A little excitement

Well I know it's been awhile and I've prolly lost all my readers but I'll post this anyways. Tomorrow (Friday) I'm driving up to Belo Horizonte with my host family and on Saturday we're going to Porto Seguro, a famous beach in Bahia. We're gonna be staying in a pretty sweet condo type thing too, so it should be a hoot. I'll be there til the 28th, when we're heading back. After that, all that I've got lined up is Carnaval, which is in early February. School also starts up in February, I'm not sure if before or after Carnaval. I'm shooting for coming home in early June so I can start getting college stuff and living accomodations worked out. Sorry, not the most exciting stuff but it's all I've got for the time being.

Slipping by

So today was the last day of school, more or less. It's just all tests next week and Kris and I don't have to go. The scene found during the last class of the day was strangely akin to a 4th grade classroom. People were running around, throwing pieces of paper, one girl was crying cus a kid wearing a baseball cap turned around backwards had dumped a bag of crushed crackers in her hair. The mood was also strangely somber since a goodly chunk of the class is moving over the summer to Belo Horizonte. Walking home though I saw some humorous things on vehicles. The first was a car that had a sticker of some Rosary beads with the image of Mary in the middle and a few feet away was a sticker of a Playboy bunny. The other thing was a huge truck which had two big plush blanket things hanging on the inside back of the cab and the other on the dashboard so that if you were standing right in front of the truck (right before it hits you, if it's moving) you could read the words "Obrigado, Jesus" (Thankyou Jesus). I thought that was a little funny too. Oh, next weekend I got invited to go to one of the Rotarians' birthday party. It's out at his farm, which is right one this huge lake where he has a boat and a few jetskis. He also has a jeep (by this, I think he meant a 4-wheeler) and some horses. So that should be a hoot. Other than that, nothing to report.

Urban Ninja?

Ok, so last weekend I was staying in Belo Horizonte with one of the other exchange students and her host sister, who is in Rotex. They both had to go to school that day and their parents were working, so I was alone in their apartment that morning. They had loaned me a set of keys to the apartment door and I was just supposed to lock up and head downtown where I would rendezvous with one of them there. Things did not go as planned. Before I launch into the story, let me give you the general layout of a Brazilian apartment complex. First you have to go through a big steel bar gate, which is surrounded by a usually pretty tall wall, also usually with an electric fence on the top (without giving away too much, luckily for me this one wasn't). This opens to get inside with a key or outside with a buzzer (there is sometimes a security guard there who will let you in). That gets you into the courtyard area, after that is a big bullet-proof glass door with a fancy electronic lock that you have to have a key for to get inside. THEN you can go up and unlock the 4 deadbolts to your apartment. Back to the story. So I go out, lock up the apartment, all is going according to plan. I walk out the glass door, which is unlocked from the inside and step out into the courtyard. The door closes behind me and locks. There is no security guard here and the little room where he would be is empty of all electronic gadgets. I walk down the steps to the gate. The building is built on a pretty steep hill, so there are steps down to the street. I quickly discover that there is no buzzer near the gate, where it would normally be. Panicking, I run back to the glass door, only to see the buzzer in there and the door quite quite locked. I don't have a key for this glass door (or the gate) and on cue it starts raining. Knowing it'll be about 6 hours before anyone gets home, I decide I have to take action. The top of the wall is only a small climb from the top of the steps so I (cautiously, it is raining remember and the wall is made out of some kind of faux-marble or something) hop up there and look down. Well it's only about a thirty foot drop. I look up to see the guys working at the construction site across the street eyeing me curiously. Since I'm already inside, I guess they decided I wasn't up to TOO much trouble. I sit up there (again, very carefully) trying to plan what the heck I'm gonna do. I have no phone, no phone numbers anyways, no way of contacting someone inside (the buzzer for the apartments is on the outside and I don't know anyone else in the building or speak enough portuguese to explain my dilemna) and don't really wanna wait six hours out in the rain. Drastic measures are called for. About 3.5 or 4 feet from the wall are some palm trees. I reach out and give one a kick, it's no towering oak but I don't think it will snap under my bulk either. I look back into the courtyard, desperately searching for some other option and, not finding one, I turn back to the tree, stand up and LEAP to the palm. The construction workers have now stopped and are watching this with great interest and humor. Through some miracle, I reach the palm and wrap my arms and legs around it like I'm trying to strangle it. Somehow, I don't fall. I begin to slowly shimmy down, hindered only by the fact that palm leaves begin by growing out of the "bark" of the tree, pointing up and being very spikey. I scrape my ankles nicely, get a few well placed splinters in my inner thighs, put a few new holes in my shirt and with adrenaline shakes finally touch the ground and walk off as though nothing had happened.

Every time I breathe out...

Ok, it's hot. Like REALLY damn hot. It was in the upper 90's on Tuesday. And school requires us to wear pants as part of the uniform. That was miserable. However, I have discovered a new source of humor: Brazilian shirts with phrases in English. From these you get such gems as "Great Pleasure for Clever People"(and that's all it said. Just a white sweatshirt with that in the middle), or how about "Urban Streetwalker"(Abaeté is too small for a Red Light District so you have to get shirts that advertise it now?) or try this one on for size "Glorious Activity"(uhh....which activity is that, again?). I suspect the Japanese find such entertainment in those American shirts with kanji on them. Also, the title for the Alfred Hitchcock thriller Psycho was translated as O Homem Que Matou a Própria Mãe (The Man Who Killed His Own Mother (A bit of a plot spoiler, don'tcha think?)). Anyways, nothing particularly wild or crazy has happened of late, just the usual trecking back and forth from school, swimming at the club, and going to the academia (gym) three times a week.

Politickin'

Last night was the big city elections deal. I don't know what positions were elected or who won but this means that all those people driving around in cars with huge speakers either hanging out of the trunk or strapped to the roof blasting songs about candidates won't be around anymore, which is definitely ok with me. The weather broke 100 degrees today too. That was FUUUUUN. Not. I went to the gym anyways. Oh, and I'm a little over two months into my exchange and I just figured out how to change the temperature of the shower. I thought the little switch on the shower head would effect the pattern of the water or whatever but it actually is there because there are only three temperature options. #1: Scalding hot #2: Pretty cold and #3: This setting is for cryogenicly freezing things, I don't know why they would put it where some poor confused American might accidentally switch it on and damn near give himself a heart attack. I felt like Han Solo in Return of the Jedi. Also attached are pictures from my trip last weekend (mostly of us in Araxa, a city famous for its sulfur springs and huge hotel), some of people burning stuff in the streets, one of my host dad and brother and I at 2 in the morning after he dragged me out of bed and insisted I sing with them (I've mentioned the Rod Stewart obsession, right?), some graffiti of...Brazilian words of wisdom and finally cashew fruit (cashew nuts grow on top of a cashew fruit, which is like a cross between a mango and a pineapple). Ok, they aren't uploading. They'll be there soon though. Just use your imagination and Google Image Search for now.

The Weekend

Well, on the verge of another weekend. You see, here, the weekend starts on Thursday with Rotary meetings. These are more or less a party. Then tomorrow I'm going to a costume party, despite my lack of costume. I think a group of girls were discussing painting my face like a squirrel, as my nickname here is Esquilo (squirrel). Also, starting tomorrow (Friday), there is a weekend long motorcycle show in the middle of town, which I've been invited to attend with a number of crowds. Should keep me busy. On a slightly different note, if, when it comes out in February, anyone can get me a copy of the Max Payne movie, legal or illegal, I would love you forever. That, my friends, is a lot of commas in one sentence. These are the updates from your humble narrator. *Edit* Of course, all these plans were viciously karate chopped out of existence when my host father told me we would be spending the weekend in some small town outside of Uberlandia visiting his parents.

Pics

Ok, so I was gonna go back and just insert photos at random into other posts but that's a pain so I'm just gonna throw them all into one fell post and do my best to deal with layout issues. At the top, we have my host sister and her boyfriend and I at a lake we went to. We didn't swim. We didn't really do anything. I don't know why we were there. It was a long, hot and dusty car ride though. Then is the firebreather/juggler/trick bartender/general party enhancer guy from the anniversario (birthday) for one of the younger girls who goes to my school. It was a pretty formal event, I had to wear a suit and have a ticket to get in. I didn't have a ticket, I wasn't invited, I don't really know how I got in...I totally brought the party though. Then are the bathroom signs at the Rotary building. I thought they were funny and maybe provided a little insight about the Rotarians here. Below that we have a stray puppy who followed me home from school one day. Next, we have Virginia, Chrys and Yara (in that order (Yara, wearing my hat which she proceeded to steal)), my classmates. And the final is photographic evidence of Yara wearing my hat. Or...I guess Adam's hat if you wanna get technical. I don't have any pictures of my host family yet but I'll get on that. I'm sorry if these labels are all out of order but I figure you can more or less piece together what I'm getting at. I declare jihad on the layout editor for this site.