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!:)