A transição--Buenos Aires e Minas Gerais

Last week I was in Buenos Aires, Argentina, traveling around, exploring a new city and breathing in a completely new culture.

Now I am back in Brazil, in the Southeastern state of Minas Gerais, which is known for cheese, doce de leite, romeo&juliet (my fave brazilian dessert, goiabada and cheese!) and of course, its mineral waters. I can't believe I'm here. Everything happened so quickly. I swear, it seemed like yesterday I was planning my trip to Buenos Aires!

Buenos Aires was amazing...I mean what makes an unforgettable trip is the friends you travel with. I traveled with Cat and Michel (my brazilian mentor) and it was just the perfect combination. We toured the Casa Rosa, explored the famous El Caminhito and ate lots of alfajores!! My Spanish was absolutely awful...I have no idea what I'm going to do when I go to Ecuador.

The one day that I won't forget and definitely was one of the highlights of the trip for me was this one day when Cat and I woke up almost noon...I was dead tired cos I'd been staying up late writing my paper (yes, I did work in Buenos Aires!!) and Cat had been staying out late. We woke up to find a new roommate in our hostel room. This new roommate was a 42 year old millionaire (granted in brazilian reais, but nevertheless, a wealthy man) who was a retired military captain and intends to ride his motorcycle from Brazil up to north america...who knows if he'll succeed. He'd come to Buenos Aires to go shopping cos everything is a lot cheaper in Argentina. Anyways, we had lunch with him at this awful Chinese buffet style restaurant. The only good thing about it was that I found this delicious bread that I'd love to eat as a child...ooh, que saudades! Then after we returned to the hostel, we didn't want to hang around this old guy, who was being kind of needy...accompanying us to the pharmacy and etc. so we snuck out of the hostel, careful to avoid him.

From then on, our night was amazing. Even though Cat was a bit sick, we still managed to tour the streets of Buenos Aires: watching street tango shows, listening to street music, shopping in stores and the street venders. BS AS is a great city (besides ALMOST getting robbed, I loved every part of it!) Then we ate dinner and had coffee at this wonderful diner-esque restaurant. We drank our alcoholic coffees (she had her first Irish coffee and I had a calipso) and talked till 1AM. Era muito gostoso...nossa! It was delicious; the coffee, the cookies and the conversation. It was one of my favorite nights there.

Now I'm in Minas Gerais, residing with the family of my brazilian mentor, who has become more of a friend now. At first it was just really awkward...I had no idea what to say, how to act or what to do in front of his family...but after a day here, I think I am adjusting pretty well and getting along with all the family members. When I say family members, I mean that on the first day here, I met everyone--from the grandma to the young cousins! It's amazing how close his family is! Seeing all of his family really made me miss my family.

Minas Gerais--or more specifically, Pouso Alegre, a town in MG, is really different from Florianópolis (where I attended university for the past 5 months). It's less developed and the inequality between the rich and the poor is much more visible. There are much more shanty houses, which look like favelas, but really they're just poorer neighborhoods. It's a much more real version of Brazil...a lot more diverse. In Florianóplis, a much more developed city, the population is more of a European descent. While in Pouso Alegre, or in MG in general, the population is much more mixed. Furthermore, since Pouso Alegre is not a touristy town, I am probably one of the only native English speakers for miles away. This will be good for my Português! I don't have any other option but to speak Português!

Tomorrow, I'm going to my mentor's family's farm! I'm really excited because I haven't been to a real Brazilian farm yet! I may even get to milk a cow! Other than that, I'm looking forward to finally being able to relax and to write in my journal. I just need to sit and reflect for a while. It's been a tumultuous December.

I can hardly believe that it's been almost 6 months since I've been away from my family, friends and my dear country. (hah, a bit of sarcasm on the last item-- I said that because I just finished, TODAY, my 16 page paper on the role of the U.S. in the military coup in Brazil in 1964...that was a bitch to write!) Anyway, it's almost surreal that I've been in Brazil for so long...I can't help but wonder how much I've changed and grown up. We'll see...

dezembro: o fim e o começo

shutthefuckupouttahere. how is it december already? sorry, what a way to start an entry, right?! haha. I´m beside myself...how is it that it´s december? it just seemed like yesterday when I was still laptop-less and walking aimlessly around the streets trying to figure out where Comper was. Luckily, Comper is always easy to find.

Well, it is December, whether I like it or not. And it brings up a whole mix of emotions. I went to Kine´s (from Norway) festa de despedida/goodbye party on Tuesday...now she´s off traveling South America. I may never see her again... and it´ll be like that for a lot of the other exchange students that I´ve met here. As sad as it all is, I´m actually looking forward to moving on, exploring new places and meeting new people. It´s all a part of that re-newing process. And next semester, there will be a new group of exchange students...and new friends, new parties and most importantly, new experiences.

Since I´ve last updated my blog, a lot has happened: my Brazilian friend´s boob job. drinking with classmates after class. Thanksgiving. work. grades. beaches. Megan!!! receiving the skirt! host family drama...that´s all I can think of for now...unfortunately, I can´t write about all this...so let me just give some brief highlights :)

- My Brazilian friend S. had breast implants about a month ago...and she came to class, uber perky. I was in shock because it seemed so normal for girls to have breast implants...I personally didn´t know anyone else before her that´s had breast implants. hah, but I am in Brazil, the land of plastic surgery! Then two weeks later, we were at a bus stop, after a night at the bar. And somehow we were talking about her surgery, and she goes to me and my friend, Brenna, "do you girls wanna touch them?" and we´re like...uh.. this is awkward...but that´s S.´s personality, super open and friendly. So she undid her shirt before we could even respond, and BAM, there her breasts were, in full glory. Luckily, it was late and nobody was around but us to see them. I gotta say, it looked real. Then she encouraged us to feel it...and man, it felt really weird. To me, it didnt feel natural, but who am I to judge? the only boobs I´ve really felt are my own. haha! Just as we were feeling her up, a garbage truck passes by and all the men were howling at us cos we were feeling up another girl haha, good timing.

- Thanksgiving in Brazil. We had beer chicken, mashed potatoes, apple and pumpkin pie, corn on the cob, squash and salad...it was a good dinner indeed. Of course we also had caipriosky´s and beer. my first drunken thanksgiving! of course, that made all the food taste better...and plus we were all starving waiting for the chicken to be ready.

- Megan Mischler, who we studied portuguese with, came to visit from Montevideo! It was really good seeing her and showing her around Floripa! I´m so glad that this weekend we were able to go to the beach! Sunburned? yep. On her last day here, we ate at a seafood restaurant, (frutas do mar!!) and it was POURING! like thunder, lightening and heavy rain! Patrick and I arrived to the restaurant soaked. But other than that factor of being wet and uncomfortable, the food was so good! We had a sequencia de camarão, which is like this chain of dishes with shrimp, rice, and fried fish. soo good!

- In regards to the host family, let´s just say I don´t intend on living with one next semester. It is stressful shit. Let´s just say I have a "ruined" pie pan now. You can bet that next semester, I´ll be making pies!

- I finally have the skirt! I was so worried that it got lost in the mail, but it didn´t! It just took 1 month to get here from Ecuador! So now I have one more excuse to go wild in Latin America: I need to win. (that´s just the competitive spirit talking) For the next five weeks, I´ll be the 4-inch heel wearing, thong parading, fence-climbing, hooking-up vixen in a pink traveling skirt. oh, I forgot, and topless. (haha jk!)

btw, I´m in love with the journal. I´ll be writing in it lots for you girls to read :)