there´s a little bird at my feet trying to nip at my dry heel skin. it used to be a cute little bird, about 10 minutes ago, but now it´s freaking me outa little bit because it´s following me everywhere i go. that´s the present-time update. now let´s jump back in time like michael j fox.marisol and i realized earlier this week that we didn´t have to stay in rio for the full month that we had the apartment. marisol had a phone conversation with her mom, who helped us see the big picture. hellooo! just leave earlier and spend more time in places you like. duh amy. so last night we hopped on a plane and headed for Vitoria. We´re staying with a girl our age (Paula) and her grandmother. We met Paula about a month ago when we were on Ilha Grande. It feels soooo good to be here, in a smaller city (still super huge though) and in a family environment, with someone our age. One thing that´s really cool and makes me a tiny bit proud of myself is that when we met Paula, she and I couldn´t understand each other at all. We shared a bunch of cookies over hand gestures to try and communicate. Now we can talk with each other!! She´s so patient and talks really slow and is probably using the vocab of a 4 year old, but I understand it. High Five!

Rio de Janeiro had it´s ups and downs. I didn´t hate it there. I wasn´t miserable. But to be honest, it was mostly downs. Here are the few Ups of Rio:

Language school - Figuring out how to ask for a napkin, talk to people about our trip, finding our way around the city, all that and more would have been impossible for me without language school.

Meeting and hanging out with our language teacher, Terry - We went out with her 3 times in 4 weeks, and every time was great. She even taught us all the portuguese curse words and bad slang (during class time!). A couple of days ago was definitely our best day in Rio. We started the day by meeting up with Terry and her husband in Copacabana. They took us to meet some friends of the family, and we all walked to the beach. We met up with even more people they knew at the beach. Once we were all set up, there was about a dozen of us, with just as many chairs and umbrellas, all set up in a big circle so everyone could see each other and no one was in the scorching sun. They joked that our umbrella-sarong fort was a favela, because we kept adding to it hap-hazardly to make sure everyone was in the shade. Marisol and I instantly felt as though we were good friends with all of these people, even though most of the time I couldn´t understand what they were saying. At one point, a vendor came around. He was selling “quejo cualho,” which is a stick of white cheese that is grilled and sprinkled with oregano. Thank the lord for that one. Everyone in our big group got one, and the vendor sat with us for about 10 minutes grilling 12 sticks of cheese. We were at the beach past sundown. Afterward, we showered at their nearby apartment and all went out to dinner. By this time it was past midnight and the metro had stopped running, and the family invited us to sleep over at their house. There were two girls in the family, 19 and 16, and it was fun talking with them. It was so good to finally not feel so isolated in that big city, and again we saw more of the Brazilian kindness and generosity that we´ve been fortunate enough to encounter since we first arrived.

CARNAVAL!!! - oooooh boy. Brazil not only knows how to open their hearts to complete strangers, they also know how to party. I think Marisol and I ended up with little colds as a result, but that consequence was a tiny price to pay for the amount of fun that was had in the 5 days of carnaval. Last Friday got it all started. We went out with her aunt to the neighborhood Lapa, where a bloco was scheduled to play. Blocos are giant parade-type events that picture percussion bands (anywhere from 10-100s of players) and everyone else who wants to join in. It´s a very exciting, very public event. They happen everywhere, day and night, during Carnaval. I read that 300 blocos take place in Rio. The one we went to in Lapa was huuuuge. Thousands of people were in the streets, and you´re back-to-back trying to get somewhere. After winding our way through the packed streets and turning down several offers of kisses (”come on, it´s carnaval”) we ended up in a big warehouse where the bloco band was playing. Marisol´s aunt and several of her friends joined in, so we were right there next to the action. We danced like crazy and lost a few pounds from sweating, then in the early hours of the morning we chowed down on some pizza. We went to bed at 3, which ended up being the earliest of the 5 days.

The next night we went to the Sambódromo, which is the arena/road where the samba schools parade down. When you see pictures of Carnaval in the states, this is usually what you see. 300-piece percussion bands, thousands of dancers, giant elaborate floats. I tried to get some good photos –we’ll let you know when we get them up on the sight. It lasted from 8pm to 6am. The parade had 10 groups that each take about an hour to parade down the strip. Muito legal!!

On Sunday Mari´s aunt left, and the real parties began. We went back to Lapa and met a group of really nice people while eating linguiza on a stick. They took us to a nice place for some beers and appetizers, then we went to a huge public plaza where live music played on a huge stage until 5am. Nothing like getting home and going to sleep while the sun is rising.

Nothing like it except for doing that 3 nights in a row. We went back to Lapa the next night after a failed attempt in Copacabana, and danced at a samba club to a small band. I didn´t dance the whole time, as I don´t know samba very well and feel silly amongst all those beautiful Brazilians who dance perfectly, but it was just as enjoyable sitting back and watching it all. Every time waiters had to come up to where we were dancing, he would join the group for a while before returning to work. The band played until 4, and we finished the night by joining a conga train led by the waiters and a cook.

We had an entire month in Rio, but procrastinating´s my thing, so we squeezed in the tourist attractions at the last minute. Christ the Redeemer and Sugarloaf mountain were just as cool as they look in the postcards. We took some fun DMX pictures in front of Jesus. It´s funny, those things are the “must-do” things in Rio that every tourist ends up doing, but I’m pretty sure they won’t be the first things I remember when I look back on our time there. Instead I’ll remember our beach favela, and the all-night forró fair with Terry, and getting açai at our neighborhood juice bar every day. Now that it´s over, it’s easier to look back and realize why we decided to spend a month in a busy, crowded, dirty city.

with lots of love, Amy