Calm

Sorry that I haven't written in a long time, but the truth is it's actually been a bit quiet around here. I've been getting into the rhythm of school, which hasn't been very difficult because I don't do anything. I really only have serious class two days a week, and homework is barely existent. The most school-related excitement I've had was trying to decide a final class to take, which I finally did this past Wednesday. You may remember that I was initially enrolled in a marketing class in Portuguese that meets once per week from 7-11 pm. Well, that didn't go so well. I went to the first class, but I left after 45 minutes because I could barely understand anything. Part of the reason I had signed up for it was because I saw on the schedule that it was a class that international students frequently attend, so I figured that there would be others in the class. But there weren't any; it was all Brazilians and I didn't know what they were talking about. I checked later and the international student designation was gone from the class listing, so that went wrong somewhere. Anyway, after deciding that I wouldn't be taking that class, that created a void in my schedule that I had to fill. The next week I sat in on some finance class in Portuguese that I saw on the schedule was intended for international students. Yet there was only one other of those students, and when he walked into the room he said to me, "you know this is a post-graduate class, right?" Which I didn't. I stayed for the whole time, but that wasn't going to work out either. I perused the schedule again, and sat in on Brazilian Culture in Portuguese a few days later, which has many international students as well as many Brazilians. Although I only understand at select times, I've decided to take that as my final class and am now officially enrolled. I made it a little more difficult on myself, though, because I still wanted to preserve my two free days during the week, which narrowed down the class selection. But it's all good now and I'm content. It was finalized on Wednesday, which, in typical Brazilian inefficient fashion, was the one and only day that all international students could make changes to their schedules. So everyone was trying to do the same thing at the same time. You can imagine how that went.

But besides school things have been somewhat slow, mainly because it's rained quite a bit lately. I'd say since the last post it has rained more days than not, usually starting some time in the afternoon. And when it rains here, it pours. There's no such thing as light rain here. It's either all-out rain or no rain at all. The last few weeks I have seen the hardest rain I've ever seen in my life, as well as a couple of other days that rank in the top 5 of hardest rains I've ever seen. The Saturday night two weekends ago was when I saw the hardest rain I've ever seen. There's a hill/mountain behind my house here, and so there's a road that goes up on an incline. It was raining so hard that that inclined road was flooded. I wasn't aware that was possible. I heard from other kids here that roads all over the city were flooded and that it was just a general disaster. One of my Brazilian teachers even said he'd never seen anything like that. And it rained that hard straight for 3-4 hours, without letting up at all. It really was unbelievable. It hasn't rained now since Thursday, but before Thursday it had rained really almost every day for the past two weeks. One night last weekend I got caught in that pouring rain and storm walking near Copacabana beach, it was a little out of control.

Other than that I haven't done too much out of the ordinary for the past few weeks. The frequent rain precluded trips to the beach. On Wednesday I went to the Museu da Republica here, which is in the former presidential palace/residence. That was a very nice building, and admission is free on Wednesdays for whatever reason. Some of it was closed to the public for renovation, but in general it was very pretty. Last night I met with my teacher and some other people at a street fair in an area called Sao Cristovao. Sao Cristovao is in the north zone of Rio, which doesn't really have any tourists and is generally a less safe part of the city. It's not somewhere where you want to walk around alone. The fair's theme is Brazil's Northeast, and it was a nice time. I had some very good food.

The most exciting thing I've done is that I planned a trip to go see Rachel. I leave this Friday and will be gone for 10 days. The timing is convenient, because Rachel has spring break, and although I'll be gone for 10 days, I'll only miss 2 days of class (only one important day). The university gives school off the Thursday and Friday before Easter, and since I don't have class on Monday or Wednesday, I'll only miss one Tuesday and the Friday that I leave, but the only class I have Friday is Portuguese. We're going to rendezvous in Panama and spend the first half of the trip there before returning to Costa Rica for the second half. I was able to get a nice deal on the airfare; originally I didn't think it would be possible because all the airfare I had been seeing was very expensive. But suddenly one day I saw prices to Panama that were much cheaper than I expected, and so a flight to Panama and then to Costa Rica became much more reasonable and realistic. We're very excited for the trip.

That's about all I have for this post, sorry I don't have much more. As you can see above, the pictures from Buenos Aires have been posted. Sorry I took so long to get those up, but I hope you enjoy them.