Sunday, December 18, 2011

I'm so far off the deep end of lazy...

I'm so lazy I just made a video instead of writing this time.. but Im going to say I did it so people like my grandparents could see my face, and how quickly my untamed locks are gaining length. I'm sorry I look 99.99% moron and that it is rather long, but that's just the way it is. Miss you all, sorry I was so rude. Kisses, Sarah.

Tuesday, October 4, 2011

Beach trip!

Soooooo, still horrible at blogging here in Brasil, but rest assured I'm alive and well and loving it! As to why I haven't been blogging... I'll skip the excuses and just be straight with you - I am lazy. I'd like to say I'm sorry, but to be honest its so nice to just hang out and take naps. And it's getting hot! so that increases my laziness ten fold!

On the 17th I had the opportunity to go to a beach somewhere North (I'll get back to you on the exact location) of Sao Paulo with three other exchange students, Petri from Finland, Hana from France and Magui from Mexico and Magui's host mom, Rose. It was absolutely an amazing trip. The drive was about.. 6-7 hours from Penapolis the contrasts in scenery out the car window certainly kept me awake 99% of the time though.



One moment a cement jungle, but in the blink of an eye... 


A wild jungle. The whole trip was like this, flashing from mass amounts of humanity..



to a solid sea of green with its own and mysterious inhabitants and marvels.



We finally arrived after a long trip of terrifying Brasilian driving with car tires squealing, spinning, screeching and sliding around every bend in a car that smelled of burrnin rubber and exhausted from holding ourselves upright and to our seats. It was around 4:30 which didn't leave us with much daylight as the sun goes down around 6:00 here so we went to have a look-see at the beach. It was breath taking. 


The sand is snow white, and with a texture entirely unlike any I've ever felt in the United States or Mexico. It reminded me of cornstarch, especially in that when you shuffle your feet in it, it makes the same glorious "eeeeuurrrkkk eruurk uuuuurk" sound as when you play with corn starch. After walking the length of the beach we walked back to the beach house which is about five minuets from the sand, ate dinner and went to sleep with the intention of waking up at 6 to go to the beach for a Brasilian sunrise!


6:00 am the next morning the four of us were wide awake with blankets, towels and pillows flipping and flopping in our havaianas to the beach! Anddddd the sun was up :( so we went home and slept till 11:00! Yay! after breakfast and some lazing about our adventure filled day began! 
Our first adventure took us to the perfect line along the back of the beach that is the jungle, towering for what seems to be miles straight into the air. The crisp line between the pure, stark white sand and the emerald green wall of wild is created, in most places, by a two to twelve foot high wall of exposed crimson earth capped in a thousand shades of dazzling green that tumble loosely over the edge. 


There are very few places where you can actually step inside the jungle, but since I'm here for the "experience of a lifetime" and nothing less, I found one and ventured in. The second my feet left the sand I was standing in an entirely different world, completely secluded from the rest of the world. The sense of smallness that absorbed me was thrilling, and overwhelming. It didnt matter which direction I turned my head nature was surrounding, swallowing me. Trees that grew so high the tops were utterly lost in the canopy of leaves above, vines creeping over everything, ferns, flowers, leaves ranging from the size of a penny to that of a small child surrounding and a thick layer covered the ground. 








With every step you took you encountered something new, a new leaf, a new pokey in your foot, a new spider, a spider web in your face, spider web on your foot, spider on your foot, SPIDER! I only made it about twenty feet in but it was utterly breath taking. 







At this point, I think its best if I let my feet tell about the rest of the trip, they really took me to some amazing places and therefore deserve an acknowledgement. Take it away feetzies!







After all their hard work, I said thank you and let them get cleaned up :)

Obbbbviously this isn't all that happened, but I'm too lazy at this point to tell you about the rest so please enjoy the following pictures with selective captions and try to imagine all the nice things I would probably say about them :)





a spring we found coming out of a sheer lovely rock face,
the spring was dated 1983 I do believe.





The queen of the beach with a honey offering. I thought it
was beer when we saw it at night and called it well
deserved because the beach was prime, but honey is
cool too, I guess..

We bringing Egypt back, Yeah! them other beaches
don't know how to act, Yeah!



brilliant beetle!


Yeeeyyuuuuhhhh nature!
Soooo, In a nutshell, that's the beach trip! Excluding some of the non-beach parts but, it is 1:00 am and I had a long day of driving, walking in a mall, looking at new cars, and driving some more afffter going to sleep last night at 4:30 after a GREAT churrasco (barbecue) and 6:30 night before (the sun was up! :/ ) because I couldn't sleep and I have school at 7:00am tomorrow! AHHH! To complete this I'd juuust like ta let you know we're roughly (give or take a couple days cause I don't actually know today's date...) 10 days into our spring here and it was 107 degrees Fahrenheit the other day.. Summer is gona be a blast!.. of hot air! But none the less i look forward to the experience of knowing what it's like to be a piece of human french toast,  since we have to wear jeans to school! BLUG! 

Love you all and hope you're well!! Cross your fingers I get better at this so you can actually see my adventures! I add photos to my facebook on a regular basis so if you'd like to follow that way and have a facebook, lets be friends!

Lots of Love,

Sarah








Saturday, September 10, 2011

Here at last!!

To begin, I'd like to issue an apology for not blogging since I've been here, but it's been a busy couple of weeks! And, I'm terrible at this business :)

Let's see, where to begin... the trip here went well excepting a few delays.

 I flew out of Missoula MT on the morning of.. Friday the 19th, and arrived in Sao Jose do Rio Preto at 5:00pm the 20th where my (awesome) host family, Carlos, Suzel and Renata Valente were waiting for me. I almost cried for joy when I saw them, airports are so! depressing. The feeling of relief, calm, and contentment that came over me was indescribably awesome, I've never been so happy to be exactly where I was in my whole life.



After hugs and greetings and the like they informed me the car had over heated on the way there from PenĂ¡polis and that we'd have to be taxied home. It turned out Suzel had chosen a suuuper fine insurance company without knowing it and they came to take us home and even waited while we ate dinner! We ate at a place called Habib's, a lovely Brasilian fast food chain with Arab food... and a gluten-free menu that no one knew about! YAY! I knew then I was gona get fat this year!


And boy am I ever, I havent checked poundage yet, but pretty much my pants are all getting tight and I love it!  

Almost all the food here is clearly labeled ¨contem¨ or ¨nao contem glutem¨ which is super helpful, and I can eat so much, which is a huge relief :) Lunch is the biggest meal here, in fact, it's massive pretty much like an American dinner, and so so good. 




This stuff is what's gona give me a nice plump arse though, it's called farofa and it has about 60 calories in every spoon full, I eat between 6 and 15 spoons a day haha :) it is hands down to the ground the best food on the face of the earth! It's eaten  on beans, rice, beans and rice, salad, bananas, spoons, chocolate... pretty   much anything that's already delicous!


Due to the fact it is 1:30 here and I didn't go to sleep until 6:00 last night, (Yeuh night clubs and concerts! haha ) this shall end the post. I will have more pictures and a bit about the actual living here up soon! I'll leave you knowing though, the language is coming along well, it's certainly tough, but I AM learning it. In addition, I am in love. Brasil is absolutely amazing, I don't think I'll be coming home next year at this point. And as tough as it may be for you to hear it, I haven't missed home one bit yet.. well except when I saw Marley on Skype (I'm a horrible person! I miss my dog!) I do miss you all a little bit every now and then, but I just acknoloedge the feeling and then let it go so I don't want to come home :) and so far this is allowing me to have an AWESOME time.

I love you all so much! Hope you're well and I'll post again soon! <3's, 

Sarah Frances Valente ;) Curet