Feliz Páscoa

Last week was a short week at school; we had Thursday and Friday off due to the Easter holiday. Claire and I spent the long weekend at John and Vania's house. Which translates to us spending the Easter holiday laying in the pool and working on our tans. Rough life, right?

On Saturday, some of the other teachers in the English department came over to John and Vania's just for brunch and to hang out. Ms. Scavarda is one of the English teachers which meant that I got to spend the whole day with Kadu. While the adults hung out, I spent the day in the pool with Teka, Kadu, Juju, and Ana Julia. Quite a change from my usual pool routine of laying on the raft, listening to feel good music and rotating myself every fifteen minutes like a regular old rotissere. I think we also managed to squeeze a little tree climbing in there to give those city kids a real taste of nature.

Vania drove us back to Botafogo on Sunday, but not before we stopped at the ice cream place that has 65 flavors of ice cream-- self-serve!

It was different not being in a church with my family on Easter this year, but it made me more appreciative of those times that we do have together. And when it boils down to it, the physical act of being in a church isn't what Easter is all about. I was able to talk to God on my own time, in my own way. Which might have actually been better, for me personally, than sitting through a church service that I didn't understand.

Nenseeee!

Vivi took us to our first, and probably only, Brazilian soccer game. Fluminense was playing Botafogo, and we were cheering for Fluminense. The fans were wild, the engery was contagious, and the atmosphere was like nothing I had ever experienced! The game wasn't all that important to Fluminense, so they weren't playing their best players and the game wasn't as intense as it might have been. But it was still crazier than anything I had experienced in the States.

Oh you know, just cheering on the team.

Might have been a little bit excited.

Me, Amanda, Brittany, and Claire outside of the stadium.

Claire and I at the beginning of the game.

The stadium

Oh, and in case you were wondering, the game ended in a 1-1 tie.

International Festival

There are many things that OLM is able to do that would flounder in many public and private schools in the States. The International Festival is one of those things. Many schools in the States, at least the ones that I have experienced, are not terribly diverse. There aren't many students from different countries and ethnicities. OLM has MANY students from many different cultural backgrounds. Hence the success of the International Festival. On Saturday, many students and their families came to OLM to celebrate various countries around the world and enjoy the company of their fellow Lancers.

  

Brittany, Amanda, Claire, and I at the booth for the States.

There were eleven different countries represented-- United States, Mexico, Germany, Italy, Argentina, Uruguay, the Netherlands, Portugal, Brazil, Israel, and Ethiopia. Each country had a booth with pictures, artifacts, information, and food from their country. The States served hot dogs and brownies-- the real American meal. I had some authentic Mexican tacos, German strudel, Brazilian brigadeiro, Uruguayan desserts, and Israeli falefel. Plus more food that I cannot remember. But it was all delicious.

She tells me at least three times a week that she is from Uruguay.

OLM also had a table which was conventiently located right next to our table. They had a huge sundae bar. Three types of ice cream, what seemsed like hundreds of bowls of toppings, plus Coca Cola. Every American's dream, right?

Our table.

Besides having different countries represented, the After-School program also put on different presentations. We saw judo, dance, piano, and capoeira which is a native Brazilian slave fight and dance. A couple of my kids were participating and I was like a proud mama watching them. I can't believe that I only have 26 days left in Brazil and 15 days lefts in the classroom (we counted during homeroom this morning). My kids are energetic and exhausting, but they are also funny and smart and too darn precious for words. I am going to miss them like CRAZY when I leave.
 

A couple of my kids getting ready for their judo presentation.

As a side note, I've had a couple of requests for them to come with me or for me to stay here forever and be their teacher forever. Two of the girls said that they would squeeze into one of my suitcases together and all that I had to give them was air holes, cake, rice and beans, and a dog. Not a lot, really.

Cheers to the Freakin' Weekend

"They're reading books in English. And have towels. And their bathing suits cover their whole butts. Yeah, they must be American."

The weekends here are never long enough. And that's what I have to say about that.

Friday night we went to Carol's birthday party. We didn't get to stay very long, but we did get to hang out with Carol and her family, bust a few dance moves on the tiny dance floor, and eat some Brazilian deliciousness which happened to include liver. After school we went with John to his apartment, met Vania and her friends, and then drove to Carol's party which was downtown.

Claire and I seem to have the best luck with taxi drivers. On the way to the party, our taxi driver would not stop laughing at us for singing this popular Brazilian hit. If his radio hadn't been stolen, we wouldn't have had to sing the chorus (which is the only part we know) fifty million times.

The same taxi driver also told us that we were very funny and smelled good. All right, buddy, keep those compliments coming, that's what I like to hear. Honestly though, it's getting a lot easier  to communicate with the people here in Brazil, even with our terribly broken Portuguese. 90% of the time we can get our point across with very little problems.

Vania's friends were visiting from another part of Brazil and the one lady brought her two year old daughter, Annarita. Cutest little two year old ever. We were in the car telling Vania about our previously mentioned experiences with the taxi driver and little Annarita starts singing "Delicia. Delicia." Which is part of that song I posted, if you didn't check it out. She had me, hook, line, and sinker.

Claire and I took over babysitting for the night and spent the rest of the evening dancing, clapping, and blowing "beijos" (or kisses) with Annarita. Apparently we really wore her out because John said she was asleep after minutes in the car, but then woke up the next morning asking where we were. Too. Cute.

Saturday was spent lesson planning, applying for jobs, and doing lots of clerical work. I guess that's the real reason we are here though, so I suppose that I shouldn't complain too much.

Sunday started out much the same as Saturday, but in the early afternoon Claire and I decided to go do some shopping at the Hippie Fair in Ipanema and then go to the beach. Apparently we took the wrong bus and ended up in Leblon. No problem, we'll just make this a beach day. Which is exactly what we did.

And it's a good thing too! We met some Americans from Knoxville, Tennessee who we are hoping to hang out with this week. And, small world. The one girl taught in Siguatepeque, Honduras and knows some of the friends that I made there.

Cristo Redentor.

We FINALLY went to the Christ Statue! Amanda, Claire, and I woke up around 6:30 this morning and left our apartment about an hour later to catch the 8:30 train up Corcovado. We happened to be in luck because there was an 8am train that we were able to take. No wait.

The ride up was maybe...fifteen mintues. It reminded me of the drive to Conversa in Costa Rica SO much. Straight through the forests, up to the top of a mountain. I was almost expecting to see Gata waiting for us and those fantastic hammocks blowing in the wind. Instead we saw clouds. Lots and lots of clouds. And no Christ Statue. Awesome.



We were legitimately in the middle of a cloud which really made it difficult to see the statue. We were all kind of milling around waiting for a break in the clouds so we could snap a good picture. Then we waited about five minutes for another break and took another picture. And so on.

Thankfully, we decided to stay and maybe wait out the clouds, which never fully lifted, but did lift enough for us to get some good pictures. We were able to see the statue quite well, but had no view of Rio de Janeiro. We were kind of disappointed, but very happy that we were able to get good statue pictures. We've kind of tossed around the idea of hiking up Corcovado sometime, so hopefully that would prove to be an awesome time to see the views of the city.

"One Heartbeat. <3 and prayers for Rio de Janeiro."

I had myself a little photo shoot up there on Corcovado Mountain. TOMS flag, Flat Stanley, my freshly made "One Heartbeat" sign. Thank goodness Claire is such a good sport and puts up with these shenanigans.

We wanted to get a picture of all three of us, so we asked these two random guys to take it for us. We don't know how to say "Will you please take our picture?" in Portuguese, but it's a fairly easy thing to communicate with hand motions. These men were NOT understanding what we were asking them. Luckily some lady next to us spoke English and understood, so she took it. And then the two guys hopped in to get a picture with us. Sure buddy, come on in.

We were kind of just hanging around looking at the view and these same guys came up AGAIN. Amanda was off taking pictures, so it was just the two of us. They asked where we were from and where we were staying in Rio. Then at the end of the conversation they go "Keees? Keees?" Claire and I had absolutely no idea what they were getting at. Keys? Quiche? Then we realized they meant kiss. Seriously, a language barrier can really impede conversation sometimes.



No pit stains for the big guy.

7th New Wonder of the World? Seen it.



Ihla de Paquetá

Marcia's aunt suggested that we go to the Ihla de Paquetá in the Guanabara Bay. So last Sunday we hopped on a couple buses and then the ferry which took us over to the island. Unfortunately, we only had about three hours to spend before we had to catch the ferry back. We were all starving so a large chunk of that time was devoted to eating lunch.

After our yummy lunch, we strolled around a little and came across swan boat rides. R$20 for 40 minutes? I think yes. Unfortunately that took us right up to the time that we had to get the ferry back, so we didn't get to explore much of the island. Luckily it isn't a far or expensive trip, so we can easily go back!

13 km to Niteroi

"...and Carnaval Is Their Party."

"The beach is their playground, samba is their music, and Carnaval is their party."

Wow, oh wow. Saturday night Mónica and Katja picked us up around 6:30pm and took us downtown to watch the samba parade. It was like nothing I had ever experienced. Ever. There were six samba schools that performed, beginning with the school that finished in sixth place and ending with the champions. Each school performed for about an hour or so and just samba-ed down the street. The floats were huge, the costumes were intricate, and the dances were intense. The words I'm trying to find to describe the parade don't do the night justice, and neither do the pictures that we all took. But here's a glimpse of the once in a lifetime night we all had.



Claire, the make-up artist, made us look dashing for the night ahead.

Panoramic view from our seats.



"Every Day With You Is My Favorite Day."

Yesterday morning the Scavarda family picked us up promptly at 9am and took us to downtown Rio to the Banco do Brasil to see an art exhibition of Tarsila do Amaral, a very famous Brazilian artist. I squished into the backseat of their car with Kadu and Juju and, let me tell you, it was quite an adventure. Kadu chattered on and on the entire way there. At one point he scrunched up his nose and crossed his fingers and goes "When I knew that you were all coming I went like this because I wanted you to sit in the back with us and I was happy because you did. Because every day with you is a happy day." Cue melting heart.

Kadu and I.

I snapped a couple of pictures at the museum, but the fact that we weren't allowed to take pictures in many exhibit coupled with a first grader who was pulling me around everywhere, I didn't get to document much. The art was interesting, but the best part was the collections of money from around the world. It was amazing to see the differences in each country's currency! And then to see how boring our money is compared to all the other countries, let's step it up USA.

Checking Things Off Our Bucket List!

As you may or may not know, the police in Rio are on strike. They get paid incredibly low wages each month and are sick and tired of it. So they're striking for higher wages and using the upcoming Carnaval as leverage. I'm not good at summarzing details, but you can easily Google it and find out the information for yourself.

[By suggestion of the wonderful Mrs. Kasych, I would like to add that there ARE national police here in Rio to keep the peace and keep up with general police duties. There are just less national police than there are local police. The local police have also worked out some sort of agreement where some of them are still going in to work to protect the city. I think that's how it's working out. So the city isn't completely police-less.]

Due to the strike, many people in Rio think that it is too dangerous to go outside and way too dangerous for us to go outside. We stayed in Friday night, but then decided that we absolutely could not sit in the house any longer. We've played it very safe the past couple of days while going out to explore the city. [Again, the city has police here. We aren't going out into the snarling teeth of hoodlums. We're sticking to safe, well-policed areas and avoiding sketchy areas. If anything ever felt unsafe, we'd hightail it back to our little apartment, pronto.]

Saturday afternoon-ish Amanda, Brittany, and I hopped in a cab down to Hotel Sofitel in Copacabana. Melania had mentioned that there was an antique fair there every Saturday and that it might be something to check out. We wanted something safe and something cheap, so it seemed like a good bet. It was interesting enough to look at, but antiques aren't really my thing, so it wasn't necessarily something that I would be dying to do again.

The antique fair-- so many floors!

The best part was when we stopped at the souvenir shop right outside the antique fair. We said hello to the person working in Portuguese and then continued talking to each other in English. After a few minutes, the man asks us where we are from. We said Ohio, of course, and he goes "Really?! I'm from Ohio, too! A little town called Painesville, you've probably never heard of it." As a matter of fact, sir,  I HAVE heard of it. Such a small world.

After going to the antique fair, we crossed the street to go to Forte de Copacabana, or the military fort at Copacabana. We paid R$4 to get in and spent a couple of HOURS walking around. The views were gorgeous and the whole place was very educational. There was a little cafe and a restaurant inside the fort that overlooks the Sugarloaf and Copacabana, so we're hoping to go back soon.

Forte de Copacabana.

Notice the flowers made out of bullets.

Later that night, Amanda, Brittany, and I went to this little store called "Americano Express" that sells DVDs for cheap. I know, I know, why spend my money on American DVDs? But we were cooped up inside and Claire didn't feel well, so we had to get something. I ended up buying 'Transformers 3' for only $7.50. Which is a huge steal, if you ask me. Sure, the menu screen is all in Portuguese, but I can figure out how to change the language, no problem.

We had a lazy morning this morning, just hanging around the house working on lesson plans. I was flipping through one of the thousand travel books that we have sitting around the house when I landed on the page about the Jardim Botânico. It was 2:30pm when I was reading the book and the garden closed at 5pm. I gave everyone half an hour and told them to hurry up and get ready because we were leaving at 3pm. And we did.

Claire and I by the incredible trees.

The gardens were breath-taking! We could see the Christ Statue every time we turned around, the plants were incredible, and the weather turned out to be fantastic. We left before seeing the whole thing, but agreed that we will definitely be coming back!

Christ Statue.

"I Don't Eat Ugly Food"

I cannot believe that I have been living in Rio de Janeiro, BRAZIL for a whole week already! It's already been full of ups and downs, but overall, it's been incredible. Before coming down here, I was bummed about all the things at Ashland that I would miss while I was here in Brazil, but after being here for awhile, I wouldn't trade this experience for anything.

Our Internet was down this weekend, which was a bummer, but forced us to get out and do things and become more immersed in the culture. Don't get me wrong, we don't spend all our time on the computers, but it is nice to be disconnected for awhile. Although it's a little disgusting to see how dependent we are on our phones.

Friday afternoon, we went to the mall in Botafogo with one of Brittany's teachers named Viviane. Apparently it's one of the smaller malls in Rio, but had eight stories and the top two were strictly food. My kind of mall! The view from the top was incredible! We could see the bay and the Sugarloaf-- it was amazing. I really cannot wait to go visit the Sugarloaf and see it up close.

Bad panoramic of the view from the top of the mall

After walking back from the mall, we went to Drink Cafe with Viviane and Mónica for their friend's birthday party. Two of Vivi's friends, Carol and another Mónica, were there and they were a riot! Carol is in the catering business and tries out her food on her friends before offering it as something she would cater. She's working on barbeques right now and invited us over to hangout and eat some of the food. You don't have to ask me twice! They had also ordered a cheese and vegetable platter type thing and Claire was the only brave soul who would try the food. One type of food was capers and cream cheese wrapped in eggplant. Mónica said she wouldn't eat it because it tastes like a wet dog and Vivi didn't want it because she doesn't eat ugly food. Good thing we were all in agreement, it looked pretty nasty. It was nice to go out with some locals and hang out with them and get accustomed to the culture here in Brazil. Even if they were adults and our mentor teachers.

On Saturday we woke up bright and early to go to Copacabana. We got there around 10am and Vivi met us around 11am. We stayed until about 3pm until we decided that we absolutely could not hang out there anymore. The heat and warmth was fantastic, but they aren't kidding when they say that the Brazilian sun is brutal. All four of us left with some sort of color, whether it be brown or red or a combination of both. To esape the sun we really tried to get in the water, but it is so cold! Seriously, after standing in it for a minute or two, my ankles get that sore feeling like I've been icing them for awhile.

Flat Stanely goes to Copacabana

The sun must have wiped us out because we came back to the apartment that afternoon and crashed. Showers and naps all around. We woke up that evening and just hung out in the living room chatting with each other about the weirdest things-- weddings and suicides were just two of the topics we touched upon.

Nomming on some watermelon at Copacabana

Sunday morning we kind of slept in a little bit before waking up and going to the Hippie Fair in Ipanema. We braved public transportation and took a taxi to Siqueria Campos Station where we hopped on the metro which took us straight into Ipanema. We're still trying to figure out the most efficient time and manner in which to travel-- I'm sure we'll figure it out sometime.

The Hippie Fair is a giant, glorified, not junky flea market. There were vendors EVERYWHERE selling anything that you could imagine. It was a great place to buy souvenirs, I've made quite a dent in my shopping and gift list. I think we're hoping to go back sometime while we're here because we didn't even make it all of the way through the fair.

Typical Carnaval headpieces

Later that night Claire and I went to the indoor/ outdoor market and went to Rota 66 for dinner. The waiter didn't speak English, which we're finding to be pretty typical here. We both ordered grilled chicken sandwiches with french fries-- true Americans. The food was delicious; we both blinked and our food was gone.

Each time we go out we feel more and more comfortable talking to people and conversing with people. And it always feels good when you taxi drops you off in the right location or the food place in front of you is the same food you thought that you had ordered. It's definitely A LOT tougher living in country that speaks Portuguese than I had expected, but we're surviving quite well.