Sao Paulo!

I am very very happy to report that I have been having an amazing time over here in Brazil! This past week I have seen so many cool things and tasted so many interesting new foods and I am very excited to tell you all about it! 

I am currently on a plane to Rio, and I only have 45 minutes to write this blog so I have decided to do a mostly-pictures blog, since pictures are supposed to be worth a thousand words and I have so many of them! To breifly introduce my photos, however, I will inform you that the first couple of days that I spent here, Juliana had to study a lot because she had some final exams to take on Thursday and Friday, so my pictures from those days demonstrate how I filled my time while she burried herself in her books so she could do well on the tests and become an incredible doctor haha. I was lucky because I had her brothers and parents and lovely boyfriend to hang out with. They all took me different places and I had a great week! I also was happy because even though I always wanted to talk to Juliana, I knew how much better we would both feel if she just studied and did well on her tests so we could have fun together after! Juliana will find out later today how she did, but she isn’t worried at all because she studied a lot and thinks she did very well! I am so proud of her! Isn’t that great news?

I tasted papaya for the first time!

Helped Juliana’s mom make some cookies at midnight!

Had some of my own cookie ideas :)

Spent time relaxing in the hammocks in the backyard.

Tasted pao do queijo for the first time! With coffee, of course.

Practiced my Portuguese with Elaine while we ate lunch together!

Went rockclimbing with Juliana’s brother, William, and his friends! 

 

Got a beer with William while we waited for Juliana to finish her tests! This was an important life moment for me because I learned that my favorite kind of beer is the lightest possible kind that doesn’t taste like alcohol. I learned that I like bubbly water, basically. :)

Strawberry and Nutella pizza to celebrate the tests being over!! 

 

On Saturday morning, Juliana and Bruno and I took a bus to Sao Paulo so we could spend some time in the city! Juliana had bought us tickets to see Les Miserables (our favorite play) so we got to see that and it was sooooo incredible! The movie came out when Juliana and I were living together as best friends in California so it was a dream come true to come to Brazil and watch it live with her in Portuguese! I didn’t understand everything they said, but it was okay because I know all the words in English so I could just sing them in my head hahah. 

CUTIES 

Some food before the show! The theater is right behind Juliana.

After watching the play, we went out to a night club with some of Juliana’s friends from school. We drank weird Brazilian alcohol and then danced for a very long time and I had so much fun! I forced myself to just relax and dance (which isn’t very easy for me!!) and I had so much fun because Juliana’s friends wanted to teach me how Brazilians dance hahah. The club we were at painted everyone’s face with glitter which was also cool/interesting/fun hahah. I had a really good night! And when we got back to the hotel we ate some soup and then fell asleep. We were so tired from the long day! We didn’t wake up until 10 the next morning, and then it was time to go downstairs and have breakfast before the hotel put everything away! 

On Sunday we took the metro to a beautiful park in Sao Paulo that had an African museum in the middle of it! We explored the museum a little, and then we took an Uber to Paulista Avenue, a giant street that is closed for cars on Sundays so everyone can walk around. There were vendors and lots of live music! We walked around the avenue for a bit before it was time to take a bus back to Sao Paulo. We didn’t want to get home too late because we knew we had an early flight the next morning to Rio! By early I mean noon, because it is so hard for me to wake up before nine here! It’s like my body is refusing to actually adapt to the time change, but that’s okay because it works with my vacation-esque life style over here in Brazil.

Bananas bananas bananas...

Had mixed feelings about the size of this egg.

 

We just got into the air on our way to Rio and I am very excited! I have a window seat so I might be able to see the Cristo! Wouldn’t that be awesome? Either way, Bruno’s dad is taking us there later today! :)

The most embarassing thing happened to me when we were taking off though so I might as well tell you about it. I tried to pee at the airport before we left, but they were cleaning the bathroom and I didn’t have time to find another one. We had all had a glass of beer at the airport because it sounded refreshing (around 11) and I had been drinking lots of water in the morning but I didn’t have to pee until there wasn’t a bathroom. Juliana assured me I could just pee on the plane, but I was worried. I sat down at my seat learned that Juliana wouldn’t be next to me, but a few seats behind. A smiley Brazilian man in a striped shirt sat down next to me and he seemed nice enough, but I was so preoccupied with my bladder that I just kept looking down the isles to see if they would ever be clear enough for me to sneak off to the bathroom. Of course by the time everyone sat down, they told us to put on our seatbelts and the plane started moving. You know how sometimes the plane rolls around on the ground for a half hour before it takes off? Well, it did that! And I  kept telling myself not to panick but the more I tried to not think about it the worse I felt and then I became thorougly convinced that I would not make it. I would probably pee my pants if I didn’t get up. And then the plane stopped, and I lost it because I thought it meant we were waiting for another plane ahead of us to go. I pressed the help button and nobody would come. It wasn’t just that I was worried, I was in PAIN. It hurt so bad! I wasn’t sure if I would even be able to walk if  when I got up! But nobody was coming and the plane wasn’t moving. Tears began to creep out of my eyes and I couldn’t help it. The man next to me seemed very nervous! I asked him if he spoke English and he said no, and asked me in Portguese if I was nervous about flying. I didn’t know how to say I had to pee so I just shook my head and gestured for him to call someone to help me! I didn’t care in that moment if the plane was two minutes behind schedule, I just wanted to not pee my pants on the plane where nobody spoke English! The man next to me kept going back and forth between trying to call a flight attendant and trying to comfort me. I think he really thought I was just scared. But nobody would come. And then the plane started going fast and we were up in the sky and I just started to get up and climb over him because I wasn’t about to pee in my seat and I was genuinly worried my bladder was going to explode and I was going to die. I think he saw the determination in my eyes because he got up and the flight attendants rushed over and I told them what was going on and they seemed so worried (probably because there were actual tears on my cheeks) and they let me go. When I came out of the bathroom, there were three flight attendants there and I thought they were going to be mad but they just asked me really nicely if there was anything they could do to help me and kept telling me that they know planes are scary and that I will be okay and that they will be near me when we have to land….I am not scared of planes! So now I’ve realized that no matter what I say, this whole plane thinks I scared myself into having to pee. They are very nice about it though. And where is my dear translator, Juliana? I don’t know hahah. She will think this story is funny. She is by a window so she hasn’t been paying attention. The moral of this story is: pee at the airport. You’d think I would know this by now, right? Well knowing and learning are two different things hahah. 

I am really just happy that I am okay now. I can’t post this while on the plane because I don’t have internet, but I will right when I get to Bruno’s Grandma’s house! I hope you are all doing well and enjoy my pictures and unfortunate story hahaha. See ya later!