hello all!
i´m sorry it´s been so long since i´ve updated, and actually i have no excuse except laziness and forgetfullness. BUT rest assured that i´ve been super good here in Caetanópolis. Things have sort of settled down, which is to say that when i got here, i had heaps of friends through my host brother and stuff, and now, they have literally all gone to different places for college, minus my friend lidianni. and besides that, school has started (glllllllll) which is simply crap. school is first of all, very early in the morning (it STARTS at seven) and also VERY boring, i.e five and half hours of pure lecture, every single day. also, while some people in my class are nice, a lot more of them are annoying and immature, and to top it off, my family makes me go EVERY DAY, which sucks. but, i suppose things could be much worse, so whatever.
anyhow, since i last wrote, that´s happened, and also, there was carnaval, which i can´t say was bad, but was slightly dissappointing. due to my extreme lack of funds, i spent carnaval in caetanópolis with the "trash" crew, which was fine. i had several drinks called Osama Bin Ladens, which were simultaneously hilarious and delicious (dry ice, chocolate, vodka, rum and probably other alcohol as well), and also "ficared" with this guy i really liked, named Túlio, so i guess it was successful. and besides school, my weekends have been aces. the first weekend after carnaval, i went to ranch with some friends and interact, which was cool. the weekend after that, i went to BH and as i hadn´t been in quite some time, it was really good. i saw Sweeney Todd and Juno, both of which i liked, and saw my long lost friends in BH, and had açai, so huzzah. and then the weekend after that, i went camping in this national park in minas gerais, called Serra do Sipó, as part of my friend Chicó´s going away party (last tuesday, he left for a six month stint in paris) which was really fun. Serra do Sipó is really beautiful, and it has lots of waterfalls, which were really nice to swim in. the only downside was food really sucked, because no one really knew how to go about making food whilst camping, so we bought all these ramen noodles and cookies and beer, and the only thing we could actually eat was the cookies. bad. but otherwise, it was really fun. i´d put up pictures, but i cannot find them on this computer. when i do, i shall show them all to you.
the icing on the cake, though, was last weekend, when i went with my friend lidianni and my fabulous host parents to see my host sister at school, in Diamantina, which is a really beautiful and cool historical town in Minas Gerais. It´s about 300-400 years old, it dates back to slavery, when the town was built to house all the slaves who worked in the diamond/other minerals mines. all the streets are paved in stone, and all the houses are old, with peaked roofs and stuff, and there are A LOT of old and beautful churches. it´s also in a really pretty part of minas gerais, all these rocky mountains and hills and stuff, with a pretty nature reserve with lots of waterfalls called Biribiri. once again, i will put up pictures when i upload them from my camera. but the weekend was fun, saturday we walked around, and lidianni and i went out with some of vivienne´s (my sister´s) friends, then we went to an excellent restaurant with my family. and sunday, we went to some of the museums in diamantina, and to biribiri, where lidianni, vivienne and i went skinny dipping in a really excellant waterfall, which was great, and then we returned to caetanópolis.
so yep, thats pretty much been my life of late. the only things i have on the horizon is a rotary weekend the weekend after this one, in a place called caraças (which i´ve been told is pretty cool) and starting some stuff in the afternoons here in caetanópolis. it turns out caetanópolis has this place called the casa de cultura that offers all these free lessons in lots of different things, like capoeira, dance, drawing, all that stuff. so i´ll probably do some of that. and friday, i´m giving my first english conversation class. so it´s all good.
well, that´s about it for now, i promise i´ll put pictures up next time i update. lots of love to you all!