cookie dough!

okay so its a tad weird to be naming this blog cookie dough, but that is what i just made (and no, i didn't just eat the lot before i actually turned it into real cookies, it actually tastes rather good in that form too). my beautiful babies currently in the oven transforming into big yummy crunchy complete cookies (with m&ms in them too, a little bit of added sweetness!) i guess thats life isnt it. were just little pieces of cookie dough. some of us are choc chip, some have bright colourful m&ms, some are just plain old cookie dough. we all taste and look different, and we take all our lives to cook, to become finished. we grow and form all our lives. some might get burnt bums. others, may stay a bit doughy in the centre, but thats what adds more individuality, and who gets to make the decision about when that little lump of dough is ready to come out and be appreciated for what it has grown into? i cant say i know. can you?

food for thought (get it... cookies... food... )

hahahaha

okay, enough of the serious stuff, but i occasionally like to throw a bit in here and there. just shows some of the whacky things that goes on in my head i spose, although i dont theink anyone will ever be able to figure out everything that goes on in my head! near impossible ive been told hahaahaha

okay so at the end of my blast blog i was just telling you how i was off to a RYLA conference i think :)

yes, yes i was, okay. so the main thing i need to tell you was that it was really cool!

it was at this place which was kind of 40 minutes away from BH (belo horizonte for those of you who hadnt worked that out yet) which was kind of a cross between a resort with the big fancy outdoor pools and saunas and stuff, and a scout camp type thing, with the big group eating area with self serve, log cabin type things to sleep in, and a big lake and natural pools and waterfalls. 

it was SSOOOOO cool. :) look, im not saying it didnt have its boring times ( it was a conference in portuguese after all ) but it was sooo good to see the other three aussie girls in my district again, and to meet all the other inbounds and outbounds (oh my god there is i think 2 students going to my district in aus! its soo cool! im gunna bully them into taking stuff home to aus for me if they live in ballarat which i hope they will!) ... must talk to laurie about that hahahaha

also met a whole heap of rotaract kids from around and/or in BH so that was really cool :) some of the guys told me they were gunna take me to the futebol!!! woop woop! i told this to mum, and she said, oh my god, i never thought i would see you excited about wanting to go to a sporting match... hahahahahaha but i am! the futebol over here is nuts!  (futebol being what aussies call soccer )

i think it was just a relief to talk to people in my normal aussie accent and actually have them fully understand me! the other girls enjoyed this too... except billi, who now when she switches to her 'aussie accent' speaks with a full american twang. and its funny coz she thinks she is talking normally and we were all having a great time bagging her for it :)  she is going to have one hell of a time when she gets back to aus for sure hahahahaa.

i wonder what my accent will be like when i get back, and whether i will be able to still be able to switch from my portuguese accent to my aussie accent like i can now.... hmmm

anyway, it was mostly fun, appart from big long boring speeches that the four aussies couldnt understand ahahaha. isnt it great to be one of the newcomers!

on the saturday night i got talking to some of the guys (once again becoming better friends with the guys than the girls) and found out that HALLELUJAH! someone had bought a guitar with them. :) i practically ran to their cabin, and we sat there for about 4 hours just singing and playing guitar. oooh, and we watched a bit of house of was too. i find it funny that paris hilton gets a pole through her head teheheehehe. it was a great night :)

i am going to be spending the next few days running around buying last minute things that i need for my Sul Do Brasil trip with rotary! its on FRIDAY!!!!!! i cant wait! i get to go to the foz do iguacu so i am really excited about that!

i went to feira hippy with lara and joanna on sunday. feira hippy starts at 5am and finishes at 2pm, and blocks about km of on of the city main roads :) luckily it is pretty close to my house so i can get there pretty easily by bus. it is amazing. you start at one end and just weave your way row by row down the feira. first is a food section with all the food you can eat there, then shoes then bags, then jewellery, then crafts, food again, then childrens clothes, adults clothes homewares and more crafts then more food at the end. i guess the food at intervals is for if you get hungry or thirsty on the way hahaha. well, we definatly got thirsty. we went at 10am, and left at 1:15. the best thing about feira hippy is that everything is soooo cheap! i got 4 tops for 50 reais. anywhere else i would have got one or two.

i also got a necklace with a guitar hanging off it :) unfortunatly not a full sized one (although that would be really cool, cox then i would be able to always carry a guitar with me and play whenever i  wanted!) i unfortunatly didnt see any guitars at the fiera, but im sure if i keep going back that i will see one somewhere!

the picture here is a birds eye view of part of the feira. lol

oh yeah, and i am now 17. happy birthday to me. it was certainly a different birthday to what im used to. got up at 5am, made myself pancakes before school, whilst skyping my family. they had a cupcake with candles and sung happy birthday, and then i just talked to mum and dad while eating my pancakes. it was strange, becuase with birthdays at home in my family, we go into the persons room, jump on them and sit on their bed while we open presents, so it was weird getting up to an empty house and not seeing any sign of life before i walk out of the house, even though this is my normal routine now.

i get up and get ready for school and leave before anyone else in the house even wakes up. i blew out the candles on my cake in australia, and went to school, to be told that we had not classes because the students from like 5 different schools in BH were having a big rally in down town because BH students are the only students who pay full price for the bus to school, and they want to get it changed so that we only have to pay half price. i walked with the group from my school for a while with my friends ( gustavo brought his guitar with him which was an extra bonus) but when we got sick of  that we went to savassi for a while. anna and i got something to eat, and she bought me a birthday cake :) she is really nice. i went home, got ready to go out, then went to shopping cidade with a few of my friends. most of them couldnt come becuase they were either earning money or out of it but at least a couple could come. we had a good time, saw a movie, went to the arcade with the guys and played a racing car game lol, and had fun :)

i got a pair of trackpants and a long sleved top for the 'cold weather' on the south trip from my host family ( pfft they havnt been to ballarat obviously). the next night was my combined party with my aunty. it was really nice except the only people that knew it was my birthday was my aunty angela, my grandma, my host family obviously and my friend Lara. (from germany) so it was a nice night but it wasnt like it was 

my birthday. people looked at me funny when they dragged me up when they were singing happy birthday to angela. hahahaa. oh well. 

lara (girl in the black top in the photo with me) gave me a cute little teddy bear from germany, and angela gave me a really nice hair clip.

my favourite part about the party of course was the fact that angela had hired a band to play at the party, so they played live salsa music all night :) was great!

i just noticed that there are a few other things to write about, on being easter, or more specifically, the easter eggs over here. they are wrapped in kinda like cellophane, and they are very expensive, and awesomly displayed! 

there are these arch things all the way down isles in supermarkets and stores and the eggs all hang from it! 

as i said, they are all ridiculously priced, but it is just soo cool! i love it, and i wish they would do it in aus (without the expensive prices!)

its soooo cool! i had to take photos!

the other thing i had to mention was that at Praca da Liberdade, there was a celebration for multicultural awareness and stuff, and all the trees down the avenue down the middle were wrapped in different materials and depicted different people from different countries, races and professions! it was soo cool, so i will put the pictures some of them up!

opera singer woman, (her boobs are almost falling out of her dress at this point of the week as it is the day before they took them down )

african lady?

dont ask... i think its supposed to be like a belly dancer woman, but i cant decide whether the black bit is a face scarf or a beard, in chich case it is a crossdresser, symbolising the embracement of alternative sexuality???... no idea hahahaha

opera dude

funky italian dude :)

african woman

ballerina

a burglar... dont know why thats something to celebrate... crazy brazilians hahaha

and last but not least, the married couple holding hands at the very end :) nawwwwww

tchau!

transportation in Brasil- or more specifically, BH!

Okay, so heres my bit of babble for the day, that can be both informative or filled with ramblings depending on which way you look at it.
Rotary has a set of rules for exchangers and the big no-no's are the four D's. no drinking, driving, (serious) dating, or drugs.
I can tell you now, rotary doesn't have to worry about me driving at all in my time over here. i would just be too plain scared to.


I have decided to educate everyone in the ways of Brazilian transportation, in the form of this blog. enjoy laughing your heads off at some of the situations, and mum and dad, i really think that if you drove even once in Brasil that you would never find anything uncomfortable about being driven about me ever EVER again.


okay so the cars here, drive on the right hand side of the road, are all left hand drive, and pretty much all manual cars. this is not so good, as i tend to always seem like im in the drivers seat, as the passenger seat is the drivers seat in aus, and i seriously think that i have left a dint in the floor of the car. i keep thinking i can just put my foot on the break, but it isnt there! stupid left hand drive cars scaring me. but its really not the cars problem, its the drivers and everyone else walking riding or driving. almost everyone has little manual cars for chugging up the hills here, and when i say chugging, i mean it, i swear, they all drive manuals, but the amount of times they stall the things, you would think that they had never driven one before!


when driving with brazilians, i think that is a good thing to refrain from making them talk or listen to music, because as all exchangers would know, brazilians love to dance talk with their hands, and this is no exception whilst driving. they will quite happily cruise along with no hands on the steering wheel so they can 'talk' with their hands or dance to music, and then when they are about to swerve into another car or a pole or something, they put their hands back on at the last minute and steer around it.
believe me, the driving here has had me clutching the side of the seat and any handles i could get a hold of plenty of times before. its nuts!


i have also noticed that whilst driving towards an uncontrolled intersection, instead of slowing down to insure there is no other traffic approaching, they beep their horn. its like, okay ive beeped so i have right of way and you have to slow for me... its scary. the other day we were coming up to an intersection, we beeped, and there was a bus and a car entering the intersection from either side. my feet were both through the passenger seat floor (where the brakes would actually be in aus) and i let out a little yelp as well, so what do we do? we stop in the middle of the intersection. slam on the brakes and stop in front of the on coming traffic, then look and go oh s**t and then continue to drive on.  
oh dear. needless to say i have opted for walking, frequently. 


Seatbelts: okay, so if they put something like seatbelts in a car, generally they put them there for a good reason... like say, for instance SAVING LIVES! for goodness sake people! wear the seatbelt! its what its there for!
i may seem a bit paranoid but i put on a seatbelt everytime i get in a car here. its automatic, i dont want to get out of the habit of it, as it is illegal to not wear one in Australia, and it is just that extra little thing that helps me breathe easier.


hmmmm... i always think of things that are different but when i go to write them down they have this funny habit of disappearing from my head...


oooh! the buses here, you have to flag down as you are waiting for them, like you literally have to wate you hand around so they understand that you want to get on. 


ummm.... oh, so indicators are more of a luxury too here. its like yeah i will use them occasionally when i go around a corner, but there is no need to use them when i am changing lanes on a 6 lane highway, its okay.
no wonder there are so many crashes and stuff over here. and i almost got run over crossing a road the other day coz someone decided that they didnt need an indicator to go round a corner. fun fun fun


thats all the crazy things i can think of for now, no doubt i will be reminded of more. 


i have my first rotary "conference" thing this weekend, will be awesome fun :) ooh! and its my birthday in a week :)


toodles xx Em

amazing weekend :)

okay, so i did have a rather silly but informative blog prepared to instruct you in the ways of brazilian driving habits and catching public transport in BH, but then i got to do something interesting, so i will save the driving blog for another rainy day, when there is nothing else to tell you about.

okay, so on the weekend, i was invited to go with joannas family to their country house at cantos das aguas, a kind of holiday park, where you buy a block/ house, and can go there whenever you want. as you can imagine, only the more wealthy people have these kinds of homes away from home. it is so amazing because it is literally like a national park with little (or huge) houses nestled in amongst the trees.

the park is closed to anyone who doesnt live there or who is visiting someone living there. you have to go through a security gate and swipe a card to get through. 

cantos das aguas is about 40 mins out of BH and is situated in a big valley sort of thing, surrounded by mountains. in the middle, at the bottom of the valley, there is a massive lake. the name cantos das aguas translates to the voices of the water. why? because there are 3 waterfalls in the park that you can swim in and that are easy to walk to! 

on sunday, we went for a walk with joannas dad, around the park. oh my god, my legs are still sore hahaha. her dad is a marathon runner and pretty much powered up all the hills that are like this steep / hahahaha joanna and i were pretty much dying trying to keep up. 

we spent 3 hours walking around the park and swimming in the waterfalls, it was amazing!

it was sooo nice to just sit in the spa at their home, chat in english and portuguese, and to admire the view and the peace and quiet of the country. i realised that i actually walked on grass with no shoes on for the first time here. it is such a little thing, but after being able to just go out and walk around the paddocks at home with bare feet, it was very strange to walk on grass for the first time in over a month. 

overall it was a fantastic weekend. i had so much fun and learnt so much :)

um, yeah, so school is good, still struggling to find things to keep me from falling asleep in class, but i have found that writing in lots of postcards helps relieve the boredom a bit. hahaha, the language is slowly moving along, but i will get there eventually. hahaha.

okie dokie, well im off to rotary tonight, so gotta have a shower and look respectable lol.

tchau, ate mais tarde :)

beijos, em

looking up :)

okay, i started school the other day, it was really good. :)

my school starts at 7am and goes until 11:30am, and i have a half hour break for recess for half an hour, so really, 4 hours of classes a day, if that.

anyway, i get to my class and was immediatly swooped on by like everyone as they were walking in the door! i was patted, and shook many hands, and had lots of people attempt to speak english with me. they were so excited to have an exchanger, and got even more excited when i told them i was australian. its really really true when people tell you that foreigners love aussies. lol

class itself was rather boring, as i could hardly understand anything. i dont have any arty subjects which sucks. i only have maths and science type subjects, bah. i spent my time in class today writing out postcards to give myself something to do to try to stop myself falling asleep!

there are about 2 people in my class who know how to say more than hi and bye in english, so its good in a way, because it will help me learn the language quicker hopefully.

one of the girls in the class was nice enough to write down the list of my subjects in school and the teachers of these classes. my classes are:

portuguese

matematica (maths)

fisica (physics)

quemica (chemistry)

bioligia (biology)

Historia (history)

Geografia (geography)

Fisic Education (phys Ed or sport)

filosofia (philosophy)

for someone who hasnt really done any science subjects but the very basics in year seven and 8, i am sooo  far behind everyone else in the class who has been doing these subjects since the start of high school. 

and they are doing linear equasions in maths (one of the topics i happened to fail, when trying to do it in australia) so i say good luck to me lol. i cant even do it in an english speaking class so i dont have very high expectations for it when it is all in portuguese. lol there are even funny symbols that they use that we dont use in Aus, so pretty much, im stuffed lol.

oh well, theres worse things to fail in life than maths and science, and considering the only thing even remotely scientific i plan to do in year 12 and perhaps uni is psychology then i think im pretty safe even if i dont do very well in my science subjects this year lol.


as you can see, i have been doing some lovely art in class, but not so much work, but i guess its better than sleeping lol.

anyway, i am going to make honey joys and choc brownies this arvo coz the group of familys from their church that we always get together with are coming over tonight. the adults pray and read the bible and stuff together, and the kids go and play. i love the little kiddles so i am really looking forward to it. 

it its absolutely pouring rain and has been since late last night. its still 20 degrees celcius  and the weather is still a little bit muggy but the rain is nice and i am actually wearing jeans for the 3rd time since i got here. lol glad i decided to not bring any with me and to just buy them over here because my jeans would have just taken up unnecessary space in my baggage lol.

oh my god, marilia just asked me to explain cricket to her lol. that was interesting. after she was like, so it is like tennis... um, not at all lol

 looked up explaining cricket to foreigners, and came across a familiar thing that we have hanging on the side of the fridge at home:

Cricket- as explained to a foreigner.

You have two sides, one out in the field and one in. 

Each man that's in the side that's in goes out, and when he's out he comes in and the next man goes in until he's out. 

When they are all out, the side that's out comes in and the side thats been in goes out and tries to get those coming in, out. 

Sometimes you get men still in and not out.

When a man goes out to go in, the men who are out try to get him out, and when he is out he goes in and the next man in goes out and goes in.

There are two men called umpires who stay all out all the time and they decide when the men who are in are out. 

When both sides have been in and all the men have been out, and both sides have been out twice after all the men have been in, including those who are not out, that is the end of the game!

HOWZAT!

tehehehe

anyone confused?

im not even going to try it on them coz that will lead to more needing to explain! 

footy is easier. i need a football (australian type of footy that is) and then we can play. marilia is like we can buy this (and does an action like swinging a cricket bat) here? and i was like, um most likely not, good luck trying to find one!

ooh, i almost forgot to mention that i went out with Joanna (a polish exchanger) and some of her friends from school, and i also met some other exchangers too :) it was a really good night :) we went to this cafe and sipped espresso, and ate choc brownies with fudge sauce, and icecream :) mmmmm...

okay, thats about it from me for now, will update you soon, once something happens. lol 

oooh! just one more thing... 24 sleeps til my 17th birthday!!!! woop woop! teheheehehe

Beijos! 

tchau

em