12 Days.

I feel like it has been longer than 12 days that I have been gone from the U.S.  Homesickness is starting to set in more, I think.  When I went to Norway, I missed home, but I had people around me who were dealing with the same things that I was, so they were able to help me through it.  Here in Brazil though, I am the only one out of my element, so as everyone's lives are going on here, I am missing home quite a bit.  Aaron more than others, but I still miss my family and friends.  Skype definitely helps though.  Thankfully he's a good boyfriend and lets me Skype him a lot.  :)

Anyway things that have been going on here.  Last weekend we traveled to Sao Jose do Rio Preto to visit the parents of Camila.  I was able to stay in their home, it was beautiful.  I would post pictures, but I accidently deleted them from my phone.  Oops, but I will post some others, I suppose.   It was about a 6 hour drive, including stopping once.  In Texas, I think it would be the equivalent of driving from Amarillo to Abilene distance wise, but due to traffic in Sao Paulo, it took longer.  The traffic here is crazy as well, except people seem to be more polite on the roads.  There are motorcyclists that drive like crazy Peruvians.  They weave in and out of traffic at stoplights, but they are small enough that they can.  Camila said that they have to be careful about how their car is parked at a stoplight, because sometimes if it's at the wrong angle, they can sometimes hit your mirror.

Here are pictures that I finally was able to upload from my camera.

 This was taken in Lima, Peru.  The blue in the right is the Pacific Ocean.  It's kind of hard to see in this picture, but it is very common for all of the houses to be painted different colors.  The people I was with told me that there are no regulations in Lima.  If you want to paint your house pink, you paint it pink.  If you would like for it to be purple, you may paint it purple. 

 This is me, obviously.  Halfway down to the beach.  I want to say there were about 500 stairs you had to walk down to get down to the beach.  Lima is on a cliff, so the beach is lower than the actual city.  I had to take a break from all the stairs, because face it, we all know I never exercise.

 This is the beach in Lima.  It is not like a normal beach, I don't think.  There really isn't sand, except for what is found in the water.  I was told that all of the rocks actually have come from the mountains in Peru.

 I found this quite strange, and a tad gross.  The meat is just laid out.  Some of it is wrapped like it is in Texas, but all of this is just laying out, not covered or anything.  It was different.

This is Lima at night.  This is not where I stayed the night, but I felt that the life and noises didn't stop when it got darker.  People are still out and there is still noise. 

 This picture was on the plane from Lima to Santiago.

 Part of me someday hopes to go to Chile.  From the air, it looks like such a beautiful country.  Lots of mountains.

 This is the coast of Brazil.

 And Sao Paulo from the air.  Massive city.

 We went down to one of the streets in Sao Paulo that is famous for all of the stores.  There are booths set up in the streets that people can buy random things.  There are also jewelry shops for super cheap, purses, crafts, party things, etc.  In this picture though, there is a man who is chopping beef for sandwiches.  You just pay him and he makes it on the side of the road.

This is açaí.  It is a REALLY strong alcoholic drink.  Haha, just kidding Mom.  It's a berry that is here in Brazil.  Not sure where else it is found, but they mix it with granola and put some kind of sauce on it.  It takes like the most delicious smoothy that I have ever eaten in my life.

 This is a picture of one of the booths.  They were all so beautiful and colorful.  I bought some starfruit and avocados.  I bought 6 starfruit for about the cost of 1 in Texas.  They are quite good.  The avocados were DELICIOUS.  Absolutely delicious.  With these booths though, you are able to try any kind of fruit that you want.  One of the men there gave me two types of fruit that I had never seen in my life.  They were good, but I have no idea what they were. 

 This is me in the market.  With booths on each side.  It was quite crowed.  This is not the only isle though.  There are tons of booths in this building.

 This is a meat booth.  There were more than one of these, this one was one that was closed though.  There was one that just had raw sausages hanging from the roof on a conveyer belt, so if you wanted one, I suppose they just grabbed one for you.

The next two pictures are of Sao Paulo.  Lucia took me to one of the buildings in the center of the city, and we got to go to the top and there is a panoramic view of the city.  The buildings go on here in Sao Paulo like the Earth goes on in Texas.  It's been exciting to see what the city life is like, but I think I will end up settling down in a small town in Texas.  (I think that will make Aaron thankful.)

 This is the best picture I could get of the favelas.  Camila told me that this is not even one of the bigger ones in the city.  It is hard for me to imagine living here though.

 I made pan cooked talapia and Camila made salad.

 We went to a Japanese resturaunt.  It was quite different than anything in Texas.  They kept bringing us food.  It was like buffet, but they bring the food to you, not the other way around.  It was all delicious though.

 I found this interesting.  This is how some of the milk is sold.  Camila said that some is sold that is refrigerated, but it is in a box on the shelf that you can buy.  Eggs are the same way.

This is a small thing of water that you can buy.  It's in a plastic cup covered with a thing of foil.  I had never seen anything like it.  It is cool though.  They sold it at a football match that I went to with Camila and her boyfriend.

We went to a park today.  It was lovely, but quite warm.  It was actually a few degrees cooler than outside of the park due to all of the trees and the lake.   We were there for about two hours, I think.  We were able to rent some bicycles and bike around.  That was a lot of fun:)

That is all that I have for now.  I do apologize about my English.  I feel like I forget how to speak English sometimes, even though that is the main language we are speaking.  Maybe Laura can print off my blogs and have her students proof read them.

Hope all is well in the U.S. and elsewhere.
All my love.

Brazil

Sunday was my last day in Lima.  It was very nice, I went with two of the friends to one of their apartment which was right by the beach.  The beach, like every beach is very pretty.  It is quite different though because there is no sand except in the water.  It is only rocks.  Lima is on a cliff though, and then below is the beach, so we walked a lot of stairs.  There weren't too many people on the beach, but Miro (the guy whose apartment I was at) told me that many people do come to the beach, but more south than where we were.  I think they are able to surf there, but I could be wrong.
So after the beach we went and cooked supper.  I cooked tacos for them, but with chicken.  I have never cooked tacos with chicken, but they seemed to enjoy them. 

So I got to the airport and found out that I was able to take two suitcases, but they could only weigh 23 kilos.  I suppose I should start reading the fine print on everything.  Haha, I had 44.6 kilos, but nothing I could do, so I paid the fee and left.  The flight left at 1:35 a.m.  So yesterday was a long day with all of the travel.  I think in the past week I have had more meals on an airplane or in the airport than I have in an actual home.  The food in Lima was very delicious.  Vera (the woman of the home I stayed at) was a very good cook.  She is from Brazil, so they told me that she does a mixture of Brazilian and Peruvian foods.  I thought the food would be a lot like Mexican food, which I suppose in a way that it is, but they have a lot more rice.  We had what I think were homemade enchiladas with homemade white sauce.  They were SOOOOO delicious.

So anyway, arrived in Brazil yesterday around 2:05 p.m. and then we got back to the apartment around 5:00 p.m. or 6:00 p.m.   The drivers here in Brazil are much better than the ones in Lima.  However, there is a lot more people here.  Where I am staying is only 20 kilometers from the airport, but it took over an hour to get here.

I was going to post a few of the pictures I had taken, but my computer won't read the card...and I left the cord at home in Texas.  I will see if Camila has a cord that I can use, and try to put some on here later.  Think we are going to go to the mall later, and get sushi afterwards!!!

Hope everyone at home is doing well!! Love to all.

First day and a half.

Well I got in last night around 11:10.  My flight actually took off later and landed earlier.  It was a good flight though.  I didn't get a bad seat partner, other than that she took off her shoes and put her feet in the chair and they kept touching me. 
We were served dinner around 6:30, which was rice, beans, corn, and BBQ chicken, with a salad, roll, and dessert.  I think it was a brownie.  Then around 9:00 they came back around and gave us sandwiches.
One cool thing about the flight is that I did get a window seat.  I was able to watch the sun set over Mexico.  It was kind of cool.  When you fly in Texas, you don't see anything but clouds, and watching the sun set over Mexico there were a few Mountain tops peeking up through the clouds.  It was very pretty.

Sue and her companion came and got me from the airport.  I was able to get through customs easily.  Took about an hour in total, which considering, was very quick.  Then we drove back to their place where I stayed the night.  It's crazy, I think there were more people out at midnight than populate the city of Canyon.  I slept good, and then left to come to stay with some of the friends in a different part of the city.

Let me tell you about the driving.  OH MY GOODNESS.  The driving is probably the most scary thing that I have EVER experienced in my whole entire life.  It's like total anarchy on the roads.  I wish I would have had my camera or phone to take pictures, but I didn't think about it before I got in the car, and then I didn't really want to carry it on the bus with me.  Let me attempt to explain and then possibly I will be able to get a picture before I leave.  Take a normal one-way 3 lane road of Amarillo, add the traffic of Dallas, and then add pedestrians of Denver.  Oh, and the drivers are crazy.  For example, today we were in the lane that would normally go straight, but we needed to turn right, and the person in the lane that would normally turn right needed to go straight.  So at the same time, we turned and they went straight, and it was scary.  Oh and people love to lay on their horns.  Everyone is honking all of the time.  We stopped at a stoplight, and people were walking through the street trying to sell drinks, brooms, little random things, and wash your car.  I can't even do justice by attempting to explain it.  I will attempt to take a picture or video.  It is something else though.

Tomorrow not sure what the plans are, but sure it will be interesting.

Down to the single digits

9 days until I leave.  I can't believe I'm actually leaving.  Kind of scary, I think.  People keep telling me that I've done it before so I'll be able to do it again.  I suppose they're right, but it's still scary.  

I leave on the 16th from Amarillo International Airport around 6:30a.m.  Then on to Houston, then to Lima.  I have been in contact with Sue Dawson, so I will be staying with some of the friends for four days before flying to Brazil to stay with one of my friends that I met while I was in Norway.  I will be staying there in Brazil until the 7th of February, and will go back to Peru, but will go ahead and fly to Cuzco.  School will start for me on the following Monday.

I haven't found out yet who I will be living with, but I will be living with a family.  The program I am going with said that they would send me more information, including the contact information of the family I would be living with, two to four weeks before leaving.  So that hopefully means I will be getting it soon!

I am all packed though.  Well almost.  Just waiting on my rain boots to be shipped from Academy.  I think that it will be quite rainy while I am down there.  I will be down there during the rainy season.  I actually will arrive down there during the summer and leave at the beginning of winter.  However, the alitiude of Cuzco and because it is close to the equator, it won't get as hot or cold as it does here.  It will rain A LOT more, that's not too hard to do though.

http://www.weather.com/weather/today/PELE0193:1