I didn't forget

Just as you all were thinking, "Jared really should update his blog by now," I was thinking the same thing. I haven't posted anything in quite a while, partially because not much exciting happened especially soon after the last post, and partially because I've been exhausted most times I've had the opportunity the make another post.

I've now had 1.5 weeks of Portuguese. I'm definitely learning, and I can tell already that there's a difference between where I am now and where I was upon arrival here. However, of course there's much more to learn, and it's proving to be a difficult language. The class is from 8:30 to 1:00 with a 20-30 minute break. It often seems to drag on for a while, but it is productive most of the time. There are two teachers who split teaching our class each day, and I think they are both very good. One sounds quite similar to Borat, though, so I often have a bit of a hard time taking him seriously. There's also a 34-year-old guy who owns a strip mall in Cleveland in my class. I don't know what he's doing on our study abroad program, but I enjoy his company in our class because he's always a bit behind the rest of us. It seems like he's on a perpetual tape delay of about 30 seconds to 1 minute. The class has already moved on, and this guy asks a question about an activity we finished a while ago. He also says many ridiculous things, but they're funny because they're unintentionally ridiculous. I've started writing down the things he says so that I
don't forget them, and I've got a pretty good list going. We have a test this Friday actually, but it shouldn't be bad because it's been pretty basic so far.

Towards the end of last week I didn't feel so well; I think the contrast between the high heat and then cold air conditioning, and also a shortage of sleep finally caught up to me. I slept for most of the afternoon on Friday and then just stayed in.

Saturday I met a few kids in Flamengo, which is near my hood, and we played basketball along the Flamengo beach. Eventually some Brazilian kids came to the court, and we got a full game going. It was cool to play with the Brazilians, and I think they go there pretty often, so hopefully we'll play again soon. Saturday night I went out to Lapa with a group, which if you recall is hot nightspot in Rio. It's crazy how crowded it is; there's people everywhere. It's a pretty cool environment. We eventually went to a club and stayed there until pretty late. It got to the wee hours of the morning and the group I was with showed no indication of getting tired or wanting to leave anytime soon, so I finally left when the music got pretty bad.

Sunday I slept in late and spent the whole day at this Irish pub in Ipanema to watch the football playoffs. In between the game I took a break to go across the street to look around this square/park where on Sundays they have the "Ipanema Hippie Festival" or something, and there's a ton of vendors selling all kinds of things. It's interesting.

Monday afternoon I hung out at the Leblon beach . I rented a chair and eventually drifted off to sleep, but I was awakened by the guy who rented me the chair at 5:30 because he needed it back. I don't know what his rush was to go, but he woke me up in the middle of a dream too and I can't remember what it was. That night I met another guy for dinner at a Thai restaurant. Thai cuisine isn't very popular in Rio, but this place was very good. My dish was great, but it wasn't as big as I had hoped. It was nice too because I broke a string of getting some pretty cheap food that wasn't always good.

Yesterday afternoon I was misled and deceived into going on a hike. I went with a group who said they were going to walk to the waterfalls located behind the Jardim Botanico (Botanical Gardens). I thought, sure, that sounds cool. What they didn't say was that the waterfalls were located up a mountain in the Tijuca National Forest, it would take over 2 hours to get there, parts of it were life-threatening, and part of the trail is unpaved and you have to climb up and down rocks. So I went with this group, soaking my shirt with sweat. Also, I was wearing flip-flops. Mind you I was expecting a leisurely walk. So eventually we get to the Tijuca forest and find a waterfall. But then someone in the group said wait, there's more, and starts climbing onto a rock and going up a steep mountainous trail. I told them I'd wait for them at the bottom, but they screamed at me until I followed them. Oh, and most of them were wearing flip flops too; I thought they were crazy. The trail was pretty rigorous too; there were a few times I thought my life might be in danger. When it was finally time to leave, one girl took us down part of a challenging descent only to realize that we couldn't actually get down that way. So then we had to climb back up and go back down the way we came. Needless to say I took a bus back.

Last night I went out because today was a city holiday and we didn't have class. I took a taxi to meet these guys at a club in Botafogo. Problem was the taxi driver didn't know where it was, I didn't know where it was, and the guys who I was meeting that were already there didn't know where it was either. So I was wandering around Botafogo alone for a while trying to find it, and eventually after about an hour and asking a few people I got there. I think I did more walking yesterday than I have in the past 2 years.

Today on the day off I went to the Jardim Botanico. It is beautiful; I've passed by it everyday on the bus on the way to the University, and the front is lined with rows of tall palm trees. But today I actually entered and walked around most of it, and it was very nice. There are many different nice plants and cool trees. We also saw a few monkeys. There was an orchid greenhouse inside, which my guidebook said preserved 1000 different orchids, but I only saw about 25. I don't know how that discrepancy came about. But overall the Jardim was great.

Gotta get up early for class tomorrow. Boa noite.