Okay, forget the last post...

Yeah, I know I said I would be done... but honestly, I realized that I actually enjoy blogging despite the lack of readers. I enjoy it because it is the only form of journaling that I have time for these days. Though I leave out a ton of my thoughts and feelings, at least I have SOMETHING to look back on... I forget things easily. Ask any of my siblings.

Basic update: Justin and I barely survived finals week. I admit that Fall semester I didn't dig in like I needed to. My grades kinda showed it. I was appalled at my B+ in physics. I have only gotten 2 of them in college and I HATE B's. This semester is filled with goals, motivation and a husband who reinforces those goals by being even more hardcore about school than me. Over Christmas break we went on our fabulous trip to Brasil.

I could probably post 5 or 6 entries about our trip. I won't. But I will put all the pictures in a totally separate post and just talk about it in this one. Brasil was amazing. I will never forget my experiences there. I loved it for so many reasons, but it comes down to amazing people and great food. We stayed with the locals, used backpacks instead of suitcases, brought sleeping pads (which were only used 1 night since everyone gave up their beds to us--despite our refusals), traveled by bus and never touched any of the touristy crap. It was a true Brasilian experience.

The trip down there took 30 hours total because of our 4 connecting flights. Finally we arrived in Brasilia and were picked up by the Rochas. They are an incredible family. The parents, Ruebervan and Adriana are super strong members of our church and so friendly and giving. The children, Gabriel and Arthur, were cute and hilarious. Adriana showed me how to make a lot of traditional Brasilian meals and fed us gobs of guava, oranges, apple bananas, watermelon, pineapple, mango and some other local fruit I had never heard of. The first week we spent in Brasilia we went shopping, visited Justin's friends from his mission, hung out with the Rocha family, visited the downtown government sites, ate lots of food and I tried to keep up with what was going on since I could only understand 60% of the conversation. One day Adriana wanted to take us to the Fera (huge clothing/food market) with some friends, Alice and her daughter Smenia at 7 am. I hated it. It was nothing but a maze of crappy clothes and shoes.... way worse than Canal Street in NYC. Later that day we visited the TV tower and got to shop at a real farmer's market and they realized that I'm not really the clothing-shopping-kinda-girl. I'm more of check-out-the-local-handmade-stuff-kinda-girl.

New Years Eve was nuts. We went downtown and went to a free concert being held in a huge outdoor field. There were food and alcohol vendors EVERYWHERE. The music was way good but the dancing was.... well... more risque than a Utah girl like myself is used to. I also saw lots of girls being groped and kissed by random guys. Apparently that's a normal Brasilian thing to do on New Years. After a while Alice and Justin told me we were going to move further away from the stage and hang out where the police and paramedic stations were. They didn't tell me why... until we got home from the trip. Then Justin told me, "Oh yeah, we moved away from the stage because someone got stabbed in a fight." Uhh.... okay, glad we didn't die!!!! We went home at 2 am and I learned something about Brasil that I didn't fully comprehend til that night... Brasilians love love love to party. Like from 7 pm in the evening to 10 am the next day. They don't sleep, they blast their music so loud you can hear it a mile away, and they get totally wasted. Yikes. Not a fan. Guess I will never be going there for Carnival.

On New Years day we took a 18 hour bus ride to Cuiaba. There Andrea picked us up and we stayed with her and her family. Cuiaba was awesome but WAY WAY WAY too hot. Like try 100 degrees, 100% humidity, no a/c anywhere and tons of misquitos. I was dying! I was eaten alive by the bugs and even had bites on my eyelids and places they had gone through the sheets. I have no idea how Justin survived it as a missionary during the hottest time of the year. But Andrea was fun to hang out with and we went shopping, ate tons of food, and one day went to Chapadas. Chapadas is a national forest with waterfalls, rainforest and beautiful views of Cuiaba. Since Cuiaba is actually a city set inside a massive crater, Chapadas is on top of the plateau so it was much cooler and windier. I loved the waterfalls. The city of Cuiaba was also beautiful. The architecture was mostly european inspired but definitely had the South American ghetto going on. It reminded me a lot of San Francisco without the ocean. Very artsy, lots of boutiques, farmers markets and gay people.

We went back to Brasilia after staying in Cuiaba for about 4 days. Our flight left the next day so we just hung out with Alice and her family and the Rochas and ate churrasco. (Brasilian BBQ, like Rodizio Grill). The flight home was chaotic and we BARELY made it since the airports had a huge spike in security after the Christmas bomb scare. I was really afraid we would be stuck in Sao Paulo for a few days with no one to stay with. But we made it on the plane with literally 3 minutes to spare.

My favorite food in Brasil: Acerola (a local fruit), Pao de Quiejo (cheese bread), Pastels (fried pastries filled with meat and cheese), Suco de Limao (limeade), Farofa (a dish with taro flour and fried bananas and meat), churro chocolat (a churro filled with chocolate), Sonho (a pastry filled with dulce de leite)

SO GOOD! Oh, and I DID see a Tucan. It was flying though. :)