Still Alive

I hope that you had an enjoyable and relaxing weekend, and I'm sorry to usher in the week with an unsatisfying blog post. I doubt that anyone is even still reading this anymore, and I really can't blame you, because I'd have stopped reading a long time ago had the blog not been updated for two months. Maybe it's a good thing that I haven't wasted any of your time, though. In any case, hopefully this post can capture the essence of the last two months for anyone who may have been so utterly bored to have decided to check this blog.

First, please allow me to make a lame excuse. A significant reason why I haven't updated this page in so long is because for a majority of these last two months I haven't had internet. This is because I moved out of my homestay with Maria and into an apartment; I moved the last week of April, and I wasn't able to get internet for almost a month. So I've been living in this apartment for over a month now. As you probably don't remember, my homestay with Maria was in an area of Rio called Laranjeiras, which is a nice area but isn't the most ideal location. Although I liked Maria a lot and had no problems with her at all, I had decided a while ago that I would try to move into an apartment in a better location if I could. Finally, in mid-April, a friend found an ad for this cheap apartment, and we moved on it. The apartment is in Leblon, which is the nicest, most affluent area of Rio and has the most expensive real estate in all of South America (not sure if this is completely true, but I did hear it). It's two blocks from the beach and about a twenty minute walk from the university; as you can see, it's a great location, much better than where I was in Laranjeiras. Before, when I wanted to go the beach or needed to go to school, it was always a lengthy trip, and with bad traffic it would sometimes take almost an hour and a half to get home from school. Needless to say, the move started paying dividends immediately and continues to be terrific. It's really a great location.

We jumped on this apartment because it was by far the cheapest we had seen in Leblon, which is such an expensive area. Part of the reason it's so cheap is because it's pretty barren. There's not much here, and it's not very nice either. But I really didn't care if the apartment was nice or not. It is nice and big, though. I'm living with four roommates, two Americans and two Germans. I like them all, which is a bonus, but I was really only concerned with the awesome location, if you couldn't get it by now.

So the apartment is working out great, but as I started to say before, I was without internet for several weeks at the beginning. Out of the five of us living here, three of my roommates' computers have been able to connect to an open, unsecured wireless network from the beginning, although a bit inconsistent; for whatever reason, mine and one roommate's computer were incompatible with the network or just couldn't detect it, respectively. If I wanted to use internet, I had to use one of their computers. Therefore, I used them mainly when they weren't home, and otherwise I had very limited internet access. So that contributed to the substantial delay in blog posts.

However, you might be asking yourself, why didn't I take it upon myself to get internet. Well, I did, but it took a long time. I may or may not have mentioned this in previous posts, but even if I did they were so long ago that you don't remember: there are many aspects of Brazilian society that are a joke. They're extremely inefficient and bureaucratic in many processes, such as the process of getting internet. Because the open network we had been getting was at times weak and inconsistent, all of my roommates agreed we should go get our own network, but because I had no internet at all I had the most urgency. But Brazil didn't make it easy for us from the start. We couldn't just walk into an internet store with our passports and sign a contract for a couple of months, for example. Apparently Brazil changed its rule a while ago that you needed a CPF in order to get internet, which is like a Brazilian social security number. So, the first step was getting a CPF number; only one of us needed it. One roommate went to whatever government agency provides temporary CPFs for students or foreigners to apply, and, surprisingly, was told the CPF would be ready the next day. The reason I say surprisingly is because I, along with my roommates, had expected it would take much longer to process the CPF; it took three weeks for the university to make my student ID for crying out loud, where in the States it takes 5 minutes. But, unsurprisingly, when my roommate returned the next day, the agency told him that the system was down and that he would have to come back on Monday (it was Friday). At first it didn't seem that bad, but even at the time it was still a whole weekend without internet, and afterward it still took weeks to actually get the internet.

So, we finally got the CPF the next week, and over the next few days checked into internet stores for plans and prices. The best and easiest option was to get an internet modem stick that plugged in to a USB port in the computer. We found the best, cheapest plan and were told that we needed a CPF, passport, and proof of residence (we used our apartment contract). We brought the items into the store, sat down with an agent, and were all set to finalize a purchase, but wait. We gave the agent the CPF, but he asked for the card. What card, we asked. The CPF we had was a slip of paper with CPF number, essentially a receipt. The agent said he couldn't get us the internet without the actual card; he couldn't accept what we had. We had just gotten the CPF, but the agent said that the CPF card took an additional 20 days to process. There it is.

This irritated me a lot; this couldn't have been the first time that foreign students or others just in Brazil temporarily had needed to get internet, right? What had they done? Did they need to wait three weeks to a month? I asked one of my teachers here what to do, and he said to try another store, because other stores might not have the same requirements and might be easier, etc. I ended up trying many other stores, but all gave me different answers and were very inconsistent; one store said I needed an extra official document, most stores only sold plans with a year contract, which was ridiculous since I only needed internet for a little over two months, some were very expensive, etc. So, at this point, over two weeks had passed and I still had no internet. I wasn't sure where to go from there, and I began to doubt whether I would ever be able to get internet, probably at the earliest once that stupid CPF card was finally ready. I decided to ask my teacher to help me get it, although I hate asking for things like that, but luckily he agreed. We scheduled a few times to try to get it done, and, finally, after an additional week of cancellations due to unexpected meetings and things of that nature, I got one of those internet modems. Since that point, the internet has generally worked ok, but ever since I first used it in my computer, I've had various computer problems and I've been unable to watch videos. Even when I had an internet connection at Maria's, the internet was very slow there and I couldn't watch videos. I thought this would be an upgrade, but no dice. Videos work fine on the open network that my roommates get, of course. I'm going to stop before I light myself on fire.

After the apartment move and that internet ordeal, the next biggest event was Alissa and Todd's visit, which just ended last night. They flew down to Rio and visited for about two weeks. It was really nice to see them. I had a great time with them, and hopefully they had a nice time too. We hung out in Rio for most of the first week; I tried to show them around a little bit and have them experience the good things about Rio. We went to the big flea market downtown, hit the beaches a few times, saw a soccer game at Maracana stadium, took an organized favela (slum) tour, ate some nice meals, and did quite a bit of walking along the beach and other city streets. They also went up the Sugarloaf mountain and did some things that I don't quite remember on the two days that I had to go to school (ask them about it). The weather was inconsistent throughout the trip; some days were sunny and very nice, others were cloudy, cool, or raining. We spent the first five days in Rio before traveling to Buzios, a beach vacation area a few hours away. We had a nice time there, walking around and going to several of the beaches. Buzios is very touristy, and is very pleasant to walk around. They have some very nice restaurants and shops; the main nightlife district is very popular. We ate at a Thai restaurant one night that I think is one of my top 5 restaurants of all time; I was very impressed. I thought at first maybe I had rushed to that decision, but now that it's a week later, I still think about it longingly. Maybe I still need to put some more thought into it, but it's definitely up there. The entire menu looked excellent; it was just a bit pricey, and passing up on dessert was a depressing decision. I'm going to remember it for a long time.

After Buzios, we spent the daylight hours in a nearby town called Cabo Frio, which is also a popular vacation spot known for its beaches. We were on a very pretty beach for a few hours, but the day wasn't too nice; cloudy and a bit chilly. We headed back to Rio for the night, and early the next morning left again for a short trip to Ilha Grande, or Big Island, which is a very pretty island that I had heard great things about. Unfortunately, the bus there took twice as long as it was supposed to, and the ferry to the island only runs three times per day, so we missed the day on the island and didn't get there until it was dark. The weather on the island was fine during the day, but bad at night. Each night it was rainy, cold, and windy, and the place that we stayed at was inconveniently located so that getting there in hard rain was actually treacherous. Let's just say that we got very wet and may have lost some shoes. The island is such that there are no cars, and most beaches are accessible by boat only; it's a very big island, with a plethora of beaches to choose from. We weren't there for very long, and so didn't have the opportunity to see very many beaches, but we were irritated the final day when we bought boat trips to a certain part of the island but two separate people directed us to the wrong boat; it took us to the same beach that we had been to the day before, which we shouldn't be complaining about because it was a very pretty beach, but we would have liked to see another part of the island since we had limited time there. We left the island the final evening just before the rain started, as the wind picked up and the clouds became very ominous. But it was a relaxing trip full of beaches, and the island also had some nice restaurants and shops; it definitely would have been nice to see more, though.

We were back in Rio for the last two days, taking advantage of the nice weather one day to hit the beach yet again and seeing the botanical gardens, and we also had a nice Shabbat dinner with the wonderful family of a Chabad rabbi here in Rio. We spent the final day walking around Copacabana although it was cloudy and too chilly for the beach, and Alissa and Todd had to leave in the evening for their overnight flight. All in all, it was a successful trip; I think they were a bit sick of Brazil by the end, though. I still love it here, but I do miss America.

Alissa has most of the pictures from our trip; maybe we can get them posted on here some time shortly.

Much else has happened here over the past two months, but it's been so long that I can't remember all of it on the spot. Since the beach has been so much more convenient from the apartment, I've been there frequently. I've also seen a few museums: the National History Museum and Fine Arts Museum. I really liked the National History Museum, and the Fine Arts Museum was nice too, but several wings were closed for renovation and so I wasn't able to see all of the highlights. I also spent a day on an island about an hour's boat ride from Rio in the bay, which also has no cars, and so I rented a bike and rode around it. It was very pretty; there are really nice views of the bay and surrounding mountains. It was probably the first time I've ridden a bike in about four years. The other main event I can remember is a weekend trip at the end of April to the state north of Rio in the interior of Brazil. The first half of the trip was nice; I joined a group that went to a small national park, and we saw some waterfalls, and I even went on a four-hour horseback riding trip. As has been the theme lately, it was pretty. However, the second half of the trip was not so good; the plan was to go to a city called Belo Horizonte, the third-largest city in Brazil and about 2 hours from this national park. However, the organizers of the trip didn't know what they were doing, so we literally waited on the side of the road for 4 hours for the bus to come: from 3:30 to 7:30. That's reason #32 why I like to organize my own trips.

The last main development recently is that it looks like I'll be heading to Uruguay for about one month after the semester ends here in July to work a little bit. Since before I came to Rio, I had been talking to some companies and trying to get a job or internship here in Brazil once school ended, but the process has been very slow and complicated, so a while back I started talking with this Uruguayan firm, and it has been much easier. This firm in Uruguay is a small investment bank; I think it will be a nice experience. It's not quite a done deal yet, but it looks like it will happen. I would have preferred to stay in Brazil for a little longer, but this opportunity seems quite exciting as well. I'll likely be there for 4 or 5 weeks, and return home to the States in mid-August.

Also, the World Cup starts this Friday, which I have been looking forward to the entire time that I've been here. It should be incredible. I've heard that when Brazil has a game the entire city stops; businesses close, buses stop running, school is canceled, etc. Brazil's first game isn't until Tuesday the 15th, but the decorations are out in full force. Brazil's colors are all over the place. I still need to get a jersey to watch the games. It should be great, unless Brazil loses, in which case I'll probably fear for my life.

That's the major news for now. I have many photos that I'd still like to get up; I still haven't even posted the photos from my trip with Rachel. I'm not sure the internet connection will cooperate, but hopefully they'll be up soon. I'll try to be more frequent in posting over these next few months as the trip is winding down, but by now your expectations are so low that there's no way that's exciting. In any case, I apologize for the long hiatus, but I hope to be back now. I hope you are all doing well and enjoying the onset of summer. Doesn't it feel nice?

It's gonna rain

Many of you have probably heard the reports of heavy rain, flooding, and mudslides here in Rio. The worst was towards the beginning of the week, and it's mainly settled down now. It's still been raining to varying degrees every day, but the flooding has been gone for a few days. The flooding and damage was bad; the city was pretty chaotic and basically stopped on Tuesday and most of Wednesday. I arrived back in Rio early Tuesday morning after my trip with Rachel, and the city was flooding then because of ongoing rain since Monday. It took me 2 and half hours to get home from the airport with a combination of bus and taxi due to traffic, rain, and flooding. When I got to my hood the streets and sidewalks were full of mud and running with nasty, brown water. It was challenging to walk on the sidewalk let alone drive a car. I think other parts of the city were flooded still worse. I still had school that day, and I had about an hour before I would need to leave, so I went home for a quick nap before heading out again. To get to school, I take a city bus. After waiting for a lengthy period of time, I began to realize that the bus I needed wasn't running due to the flooding. Neither was the secondary bus I could take to get to school. Only a couple of the bus lines that I regularly see running through my hood were running then. The others must have been unable to run because of the flooding. I eventually assured myself the bus wouldn't be coming, and I had no way to get to school. So I went home. And school was canceled anyways because the city was chaos.

The next day, rumors were circling that school had been canceled for the rest of the week, and lo and behold, the rumors were true. School was canceled for almost all of last week. It's been very nice and relaxing, albeit a little less to do than normal because there is at least some rain every day. But I went to see a movie, went out a few times at night, went to the big market downtown. But I could have stayed in Central America with Rachel for a whole other week. The sun is shining now, but it's more than likely to give way to rain later today.

Because I haven't had school this week, I've had ample time to update this blog, but I haven't until now. Go figure.

The trip with Rachel was wonderful. It was really, really nice, and we had a great time. I arrived on a Friday evening, and after waiting for a bus for a half hour in the wrong direction, I figured it out and hopped on the right bus. But then I took that bus too far so I had to take a taxi to where we were staying. I met Rachel and we went out to dinner and just had a relaxing evening because early the next morning we left for the San Blas Islands, which are a large group of remote islands off the Caribbean coast of Panama. We had to leave at 5 am and fit 7 of us into a cramped SUV; not the most ideal conditions for a 3 hour drive. We had to make a few stops along the way to buy supplies, passport control, and breakfast, which was fried dough and a slice of cheese, but it was kind of good because it tasted like a funnel cake. I miss funnel cakes. I haven't had a real one in a while. I love those ones at Six Flags; they're amazing. Anyways, the worst part of the trip to the islands was that about halfway there our journey took us through the mountains. Although the road was almost entirely unpaved and very windy and curvy, the driver didn't seem to care and drove with almost reckless abandon, causing us in the already cramped car to rock violently. And we were driving through the mountains for at least an hour. I think at the very least the road could have been paved. I mean, come on. But it would have been nice if the driver went a little slower and more cautiously, too. So, the violent rocking for an hour caused one of us get a bit motion sick and throw up in a bag over the lap of the other (hint: not me). But, the problem was, there was a hole in the bottom in the bag. That was nice.

We finally arrived at the end, but we still had to take a long boat ride to our island. This group of islands, while part of Panama, is run autonomously by a group of Indians called the Kuna Yala. They have control over the territory. First, we made a pit stop on the way to our island at one of the islands densely populated by the Indians. They live in grass huts with dried palm leaves as the roofs. And they are very small people. I'm not a particularly large person myself, but many of them didn't even come up to my shoulders. The women wear beaded jewelry along the entire length of both legs. Their jewelry and artwork is very nice. And their bathrooms are bottomless holes...with the ocean as the bottom.

We stayed on this island for about a half hour before continuing on to the more remote island where we would be staying. The whole archipelago has over 360 small islands. The trip to the island, and the islands themselves, were gorgeous. Turquoise, clear water, white sand, bunches of palm trees. The scene honestly looked like a computer screensaver. It was beautiful. Each island was more beautiful than the last. We finally arrived at our island, and it was like paradise. We spent two days and nights there, relaxing on the beach or in hammocks, swimming, and snorkeling. It was just an incredible setting. The only problems were that large bugs came out at night (cockroaches and spiders) and the food was insufficient. I expected that we would be staying in a small lodge, but our accommodations were an air mattress in one of their grass huts; not what I was expecting. Neither Rachel nor I are big fans of camping, so that was a little unsettling for us. The food was one plate of a small fish, rice, and a small salad, three times a day, but substituting eggs or bread for fish for breakfast. We brought a few snacks with us, but a huge amount of ants attacked them. So I was pretty hungry the whole time. But, on the whole, the islands were a very nice experience.

We returned to Panama City after the islands. The trip back to Panama City was less eventful, although the road, surprisingly, still wasn't paved and the driver was less than careful. Except that the car broke down for about 15 minutes or so. Also, something funny that happened was that we approached another car later on that had broken down and stopped, as though we were going to help the people from that car. But, apparently our driver apparently thought better of it and after pausing for several seconds, just decided to start driving again. It was like we were cruelly teasing them, making them think help had finally arrived before just speeding it off. I felt kind of bad, but I also thought it was funny.

Rachel and I were a bit tired when we arrived back in the city after doing absolutely nothing exerting for the past few days on the island, so we napped for most of the afternoon. Then, in the evening, we went to the Pesach seder with the Chabad Rabbi in Panama City. The seder was nice, and we met some nice, interesting, and funny people, including one admirable woman who retired to India to help victimized young girls. We went to the seder the second night too, but they were VERY long. We read a majority of the Haggadah, plus each paragraph and blessing was repeated in three languages (English, Spanish, and Hebrew). The food was fine, but there was no matzah ball soup, so that was disappointing.

The next day we did a full day of touring in Panama City. First we went to the Panama Canal, which was very cool. We were fortunate to see a large ship passing through, and saw it raised in the locks. There was also a nice museum we walked through at the visitor's center. After the canal we went to the Amador Causeway, which is kind of like a boardwalk I guess but without the boards. It was really just a long, scenic road which connected three small islands close to the city. After the Causeway we went to a part of the city called Casco Viejo, which is the old colonial section. There were some nice buildings and architecture. Then we went to the second seder that night.

We would have liked some more time in Panama; we were very impressed. Panama City was surprisingly nice; it seems to be a bit like Miami. And there are supposed to be many more beautiful spots there as well. Nonetheless, our time in Panama expired and we left for Costa Rica early the next morning. We spent just a few hours in San Jose, the capital, before we had to catch a bus to our destination, a popular beach spot on Costa Rica's Pacific coast, where we stayed for 4 days. Manuel Antonio was certainly nice, but for being one of Costa Rica's premier destinations, Rachel and I weren't overly impressed. It was beautiful, but we also might have been desensitized after Panama. Manuel Antonio has a popular national park, which we went to one day and saw a lot of monkeys and a sloth. We have some cute pictures of the monkeys. The national park was cool and we were rewarded for walking through it with a pretty, exclusive beach at the end. We also spent another day at the beach, and we did a jetskiing tour, which was a lot of fun. We spent a little bit of time in the adjacent town called Quepos, but there's really nothing to do and it's pretty shady. The main disappointing thing is just that our diets were somewhat limited due to Passover. Otherwise, it was very nice and relaxing.

We spent the last night and day in Rachel's town. I met her host family, and they were very warm and friendly. I like Rachel's town a lot. It wasn't what I expected; I had expected it to be a very rural town with a lot of space between houses and pretty quiet, but that wasn't a case. It was a town in every sense of the word, with everything you might expect there to be in terms of shops, eateries, etc. Her school is very small and pretty. The entire school only has about 6 classrooms and is on less than an acre of land. But there is a beautiful garden, and the school's setting is really nice.

I'll post the pictures soon; hopefully you'll enjoy them. We enjoyed the trip very much and it was sad to leave. But I guess there's worse places to come back to.

Buenos Aires (336 photos), by Jared Neuhausen

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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.

Back home for...school?

Boa noite. I am back in Rio again after my trip. What a shame, right? I arrived late last night; my flight was delayed a bit, and then by the time I landed the correct bus I needed to take to get home had stopped running, so I hopped on another bus that took a very roundabout way to not even get where I needed to go, and then I took a taxi after giving up on waiting for the final bus. Didn't get home until almost 2 am, and I had school today. Not to worry, though, because my first class wasn't until 1 pm.

So school finally started. By this time, after an exciting month of February, I've kind of lost sight that a main reason I'm here is to study. There's a "study" in study abroad, after all. It felt a bit weird to have class, but the campus was bumping today. There were people everywhere. It felt like, well, the first day of school. During the language course it was pretty much just us international Portuguese students on campus plus a few others taking summer school. But it was sparsely populated. Today was hopping, though.

The classes I had today were Brazilian foreign policy and Portuguese. I have the same teacher for Portuguese that I had during the language course, and I think he's really cool, so I'm happy about that. And that old guy that I wrote about previously is in my class again, too, which of course is awesome because he made the language course. There are many new international students here for the start of the semester; students who weren't here for the language course, but arrived for the semester. Many are in the Portuguese class, including students from Chile, Colombia, El Salvador, Ireland, France, and England. It will be good to meet them and have class with them. And there are also several other students who were in my language class before. So that is set up well. The foreign policy class seems like it will be good for the most part, too. That class is in English. It was introductory today, just went over the schedule and syllabus, but the content seems very interesting, which is a bonus. The teacher seems very young; he really doesn't seem much older than me. He's very enthusiastic, but maybe too enthusiastic. He was basically screaming at us the entire time today, and he was just explaining the schedule. It could get a bit overwhelming. My other classes are marketing, which I don't have until Thursday, and soccer. Marketing is the only class that actually means anything; I could potentially get credit for it for back home. It's taught in Portuguese and is 4 hours every Thursday night. It seems to be a formidable setup, but it's for mostly international students, so hopefully I'll be able to get some help. Not sure if I'll end up sticking with it, though, but I'll go this Thursday and we'll see what happens.

Now, for my trip. It was very nice. If you recall, first I went to Iguazu Falls, on the border of Brazil and Argentina. They were unbelievable. You hear people say such great things about them, but you really can't understand until you see them. There are so many waterfalls covering a great area, with so many different beautiful pictures, backdrops, and landscapes. It was really incredible. The falls are a national park, and you can enter both the Brazilian and Argentine side, but you have to do them separately. I saw the Brazilian side first, and the Argentine side the next day. They're both very, very nice, but I'd say the Argentine side is slightly better because you can get closer and see a bit more. That's not really important, though; the point is that the falls are spectacular from wherever or however you see them. The second day, from the Argentine side, I rode in a boat under the falls where I got drenched. That was cool; I tried to look up to see what was going on, but there was so much water falling that I could barely open my eyes. There were just so many beautiful views throughout the entire park. It is without a doubt one of the coolest and most beautiful places I have ever been.

In Iguazu I also went to see a large dam called Itaipu Binational Dam. Itaipu is on the border of Brazil and Paraguay and is a joint project between the two nations. I had a short excursion there, which involved a 20-30 minute movie followed by an hour-long panoramic tour of the dam and its grounds. I hadn't realized there was anything else to do in the area besides see the waterfalls, but I was pleasantly surprised by the dam. It was quite cool. It's currently the largest dam in the world, if I remember correctly, although it is about to be surpassed by a dam currently under construction in China. But Itaipu will remain the world's largest hydroelectric energy source/project. The tour and information given about the dam were fascinating; as well as the dam, Itaipu consists of a wildlife refuge, center for science studies, social/environmental responsibility and conservation projects, among other things. The project provides 25% of Brazil's energy consumption and an astounding number like 90% of Paraguay's energy. Enough from me, go look it up on Wikipedia now. The point is that the dam was also very cool.

After seeing the dam and before seeing the waterfalls, I stopped at a bird park just outside of the national park. The bird park was pretty much a zoo of birds, but it was nice as well. There were many brightly colored and huge parrots, toucans, flamingos, and other exotic birds. I also saw a peacock, but unfortunately I couldn't use my charm to provoke it to open its tail. The toucans were my favorite. They're cool and funny-looking in real life. The bird park had birds in cages but also several aviaries that you could walk into and have birds flying, walking, or sitting right next to you and you could even touch them if you desired, although probably not recommended. I enjoyed that as well.

Here's the bad news: I lost all my pictures from the waterfalls, dam, and bird park. All of them. I was a bit depressed for a while. I had tried hard to take nice pictures, and I bothered people at several points to ask them to take a picture of me in front of various different waterfall backdrops, but now they're all gone. I apologize that you won't be able to see them; I really thought some of them were quite nice. I'll get some pictures from a friend for you to see, but they won't have any of the dam or birds. I had needed to clear some space on the memory card for Buenos Aires because the memory card was full, so I deleted some old and unimportant pictures and videos. Then I went to check how much space I had cleared, and, satisfied, I clicked ok on the camera. Well, the ok gave the go ahead to then clear the entire memory card. I sat, stunned, for a few minutes, but I tried to get over it because I was about to take a city tour of Buenos Aires. So again, I apologize that you won't get to see them. I wish that I still had them.

There is good news, too, in that that did not ruin my trip to Buenos Aires. It was wonderful. Buenos Aires is a very nice city. I think the best word to describe it is pleasant; it's a very pleasant city to be in and walk around. It's calm and aesthetically pleasing, with many nice buildings, neighborhoods, and streets. Buenos Aires is very European in style; there's much European architecture, and it's called the Paris of South America. There are also statues and monuments all over the city.

I saw most of the important sites in the city, but I got most of my feel for the city just from walking around the various neighborhoods. I did quite a bit of walking, actually. I tired myself out a few days. I remember talking about how much walking I've done in other posts, too. I don't know what's gotten into me. Any way, my first full day in Buenos Aires I took a city tour by bus that drove past or stopped by most of the major sites and neighborhoods. It was a nice tour. A few places we saw were the Plaza del Mayo, home to the Casa Rosada, or Pink Presidential House, from where Eva Peron made her famous addresses from the balcony. Also Buenos Aires' obelisk, an old, very colorful neighborhood called Caminito where Italian immigrants settled and is now a hotspot for tango, a Buenos Aires soccer stadium, and two upscale areas called Recoleta and Palermo, plus more.

In subsequent days I mainly walked in depth around several of the places we had driven past. I visited a museum dedicated to Evita. It was relatively simple, but all that I learned she did was remarkable. I walked around the Jewish area of Buenos Aires, which was cool. A lot of Jews walking around and many various kosher restaurants and different food shops. It was cool to see the Jewish area, that there's a vibrant Jewish population integrated in the middle of the city. I enjoyed that.

For the final few days of the trip, I switched hostels, and unbeknownst to me before arriving, it was virtually an Israeli hostel. The owner was Israeli, and 95% of the guests were Israeli. I was the only non-Israeli there for the last two days. Really, I had no indication that anything about it was Israeli. But when I first got there I saw Hebrew on the door and the first thing I saw after opening the door was an Israeli flag hanging in the hallway, so I thought, this is sweet. The worst thing, though, was that since it was an Israeli hostel there were a minimum of 5 people smoking at all times. That was a bit hard to bear, but I was still happy to be there.

Purim was just this weekend when I was still in Buenos Aires, so I celebrated there. It was a lot of fun. There was a Chabad just two blocks away from the Israeli hostel, so I went to hear the Megillah, eat, and party Saturday and Sunday. There are Chabads all over the city, but it was nice that there was one so close. And it was nice to be able celebrate Purim with a Jewish community.

My last day in Buenos Aires I visited the grand cemetery where Eva Peron, among other famous Argentines, are buried. The cemetery has large stones/monuments/small rooms or houses that are dedicated to those buried there. I read somewhere that it's one of the 3 most remarkable cemeteries in the world, along with the Jewish cemetery in Prague, which I have also seen, and the last I can't remember. But there were many statues and carving, long row after long row of monuments hovering over you as you walked around. It was quite a cemetery. Then I stopped by the site of the Israeli embassy bombing in 1992. I guess a bit of depressing way to end my trip, but I'm glad I saw them.

So now I'm back in Rio de Janeiro and have had one day of school. To celebrate, I'm taking the day off tomorrow from school and going to the beach. That's only half true; I don't have class on Wednesdays, or Mondays either for that matter. So I'm just going to the beach. I've been away from Rio for 10+ days, so I kind of miss the beach. Rough life.

I'll try my best not to lose the pictures from Buenos Aires.

Good news

I finally beat the system and successfully uploaded my pictures. If you check immediately below this posting, you should see a separate posting with the photos. I used the website Snapfish, which wasn't overbearingly slow. You might actually need to create an account to view the album if you don't already have one, but that really only takes about 30 seconds. Unless you really have absolutely nothing else to do you won't be able to go through all the photos in one sitting; since I was barely ever able to upload them previously, I uploaded all of my pictures since about January 15th or so, and there are over 300. I captioned some of them, and usually a caption denotes a change in the subject or area of the photo, and all subsequent photos are from the same place until the next captioned photo. I wasn't able to upload my video clips on Snapfish, however; they are mainly from the Carnaval parade. I'll have to figure out how to do that a bit later.

The next bit of good news is that my next travels begin today, in a few hours. I'm flying down to Iguazu Falls, which is a spectacular series of waterfalls on the border of Brazil, Argentina, and Paraguay. It's supposed to be magnificent. I'll spend 3 nights there, including tonight, and on Sunday I'll head down to Buenos Aires for about a week. I'm very excited, and hopefully it will be a great trip.

Carnaval was incredible; it was a lot of fun. The main celebration was from Saturday until Tuesday, though of course there was pre-partying and now post-partying. I was a bit partied out, so I took yesterday to recover. It was definitely way more partying than I've ever been used to, especially on consecutive days, but it was very fun. There were people everywhere; a main feature of Carnaval is blocos, which are street parties in various areas and neighborhoods in town. There were multiple blocos in different places every day throughout Carnaval, and that's mainly where I went. Some were absolutely packed to the point where it was difficult to move through the crowd. It was a really cool atmosphere to have so many people out with music and dancing everywhere; definitely an unforgettable experience. And the aforementioned parade was spectacular. Thousands and thousands of dancers in incredibly elaborate costumes danced continuously, and the floats were unbelievable. The effort put into this parade blows my mind; one costume must take hours and hours to assemble, let alone tens of thousands. And the dancers practice for months to perfect their parade. Plus, the bleachers were packed with people, all dancing and singing and cheering for hours. Spectators literally stay all night. I left very, very late, but there was still not a seat to be found. It was really amazing.

Not sure when I'll post next. I might have an opportunity during my trip, but if not, maybe not until March! Stay safe.