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...