of me.. :(

November 13 (sexta):

Lunch was at Vó's again, with all the family. I was so tired from the past few late nights that I took a two hour nap instead of running. After gym I had to get ready for my cousin's graduation. They have many days for graduation and they all have different things on different days. Thursday was the formal graduation in the church and dinner. Today was the informal graduation and Saturday was the dance. After driving to the middle of nowhere in Taubaté, the celebration was like nothing I have ever seen. Everyone brings air horns, noise makers, confetti, poppers, streamers, whistles, etc and have a party, basically. We shouted for all the grads as they walked in and when they got their dipolmas as well. It was so much noise and we could only take it for so long (there was only like 80 graduates but they called each name and the parents gave them their dipolma and took 2 pictures) so we left and went and got pizza in Villa Ema, by the meter. Half a meter of tuna, sausage and corn later we went home.

November 14 (sabado):

I was awoken at 9:30 by two texts messages. After lunch at Vó's, mãe took me to meet Jill, Charleen and friends of Charleen at the mall. We had a lot of fun talking and shopping a bit. It was a very chill night with the João Heitor at a friend's birthday party and Álvaro at Tutu's with my other cousins. We ate dinner around 11 when Álvaro got home and went to bed around 12:30 when João Heitor got home.

November 15 (domingo):

Family BBQ day! I read the newspaper for the first time here. We had mayoneise (similar to potato salad), followed by beans, rice, excellent pork, banana farofa and ice cream. My cousins from Pinda stopped by and I went to the mall with them for more food (Sushi and tempura). My cousin Lu spent the night and it was very nice to have her stay over.

November 16 (segunda):

I had a minor OCD moment and sorted all the puzzle pieces by color. Haha. I did the normal things, run, go to the gym (figured out how far I actually run.. Pretty damn far), and ate whole grain bread for dinner. I went to bed early to catch up on my sleep.

November 17 (terça):

I changed seats today in school. I now sit in front of two of my other friends and next to many new people. I went to Extra with mãe to get some stuff for Juh's birthday and ended up getting some things for myself as well. Iza (another outbound) gave me a ride to Juh's, who lives in Urbanova as well as Jill, but a different community. We ate pizza and cake and partied it up. :D I met a lot of Juh's friends and had a great time with them, as well as Iza, Jill and Juh. We gave Iza a ride home (she lives in Jardim Aquárius but will be in Austria when I am living in there.) I passed out around 11.

November 18 (quarta):

Perrenoud asked me what I eat for breakfast and I replied water and bread, which did not help the exercise they were doing about calcium. Whoops. Heron gave my class an inspiring speech about how we are a small group but a strong group (as represented by the shirts they gave us yesterday). After my run, I had a nice talk with Lincoln and someone else at the gym about Brasilia and Amazonas. Leando was back from Switzerland and stronger than ever at tennis. But it was still a lot of fun.

November 19 (quinta):
Rotary was really good, no real program though just discussions. Maria had another meeting afterwards so I chatted with a Rotarian's wife about her daughter and how she loves Campos de Jordão (mountain town near me). She was very nice and said I could go with them to Campos if I ever wanted to.

November 20 (sexta):

Fernando was not there for the first class so I joined in a game of Uno with new people. People here love Uno and always play by different rules. The second class we sat outside and I finished my chem exercises. :( It started raining again as I got ready for my run so I went to the mall with pai and mãe.

Weekend in Ilhabela:

We left around 9pm and stopped for a traditional Brasilian snack (pão de queijo and guaraná). After driving through Caraguá and São Sebastiao, we stopped behind a line of cars. Only then did I realize we were getting on a ferry at midnight. And we weren't the only ones. Some guy was selling coconut cupcakes and gave us one to try.. We didn't die. Another ten minute drive to Jill's first host family's house (in a complex of houses, right on the beach), we unpacked all the food, tried to fit 3 mattresses in a a tiny room and passed out. After a goodnight's sleep we went and sat on the rocks looking out at the beautiful view. Then Claudia (Jill's first host mom) decided we needed to go to another beach. Roque (Jill's first host dad) kayaked there, but Claudia, Jill, Juh and I walked there, traversing rocks and paths (about 200 meteres) because we could not cut through the condominium. The beach we ended up at is called Feiticeira which means witch in Portugues. The princess of Brasil lived there for a short time, in a big farmhouse. After slavery was outlawed in 1850, pirates used the island as a storing place. The rain had caused the sand to not be a sloping toward the water. We took many pictures on the rocks. I was storing my camera on dry clothes in the kayak. When we went to get our clothes, I saved Jill's camera, but mine fell into the water in the kayak and died. :( (I will get pictures of Ilhabela from Jill, sorry about that). We had lunch back at the house, rice, BBQ, salad (with tomatoes, apples and bananas) and a dessert I don't even know how to describe but excellent. We went into the center of town after everyone had taken a nap, though the rain limited what we could do. So we sat in the bookshop reading about New Moon, eating pão de queijo and drinking fresh OJ. It was a great end to the night. With limited time we took a walk around from the center of town, north to another cute beach. This beach, and everything around it (restaurants, hotel), is owned by a German family. We stopped for some water, pineapple juice and traditional snack on the island, casquinha de camarão (Google it.. I can't explain it.) Then we walked back because we didn't want to wait an hour for the bus. We had lunch, with rice, pasta bolgnese, sausages (both Brasilian and German), potatoes with a little mayoneise and oregano, and salad. I had an interesting talk about their religion (both families are the same religion). After Juh and her family left, Jill and I went to meet a friend of Claudia and Roque's daughter, whose family owns an açaí restaurant. After the biggest açaí with condensed milk and strawberries, Ylena, Jill and I took a walk to Praia Grande and sat and talked for a long while. Praia Grande has turtles on one end of the beach and stingrays on the other. Cool huh!? After Claudia picked us up, it was time to go home. I didn't want to leave. :( Boarding the ferry, we all got out of the tightly packed cars and stood on the bow. It was very calming. We dropped Claudia off at her work to pick up her car (after stopping at Fazendão again.) and they took me home. Jill and I talked a lot with Roque in the car on the ride home. Oh the great people you meet in Brasil.

November 23 (segunda):

I did not have school today, and no one really knows why. It was a holiday in São Paulo on Friday (that's why there was a lot of people at the beach) but not for SJC. After lunch I went on a run and then to gym. I am very lucky because I recieved my Christmas present early, a new camera! :D

November 24 (terça):

Maria was so funny in school today. She wants to have a BBQ for only people who speak English (which is funny because she doesn't speak it very well) and only my friend Monica, me, and my principal would be allowed. Haha. Maria was trying really hard though and she said "Minha casa have house". I was confused... unless Naty explained she meant horse. Lunch was a vó's. Mãe and João Heitor went to get him new shoes and I chilled at home, listening to music when I heard the doorbell. I couldn't figure out who it would be, and I didn't have keys (I found some in va's office) and it was the post man with a package from my aunt. He mumbled something in Portugues and I signed the paper, but he needed a number too. I didn't know what number he wanted (age? zip code? phone number?) so he said he would come back, which he did at dinner. My host fam promptly told me he needed my id number. We had so much fun at SESC, testing out my new camera's anti-blur and underwater ablities.

November 25 (quarta):

Perrenoud talked to me about the food here and I could actually carry on a conversation. I missed his last class to go see New Moon! It lived up to my expectations. Then mãe dropped me off at gym (I changed there) and I saw pictures of Lincoln's baby girl, born yesterday. I got up the courage to ask a new guy at gym if he played volleyball (his shirt said he did..). It was great to find out some things about Tenis Clube as well. I'm so proud of myself. :) I had yogurt before tennis and actually liked it. What is the world coming to?? At tennis, the wind picked up and there was lightening storm on half the city. You could see the line of where the clouds covered half the city and the other half was clear. It is the weirdest thing. I helped João Heitor study for his math test tomorrow and just relaxed.

That's all for now! Beijos!

Here we go..

Oi gente, so another two weeks have past and you have not gotten an update from me. So again, I am very sorry. Maybe I can back on track someday..



Traveling back in time to October......



October 24 (Sabado):

I got up the same time as I would for school and got ready for Maria to pick me up. I rode in the car with João, Maria, João Vitor, and Maria's nephew, Nicolas. I was in the same chalé as last time, with a few new people and a few the same. It was so great to see everyone again, and meet the last of the exchange students that arrived. And slowly the groups started to integrate, Brasilians and Exchange Students. We were told the plan for the weekend and our group set off to do some work with the manuel for this district. At my table was Oscar (from Mexico) and Sarah (from Canadá) and we had a blast doing the simplest thing we could. The funniest part was Oscar asked Alcione (my inbound coordinator) for a bolacha (which is cookie in portugues) when he meant to ask for a borracha (an eraser). I still laugh about it. We had lunch with everyone, french fries, meat, rice, salad, 4 cheese pasta and ice cream and fruit for dessert. My table was so much fun (Deborah from Denmark, Oliva from US, Appy from India, Sarah from Canadá and one Brasilian). Oliva and I took a walk to change because it was so hot and were a little late to the next activity (creating a flag of exchange year, exciting eh?) and we played the hugging game again. It was way to hot to touch that many people. After we had another meeting with Renato (over the same things as before) we went back to the chalés to get ready for the talent show. Arisa from Japão played piano and Sarah played flute and the rest of us found something entertaining to do, some Brasilian boys sang with guitar, the German girls did a dance and I helped Oliva with some cheers. We had pizza and headed back to the chalés. The rest of the night was spent outside, guitar or cell phone music playing and just talking a mix of english and portugues.



October 25 (domingo):

After not sleeping well (cramming 4 girls on 3 twin beds, pushed together) we had to clean the cabin. We cleaned extra well, hoping to get an award in reward. Breakfast was mostly sweet, so everyone picked through what we wanted. Then Alex from Germany asked for our help in preparing a traditional German drink for the country fair. It was apple juice with gas (carbonation for you American folk). Alex, Oliva, Mara (Romaina), Jade (Brasil) and I cut apples and put them in a blender. Alex just wanted the juice so we had to strain out the pulp, and then Alex added too much gas water (carbonated water) and it was really weak so then Alex added the mushed up apple and floated some cut pieces in the top. When we finished everyone had left so we went exploring for the group. Of course we walked the wrong direction. The country fair was so cool! Seeing clothes from India, food from Denmark, postcards of Thailand, a kimono from Japan, and many other countries. All the parents came around and the kids decided which countries they wanted to go to. Then the parents and the outbounds had to do something so all us inbounds sat around talking for a long while. After a typical xurras lunch, we all got ready to go. Once again, that immediate feeling of saldade (to miss) hit everyone of us. We all promised to meet up soon and we were off. I stayed at Maria's for a bit until my host fam got back from Pindamonangaba. After watching some of the highly anticipated (well my house at least) Wizards of Waverly Place Movie, I headed to bed.



October 26 (Segunda):

This week we started reviewing in some of my classes, going back to the beginning of the year. Today was also the first day I went for a run here in Brasil. I was told of two parks near to my house and set off to see them. One was very beautiful but very small. The other was much bigger, but not as nice. I think it's nice to have a compromise between both of them. I only gave myself 10 minutes to get to the gym, and I was dying by the time I got there. A friend came over for dinner and then I watched The Parent Trap with the boys while mãe chatted with Janaina. Then I was off to bed.



October 27 (Terça):

Lunch was at Vó's today, and I was craving some fried mandioca and guess what Ne had made? Fried mandioca. I accomplished many things for Rotary, monthy report, plane tickets, and authorization papers. There was no volleyball at SESC because they were preparing for a dance show, but pai needed the car because it looked like it was going to rain. So we stayed home and played Rack.



October 28 (Quarta):

Just a normal day here in Brasil. I went for a run (an hour this time and still almost died), to the gym, Maria had work so no tennis, but I talked to my parents. When pai came home we had coconut bread and something similiar to cinnamon rolls.



October 29 (Quinta):

A friend of mine made chocolate cake for all of us, it was so delicious. After lunch, mãe and I went to the bank. The first bank didn't take Cirrus so we had to go to a different bank, but I got my plane tickets to the Amazon paid for! Rotary tonight was a fundraising dinner at a local restaurant, Macarronada Italiano, where we had four different kinds of pasta, nhoque and mini banana splits for dessert. My table was so much fun, Maria, João, João Vitor, Maria's mom and the youngest guy in the Rotary club Jorge. There was a live sax player, cirque de soilei on the tv (made for some interesting backround pictures), a raffle (Jorge won a skin care package) and lots of chattering. The dessert took forever to come, but our table was not leaving till we got ours. Everyone else was leaving, but we waited. I got in around midnight and passed out.



October 30 (Sexta):

I took a short half hour nap before going running (for less time, but I think I ran more) and going to the gym which was very pleasant. Tonight was Tutu's birthday party, he is turning 6 on the 31st. The place was very similiar to Kid's Castle, but 10x smaller. There was a little soccer field, trampoline for one, nerf cannons, fooseball and DDR. The food was excellent, salgadinhos (little hor'derves, similiar to empanadas, quiches and pizzas), popcorn, pão de queijo, and cotton candy. After singing to Tutu, we had cake (similiar to tres leche) and brigadero (little sweets and chocolate truffles). The joke of the night was that I was 8 years old again, not 18. I even got a party favor! We were the last to leave at 11 and I updated my iPod before bed.



October 31 (Sabado):
Halloween! Well, kind of. When I was woken up, I had about 20 minutes to pack for the sítio. We were the first ones to the sítio and didn't have a key to the second gate, so we past all our luggage and food through the fence and carried it to the house. Five minutes later, my aunt and uncle showed up, great timing. We had more nhoque for lunch. The pool was cleaned out and the trampoline was set up. After some leftovers for dinner and singing to Tutu (today is actually his birthday) and eating some cake, everyone just relaxed. I laid in the hammock, just looking out at the stars and hills. No camera could ever capture that picture correctly.

November 1 (domingo):

I was woken by Álvaro, Tutu and Aninha playing uno in the room, while João and I were still asleep. We spent the rest of the day in the pool. Tia Cynthia's niece, Lia, her SO, Clay, and their son, Pedro came, along with one of Tia Cynthia's 7 siblings, Tia Thais and her daughter Yada and Tia Cynthia's mom. Duda and Claudia came later, so it was basically a big party. We had churrasco (BBQ) for lunch and then everyone went back to swimming. I had a lot of sun so I went to read my book for a bit and ended up falling asleep. We jumped on the trampoline waiting for dinner, pasta, to be done. It was a relaxing night, just talking with family, playing some guitar and being that much closer to nature. I found a book "Around the world in 365 days" (written in english) and it included beautiful pictures of different places in the world. Included in it was Washington State, near Pullman. I was very excited to know a place in the book.

November 2 (segunda):

After breakfast everyone got in the pool again, and after applying sun screen of course. Pedro, Tia Thais and Yada had spent the night and around 11 Lia and Tia Denise came. We had more BBQ for lunch and I introduced everyone to my weird habit of eating carrots with peanut butter. After some more time in the pool, we got everything taken down and packed up to head home. The kids and I played a game where you are going to the moon and an item has to fit a certain rule, that someone makes up, to take it with you and you have to try and guess the rule. Álvaro started with, "I will go to the moon and take with me, cow poop". No one was knew what to say after that... On the way home, Álvaro realized the yellow caution signs showed the arrows exactly as the road would continue. We made fun of him for a bit, then João started interpreting the signs, "swerve right and then continue straight..." and pai called him JoãoPS. For dinner we had hamburgers from Janela Aberta again (mine had egg again. :D) and after talking to my parents, I went to bed around 12, now 6pm back home.

November 3 (Terça):

Because I didn't get to go to the gym yesterday, I went for a run and to the gym today. I also got to start new excercies and meet some new people. Pai brought home pamonia, a sweet tamale type thing, and couscous. We went to SESC and I joined the game in progress. I am proud to say I knew about half the people playing. I got pulled away to get checked by the doctor (so I could go swimming) but by the time we got down there, they weren't in but I got to go swimming anyways. Really all I wanted to do was sleep, too much exercise for one day. haha. We came home around 10, one of the last ones to leave SESC.

November 4 (Quarta):
School was good, and I went for a run and to the gym (with more new exercises) after lunch. I had tennis classes today as well and one of the guys we normally play with, Leando, is in Switerland so it was just Maria, Julio and I. I think the fatigue is finally setting in, because I was super tired.

November 5 (Quinta):

I made the mistake of falling asleep in physics today, and my teacher caught me, asking me if I needed to step outside. Needless to say, I will never fall asleep in that class again. Though I understood most of the chem review questions, I guess two years pays off. I meant to do my blog after lunch, but procrastination got the better of me. It was so hot! Thank god a little rain cooled everything off just before Rotary. I made another mistake at Rotary. I got a glass of what I thought was juice.. However it was cachaça, rum. A rotarian saved me from too much embarrassment. The program was about an ex exchange student's trip. He went for 3 months to Salt Lake City, and did so many things in 3 months. Maria had another meeting afterwards so I hung around with the wives of my club president and another rotarian. I got home just before 11pm.

November 6 (Sexta):

My portugues teacher didn't realize that I was an exchange student and was getting ready to yell at me for not having the workbook. Luckily I know enough portuguese to avoid trouble. Aninha was over for lunch and wanted the hard-boiled cordona eggs warmed up. Well they then proceeded to explode all over the kitchen. I talked too long to my parents on Skype and only got in a little run before gym, so I went out afterwards too. I showed my family my going away slideshow, there were so many great pictures in it.

November 7 (Sabado):

Lunch was at Vó's and we got there right as Tia Ma and Marie were leaving. We watched Twilight (in portuguese with english subtitles) then mãe and pai called all their friends over for a BBQ at 8. So naturally everyone showed up at 9. The joke was that our house has two outdoor showers, and my house in US has a swimming pool but it's cold, and here we have not just one, but two outdoor showers. I met many of my family's friends and we had a great time, BBQing, playing guitar, and just talking. The last couple left around 1 and pai had something to eat, mãe was cleaning and we got to talking.. And before you know it, it was 3:30am. So we went to bed.

November 8 (domingo):

I was woken up saying people were coming over for more BBQ. It was just family: Tia Cynthia, Tio Nanu, Tutu, Aninha, Vó, Tia Ma, Tio Indio, and Fred. The last 4 left before we even had dessert, warmed pineapple and creme ice cream. I had a great time talking with my aunt and uncle about Brasil and US. Then I watched Evan Almightly with João and Aninha. We had some pasta (very similiar to the kind I have back home) for dinner and I got to talk to my parents again. Then it was time for bed.

November 9 (segunda):

Mãe had made an excellent dessert (condensed milk, milk, egg and bread) for lunch. I went for a run and to the gym as normal. The only people in the park were workers taking down the Christmas lights, though I don't know why because Christmas is coming up... It was refreshing to run in a little cloud cover and chance of rain (it did rain on me, right as I got to the gym). I had a great talk with Lincoln about different body parts in english (apparently elbow is a pretty word) and rock climbing (he was a guide for the local trails, before he was trainer). I ate mostly fruit for dinner, mãe had bought some, and it was all excellent (peaches, pineapple, apple). I killed my first huge bug here (it looked similiar to a cockroach. :/) and I called it a day.

Well that's all for now. Beijos, Tttttchhhhauuuu!