15 July 2007

Public Transportation is My New Best Friend

Hello all! Rio was so amazing. I loved it so much and would definately go back there if given the chance. I loved going up to Cristo Redentor and seeing the view of Rio, but my favorite thing by far was Pão de Açucar, which is a huge rock boulder thing that the discoverers first saw and said it looked like a Sugar Loaf. From the top you can see another, and better, view of Rio. We went up at night and it was incredible. I felt so small. Rio is quite the beautiful city.

So life after Rio has been great still. I really am starting to hate the pollution here. I feel so dirty all of the time. Ick. Farina´s nose won´t stop running because of the pollution. Our Dona continues to make fantastic meals and I really am getting fat here. Really. I´ve started sneakily eating less. All of us are getting fat though. It´s really funny. Did I already mention how Diana only eats desserts here? She´s so predictable at meals it´s hilarious.
I believe I left off on Thursday...nothing really happened then, we all just hung out and ended up walking around a lot.
Friday we had an adventure with public transportation. We planned on going to the São Paulo Zoo, and that was an adventure. We had to take one bus, then the metro and then another bus to get to the Zoo. It took an hour and a half to get there! Ay yai! But the zoo was really fun. Of course, the boys took off without us, which was fine. We walked around the zoo for an hour and then ran into the boys and Dr. Fails. He stopped to talk to us and the boys left him, so he went around the rest of the zoo talking to us and telling us his safari stories of when he went to Moçambique with Study Abroad. He has some great stories. Then we left and it took another hour and half to get home. All standing. Ick. I got really bad motion sickness/headache from it, so I had to lay down the rest of the night and sleep it off, but after that I was just fine!
Yesterday we went to Ebu das Artes, which is basically an open market with all sorts of things to buy. I ended up going around with AJ and Brady the whole day which was really fun. They are both really nice. I think that was my first time ever shopping with boys and they were really funny. They would keep gravitating towards buddhas and samuri swords, etc., when I was looking at necklaces and earrings. Then last night some of the group got together and played some games. Really, it hasn´t been super eventful.
Oh, Wednesday I was able to go do baptisms at the São Paulo Temple. It was our stake´s night and the baptistry was PACKED. At least 100 youth were there. We had to shower before we were baptized, and only did baptisms because other people did the confirmations. There were just too many people there and not enough time. Not the worst problem to have. I am so impressed with the members here. They are incredible.
One thing I am looking forward to is being able to fully understand church again. My comprehension is improving every day and I really can understand most of what people say to me, I just need to expand my vocabulary. Learning another language is HARD! Wow. I had no idea.

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