so, this monday is a national holiday here in brazil, Tiradentes. Brazil has a LOT of holidays, many of which seem sort of pointless, and that most people don´t know the actual purpose behind. Tiradentes is one of these holidays. SO, in an interest of learning more about Brazil, i wikipedia´d Tiradentes. The article had this picture in it:


This painting is probably the most violent thing I´ve ever seen in art. In case you didn´t notice, Tiradentes has his legs and head separated from his torso. Gllllll.

So, anyway, it turns out Tiradentes is this martyr in Brazil. He´s from Minas Gerais, where I live, and he had all these great plans for Rio and stuff that never got approved, and he owened mines. In the 1780´s, the mining business suffered because it became less common, and the government imposed taxes and stuff, which upset the already suffering miners, so Tiradente´s stood up to the portuguese, and was killed. Hopefully not as gruesomely as the picture above showed.

I should also point out that reading this article made about half the streets I know in BH make sense. And i learned more brazilian history in this article than i have the whole year, because for some reason, history classes never seem to study brazilian history. Duuumb.

So, i hope you enjoyed a brazillian history lesson!

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!

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!

Hello All!


So, since i last wrote...last weekish i think? my life has been goooood. I´m now all settled in with my new family in my new town, Caetanópolis. The town itself is really really REALLY small, only 40000 people, which in brazil is teeny, but the advantage of this is that everyone wants to meet me and knows who i am, so i´ve already made friends fairly easily. Another advantage to Caetanópolis is that my host family is really great. As opposed to most peoples host families, who are forced to host exchange students because they have a child studying abroad, my host family just wanted to have an exchange student, so they are really excited about me living here, which in turn makes me want to get along with them and try harder and all that jazz.



PLUS my famiy has children that actually live at home, a son Lucas who´s twenty-three, and two daughters, Viviene who´s my age and Mariana, who´s thirteen. That´s nice for two reasons: i already have friends that live in my house, and i can just attach myself to their friends. My brother has this group of friends, who call themselves Trash (which is pretty dumb) but they´re a nice group of people, or at least i enjoy their company, so it doesn´t matter. And, i´m pretty sure they´re the only group of hipsters in the entire country of brazil, which is really nice, because overall, brazilians sort of come up short with music and movies, but they don´t. It´s pretty sweet.

And, yet one more advantage about Caetanópolis is that i get to work here! As i am very very poor, that is very very nice, and extremely helpful. I´m going to be teaching some English classes here, and i´m both excited and slightly nervous for it.

The other simultaneously exciting and nerve-wracking thing that´s happening soon here is carnaval, which starts friday. I´ll be doing it here in Caetanopolis, which i was sort of dissappointed about before i actually got here, but now i figure i might as well make the best i posibly can from it. Ít promises to be interesting at least. Although drunken brazilian men are the bane of my existence here, and there are going to heaps of them there, so glllll. (potentially) We´ll see.

Anyhow, just so you guys know, i´m happy and jazzed and doing really well. And i hope the same for all of you!
lots of beijãos e abraçãos tambem
mary

so, after a bit of a break, i´m back to tell you all of my life in brazil!!
right now is a really chill time in brazil, because it´s january summer holiday. school is out, and a LOT of people are traveling to the coast to go to the beach. UNFORTUNATELY i am not one of them, but it´s all good. i´ve been spending my holiday n Belo Horizonte, with a bunch of different people, just going out at night, going to birthday parties, going away parties for the aussie exchange students, and stuff like that. it´s been pretty nice.
also, because of a series of events caused mostly by me, i´ll be moving out of timoteo. i guess i really already have, because i haven´t been in timoteo since right after christmas, and i won´t be going back before i move to my new city, Paraopeba, an hour outside of BH. I´m very excited to go there, Marco Aurelio, my counselor guy for the district, tells me that the family is excited to recieve me, and they have a twenty year old daughter who went on exchange to denmark a few years ago. I´m REALLY excited to meet her, because i´ll be working with her at the english school she works at, so hopefully we´ll be good friends. I´m not entirely certain when i´ll leave bh for paraopeba, but it´ll be soon, i think.
the other exciting thing on the horizon is carnaval, after which i have a feeling brazilian life will return to how it was before i left for the northeast, i.e. school and all that stuff. i have SEVERAL different things i could do for carnaval, i´ve been invited to go to salvador with joal, claire´s older brother, who gets here in a little more than a week, and also to go with my current host sister, natalia, to diamantina, in minas gerias, or i might go with rotex to guarapiri, on the beach in espirito santo, OR i might go with my friend mira and her host brother some where else in minas, i really don´t know, but i´m excited for three days of craziness! all of brazil is excited about it, whenever i meet brazilians, they ask me where i´m going for carnaval, and if i´m excited, so i hope it´s good. It´s from febuary fifth to the eighth or ninth, so it´s soon!
i should also probably say about my holidays. Christmas itself was actually really just sad and depressing. Brazilians just do something totally different, my family didn´t do any sort of gift exchange or anything, and so overall, it was just a sad day. i tried to make the best of it though, and hang out with my family. New Years Eve was FAR superior. By that time, i was back in belo horizonte, staying at my friend brendan´s house with my two other friend´s lexi and mira and the four of us went to his host parent´s party, which was this huge affair, two thousand people, lots of champagne and an open bar with food and all that, and everyone was all very chic and mira lexi and i spent hours getting ready, and we went and had a good time. It was the first time i´d been to a party like that new years, it was very fun, although we had to leave earlier than usual, around four, because Brendan was a bit too drunk to handle the party anymore. His family got home around nine. It was great.
So, that´s it for now. Lots of love to you all, and beijos until next time!
mary

so gente, i´ve FINALLY gotten back from the northeast, and now theres just the task of unpacking, doing my virtual MOUNTAIN of laundry, and settling back in.
the northeast was really great, that region of brasil, first of all, is really beautiful:

this is a beach in Ceará, which is the farthest north we went. to give you an idea, the capital, fortaleza, where we actually stayed, is four degrees south of the equator, and about three fourths of the year is sunny. We didn´t actally go to this beach, but looked at the sand here, because the sand is colored naturally. plus the view was mighty pretty, as you can see.
all and all, we actually spent time on the beach in eight different beaches, all of which were amazing. my favorite was probably ipanema, in rio, because the waves here were crazy, AND you could go topless, which was an...interesting experience.











so, the trip was really really long, we covered 12,000 km of brasil, all by bus, we probably spent about....twelve or thirteen of the twenty nine days on these two massive! buses, which got both tedius, and long, and uncomfortable. HOWEVER, we managed to find ways to pass the long long hours inside the bus. for example, on the way from maceio to fortaleza (which was a really long leg, two FULL days of driving) my group and the green group (we had four groups that rotated) were on the crappier of the two buses, because that bus had an air conditioning malfunction. SO we were all on this bus in our underwear, to stay cool. THAN we started dancing, and THAN we convinced some of the boys to CROSSDRESS!:

from left to right, it´s florian (from france) mads jensen (or tall mads, from denmark), gunnar from wyoming, max from germany, jon from minnesota, and bence from hungary. This stunt earned us the name naked party crossdressing bus. But it was quite funny, so yay!

for those of you who are interested, the exact layout of the trip was this: we drove from belo horizonte, north to brasilia, than east to lençois, in the interior of bahia, that northeast to maceio, the capital or algoas, THAN up the coast to fortaleza, in ceará, than we descended the coast, stopping in Canoa Quebrada, also in ceará, natal, in rio grande do norte, recife, in pernambuco, salvador, in bahia, porto seguro, also in bahia, and finally to rio de janeiro (obviously in rio de janeiro) and our last stop was a little town called parati, also in rio de janiero (the state, not the city), until finally, last thursday, we drove back up to bh.

hello all!
i´m currently halfway through the northeast trip, and it´s utterly fantastic!
so far, i´ve been to the capital, brasilia, this grand canyon-y mountain thing in the interior of bahia, called chapatta diamantina, and to beaches in maceio, fortaleza, and natal. they are extremely beautiful, i feel so lucky to be here. i´ve also gotten really tan, which is nice, because i´ve never really been tan my entire life, and i was getting tired of being the palest person in brasil.
the trip really is great, i love all the exchange students here and when i actually have time, i´ll put more details about it, and lots of pictures, as i´ve taken heaps!