BRAZIL = )

BRAZIL
It’s a miracle that I even got off the ship after all the scary stuff that the people on the ship were telling us. However, I did get off the ship obviously and had an awesome time in Brazil. Since we were here for 5 days I’ll go day by day and hopefully catch you up on my travels J
Day one: I woke up at 5:15 to see the sunrise as we were pulling into Salvador, Brazil. It was gorgeous and I got some awesome pictures! I ate breakfast and then went back to sleep for a little while the disembarkation process was going on. We had a meeting with the Tour Office before we could all get off the ship, too. Finally around one-thirtyish I got off and did a walking tour of the upper city in Salvador. We walked from the ship through the Mercado Modelo and to the elevator that took us to the upper city. That thing was hugee and it was SO hot! The first thing I did notice as I got off the ship though was the smell. Walking down the road to get to the Mercado Modelo it smelled SOOOO bad of pee! Everyone apparently in Brazil pees in public on the streets. It then sits there in the hot hot sun and smells awful! I even saw a business man type man doing this. And its not just men. I heard a story of a woman just walking in between two cars and pull down her pants and pee right there. It didn’t matter who was around or anything! Once up to the upper city, it was all decorated because Tuesday was the last day of carnival in Brazil. People were dressed up as pretty much anything. There were lots and lots of cross dressers, actually! Anyways we got the tour of the old city and some churches and good restaurants to eat at and so forth. The tour was ending just as carnival was starting so we got to see a lot of the parades go by with big floats and awesome costumes. The music was really loud and really good music!! We followed the parade back to the elevator to go back to the ship for dinner. After eating dinner, I wanted to go back to carnival but we had to be in a group and have at least one guy with us. Ananda and I weren’t in a camarote. It is a group that actually goes in the parade and has its own security and everything. The people on the ship kept saying that it’s not safe to go to carnival unless you’re in one of these. Of course, since we weren’t in one, we were terrified. The old city, though, is much more mellow than the new city. We decided to go up to the old city with a couple other people (three of which were boys) and watch carnival for a little while! It definitely wasn’t as insane as I had heard it was or as I thought it would be, but I can see how it could get very crazy! I heard some pretty crazy stories from the people that did go to the new city. One girl got her camcorder cut off of her shoulder (don’t ask why she even brought that in the first place) I didn’t even bring my disposable camera because the people said it would just draw attention to you in a bad way. So I just wore my money belt and only kept some money and my ship ID in it. I also The night ended up being pretty fun; we came back earlier than a lot of people but I still got a taste of carnival. If I ever come back to Brazil during carnival I would definitely get into a camarote cuz everyone that was in one said it was probably one of the best times of their lives!!
Day two: Since Carnival was now over and Wednesday was the first day that everything was opening back up again, our tour guide from the day before said it was going to be pretty crazy. He said the lines in every store, the banks, etc were all going to be very long and most likely the people working were going to be miserable. They were most likely going to be completely hung-over and not happy at the fact that they had to be at work again. This day was kind of a laid back day with nothing to do. I ran some errands and stuff in the morning with Ananda and went to lunch at the restaurant in the Mercado Modelo (market place). It was interesting. The “grilled cheese” was a bun...Not toasted...with somehow melted cheese in the middle. It was still good though, and it filled us up. Then we came back to the ship for the afternoon and laid out. We were going to go to the beach, but by the time our errands were finished it was too late to go. It was okay though, still a fun afternoon. After getting ready, we walked up to the upper city to meet a group of other girls for dinner at a restaurant the tour guide suggested. It was delicious! In Brazil there are drinks called Caipirinhas and Caipiroskas. They were both made with lots of limes and lots of sugar and then the caiprinha has rum and the caipiroska has vodka in it. They were SOO good! We actually got a caipiroska with strawberries instead of limes and it tasted like you had a strawberry candy! SOO GOOD! Im bringing that drink back to the US!! After dinner we just all came back to the ship and hung out for a while!
Day three: SHOPPING DAY!! Ha-ha the upper city has awesome shops! Not that I bought a lot of things, but there was just so much to look at! I walked around with Ananda shopping pretty much all afternoon! I bought some cute jewelry and some cute flip flops of course, also some post cards. I decided that I am going to buy post cards in all the countries, but im not going to send them until I get to Hawaii since it will be the cheapest. I’ll still write them in the countries though so it will be just like you get them sent from that country. And you will still get them before I get home it will just have the Hawaiian postage on it. Oh wellll! Deal with it! Ha-ha anywayss..after shopping and having a pretty good lunch we came back and got ready for the Bahia (the state of Brazil we are in) soccer game!! We had to wait in line for them because the original 200 tickets that Semester at Sea bought were already sold out. Thank god we got tickets! The 8 buses from Semester at Sea left at 6:30 for the hour and a half ride to the game. We got stuck in a little traffic because there was a dump truck that had been flipped over on the highway. Don’t know exactly what happened though…It was really funny when we pulled in, I don’t think the people there ever saw 8 coach buses pull into the parking lot all at once like that. The game was really good. Bahia won 2-0. The fans there are CRAZY. It wasn’t even a big game, but they are nuts. They have more chants and cheers than imaginable. One guy was sitting on the fence in the front of the bleachers and waving his hands singing, etc. When the goals were scored it sounded like it was a championship game every time! At one point I looked over and a Brazilian guy was taking a picture of me on his phone. Afterwards him and his friend came over and sat with us and one of them understand/slightly spoke English so it was good to interact with the locals. Although when the second goal was scored, everyone jumped up and everyone was kissing everyone. Both him and his friend kissed all of us (the group I was with) on the head..it was kind of weird. Haha during the whole game there were 24 armed guards surrounding the field and at both half time and the end of the game 10 of the guards plus 3 dogs ran out onto the field and walked the refs off the field. I guess they stood there in case of riots! Weird…and nothing like any of the soccer games I have been to before! Also during the game, guards would walk throughout the bleachers and make sure no one was rioting or anything. The bus ride back seemed quicker than the one there because there was no traffic!
Day four: Our plan was to go to Itaparica Island by ferry, but the only ferry was at 12:30 and it was PACKED with locals. Ananda and I decided to go to the beach instead. We took a taxi and mannn now I know where you got your driving skills from Dad!! Ha-ha juust kidding. These people are maniacs! They are definitely multi taskers switching in and out of lanes and just beeping when they get close to another car or another car gets too close to them. Don’t worry Pop, I held on to the “oh shit” handle the whole time!! And mom definitely would have been pounding the dashboard if she was sitting in the front seat of this taxi!! Haha love youu! We finally made it to the beach which was gorgeous! Very different from beaches at home though! First of all the bathing suits in brazil might as well be nothing! Most of the women’s bathing suits were pretty much thongs! And the top wasn’t much bigger. No matter how big or small the lady was, that is what she was wearing! It is pretty much the same for men too…the smaller the bathing suit, I guess, the better! After being at the beach for a while we got some lunch at a local restaurant and then walked to the supermarket. Finally we took a taxi back to the ship and got ready to go out to dinner in the upper city again! We went to dinner with Julie and her roommate Kourtney and then this kid Forrest. This dinner was probably the best meal I had in all of Brazil! The walk home was interesting and ran into some pretty sketchy locals, but that was no different than any other night in Brazil I guess.
Day five: Today I went to Praia de Forte to the Marine Turtle Project. It wasn’t what I expected because all the turtles were in tanks that were too small for them. It was really cool to see how they hatch and to see baby turtles. We saw 16 day old turtles, they probably weren’t much bigger than the palm of my hand. The big turtles were HUGEE though, they were really cute!!! I got some good pictures and if I can ever upload pictures on the internet ill put them up, but its so god damn slow its insane! (also the reason I haven’t written in my blog for a while!) After the turtles we went to a local restaurant for lunch and go to walk around the town before coming back to the ship. Once back I started typing this until the cookout we got on the top deck! It was FINALLY good food on the ship!!! Its been pretty bad lately! I think this is the first dinner in a while that I didn’t eat pb&j! They had our own little carnival performance and our interport lecturer Javier had all his family and friends come on the ship for the last night! I hope they do that every time we are leaving a port cuz it gives us some good food to look forward too!!! Now im just finishing typing this, doing some homework and getting ready to set sail for CAPE TOWN!!! I’m VERY excited!! Although 9 days at sea seems like a long time, im actually excited to be at sea! I loved Brazil, but I think I would have liked it more if the people on the ship didn’t scare us about it so much from the beginning! I had lots of fun and learned/saw lots of new things, although ill miss the pee smell walking to the market! NOTTTTT! Now im off to cross the Atlantic and go shark diving and on a safari! Cannnt wait! I’ll be sure to write again before I get to cape town! I MISS YOU ALL LOTS AND LOTS! LOVE YOUUU!!! xoxoxoxoxoxo