Countdown to summer vacation: 2 months... sigh

Hello everybody!

Wow, so sorry for not blogging--- i always put it off because it takes the longest... but today I will do it!

Things in Sao Jose are going pretty well. Life is life; normal with a tedious routine of school, lunch, athletic club, lan house (internet cafe), eating, showering, sleeping. Repeat. School is so dull, and it's probably the hardest part of my day because it makes me miss home the most as I sit reading a book (in english you know) and think about Eisenhower and long for any class in english where i can participate and feel accomplished to soooome degree. School also really makes me miss my friends. But at the same time, school gets better each week as i learn to speak more withmy classmates...

Going to the athletic club makes me sound like im workin out all the time--- buuut im not. i spend a lot of time there, but my friends and i are lazy so we dont do too much. but i guess its better than nothing. I played tennis again finally, after having not played for like 3 weeks,.... and then i broke a string. :( and it costs $R2o to fix so I'm bummed about that, considering i still havent gotten my money from myrotary club! oops! The good part of breakin my racket was having this very handsome guy say, in english, "too hard" and pointing ot my racket. i was so shocked he knew any english i couldnt respond, just let my jaw hang open. this guy is someone my friend and i always talk about as being so good lookin and we always are speaking english in front of him in thefitness center but hes never said a word to me more than Oi. haha. well it was a big deal to me... haha

So since my last blog i've realy just been hanging out. Well, one sunday my family and I went to a nearby city where we did this thing where they tie you up to ropes and stuff and you lower yourself down through a waterfall to the bottom of a cannon, about 80 meters, or 300 ft. it was scary as hell but soooo fun with an amazing view. the following weekend we had a Rotary retreat thing in a city called Holambra. Holambra is a holland-inspired tourist locale where people come to see what holland is apparently like. it reminds me of what i would imagine Levenworth, Washington to be like, but i haven tbeeenthere os i dont know exactly. But , the main attraction of Holambra is the flowers. it is a huge garden with flowers everywhere and it was so so beautiful, somethingmy mom, grandma and paul and barbara and i guess a lot of our family would realllly appreicate. it was so fun to be with the other exchange students. oooh i love most the exchangers--- so fun! I spent my day with a girl from Czech and a gril from Swedin. I really wish i had more exchangers in my city!! This weekend Im goin to Mococa, a city nearby for my cousins birthday party--- so im really excited to see the cousins and to meet some more people i cant really speak with. yay. haha

Portuguese is getting better. I speak pretty poorly but im really trying to practice.. I can follow conversations for the most part until they are directed at me and then i slightly freak out and babble something that i usually regret. Everyone thinks i dont need classes so i guess ill just continue to battle it out. However i went to an english school yesterday because someone from Rotary told me to go there and help, andi met some realllllyy cool and fun brazilians who are fluent in english! i had a greattttt time there! they are realllly funny and were sooo interested in america and my view on things and speaking with me. They offered to help me with my portuguese anytime I need it, so i will probably be taking them up on that offer next week.

Its been pretty hot lately, and so yesterday Jenny(germany), Pri(brasil) and I (EUA.. estados unidos americano.. cool huh) spent the afternoon by the pool at the club. Its a really pretty two level pool with a REALLLY high high dive. Pri and i mustered up the courage to jump fromthe high dive with a bunch of boys from school and it was sooooo fun. It was crazy because you have sooo much time to just hang out in the air and wait to hit the water. The first time i jumped i yelled DESCULPE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! reallllllly louddddd. and screamed. later i felt really stupid because desculpe is the word for Sorry. Why i chose this word in mid air i dont know. haha. the second time i jumped i more or less lost my top and decided not to go again that day. haha.


My bad hair cut is beginning to grow out--- but reallllly slowly, and quite oddly. so thats good.

In other news, i received two packages last week.. one from my momma and one from aunt amy and i was soooooooo happy to get both. my mom sent me M&Ms, an expensive treat hear if you can find them, so i have been hoarding themin my room not wanting to share. haha.

Im looking forward to going to Sao Paulo in October for another rotary get together, as well as Riberao Preto, a biigg city (found on maps so you should look!) northeast of my town for a career fair at aunversity. Im not especially interested in brazilian careers, but the field trip is on my birthday, my classmates are all going, it was only $R12, you get free-dress, and just the 2 oldest classes in school are going, adn we are going to go shopping and when we getback, its a friday, were going to have a festa (party) for my birthday! yay!!!!!!!!! brigaderos for everyone!! A brigadero is a chocolate bite-size candy eaten on birthdays that is similar to a ball of frosting. i love them and can eat like 20 of them in liek 5 minutes. did i mention ive gained 5 pounds? haha

Other things im looking forward to is going to Sao Paulo 2 times in November for 2 soccer games! yayyyyyyy! im sooo excited. Pri's dad is a futebol referee, and he just ref'd a game in Sao paulo, a huge rivalry, and he gave someone a red card and now the Sao Paulo paper is calling their house asking for an interview! craaazy. Just to put it into perspective.. the soccer league we watch is professional and can be compared to American football. or NBA or MLB or anything that americans are obsessed with sports wise. its really fun. and im learning more and more that although some of the players from the national team go to europe to play--- the people who play here are just as good. its awesme.

and then in december i get to go to the beach for 10 days with Pri and her grandma and probably my family too! yayy!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! everyday i wish we were going to the beach. haha. and then in January im going to the northeast for a month to see all the best beaches in brasil, where the weather can reach up to 115 degrees! ay caramba! and then april i hope to go the amazon for 10 days. yay. thining about these things make school bearable knowing ill spend a month at the beach.haha.

well, id love to get emails with questions or anything else. Not sure what elseim leaving out.... I really like brasil. the people are amazing and the foods great imjust trying to stay busy aand trying to learn to speak.
thanks for reading. miss you all so much.

beijos,
Katie

Vamos para priar!

Wow, its been forever since Ive posted a blog! My apologies! Things are going well, Im staying busy and learning more and more each day. Lets see, last I wrote i was planning on going to Sao Paulo with my fam for a wedding, so Ill start there.

Sao Paulo with the family was really fun. We ate at an athletic club that has over 80000 members! SO MANY PEOPLE! hahah i was in shock! After we ate, I did somethign totally crazy. First of all, let me just warn everyone--- if you are living in Brasil, Portugal or any other portuguese speaking country--- and you dont actually know how to speak that language-- you reallllly shouldnt get a hair cut! What was I thinking? I mimed my way to REALLY short bangs and i lost about 3-4 inches off my hair hair. GAHHHH how awful! my bangs are starting to grow out but for the most part it is jsut not a cute look. My best friend here, Pri, told me that i was lucky Im not ugly or the hair cut combined with my looks would be catastrophic. I guess i took that as a compliment? haha. After the hair cut, I went with my family to a comedy play where I understood very little of what was actually being said but still laughed really hard-- i gues theyre really good actors when they can make you laugh at their actions and facial expressions alone. The next day I went to a wedding. It was pretty small, but the family is huge because my host father has like 12 siblings so there were like 30 first cousins! ahh so many people to meet! My host mom was like "im going to introduce you to people now and you wont rememebr their name tomorrow".. or try 5 minute later. I had a good time tho, and the dancing was pretty dang fun as well. Brazilians throw a great party-- thats for sure. The food was also very good. The reception was in a beaaautiful building that was just recently built and the view was very pretty.
So that wa smy weekend in sao paulo--- slightly crazy!

Since then I've been enjoying myself here in Sao Jose where I pretty mcuh know my way around.. at least to eh ice cream shop! My friends and i like to go shopping-- but its more like browsing because the clothes are expensive and Im not ready to dish out the big bucks for some clothes i dont really know if they wear yet. I went to the discoteca for the frist time t00.. which was really quite the experience. It was more like a bar,, it was really loud, i cant understand portuguese and i dont especially like 30 year old guys grabbing my hand saying something in portuguese. the whole night my german friend and i battled the guys and it was slightly exhausting. Overall, i dint really enjoy the experience too much--- but i think thats because no one from school was there. Im going there again tomorrow night i think-- but this time ill probably go with more friends so i think well have a better time.

School drags on but Ive had a lot of opportunity to read-- mostly babysitter club books tho, because thats all my school has, ahah for the most part. I also read Tom Sawyer, but it was the simplified version, whatever taht means, thus it wasnt as good as it probably could have been. I really like my classmates and friends at school but it is soooo boring. today i slept for like 3 hours. gaaah. I do anything to stay awake but ran out of gum so yeah. haha. It makes me apprecite school at Ike more, because even tho i complained so much about Ike and classes, they are way better than here! I successfully entertain my classmatesby trying to speak portugues and by relaying messages back and forth between friends.. i think im mostly saying bad things but its still pretty funny and i appreciate that they talk to me! haha.

Last weekend i had the joyous pleasure of going to the beach for Brazilian Independence day--- take that portuguese! yessss... We went south to Guarujá, which is about 1.5 hours south of Sao Paulo--- a whopping 5 hours from my city. Ooooh i looooved every minute of the beach! It was my host mom, my grandma, my best friend Pri and Pri's grandma. We had such a great time. We stayed in my grandmas apartment, just a block from the beach. We were there from Thursday to Sunday. Pri and I had so much fun. I forgot ot mention i bought a brazilian bikini before i went and boy is it small. Pri liked to help me wear it by pulling it up my butt haha saying it needed to be higher. ahhh sooo high! Pri called me "bunda branco" which is white butt and i called her "bunda gostaza" which is like, big butt. haha. We spent the mornings laying in the sun or walking on the beach and spent the afternoons at little shops along the water. I drank alot of coconut water (the best thing ever) and i even got a tatoo! a HENNa tattoo that isss.. so its almost gone now. Its pretty tho, its of a flower on my right hip bone. haha. it was only 5 reals so i couldnt resist. my mom got a tat on her back too. it was fun. The people watching at the beach was so good it rivaled the gorge, id say! There were many many pretty boys as well. muahah

On thursday night we had quite the experience when our car was towed! A few hours later and a hundred reals later we had the car back. too bad it was pretty damaged by the towtruck and my family was really angry. they kept saying "this is brazil, katie, this is brazil" talking about how complicated it was to get the car back and how there is basically no way we can get the car damage paid for. it was a major bummer but it taught us to watch where we park!

On both Friday and Saturday night Pri, my mom and I hit the local bars/discotecas! both nights we went to a place that is a whole bunch of restaurants in one small area.. kind of reminded me of a fair becaus there were restaurants but the seating was only outside and there was alwalkway in between and loits and lots of people. and one bar had a dancefloor. so on friday after getting nachos at the mexican food restaurant we went dancing kind of at the other bar. it was really fun and we made friends with a few gjuys who spoke english. the one guy who spoke english realy well was pretty fun and cute so it was a pretty good time.. On saturday we had a much better time. We went back tot he same place and the same guy from the previous night got us into the good dancing bar without having to wait the 40 minutes for a reservation. Pri and i had a good time trying to find cute boys to hang out with. which was easy as we were pretty well surrounded. haha. I eventually found a cute guy named Diego who might be my husband. haha. Hes very cute a futebol player who lives at the beach. very very very beautiful. too bad he doesnt speak englihs. oh well! We had so much fun at the beach and ate so much we both gained 2 kilos (4 pounds) and got a tan and gosh, i just had a great time i didnt want to leave and i miss it so much!!!!!!!!!!!!! haha

This week has gone so slow since the beach but tomorrow is my sisters bday so we are going to celebrate and then saturday i might be traveling with rotary and on sunday we are celebrating her birhtday again with family and then on monday my friend jenny from germany is having her birthday! whew so many birthdays means sooo much cake! i cant wait!

I went to my frist rotary meeting last night and the peopel were so sweet and welcoming. The club is tiny as tehre were only like 12 peopel in attendence! oh well!

Well this is my update...
i had a harder time earlier this week what with 9-11 (being here was very very weird) and i dunno just kind of a crappy beginning of the week when i was really really missing home but im feeeling better today and am really happy tomorrow is friday!!!!

i miss yak and the usa so much but am liking things here very well overall.

thanks for reading. Beijos!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! (love you fam!)