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.

Move along, little dogey

So no real major updates here, just a funny story. So Chrys and I are walking down the hill to the club when I hear a rumbling sound behind me. I turn around to see a small herd of cattle charging down the hill towards us, being chased by two dogs and a guy on a motorcycle. Well Chrys doesn't look TOO phased (relatively) but I'm a little nervous and pick up pace a wee bit (understatement, I took off) and just when they seemed to be a little too close for comfort, they veered off into the field next to us and the motorcyclist who is herding them gives us a thumbs up. Then we went to the pool. And the picture is of a horse drawn cart, which are not at all uncommon.

Field of pain is where I graze

So I've been working out. It hurts. I have never had much upper body strength and the trainer guy picked that up almost immediately and set me up with an intense upper body workout (or it seemed intense to me). I've been doing this for two weeks now and I'm improving slowly. Anyways, today I went and did my workout and was pretty exhausted. As I was about to leave, a friend of mine asked me if I wanted to go check out the Brazilian jiu-jitsu class that was being taught downstairs. Needless to say, I did, and we went downstairs to watch. Well right off the bat the instructor asks if I'd like to join today and I said sure. So we stretched out and started practicing a pretty basic maneuver, which I got pretty quickly I'd like to think. We went over it a couple times and started on another. It was really warm in this room, by the way, and everybody was really sweaty, so not the most pleasant conditions along with being exhausted already. So we finish practicing the second move and the instructor motions for everyone to leave the mat, then selects two people who come out and spar. It was pretty intense as all the guys there were taller than me and REALLY ripped. What really threw me for a loop was when I got called to come out and fight. I know NOTHING about ground fighting (wrestling) and these fights were strictly ground fights. So I got my ass whooped. And again. And again. We continued rotating for 2 hours. Nothing is worse than having to pick someone elses armpit hair from your shoulder. It's just no fun. But I had fun anyways, in a way that only a practiced martial artist can appreciate. The kind of fun you have when getting your ass kicked. So I came home two hours later than usual and my host mother asked me if I was hungry and wanted a sandwhich. I trounced. This sandwhich was two chunks of steak with a slice of cheese in between and a fried egg on top in between two pieces of this tasty potato bread. Also had an apple. With all those endorphins flowing it was amazingly good.
On a slightly less violent note, I got in trouble at school today. One of my teachers was in a foul mood (I have a sneaking suspicion she got busted sneaking out of a class to go smoke, school is like that here) and we were waiting for her to get to the class (teachers rotate, not students) and we were waiting outside the classroom. She finally got there, clearly not a happy camper and we all turned around to follow her in when she slammed the door in our faces and locked it. So myself, the other exchange student (a girl named Chrys) and half of my class were given a detention for that period. We all together got hauled into the principals office and lectured (lightheartedly) and then all sent to the gym to wait for the end of the period. Basically, he turned us loose in the gym and we played music from cell phones and played tag for 45 minutes. Hardly an effective punishment but I'm not complaining.
Oh, and I registered in the country on Tuesday. I went up to Belo Horizonte Monday and we stayed there with my host brother and in the morning went to the Policia Federal. We left around 6 in the morning since my host father had some work in another city. We hiked up this really steep street to the PF, where we found out it didn't open til 8:30. We hiked back down the street and ate breakfast. Back up the street where we got started with the paperwork, only to discover that I needed a bunch of photos taken. Unfortunately, the bank was closed til 10:30. We didn't have that much time so we went back down the street and payed 10 reais to have a lady at a copy shop take them. Back up the hill to find out that rather than the $60 tax that Rotary forewarned about, it will actually cost more around $150 (198 reais, to be exact). So my host father payed it and we got to run all over the building getting more pictures taken, getting fingerprinted, all that fun stuff. Finally they gave me a little strip of paper with my name and picture on it and said that my ID would arrive in the mail. I still don't know if I'm gonna have to pay that tax or if Rotary is gonna cover it. I guess that would be why there is a $200 difference between the amount of money Rotary in Oregon told me to bring and the amount Rotary here told me to bring. If I do, I can just dip into that money and I'll have it covered and still be in the clear with my emergency money for Rotary here. So all is well and good. No major worries except for a nasty letter from Uncle Sam saying that if I don't register for the draft mighty quick that they'll be sending someone to the airport to (as my dad put it) "Escort me on an all-expenses payed 12 year vacation to Club Fed" Either that or my US citizenship will be revoked. Don't know where that leaves me but I guess I better get on it.