Stuff and Nonsense.....

Everytime I walk to the post office I see this, and everytime I am tempted to purchase one. Why do I get this feeling that I'm going to end up carrying one stuffed into my backpack onto the airplane when I go home ^^?

Well, I didn't update yesterday as I had a birthday party to go to that a friend of Alyssa was having and I was unexpectedly invited to.It was actually quite fun and really sweet of Fernando to invite us as the only other people there were her cousins,brother and his wife.So it was actually a very fun little party, and not the loud, huge affair I had been expecting.It was held at the Italian restaurant in Lins, fortunately I actually live within seven to ten minutes walk from the two major restaurants in town, which makes it extremely easy to meet people as I don't actually have to wait around or rely on my host family to take me etc...Despite my careful planning to arrive twenty minutes late, I was still one of the first to get there.This was actually good though as it gave me a chance to talk quite a bit in portuguese with people I'd never met before,I tend to get terribly shy talking portuguese around Alyssa as she is so much better at it than I am.However when I'm on my own I usually hold up really well and it was great just to be able to talk to some people as I have the whole week off of school so I've been quite isolated these paast few days and haven't really spoken much at all T_T.It was also nice and encouraging to meet people who didn't expect me to speak perfect portuguese after two months here, as most people around Lins expect me to be on the same level as Alyssa and either ignore me or make rude comments when they find out I'm not, so to actually be able to talk with people who are not put off by my attempts at conversation and seem geuinely interested and impressed is encouraging beyond description ^^. Eventually Alyssa showed up as well and I indulged in teasing her most of the night as evidently this was all you can eat pizza night, which she loved and to my amazement devoured ten pieces of pizza and a slice of cake 0_0...all the while trying to explain to me that they weren't actually all that large anyway ( imao they most definitely were :p).I suppose she had the right strategy as they certainly didn't make any money off of her whereas I could only manage two pieces.She tried to tell me that it was her glutinous American side that was to blame for the pizza consumption and I retorted that if it was the American side why wasn't I displaying any symptons ?Therefor it must be blamed on her French half.. we actually argued about it most of the evening :p.. and I finally informed her that she was simply disgracing both countries in such wanton acts of indulgence :p.

Alyssa, caught in the act of gluttony :p
Fernando trying to outdo Alyssa and failing
Fernando's extremely nice cousin looking very evil and sneaky for some inexplicable reason ^^
They even had brigadeiro pizza, oh the look on Alyssa's face when she saw it, she was one happy girl :p.


Anyway I was actually intending to blog about Sao Paulo but I'm simply not in the mood for it especially considering how long it will take to upload all of my pictures, so I will get to posting that later, probably tomorrow or this weekend sometime.So today I will actually stray from my desperate attempts to just recount what I've done so far in an attempt to not let this get too much out of date and instead just write about random things that occur to me and that do not neccsarily make any sense together ^_^.

My neighbors are the loudest, oddest people I have ever had the misfortune to live near, they are even worse than the people that live across from me back in Ohio.Houses here have little to no sound insulation evidently, I rather suspect that they simply aren't well insulated because of the weather here but I have yet to confirm this.Whatever the cause when I am in my room I can hear EVERY SINGLE THING that goes on next door as we are only seperated by about ten feet and a low wall.At midnight I will hear roosters and chickens crowing and squawking amoung raucous laughter and squeals, at three in the morning there is singing and yelling about things that don't make a bit of sense, at dawn there are the early morning arguments over breakfast,during lunch I have to listen to their tedious conversation while answering my mail, conversation which I unfortunately can now understand most of, which makes it even worse.Currently they are clanging dishes and sweeping the floor in an exceptionally noisy fashion with a traditional broom and at any hour whatsoever I can usually hear dogs barking and what sounds like enthusiastic participation in an orgy .Needless to say it keeps life interesting and if you ever call me and wonder why it sounds as if a full battle is ensuing, do not be the least bit concerned, after all it's just my dear neighbors :p.

My first actual real conversation with a Brasilian in Brasil left me with a very bad first impression actually.My host mother was extremely frustrated at my inability to understand everything she said to me on my first morning here in the airport while we were waiting for my host brother Iuri to arrive.So she decided to get a man sitting next to us who spoke comprhensible english to translate for us.Well it rather turned into an interrogation of me and ended up with the man translating trying to talk more to me rather than translate.In fact though he spent most of his time insulting the USA, going on about how perfect Brasil was and how awful my own country was, informing me , an American, that all Americans are rude,cold, unkind, arrogant curs,that the USA has no beauty at all, and implying that I would be arrogant enough to force everyone around me to learn english so I would not of course have to trouble myself with such trifling matters as learning the language of Brasil, because I was not fluent upon arrival, nevermind that one of the reasons I came here was to learn portuguese..ugh...Anyway it was probably a good thing that I was so dazed and tired at that moment as even then I had quite the time holding my tongue and temper at his implications,stereotyping,and narrowminded rudeness, if I had been in my usual cynical,biting caustic wit I probably would have said some extremely uncharitable things on the subject of the oh so wonderful and openminded Brasilians like him .Fortunately this has been pretty much my only encounter like this that I can recall and almost all the other Brasilians I've met have been extremely nice and open, a pity I met him on my first day though as it certainly did not help to endear this country to me.

If you have green or blue eyes and come to Brasil, do not be at all surprised if random people or anyone you are introduced to grabs you by the face and exclaims " QUE LINDOOOO!!!!!! ", this is perfectly normal, even though many people here seem to have eye colors other than brown.Colorful eyes still seem to be a valued atribute and you will be told by almost everyone that they " want to steal your eyes".

If you ask Brasilians what country they want to visit most the answer is usually the USA.However if you ask them why they want to go they can almost never give a good reason.Instead they usually mutter something about Disney and speaking english, but most of the time cannot name any of the famous cities nor do they usually know anything at all about the lovely geographical features etc.... there are a few exceptions of course, but it is still most amusing that so many of them want to go somewhere they know virtually nothing about except that it has Disney, New York City, and Linkin Park was from there :p.

I find it highly ironic that I live in a region of Brasil that produces massice amounts of coffee, however I almost never get the oppurtunity to drink any.Almost no one I've met here consumes coffee at all and if they do it is invariably unbearably oversweetened, most people here think it extremely odd that I crave it and am delighted when I get the chance to quaff scorching cups of lovely unsweetened black coffee ^^.I by no means thought I drank much coffee at all in the USA, usually only a cup a day, occasionally I would have an extra one in the evening, but here I have only had five cups in two months T_T.

Wearing extreme amounts of perfume is very common, especially amoung the youth.Which is a bit odd considering that Brasilians shower very often unlike some other countries and really have no need of perfume.I have always personally found excessive perfume to be a turn off, but now I am obliged to run up and kiss everyone who is plastered in the stuff :p.

The fruit I have not actually found to be especially better here, although admittedly that might be because I find a great deal of tropical fruits to be far to sweet for my taste.The fruit juice however is amazing and almost everywhere you go it is possible to find a shop that will sell you a glass of freshly made juice in almost any combination you could wish for ^^.

Vegetables are given the lowest possible status and people will invariably grimace at the slightest mention of consuming them. Something I take great delight in ^_-.

Brasilians have an odd complex where they seem to be under the impression that the rest of the world knows absolutely nothing about them and believes they all live in mud huts.So I have to continually fend off questions about whether I was shocked by Brasil when I arrived.In truth Brasil was almost exactly how I imagined it except I actually rather expected it to be slightly more modern ^^.I do loke Brasil, but I rather wanted a country that was drastically different as opposed to being only slightly different, as that tends to be more what interests me and enthralls me ^_^

As many of you know I studied Asia extensively as it was really where I wanted to go more than anything.As an unexpected result of this I spent my first two weeks bowing instinctively to everyone I met and to thank people etc.. this seemed to both highly amuse people and disconcert them.I eventually ended up apologizing and explaining to my family's maid and cook that it was natural to me and please just bear with it.

If you ever come to Brasil bring a handheld traditional fan.It is extremely hot, most places don't have airconditioning, and it will make you many friends and give you something to talk about as it never occurs to anyone else here to bring one, despite the fact that it is an excellent idea ^^.