Fest Verão: I talked a lot about Fest Verão in my last blog, but to sum it up again, there were 3 shows. They were the biggest shows of the whole year, and the most popular bands in Brazil played at them. The whoooole city was at these shows, so of course, the exchange students couldn't miss it! Everyone was dancing and singing to all the songs... so much fun! This was something I'll never forget!
Learning to surf: One day Kelsie and I went to the beach with our friends who own surfboards. They tried teaching us how, but it is a LOT harder than it looks to get up, and unfortunately we never managed to get up.... maybe next time!
Visiting Courtney: With Rotary, there are many trips you can choose to go on. They include the following: Rio de Janeiro, Amazon Rain Forest (I'm going in April!), São Paulo, the south of Brazil, Iguassu Falls, Pantanal e Bonito (a wetland nature region), and lastly the Northeast, that my friend Courtney went on. While she was in Recife (2 hours south of me) and Natal (2.5 hours north), I found a way to go visit her and spend some days with all the other exchange students on the trip. Recife was the first trip I went on which I wrote about in the last entry, and the weekend after was Natal, which was so much more fun than Recife! I spend 2 days there instead of 1 like Recife, and we spent the days there at the beaches of Natal, then the last night was a Claudia Leite show (A famous singer who played at Fest Verão)!! The show was crazy with all the 100 exchange students there from all over the world, and of course with our luck, it rained a lot! But that just made it all the more fun! :)
Pictures with Fernando Bronzeado: I may have mentioned this before, but my current host mom is good friends with one of the most famous photographers in João Pessoa. He offered to take pictures of 3 of the other exchange students here in João Pessoa and me! So one of the days in January we spent a day in his studio and at the beach! It was a looooot of fun! Usually girls do pictures like this for their 15th birthday, or for weddings and they cost about $5,000 at least, but he did ours for free! :)
CARNAVAL!: When you think of Brazil, probably one of the first things you think of is the big Carnaval celebration in February. Carnaval in Brazil really lives up to it's name!! Here in João Pessoa, the first week of February, before the actual Carnaval, was a week full of parties. I went to three out of the five, and I'll tell you a little about them! The biggest freeway in João Pessoa was blocked off for these events, and I heard that there was estimated to be more than 400,000 people at each night! It was basically a big parade, but each float had HUGE speakers on it and everyone would follow each of the floats dancing all the way down the road. The second night I went there was a theme where all the guys dressed up as girls. They went all out. It was hilarious to see everyone with a bunch of makeup on, clothes, and wigs! Then Saturday the 13th was the real Carnaval! I was extremely lucky to be able to go to Recife (the 3rd best place for Carnaval in the world!!) There were over 2,000,000 people on the street, and could see people dressed up as everything you could imagine! We even got a picture with a guy that looked exactly like the president of Brazil! Carnaval here was definitely one of my highlights of my year in Brazil!!
Now summer's over and everything is settling down and everyone is starting to get back into the swing of things. Everyone's going to work again, school, and moving back into their houses in the city. I've recently starting working out in the gym here, and I'm taking a Spanish class and Portuguese grammar class at night!
Até Mais, Beijos!
