First things first, I am in the great US of A! :) Apparently my ticket was so complicated that about 4 different airlines were tied to it. This being the case, for some reason none of them could actually alter anything to do with my itinerary. As I missed my flight in the morning due to my travel agent only giving me 35mins between a domestic & an international flight no one there could do anything and they all kept saying the next guy had to do it. So after hours of walking from one end of the airport to the other, testing my Portuguese I had learned in Salvador, testing all the airline staff's English, a lot of pleading, begging and a few tears I ended up finding a direct flight that they were willing to put me on. The only problem was that apparently only some people in Australia could alter the ticket & get me on the plane. So, after multiple calls to Australia, lots of emails and bit more pushes I ended up with the last ticket on the plane to the states about 10 minutes before boarding. When I got to Miami my flight out was delayed about an 2 hours as well. Although the good thing about this delay was we got free drinks and food on the plane. Although the beer they gave was frozen & exploded all over the try, I had to just laugh, one more thing for this trip to go wrong. I am so thankful to be here in Cincinnati now and to see my lovely sister!
(Emily & I!! I am in Cincinnati! See the snow??)
I talked a bit about the culture in Brazil in my last blog entry. One thing I left out is that almost everyone there is just so beautiful & they all dress just so nice. Talking to my friends there apparently the people, and especially the girls, tend to be slightly more judgmental than other places. And all of the girls put a lot of effort into their looks. When my friend was describing to me what the average Brazilian woman does every month to two weeks to keep up their appearances I was in shock. Nails, waxing, hair treatments, skin treatments, etc. When I told my friend I had never really been to a true beauty parlor, it was her turn to be in shock. Even with all of the beauty treatments and visits I was thankful to see that most of the woman really don't have that fake, “I spend lots of time in the beauty parlor” look. If you have been reading all of the blogs than you would know I like to experience the real culture as I travel, get in there and do what the locals do. So, I decided I better head down to the beauty salon in Brazil. I got a new hair do, hung out in the beauty salon for a bit & hopefully walked out looking better than when I walked in!
After the Beauty Salon visit the whole family headed up with a couple friends up to their beach house about an hours drive north. We all went up to a young boy's baptism/Christianing (not sure of the name as I am not Catholic) for which my friend Thamis was to become the god-mother. The boy's mother was the family's previous maid that worked for them for around 7 years, and thus was now a close family friend. This was interesting for me as even though I went to a Catholic university I have never been to a Catholic ceremony before. So I feel like I learned a lot just watching it all. After the baptism/ christaining, we all went back to the parent's of the boys house and had nibbles, chocolates, & chervaja (beer). This was great fun as I met some new people and I got to practice some of my new learned Portuguese words and some of them got to try to remember some of those old English words they once new. Between it all there was lots of laughter and just good times.
The next morning Thamis, Tamara & their boyfriends all had to head back to Salvador to do some work and other things in the morning. So I spent the morning with their parents and a couple neighbors. As none of them spoke English, the project was to show me around the area & teach me Portuguese at the same time. A couple of us went of a long walk where I learned about the flowers, fruits, beach, river, and tried some of the local food. During this whole morning I increased my Portuguese vocabulary as they tried to teach me new words & get their meaning across to me. When Thamis, Tamara & boyfriends came back they were quite relieved to see all of us getting along quite well. They were all worried of how things would go since I was the only English speaker. After this they never worried again.
While at the beach house we had a Brazilian BBQ each day. Oh and the food and drinks were so, so good! The BBQ on the first day was one for the neighborhood of beach houses. They brought in some live music from a band & had a full on feast with some amazing food! A Brazilian drink, which I am now in love with, is called a Rosja (I am sure I spelt that one wrong), but it is mashed up fresh fruit mixed with a bit of sugar, water & vodka. I as able to try a few of these with some of the local Brazilian fruit I have only seen there & oh were they good. So with everyone mingling, eating, drinking, listening to good music and a bit of dancing everyone was having a great time! The second BBQ was just a family BBQ with a couple of the neighbors over, but I have to say the meet was amazing.
Brazil has a number of fruits that I have never heard of or seen before. Almost as a mission I was continually offered to aprovada (try) new fruits and foods grown in the local area. So many of them were so, so good! There is an oil that I believe comes from Bahia flower that is used in a bit of their cooking. I just wish I could get it in the states, because it is good! The fruits there on the whole are great, but there are a few I would steer clear of. Most of the locals will be able to tell you not to try them, well at least all them told me that as I insisted to try every new fruit I could find. Besides the fruit and meets I tried to one food that stuck out the most was a thing called Tapioca. This is not the same Tapioca that most people reading this will think of. They do have the pudding type of tapioca, but the kind I am talking about is closer to a crepe or omelet. It is a white flat piece of round tapioca that looks almost powdery. They take this and fold it over filling the insides with goodness. You can have savory or sweet. They feel it with all sorts of combinations, similar to how you would with a crepe. They were very good.
While up at the beach house they took me up to a major turtle reserve. As the large turtles were once almost extinct this reserve has done a lot to preserve the giant turtles. I really enjoyed seeing the different turtles and how big they were. I thought they were all so cute. What I did not know is that there is a species of turtles that are length-wise longer than I am in height. We are talking about a big turtle when we start talking in these terms!
After going to the beach house I had only one day left in Salvador. For the morning Thamsi' dad took me around and showed me all sorts of things. We stopped at some nice parks, forts, and lighthouses. We also drove through some of the poorer neighborhoods so I could see them. I really wished so many times I knew more Portuguese as I am sure he could have told a number of stories. He used to be a police officer, so he knows the city well. He was able to take me to some of the best lookouts.
To sum up all of my Brazilian experiences they were AMAZING! I loved every bit of it. I am very excited to be the US with my sister with snow outside on the ground!
~Laugh & Love Life~
