Praia De Forte

Last weekend was the Rotary Orientation in Salvador, the capital of the state of Bahia.
Friday night, Jasmine and I met Kyle, and our counselor, Noquina, at the Itabuna train station. Noquino gave us our tickets, but Sven (accompanied by another fez from Germany, hosted in another city) didn't show up until about five minutes later, so we missed our bus. I wasn't happy. It was 11 at night, and I knew that it was a 6 hour drive to Salvador, so I wanted to get going.
We were all just standing around waiting for something to happen when Willy, a brazilian kid, came rushing down the stairs and told us to hurry up- we rushed outside and saw Noquina in a panicked state. He grabbed our bags and threw them in the car, and pushed us in the back.
Brazilians drive crazy, I always knew that. But this was like nothing I had ever experienced, especially since I didn't even have my own seat at the time (jasmine's butt).. it was scary shit.
We sped down the street, dodging cars and pedestrians, and in a few minutes we passed a bus. Noquina took a sharp turn and parked in front of it, and the bus parked behind us, and the very annoyed bus driver opened up the doors for us.
Laughing, and so humiliated (sven especially, poor kid), we climbed on.
Basically the whole 6 hours was spent arguing with Kyle or sleeping on his shoulder.
I really hate it when people put down their seats to a maximum. It's like 'that's my lap that your giant chair is resting on, jackass'
*really boring, sorry! I'm getting somewhere with this, I promise!*
We arrived in Salvador the next morning, and met Kelsey, a girl from Iowa. Kelsey and I are the only Americans from the midwest.
And then we met some more Germans, some Danes (crazy danes!), a girl from Taiwan, some Canadians (they were hilarious), and a bunch more Americans.
The first day was basically hours and hours of orientation lecture that I fought very hard to stay awake through.

group photo of the exchange students and directors

Every couple hours, the main speaker would say 'ok... time for a fifteen minute break..' and we would all be too exhausted to get up immediately- so we would slink out of her seats and slowly make our way to the kitchen where there were cookies. But about 8 minutes later we would hear the same monotone voice, 'ok... time to come back..'
He was a good guy, though. I was just annoyed because only an hour ago had I gotten off a 7 hour bus trip in which I had barely slept.

Sven, me, and Canadian (?)
he's actually a really cool kid but I forget his name.. it was something weird, like McCaine or McNellie or something.
I don't know, it'll come to me at like four in the morning.

That night, we drove another hour on a bus to a hostel in Praia De Forte, a little town on the coast that was really really pretty :)

me and Mathilde (dane) rocking out in the hammock outside of our room

There, we went down to the beach. It wasn't cold, but it was really dark, so we didn't go in the water, but it was really fun. Lots of picture taking, crazy exchange students :P

that's all of us, Germany, the USA, canada, Denmark, and Taiwan.
Global friendship! :3

The next morning, we got up and went to the beach again, not to swim, but to a turtle conservation thing. preservation.. reservation.. I don't know. My english is getting so bad, it's not even funny. Tonight I couldn't remember the word 'compromise'. So if I come back to the US and end up playing a lot of charades just to get my point across, I'm really sorry guys.
Anyway I saw kittens. and turtles. Tropical baby turtles.

stray kitten!


sitting on a real plastic turtle


danes :)
they're my people

tortugas

baby turtles!
Duuuuude!

Later that day we went to the beach

sand
this was exciting for me, don't judge.

a coconut stand
For only a couple reias (very cheap), you can get a whole coconut with a straw coming out of it. The drink is just like sweetened water with a small coconut taste. It's kind of syrupy, but not in an unnatural way.

tasty leite de coco
I actually got mine in a plastic cup because it was cheaper and lighter, but Kelsey (Iowa) got hers from a coconut, and I thought you guys would appreciate this picture more.
See, I really do care.

*palm* tree hugger

We made our way to the shore, where we boarded a little boat and sped away to go whale watching! It was so much fun at first. It was the exchange students, a class of 10 year old Brazilian kids, and this one spanish couple on vacation.

Sven, Sofie (dane), and me at the front of the boat

the lovely girls that I hung out with on this trip...

and the plastic bags that I got seasick in.
it was good times.

But it wasn't so bad, I got to leave the boat first, with all the other sick people. It was basically me and a bunch of sick ten year olds.
And yes, we saw whales!! I didn't take any pictures, but if anyone else uploads them, I'll be sure to borrow *steal* them and show them to you, dear readers.

It was a really great weekend.
crazy patriotic germans and their flag. :P

That night, we all went our separate ways. Jasmine, Sven, Kyle, Leonie (I love that name, girl from Germany), Cami (Idaho), and Marieke (Germany) all boarded the same bus and spent the next 7 hours talking about music and eating cookies and watching V for Vendetta. The sound was in portuguese and I was too impatient to listen to it, so Sven was explaining the entire movie to us. I fell asleep though. I need to have him tell me the ending..