12 February
Autor: Becca | Publicado: 2011-02-11T20:33:00-08:00

&nbsp;&nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp;So i wont lie, i was a little happy to hear that even the ever so animated Wei could become a victim to the exchange student slump ( a little late, but whatever) and then i remembered my rotten december slump and i wouldnt wish that on anyone. i recommend finding a new hobby - mine was cooking, which i think could be very good for you even though you say you hardly make mac and cheese, one because all you need to do is follow a recipe (find one on the internet in english or even better have your parents send you a recipe for your favorite simple to make foods) so you feel accomplished when everything comes out and you get to eat something you are craving, expecially something from home, and food makes me happy and i have a feeling after staying at your house that it makes you happy too. forget about how your muscles are melting in to fat for a month or so. besides that i talked a lot with my family. i tried not to talk too much about my slump, because thats just wallowing (do not wallow!), just about anything movies, music, simple things to make conversation but after you still feel so much better because you talked with your fam. also, music with happy trumpets like the one i sent you (grizzly bear, beirut, sufjan stevens, mika, and that french guy sliimy work pretty well) and just know that it will pass. the whole rest of your exchange will not be like this rotten month, i promise.
&nbsp;&nbsp; &nbsp; Now that we have that covered - my beautiful monthlong vacation! (i also reccomend rotary vacations, but thats not always possible) its hard to start and descibe how much i loved my vacation. first of all, we toured the most famous cities - Rio de Janeiro, Brasilia (faltou Sao Paulo, but its ok), second of all we went to the best beaches of brasil (and i actually got my first tan), and possibly best of all, everyone on the trip was an exchange student aka very cool. even our chaperones were yeos, past exchange students, or parents of exchange students. &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; 
&nbsp;&nbsp; &nbsp;in our first city, Rio de Janeiro, we went to a buffet that had typical foods and sushi and everyone was pumped because its so chic and all. i tried my first piece of "real"sushi. i liked it so much that i went back for a plateful. and then realizing that everyone at my table had done the same thing i joked that we should just take the platter from the buffet and put it on our table. we were the only people in the restaurant. and then we did. the funniest part wasnt that we took the platter and put it on our table, that we replaced it with a plate from our table that hadnt been used and when the waiter came to fill the platter he had such a confused look on his face when he found the plate... &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp;
&nbsp;&nbsp; &nbsp; the whole trip was by bus, which doesnt sound so bad since youre now livin gin europe, but this is the equivalent of touring the entire west coast by bus. because of teh bus we had some inbetween cities where we would only stay the night. right after Rio, we stopped for the night in Victoria. I already had a little obsession with agua de coco, where people actually cut open a coconut in front of you with a machete and put a straw in it and you drink (its so good too) so i bought one that night when we were walking on the beach and remembered that my host mom had said that if you cracked it open you could eat fresh coconut inside. i really wanted to try it and tried to rip open the cocnut with my bare hands, but failed. we brought it back to the hotel, hoping that we would have something in the room to open it, but we didnt and i was giving up, thinking i &nbsp;would throw it away, when my friend Sydney (the tannest one on our trip who is from Alaska) suggested i throw it on the floor to crack it open. and then we did. it bounced 3 or 4 times before it cracked open. all of this happening after midnight. needless to say the people with rooms underneath ours were not happy about the noise and we were punished. but a strange way to start the trip - &nbsp;sushi switching and coconut cracking. i was good the rest of the trip i promised.
other highlights included our endless thats what she said jokes. and when we learned how to say thats what she said in mandarin from the taiwanese girl on our trip who spoke very little portuguese and less english - Tatashushema. our first day on the bus we played egyptian war and sat on the floor of teh bus. after i explained the game rules with slapping doubles and sandwhiches, my friend chris yelled, ï dont think theres enough room here for smacking" to which i responded, "oh we will smack " and so it began.
as far as actual thing we visited, my favorites were in
Porto Seguro when we visited a beach that was very MTV summer-esque with Funk (brasilian equivalent to rap) bumpin and a stage with someone teaching dance moves and a crowd of people below dancing and being squirted with water periodically. there was also some regular beach space, but dancing was so much fun. my moves have improved significantly according to my new friends, although they may just be flattering me...
Salvador, where we visited a private island all day full of tidepools that had sea urchins and hermit crabs smaller than your pinky nail, shells, and rocks. i came back to the hotel with a beach towel full of shells, sea glass, and accidentally a few hermit crabs that i left for the hotel maid.
Fortaleza, where we spent the morning driving fast across sand dunes with a sort of four wheeler, followed by massages (for about $15USD each, my first ever massage) and horseback riding on the beach
Recife, (the city name literally means reef) where we took a sailboat out to a coral reef and toured it, its sea urchins, and sort of tide pools full of tropical fish, followed by swimming in the water with scuba goggles and seeing just how full of fish it was. if it wasnt a protected reef some fishermen would be making quite a bit without trying at all.
and Lencois (not my city but another with teh same name) where we climbed a mountain, swam in natural swimming pools, went down a natural waterslide, played in colored sand, and toured a cavern with cristals and bats. in our hotel room here we found a full sized tarantual bigger than my fist and when we showed our rotarian chaperone she acted as if it was nothing and said to leave it alone because &nbsp;it couldnt hurt us, but i insisted on going to the front desk. after telling the man there that there was a big spider in our room he laughed and grabbed a broom and some raid, but when he saw how big it really was he looked scared and rushed out of the room, only to return with a stick, cloth, acohol, and matches to make a torch and burnt the tarantula until it died.
it was a very exciting trip and i think it will be one of the highlights of my exchange. plus, it now gives me an excuse to travel while visiting my new exchange student buddies. are you doing a sort of eurotour or anything?

other big news: i switched into my second host family yesterday. its quite a bit different from my first - everyone is older and in college, but its really nice to hang out with people my own age and it feels a lot like my family with everyone older and visitng home during their breaks before going back to school. I didnt meet my host mom until today because she and my host sister were searching for an apartment close to her university and just got back, but tomorrow we're going to my grandparents house (ironically the same grandparents that were almost my first host fam) for a little party and im sure ill get to know them then. two of my new host siblings were exchange students, one of them went to the US and lived in Wisconsin, and the other went to Denmark. My two host sisters are going off to school next week, but my host brother is ont vacation for another month and i think were going to be good friends. ive already discovered that we like a lot of the same tv shows and movies, which is exciting. How is your new host family?

i hope your slump is coming to an end and if not im here to talk whenever you want. and of course, remember to smile with your liver.

Love,
Rebecca