6 days out

so my last post was depressing, so this one is going to be a post of my 10 favourite things about brasil. 
Good things, not bad. 


so here we go...


10- Portuguese
I really love Portuguese. To me, it is a beautiful language (if used correctly) and is often more flowing than english. It is a hard language to learn, and im far from fluent, all the gramatical stuff is enough to give you a headache, but i preffer to talk portuguese whenever i can, and i CAN talk to people, write, read and understand everything. 


9- Brasilian Parties
yes yes, i do like parties here, but there are a few reasons to why that is, OTHER than what you would normally excpect from an exchange student. I love the fact that family parties here are literally the ENTIRE family, with lots of chatter and excitement, good food & singing and dancing. i have watched a lady who had to have been in her 80's dancing frivolously with a full to the brim cup of beer in her hand, and she didnt manage to spill a drop. now THATS skill for ya :) 


8- Music
naturally, music is on my list of favourites, even more so, because the brasilian culture is rich with musical influence. there are lots of types of music here, and i like almost all of them! i am currently learning quite a few songs on the guitar, because what else are we going to do in our 5 hour stop overs at the airports on the way home! i love the music here :)


7- Dance
Talking about music leads me to another one of my favourite parts of the brasilian culture. Dance. There are a few typical brasilian dances which are very comon here, and its uncommon for a brasilian to not know the basic steps to forro or samba. i took dance lessons here for 2 months and loved every minute, dancing forro, samba and bolero. Forro and samba are both brasilian and bolero i think is spanish. 
this friday i am going to a dance night at the place where i did lessons with my host parents. its going to be my last goodbye to brasilian dance. i have to make sure someone films me this time, so that ican prove that i actually know how to dance!


6- Fruit
I know this seems like such a silly thing to write about, but i LOVE tropical fruit, and here it is either really really cheap, or you can just walk up to a tree and pick it. I eat lychees, mangos, starfruit, guava, pitanga, acerola, banana and passionfruit on a daily basis because it is just so accessable here!
i drink fresh made fruit juice on a daily basis as well, because it is all just so accessible!


5- Açai
one fruit in particular that i love here, is Açai. I havnt actually eaten the berry fresh, but the best way to eat it is frozen, with guarana syrup and banana. :) mmmmmmmm. i am in love with acai! i have promised myself that i will eat acai, or drink an acai juice every day this week while im still here. i will miss it! 


4- Parks
i love how here in brasil, you can go to a park in the middle of the city, and see little monkeys in the trees and coatis running around in the bushes :) i love that the parks are always full of beautiful colorful flowers whatever the season, and that they just seem so alive. 


3- Country of diversity
Brasil is a lot like australia, in the way that it is very diverse country, with mountains, rainforests and coastal areas; with tropical weather up north and colder weather in the south. the wildlife is as diverse as the landscape, as are the people who live here, different regions having different food, accents appearances, and mannerisms. 


2- brasilians
brasilians are also alike to australians, meaning that they are generally open and warm, willing to give you a smile. They hug a lot and kiss always when greeeting or saying goodbye; even in school, to greet someone you kiss them on the cheek. i think my first day of school i was a bit overwhelmed by the fact that i was being kissed by everyone who came up to talk to me. 
Brasilians do have their faults, as do all people, but their good parts make up for the parts lacking. 


1- Exchange
without exchange i wouldnt have come to brasil and experienced the things that i have. i wouldnt have changed and grown as i have over the past year, and i wouldnt have life long connections with friends from all over the world. 
therefore exchange is the best part about brasil... because with out rotary youth exchange program, none of this would have happened to me. 


i hope you like my list, and that you have a bit more of an idea of just why i love brasil so much. 


tchau for now!


em

8 days out...

so right now, i dont exactly know what to think about everything that is going on. 
i mean, things dont feel like they are coming to an end. 
it doesnt feel like i have spent a year in this wonderful country. 
it doesnt feel like everything is going to drasticly change once more.
i dont exactly know how i feel. 
im doing all these every day normal life routine things; for instance, i just spent the past 5 days in Sao joao del rei with rita and cissa again. Once again, i had an amazing time, and it wasnt until it was time to say goodbye that I realised that it was a last time thing, not a see you later type of thing. 
this keeps happening to me, and its so much harder than you can ever imagine. 
my host mum said to me the other day that i am now into the 'last' stage, meaning that every day from now on, i will be saying to myself 'this is my last wednesday in brasil' or ' this is the last time i will see these people' or 'this is my last bowl of acai in brasil' and its just so true and so hard to deal with. 


unfortunatly, i know that one thing that wont be the last until the very last minute will be the thought 'this is the last time i cry in brasil' because i know that i still have a week full of goodbyes, and lots and lots of tears to come. and thats the thing that is most unfair, because i wish more than anything that i could say to myself that this IS going to be the last time i cry, but it just doesnt work that way. 
so im not going to tell myself to toughen up, instead i will buy myself a box or two of tissues, and accept that the next week is going to be filled with lots of memories that i can keep with me forever, as well as ones that i am going to want to forget for a while, at least until i am back into the swing of things with my life back in australia, and am contempt enough to look back and remember how hard it was to leave brasil, and all of my friends, and my families, and my life, and to go back. 


so tomorrow, im going to get up in the morning, and be the strongest i can be, go to feira hippy for the last time, see two of my families for the last time and once again keep fighting on for this to be the best week of my life, because soon it feels like my life will be over, even though i know this is just a small stepping stone to bigger things in my life, and my life is infact just beginning. 
it just doesnt feel that way at the moment. 


so now you know a little bit more about how hard it is for an exchanger like me to come home; do one thing for me. dont pity me, or the situation that i am in; but also dont act like me coming home is the best thing in the  world, because for me, its not... its one of the hardest things ive had to do in my life, and although im going to be glad to be home, with my family and friends, i know that i am going to be craving the world that i will be leaving behind when i get on that plane on sunday. 


...


i guess theres nothing more to say except for...see you soon 


em

the end is near... so lets enjoy things while we can :)

first of all, i would just love to say

FELIZ NATAL to everyone!

if you hadn't guessed, that means Merry Christmas!

i hope that you all had a lovely christmas with your loved ones, full of happiness  and peace.

I sure had a lovely christmas here in brasil, and although slightly different to what i am used to, it was amazing all the same.

on christmas eve the whole of my host dads side of the family got together, (photo of my 'grandad' and all his grandaughters)

and on chrissy day, my host mums family all got together. 

it was just like chrissy at home, nice weather, nice food and great company. 

i really had a lovely chrissy, and didnt even feel homesick. i suppose things were like that for me, because i knew that i was going to see my real family in less than a month, so i was enjoying fully everything that happens to me here :)

and these days, its not even like your family are that far away, with the greatness of skype and facebook, i could talk to my family and open up my presents from mum on  chrissy morning 'with the family'. 

she sent me bliss n eso's new album, and angus and julia stones new album too :D

my favourite chrissy present that i got was from my host mums family in the kris kringle thingie. I was given a specially made mug, with my picture on it, and it has my name and says 'brasileira de coracao' which means brasilian at heart.

i got all choked up and teary and didnt know what to say. it was the most lovely present that they could have given me, and i will never forget this family. 

Meggie sent me a beautiful bracelet which says 'sing... as though no one can hear you' its so beautiful!

my host family was very nice and gave me a bottle of amazing cachaca because i had been saying that i wanted to buy a bottle and take it home to open on my 18th. 

A few days before christmas, me and my friends went to praca da liberdade at night time to have a look around. 

 

IT WAS AMAZING! 

completly decked out, pretty much every tree sparking! 

it was unfortunatly the last day that i saw andy, and we had to say goodbye, which dampened the mood somewhat, but it was still an amazing night. 

So now christmas is over for another year, and i have come to realise that i seriously only ahve a very short amount of time left here in brasil. 

i remember a time when i was counting down to leaving for brasil and being totally excited to come, and wondering whether i would feel the same when it came close to coming home. well... it doesn't.

i mean sure im excited to come home for some aspects, but there is just so much that i havnt done here yet, so many things that i am yet to experience, not to mention that goodbyes here are 10 times harder becuase you have no idea if you are ever going to see them again.

so that is what i ahve in store for the next few weeks. sounds fun huh? 

oh well, im keeping myself ocupied with shopping for things to take home, organising what im leaving behind,visiting, going out, and maybe even a little bit of travel :)

so i will talk to you guys again very soon indeed, and i hope that you ahve a lovely start off to your 2011. 

see you this year!

tchau,

Em

time flies when one is having fun

And another week or so has just up and flown away from me, just like that... I can hardly believe it that I am now on the home stretch! in just seis small weeks i will be on the plane back to aus, probably somewhere in the middle of my lovely 14 hour plane flight from argentina to aus.... now thats a scarey thought...

so i am now enjoying the freedom of holidays, and oh how sweet it is!

the other day, i went with andy to the cinema to see 'the other guys' which was actually quite funny :)

i went out with my host dad and sister, and we ate creme de açai which was sooo yummy :)

for those of you who have heard me talk about açai before but have no idea what im talking about, this is what açai is...

soo, this is açai the fruit, grown in the amazonas, and other parts of south america, on these trees:

and then  brasilians had this great idea of separating the pulp from seed, blending the pulp and freezing it. After that, they mix it with guarana syrup:

chuck some muesli, banana or other fruit on top, and PRONTO!

Creme de açai!

its sooo yummy, but i havnt seen it in australia before... that might be because i just have never looked for it, or it may be because we really dont have it (which would be really bad) so hopefully we do have it somewhere. you never know aye.

so on friday, i went to my clubs christmas party which was really lovely. It started late, and went later, (we had dinner at midnight) 

there were two people who sung 'noite feliz' or as we know it 'silent night' for the people gathered, and it was absolutly beautiful. 

 so after the rotary gig, i went to andys house, because i was going to his families farm for the weekend with them. 

we spent saturday pretty much chillaxing around the farm, 

going for a little bit of a walk, 

getting wet when i rained, 

sitting on the edge of the pool watching the stormclouds roll in

lying in the hamock (oh how i had missed them!) 

and picking mangos

and lychees

yeah, was a pretty lovely day. 

then at night it was his cousins 1 year old birthday, so we went out for the party which was pretty good fun. 

brasilians really do go a bit overboard with one year old birthdays hahaah

so on the sunday, we went to a big party thingie at a resort near the farm that querença was having for all its workers. 

there was a group of the workers riding there on horses, so i was lucky enough to ride with them! it was an hour and a half ride, and was so much fun. 

at first, they put me on the most stubborn horse and he either wanted to walk really slowly or trot fast, but didnt want to trot  at the same pace as everyone else, or gallop. one guy was riding beside me and said to me that they had given me the worst horse, and offered to swap with me, because i couldnt get him up into a gallop. 

so i swapped horses, with a warming from this guy that his horse was a bit more 'firey' than the first one, and with that in mind, i kicked him into a gallop...

well...

it was the fastest that i ahve ever gone on a horse! he just bolted away, my glasses flew off the top of my head and i was riding away like the wind! it was amazing! of course, everyone laughed at my reaction after, wich was one of awe at how fast he went. one girl commented that it was obvious that i knew how to ride a horse, because anyone who didnt, would have flown right off his back the way he bolted off. 

i felt pretty proud at that! see mum! im a natural! you should buy me a horse!

so the ride was amazing, but was pretty hot, but that was okay, coz there was a guy with a little buggy behind a donkey who came with us, and had a couple of eski's with water, softdrink and beer in it for the riders, so we stopped regularly for refreshments. 

needless to say, i refused a beer, as i didnt quite think that riding on a lovely fast horse whilst drinking a beer was the best idea. i needed all my wits about me to make sure i didnt come off him at any time hahaah

the ride was absolutly gorgeous, with beautiful green pastures and blue skys with fluffy white clouds. 

when we got to the resort, i joined andy fishing, and we relaxed for a while until lunch time, then after lunch went for a swim in the pool, and then retired to the hamocks listening to the cool music that was being played by a group of the people there. next thing we knew, it was 3 hours later, and people were still going on with the music! 

we went out on the lake in the little paddle boat, and had a little paddle around, then eventually packed up to go back to the farm.

when we got back to the farm, we packed up our stuff, and headed back to belo horizonte. I stayed at andys house that night, and when he got up at 5am to go to school, i got to sleep more !

when i got up, his mum was making cool chistmas baubles, so she taught me how to make them and i made two with her, and then headed home for lunch.

okay, so will update you guys again very soon :D

tchau!

em 

new beginings

Hey everyone! 

So I mentioned in my last post that after the Pantanal trip, my new and last host family picked me up from the travel agency.  

I absolutly love this family. My host mum's name is Solange, host dads name is Afranio, and I have a sister called Marina and a brother called Igor. 

Marina has just spent the last year on exchange in the US, and now Igor is there on exchange, so I get his room :)

They live in an area of Belo Horizonte called Pampulha, which is about 40 minutes from the centre of the city (so a bit tricky at times as there is only one bus) but it is a beautiful area. 

I had a bit of trouble understanding where to get on and off the bus at first, but after a little hickup which ended up with me standing at the petrol station which was only 3 blocks from my house on the verge of tears because I thought I had got off at the right stop and had wandered the neighborhood in search of my house, with no success, because I was supposed to have gotten off at the next stop; I was fine :) 

In these situations... it’s handy that you speak the native language next to fluently!

So on the Friday night after i got home from the trip, i went to a dance 'Baile' at Pe de Valsa, the studio where i was doing dance lessons. Unfortunatly its a bit too hard to keep going with them because i am living so far away, but i can still go to the Bailes, which are dance nights! This particular one was a special one that they only have once a year because it was for the 19th birthday of Pe de Valsa. 

It is extra special, because as well as just being able to dance and dance and dance, the senior scholarship students do a show. It was AMAZING!

They danced various styles including: samba, forro, bolero, zouk, tango, waltz, soltinho, salsa and hip hop. 

The following links are for some of the videos that I took!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S9D6fixUsPw

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PxuD6H_kwow&feature=mfu_in_order&list=UL

Unfortuatly I was stupid enough to not ask someone to film me while I was dancing, so I can’t prove to you all that I can dance after 8 lessons because my teachers are so amazing, BUT next time I go to a baile (which will be soon as there is one every couple of weeks) I will make sure someone films me!

On the Saturday after I got there, it was my host sister Marina's 18th birthday! 

Unfortunatly, that Saturday and Sunday, there were the national exams, which meant that none of her friends could go out on Saturday night because they had exams the following day. 

So on her birthday, it was just her mum and dad, me and her grandma, but it was a very nice day anyway.

We went shopping in the morning, and she bought a new outfit, and then went home and had a lovely lunch with delicious salmon. Mmmmm, delicious!

the afternoon we went out to a shopping centre, and came home, and relaxed for the rest of the arvo, watching music dvds, and dancing :) For dinner, we went to the Marillia Pizzaria which was sooooo yummy!

On Sunday, we went out at night with her friends from school to celebrate her birthday. It was a really lovely weekend :)

So, in the week after that, Tuesday I went to my 2nd host family’s house for a churrasco (brasilian bbq) and met a Mexican and a Columbian who were staying there for the week.They are some of the craziest guys I have met so far on exchange. On Wednesday I had Rotary, and then friday I went to Rita and Cissa's house. (Rita from Rotary) I went to Cissa’s university night class and hung out with her friends, and then on Saturday, we left to go to Sao Joao Del Rei once again! 

I was SOOO excited!

I had an amazing weekend as usual, got to see all my old friends, and meet a few new people too. Sao Joao Del Rei is by far one of my favourite cities in Brasil. 

We went to a club thing on the Sunday night (it was a long weekend for the brasilian Independance day, so we didn’t have school on the Monday) and saw an ACDC cover band, who were actually pretty good. 

We had a lot of fun!

Had a pretty quiet week after getting home from Sao Joao Del Rei, but on the Friday it was Rita’s birthday, so I went over to her house after school, because they were having a birthday party for her. I made her birthday cake which was soo yummy :) I made a vanilla cake, with cream cheese icing, and strawberries on top. 

YUM YUM YUM YUM YUM

That weekend, Solange's mum was over at our house, which was nice, because she is such a lovely person. On Sunday, I got up bright and early and headed off to feira hippy, with a list.

I bought so much stuff, because people had been saying to me that feira gets really hectic in December and I wanted to get there to buy lots of thing-a-mi-jigs to take back to Aus with me. Yes, I have started collecting now. It’s REALLY sad. 

On Monday, Andy and I went and saw the new HARRY POTTER movie which was amazing, and then after it, I decided that I had to read the book again, becasue I wasn’t sure about some parts, so I hired it at the school library (in portugese), and finished it two days later!

NOW I remember everything :)

Last night I went to Number 1 (the language school) because they were having a special dinner for Thanksgiving (American Thanksgiving) so they had turkey and some other stuff that was all very yummy. 

Had my last day at school today, which i’m not sad about at all! I am so glad that I never have to get up at 5am to go to school ever again!

After school, came home and ate a little bit of lunch because I wasn’t feeling very hungry for some reason. Unfortunatly, now I am feeling really queasy and sick, not from lack of eating, but just feeling icky from a sore stomach, so unfortulatly I think I am just going to stay home tonight instead of going to another dance baile at Pe de Valsa tonight, which I was really looking forward to, but I think its better for me to just stay at home and rest. Hopefully I will be better soon.

I figure that I are’t too sick to finish off my blog entry, so here it is. 

Unfortunatly, my internet isn't letting me upload pictures right now, so I will try to upload some tomorrow. For now, you will just have to read it.

Hope you enjoy it. 

Tchau for now. 

xxem

I'm in Bonito Bitch!

okay, so im sorry to all the oldies that get offended by that heading, but there is no other thing that i could possibly put. This was one of the many 'trip phrases' that we heard over and over again over the 10 days of bliss that i was away! some others include, 'obrigado viu', kevin 'WOOH!' and HOTSPRING!!!!  (dont even ask. lol)

So the depressing thing is that i am no longer in Bonito :( i am unfortunatly back here in belo horizonte, in a new family (which is a non depressing part about being here, as tehy are awesome!!!) and im heading back to school again tomorrow :/ iich.

so im just going to do a day by day account of the trip again so that you can know everything about the trip and be really jealous and everything!

24th of October- Belo Horizonte to Araçatuba

So we left nice and early at 8am on a sunday morning, spent the whole day on the bus, which is fun, but not so fun at the same time. At least the on bus toilet didnt smell on the first day!

Picked up people in a few cities as we were going, and arrived in Araçatuba for the night. there was a lovely big cockroach in the bathroom when i was taking a shower, and it rather startled me... i screamed. 

went to the other girls room and watched some movies in portugese on the cool hotel TV. probably not the smartest thing to do when we were leaving the hotel at 6:30am the next day, but meh!

25th of October-  Araçatuba to Pantanal

breakfast at 6, left by half past; everyone slept the first 4 hours of this day on the bus lol. We watched the DVD from the south trip this year, which is super cool! brought back a lot of good memories :) 

played some guitar, and finally got to pantanal, where we had to change from our big bus to a small buss that could go on the dirt road that would take us to where we were staying. did i mention that it was really hot and the little bus didnt have air con? oh well, we were only on it for an hour and a half lol

got to the pousada arara azul, had dinner and took a shower- this time there was a frog in the bathroom which i thought was much nicer than a cockroach.

There was an amazing hamock pavillion circle thingy with like 10 hamocks, so we hung out there until curfew playing guitar and relaxing.

26th of October- Pantanal

breakfast then trip briefing, and free time until lunchtime at 12:30. every day the activities didnt start until 3:30pm because that way we could avoid the majority of the afternoon heat. So after lunch, it was back to the hamocks, which is where a lot of us spent the majority of our free time if we wernt in the pool. 

After lunch i had my first activity, which was fishing :) we went to one of the lakes and the people from the pousada gave us bamboo rods with fishing line attatched to them, and threaded meat onto the hooks. 

what were we fishing for??? Piranhas :D 

It was so funny, because your hook was literally in thewater for 5 seconds, and you would feel it bite, and if you werent quick enough, they would get all your meat and leave no fishy for you. 

I felt sorry for the boys who were constantly putting more and more meat on all of our hooks! 

i caught 10 piranhas and 1 big fish, which i forget the name of, but it was the biggest catch of the day :D

there were lots of Jacare (aligators) and the guys thought it would be hilarious to 'fish' for them. They actually hooked a few which was quite scarey.

here is a video of the fishing. 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jvmklQdc0_M

we went back to the pousada,fed our fish to the jacare,  and then pretty much everyone decided it was pool time. We mucked around in the pool until dinner, and then after dinner, back to the hamocks. 

i went to my room to get my guitar, and there was a great big icky tarantula sitting on the floor next to my bag!!!! ... screamed... again. 

third night in a row with some sort of creature in my room! what is this people!!!!

27th of October- Pantanal

7am wakeup for the first of our morning activities. My group was unlucky enough to be the ones who had the walk and safari in the same day, with the walking being in the afternoon. 

So we went on the safari in the morning where we went on this thing pulled by a tractor, and they took us around a bit, then we got out and walked around in the forrest a bit. 

Was nice, but we didnt see much wildlife. 

back to the pousada, chilled in the hamocks before and after lunch again. as i was in the hamocks, i saw one of the people who worked at the pousada going over to the mango tree near the hamocks to get some mangos. i went over and asked him nicely if i could have one and he gave me one!!! it was the most delicious thing ever!!! i literally just cut the skin with my fingernail, and peeled it off, eating it all as i went; it was soo sweet and juicy! amazing!!!!

the caminhada (walk) in the afternoon was so exhausting! an hour and a half pretty much all with the sun beating down on us was not to pleasant at all. but we did see some interesting things. We saw a giant tuiuiu nest, and all the cute little green lorikeets make their little nests in the tuiuiu nest because it is so big and safe. 

Spent the afternoon in the pool, then went and got ready for our party that we were having as it was our last night in pantanal. 

for dinner there was a bonfire, and a firepit with typical Pantanal 'churrasco' (BBQ) which was amazing, as well as other typical food from the region. 

danced and danced and danced after dinner to all types of music, had fun teaching everyone how to dance forro, and we all danced a bit of brasilian funk, and just messed around for the rest of the time. 

Yes, that is a photo of us pointing at our shoes and spinning round in circles really really fast... dont ask... lol

it was a great night. 

28th of October- Pantanal- Bonito!!

So we woke up early this morning to get ready to do our last activity in pantanal before moving on to Bonito! my groups last activity (saved the best till last) was Horse riding, which was SOOOO much fun! 

We were cantering around going crazy in the wildernes of pantanal, and it was just such an amazing day for it!

This is a little video of us riding, you get a bit of a comentary and you can see how beautiful it was! 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VF0CSqinKJI

when our horse riding adventure was at an end, we headed back to the pousada, packed up our bags, had an early lunch and were back on the road again by midday. 

when we got to bonito, we had free time in the city to eat and shop. 

afterwards we went to our hotel, which was amazing! In the bus on the way there i was saying 'dang i wish the new place has hamocks like the last place' (thinking that this was unlikely) and then we got there, and we literally sprinted towards the big hamock rotunda that was outside when we saw it! 

A well as the hamocks, there was a really cool swiming pool, voleyball and futebol fields, and sauna! a little piece of heaven, and we were staying there for another 4 days :D

29th of October- Bonito

so this day was pretty much one of the most fantastic days of the trip. 

We got up nice and early at 6am,  and we went to a place on the river Sucuri (word for anaconda in portuguese) and went snorkeling. 

It was FANTASTIC

we got into these ridiculous looking wetsuits, took some awesomely sexy photos in them of course, and went to the river. The amazing thing about snorkeling there, was that the river just carried you down stream, there was no need to swim, just float. 

we spent an hour in the crystaline water, just floating, looking at the different coloured fish and underwater life.

I loved the fact that with your head under water, it looked like you were in the sea, but then you lifted up your head and were in the middle of a rainforest once more. 

it was one of the most breathtaking experiences of the trip. 

absolutly brilliant.

So then after snorkelling, we went back to the hotel at about 1pm and had free time, in which we spent lounging around in the sun by the pool, in the pool, and some of us even getting active and playing a bit of volleyball. 

At night, we went into town again for some free time. I got pizza with some of the girlies, was veryyy yummy, and we got a chocolate pizza for desert. 

 pretty much the most amazing type of pizza you can get. definatly making it when i get home to aus :D

 ummm, yersh, that would be a rubber chicken in a spotted bikini that i am holding in my hand... 

Pablo in a sexy hat :D

30th of October- Bonito

okay, so i did say that yesterday was awesome and everything, but today, we had an absolute ball. 

in the morning we went to Parque das Cachoeiras (waterfall park) where there were 7 waterfalls we walked to and swam at. It was so beautiful and the water was so nice! 

there was one with a flying fox that you could go down  and then drop into the water, which was so much fun. there was some pretty impressive airwork, that much i will say lol. 

at lunch time it started pouring, and since we were already wet, korinn, sarah and i went and danced and span around like 5 year olds in the rain :) it was the most amazing fun :)

After lunch we hopped on the bus for a short amount of time, and headed off to where we were doing water rafting!

we split into groups of about 10, jumped in a raft with one of the guide people in it, and raced down the river, passing other peoples boats, splashing water on the other teams, and going down a few rapids and mini waterfalls while we were at it! 

it started pouring rain at the end which was really cool as we jumped in the water and were all swimming around in the river as it was pouring! was amazing fun :) oh, and my raft won :D

it rained for the rest of the afternoon, and through the night too, but it couldnt dampen any spirits :)

31st of October- Bonito

Last day in bonito, and unfortunatly we couldnt go to the blue lagoon grotto because of the amount of rain that we had over night. 

Instead we headed off to another grotto thingie, which didnt contain water but still was pretty interesting with lots of stalectites and stalegmites and owls and bats and stuff. 

 It was still pretty cool :)

there were red macaws there, and we got to get right up close to them as they were eating. 

 they were sooo beautiful!

a quick lunch stop in town, then headed back to the hotel for some free time and to get ready for the tallent show and end of trip dinner.

Us aussies grouped together and did a rather... strange combination of 'i am australian' (me on guitar) whilst the other were wrapped in bedsheets and aussie flags, red lipstick ceremonial paint, being aboriginals. 

was rather funny to watch. even harder to play and sing that song whilst watching them all being tools infront of me. haha 

there were a few guys who decided to do a bit of a strip tease (yes there were rotarians in the room, but they all took it as good sport) and there were various songs in german, french and spanish too. Kate did some ballet for us which was amazing, and it was a good fun night. 

for the boys strip tease click here (they only get down to their boxer shorts, dont get too worried: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0l7helQq7d4

and for Kate's ballet (no stripping involved, just pure tallent) click here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wFJKQ_UF5yE

after this, we danced a lot and just had a lot of fun together for the last night :(

1st of November- Bonito-Araçatuba

so this morning was pretty sad, saying goodbye to the good friends i had made on the trip, knowing that for a lot of them, i wont see them again for a long time, if ever. 

it was a miracle that i wasnt the one who started crying, but as soon as someone comes up to me crying because it soo sad, thats the end of me, and i spent the rest of the morning crying whenever someone else left and started up the waterworks. it was not so cool. 

We pretty much spent the whole day once again on the bus, sleeping mostly, as our curfew had been 4am the night before, and we had all stayed up till then or later. lol

Got to Araçatuba around 9, and what was left of the group (about 10 people) headed off to mcdonalds for dinner. So we decided to make it fun and go through the drive through. 

watch here to see the results:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iaBlL0FcM-w

had a pretty cruzy night, with practically no curfew (but we were so tired that we all were in bed by 12 anyway) and apart from a mexican jumping bean and her friend from holland coming in and jumping on everyones beds at 2am, it was a pretty quiet night. 

2nd of November- Araçatuba- Belo Horizonte

so last day of the trip,after another day on the bus, cruzing along, dancing, bus surfing, watching movies, and general bus antics, we finally stopped at our final destination, in Belo Horizonte. And although one adventure was over, another one was there to pick me up :) 

...a new family :) 

but thats another story for a few days time. I will start writing about it now :D

Tchau!