Água de coco & Capivaras

Well, this is my first official post IN Brazil.
It has been an emotional roller coaster for me to be honest.

I have SO much to write about. I don´t even know what to include and what to leave out. So I guess I´ll start with the flight.
I flew to Miami yesterday afternoon. When I arrived, I could not quit giggling. I was just totally amazed at how I was in the minority. I knew it was true, had heard it was true, had even been there, but I was alone and observing a lot more. A lady conducting surveys for the airport even asked me to complete one, thinking I was not a US resident. She said, "Oh, you are from the USA? I figured you weren´t." So I have my first experience in the midst of Brazilians and someone actually does not think I am a "gringa." Hilarious.

Boarding the plane, everyone spoke to me in Portuguese. I ended up sitting in the middle of an entire family of Brazilians. We´re not talking the typical U.S. "2.5 kids" family. I lost count of how big this family was, and there was me, right in the middle of them all!

The flight felt forever long. I never thought we would land. As we began our descent, I could not believe I was looking at the country I had been so excited to see. For thirty minutes, I watched the buildings and little perfectly sectioned patches of farmland. I saw big forests and then skyscraprs as far as the eye could see. It could have been Tennessee until that point. I have never seen a city go on and on like São Paulo does. For miles and miles, the city went on.

When I arrived, I had no trouble going through customs or immigration. My bags made it. The airport looked very different from any that I have been in and about 30 minutes after landing, I made it out to the arrivals area and there was Marcel, his sister, and his former Argentine room mate waiting for me. It was so bizzare to realize I was in Brazil and to be seeing a person I had not seen since my time in Germany. It was fun of course. I enjoyed the drive to Bragança Paulista (Marcel´s city). I got to see all sorts of things from favelas to how different traffic is here.

I absolutely adore Marcel´s city. It is so beautiful. It is set between huge green mountains that remind me of Tuscany. The houses are beautiful too. They are so open and airy. His is a shade of orange and has several levels. We have nothing like it in the states. The architecture is totally different.

The weather here is cooler than I expected. It is no hotter than a Tennessee summer, but I have a feeling this will change once I get to the north. They said it has been hotter than average here in the south. It is not too awful. There is no a/c because typically they don´t really need it, but it has been too hot to do a lot the past two days until dark.

They took me to see the capivaras. There were many baby ones! I also got to drink out of my first coconut. As silly as it may seem, I have been looking forward to both of these things for a long time! I have been talking about seeing the capivaras and drinking "água de coco" for months to my friend.


So far, it has been quite an adjustment for me. I don´t know why because I adore this city and the people, but I have been quite homesick for some reason. I am hoping it has to do with changing zones, jet lag, being tired, etc...I have slept A LOT today and am starting to feel better. I enjoy the language and am hoping to become less shy soon. I understand more than I can speak, and I would like to change it. The sounds are very unnatural for an english speaker, but just being here even two days, my ear has become more accustomed to the words, sounds, and phrases.

Well there you have it-my first official post from Brasil.