news

lots of it
on January 10th, I flew from Ilheus to Rio de Janeiro to São Paulo, where I spent 10 days with Tatiana, a Brazilian girl that spent a year with my family in Colorado for her exchange.
I was thrilled to leave Itabuna and see Tati for the first time in two years- but it also meant saying goodbye to Gean, Marcell, and Song. Song returned to Thailand a few days after I left, Marcell went back to college the day after, and Gean's vacation ended and he went back home to São Paolo.
Luan went with Marcell to take a test for school, and he still hasn't come back yet. So I haven't seen these guys for three weeks..!

Marcell, Gean, me, and Luan on our last day

São Paulo was.. amazing. It was so great to see Tati, and her mom Cintia, and to meet her dog, Sushi. Also her boyfriend Pedro, and her stepfather and stepbrother, her brother and his girlfriend, and her father and stepmother.
And all of her friends, too.
Plus, São Paulo was so huge. It's the capital of the Brazilian state of São Paulo, and the biggest city in South America with a population of 11,105,249.
Tati lived in a part of town called Moema. It was very nice- it looked to me like Washington DC. Very clean, sunny, tall white sky scrapers, lots of restaurants and cafes speckled in between all those apartment buildings.

me on Tati's balcony

The first full day, we went to a giant bookstore- Itabuna doesn't have any bookstores (or even a library), so I was especially excited to see it. They had writers from every country, in every language. Freakin' awesome.


That night we went to the movies to see "Se Eu Fosse Voce 2", the sequel to a Brazilian comedy that Tati brought when she was an exchange student in the USA. It was weird being able to understand it, after needing subtitles when I saw the first one. Awesome, though.

São Paulo movie seats were rainbow colors!!

The next day we saw the giant football (and by that I mean soccer) stadium, where legendary football games have taken place.

Carvalho is a really common name in Brazil

where it all goes down



outside the stadium

We visited Tati's old school (she just graduated, and got accepted into a really good college. Her classes start on Feb. 1). It's a really old traditional Italian school. Apparently it kicks your ass.
The next day I got my hair chopped off (and thank god, it's so hot in Itabuna that it used to stick to my neck like a dead animal). And Tati, Pedro, and I took the subway to Liberdade, a district in São Paulo that is the equivalent of the USA's Japantown.
Liberdade, named because the Japanese immigrated there for freedom from feudal Japan, is home to the largest population of Japanese in the world outside of Japan. It also has a large population of Chinese and Koreans.

the streets of Liberdade are decorated with Japanese red lamps. Liberdade underwent restoration to prepare for a visit from Japanese Prince Naruhito to São Paulo in June 2008.

on the bridge in Liberdade

Rotary influence!

The next day we went to the Parque do Ibirapuera, a Central Park of sorts right in the heart of São Paulo. It was inaugurated in 1954 for the 400th anniversary of the city, and covers 2 square kilometers.

Tati, me, and Sushi in front of an obelisk symbolizing the constitutionalist revolution of 1932

the awesome theater

Cintia and Sushi resting

Tati and her baby

We spent friday and saturday night hanging with Tati's and Pedro's friends. They're all really great people.

Me, Tati, and Bruna, Tati's best friend

me and tati

I came back to Ilheus on the 19th, but didn't even get to come home to Itabuna- my parents picked me up at the airport packed and ready for yet another road trip- this time to Salvador, a six hour drive! I'll write more when I can. And just you wait, I have a lot more to write.

New Years

And I thought Christmas was a big deal.
I've never seen people make such a big fuss on New Year's Eve! We took the bus to the beach house on the 31st- Marcel, Luan, Gean (cousin from Sao Paolo), me, and Ella, who was invited along for the weekend.
The first thing we did was hop in the swimming pool. And we stayed there for around five hours, until we ate lunch.
Lunch is the big meal in Brazil, I think I already wrote all about that.

Macell, Ella, me, and Gean (jay-on) by the pool

The rest of the time, we spent on the BEACH!
Have I mentioned how cool it is that my host family has a beach house?

Luan, me, and Ella at the beach

our second band photo

The room where we all stored our stuff had a ton of chalk on the walls.. and thus, we prepared for war..

David (visiting from Illinois) and his Brazilian girlfriend, Andresa

That night, all the women got all dolled up- and all the men put on white t-shirts. All the women put on white dresses, makeup, hair, frilly shoes- and the men put on white t-shirts.
Carol, the blonde cousin from Sao Paolo, did my hair. Ella did my makeup. Fun times.

Gean, Rafael, Carol, Ella, and me on New Year's Eve

Brazilians wear white on New Year's Eve to symbolize peace for the coming year. But some people just have to be different- Carol wore blue for zen, and Sandra wore green for.. luck, was it?
As the night commenced, the girls walked out to the road and found a big truck blasting happy Brazilian music. They taught me and Ella to dance Arrocha, a dance special to Brazil. You shake your butt around in circles. It was hard to start off, but once I got the hang of it, it was really fun!
At midnight, the whole family (I mean to say all 70 of us) took a stroll and joined hundreds of other white clad families on the beach. We stood in a huge circle, and holding hands, sang and chanted in prayer.
Suddenly someone started counting down from ten- dez, nove, oite, sete, seis, cinco, quatro, tres, dois, UM!
The whole family leapt into the air, hugged everybody they saw. The kids started

Rafael, luan, and me on the beach

Ella, Sandra, Paolo, and me

Ella and me, and Rafael snuck in last second

Ella, Luan, me, and Ty- Ty's a little cousin. The day I met him he was sitting in the kitchen munching on something, and I was doing the dishes (Brazilians don't have dishwashers). Luan came in and said something obnoxious, I said something obnoxious right back, and it resulted in a dish soap war. Ty loves bringing this up.
Once the clock struck midnight, he chased me around on the sand, screaming his little Brazilian head off. He's a cute kid.

Ty, me, Gean, and Ella

The family getting ready to celebrate

When we made it back to the beach house, food was late for us. Tasty Brazilian new year's eve food.

Afterwards we had a secret santa kind of thing- white elephant. Everyone in the end received a joke present. But one uncle had a ceramic piggy bank, and with every turn someone took, he would pop twenty more reais into the pig. By the time someone won it, it was stuffed with two thousand, two hundred reais- that's over a thousand dollars!

We drove back home to Itabuna the next day, seven people sitting in the backseat of the truck that was built for three. It was crazy.
But the weekend was so much fun, I really do love it here.