its already been over a week!

oi! tudo bem aqui no brazil.. e estou falando e aprendendo portuguese muito rapido.. que bom!
it only took until that first day of classes for me to stop speaking spanish at home, pretty much since then ive been able to speak almost entirely en portuguese, but its largely due to the fact that the language is pretty much spanish, just have to insert different words and accents. class went well, we learned so much in the first week, verb-wise we went through what you would go through in one semester in college. it was perfect though, we all already spoke 2 other languages so we were able to move quickly. i made a friend, and i didnt really have a choice of who, there was only one other person who is here alone who wanted to explore and do stuff, so my new friend became jean-francois from french-speaking quebec, canada. hes a bit older than me, but oh well, its nice to have someone to explore with so you dont feel quite so lost. we quickly learned the bus system by traveling to different beaches everyday, so far weve had 5 sunny days, and ive seen 5 beaches. everyday the beaches are more beautiful than the one before. seriously... its unbelievable. we hiked 2 days through jungle-like trails to remote coves that were amazing. so far ive been west, east, south, and north, this island is beautiful. towards the east theres a lake, its kinda strange, but its a lake right by the ocean, and it has little towns and bars and restaurants, ive been out once to see a bossa nova band there. and just beyond the lake are some sand dunes where people go sand boarding, i have yet to do it, though i think ill prefer sand sledding, instead of voluntarily trying to kill myself sandboarding. and as it turns out, my house is super close to the water, however the water on the continental side of the island isnt beachy, its city. the beaches are north, east, and south. the closest one is probably 30 min away w 2 busses, its cuz busses are so fast and organized and i just love them (some of you have experienced 3rd world busses)..
the city is really nice, it reminds me of panama city, its modern, has huge malls and nice clubs, though theres still trash in the streets and you can still tell its latin america. but more towards the south of the island, it looks much more like the rest of latin america, like costa rica, just dirtier and poorer. theres a small aquaduct thing that runs across my street and down towards the mall about a quarter mile away, and one guy from the school said he saw a crocodile in it by the mall last week. thats funny. ive seen monkeys, cows, and horses all from my kitchen window. the best part though was the horse- it was the trash truck! with a big cart full of trash and one guy in a buggy type thing..i took a picture. there are tons and tons of dogs on our street too, but luckily they arent strays, and i love to stop and play with a couple puppies on my walk to school, which is just at the end of my street about 10 min away.
so last wednesday night i went out for my first ladies night in brazil, which is nowhere near as cheap as say..costa rica ladies nights, but it was fun. we ate sushi and danced, the club was much like italy, house music, flashing lights, i loved it. and i had my first caipirinha, it was okay, but i hear theyre better on the beach.
for easter i stayed home (rainy) with ariana my host and we ate lunch with her parents who live downstairs, it was delicious and was nice to have a family lunch for a holiday. i also started yoga again and am going to try to take full advantage of cloudy days doing other things. unfortunately for social me, everyone else in the school left this last weekend, except 3 of us, me, jean-francois, and a swiss guy named rico, and im desperately in need of someone else to hang out with, so im trying harder to meet brasilians. last night i went to dance classes! oh it was awesome. i did 2 classes, the first was samba de gafieira, which is a partner dance, kinda like bolero or tango, i caught on pretty quick, which was good cuz i when i got there they told me it was a level 3 class, yikes! but i met one of the dance teachers there and she taught me really well. then i did forró (pronounced fohó) which was so much fun, its a lot like salsa so for me it was easy, and i cant believe how much i miss dancing! so i plan to do that a lot more. (i think salsa will remain my favorite, but this is once of the things i really wanted to do here!)
so our teacher this week (we change teachers every week, this is good) gave me the biggest compliment yesterday, she was absolutely amazed with my level of speaking and comprehension based on the fact that a week ago i didnt know a word of portuguese, that made me feel so good! it really is awesome how fast im picking it up, i never speak english though so that helps. even in costa rica and italy we spoke tons of english cuz everyone was from the usa, but nobody but me is a native english speaker now, so we all just speak portuguese together. its great practice. so things are going well mais o menos, theres a girl from holland who arrived today who speaks spanish but not portuguese yet, so im making friends with her, and i cant tell you how excited i am just to see another student, and a girl is even better. and she wants to learn to dance too! so hopefully ill have a new friend there. its hard to be in this position and trying to meet people, its harder than it seems.
anyway i think thats it for now, im going to put up pictures when i can use arianas computer at home, so hopefully soon. i hope everyone is doing well! até logo..
j

im in the southern hemisphere!

Oi! After a very long two days, i did finally make it safe to Florianopolis, and am starting to enjoy myself.. for various reasons it was kinda hard to be super excited to come down here. the flights were long and thank god i slept, i would have slept all the way from new york to sao paulo if it werent for our emergency landing in brasilia, somebody had to go to the hospital, i dont know i slept through most of it. but i was awake enough to notice the grey clouds and rain outside, and wasnt too stoked on that. it was the same in sao paulo, which definitely didnt lift my spirits. it was the first time id ever been in an airport, needing to fly somewhere, and didnt already have a ticket, plus i didnt speak a word of portuguese, but somehow i got a flight that was supposed to leave in 30 minutes, this is funny. so the guy was all flustered and hurrying for me and i ran to the gate and then the intercom comes on and luckily i understood enough to hear that our gate changed, however, when we got to the new gate it was mayhem, and no one spoke spanish or english, and suddenly everyone starts following the airport guy down the hall, through the airport, out an exit, and stops at the door of a restaurant! i seriously thought there was some exit we needed to get to, but no, they started giving us all vouchers for free food. apparently we had been delayed 4 hours. i made friends with a brazilian woman whose husband is colombian so she spoke some spanish, it was comforting. 3 gate changes and 4 and a half hours later, i was finally on my last leg, and i started to feel better as we were descending over a beautiful island where the sun was shining and the hills were green, and the ocean..everywhere.. and that was to be my new home. and the guy next to me who had gotten in trouble for smuggling in and drinking a beer on the plane was telling me how much i was going to like it here, yay!
i ran into another slight problem when i called my host mom whom i thought spoke english from some previous emails, and find out she doesnt speak a word, and i couldnt understand her portuguese, all she said was -i need one people talk portuguese!- so i gave the phone to a very confused airport worker who finally hung up and said she would meet me outside. as i waited for her, i finally started to get so excited i could hardly stand it. it hit me all at once, and memories from my first day in costa rica came back to me and i finally started feeling good for the first time. my host mom if you can call her that, is only 30 it turns out, and lives alone, so its more like having a roommate, which is perfect. good that she doesnt speak english, but we figured out that i can speak spanish to her and she understands most of it, and i understand most of her portuguese, so this is how we communicate, and as im learning, im speaking more and more portuguese to her. it also turns out that another student will live with us, as there are 2 extra rooms, but she still hasnt arrived.. but there was still a guy there when i came (he left saturday) and i went with him the first night to a bbq and met a bunch of people from the school (about 10 but the school isnt much bigger than that) and i couldnt believe how much i learned in the first..6 hours or so.
unfortunately its been raining here so i havent done much yet. today was our first day, well my first day of class, and im really in disbelief how easy it is and much i just get it, so im confident i will be fully conversational pretty soon, spanish and italian both help sooooo much. by the way the other night i was noticing how young everyone is, and i was the oldest student by over a year at the bbq, and then i got to class today, and my 3 classmates are 27, 37, and 42, so i guess im not so old! i went with one of them and another guy to a beach today, praia mole, it was so beautiful! kinda like youd imagine a brazilian beach, surfers, thong bikinis, fruit juices and cocktails, and some guys playing soccer. unfortunately it was pretty cloudy, we stayed for a couple hours, and right when we left it started to rain, sad!
but anyway some exciting things- yes, the stars are different, i am going to learn all the new constellations, the first one i saw was the southern cross, how cool is that! i still dont know if the toilet flushes the other direction, i cant think of what it did in the states, but if anyone wants to tell me, i will see if it really does go the other way.. and i got a cell phone today, for about $17. yeah- cheap! so from the states you would dial 011 55 48 8446 1225. if anybody wants to try, just remember im 4 hours ahead of the pacific coast! my time is about up and i hope i didnt bore you! im known for writing books. id love to hear from anyone, write me back, and tell me if you think this blog is a good idea... tchau tchau!!!
ps pictures to come as soon as i can figure out how to get them on this stupid computer!:)