Brasil

In light of our finals for second quarter, we went on our last trip to Rio de Janeiro, Brasil. We left Saturday night from the Villa around 11 pm and set for Buenos Aires. I sat with Ashley and we were about to fall asleep when James and some other people near the middle of the bus decided to have a rap war. Needless to say, there was no sleep on that 6 hour bus ride.

We finally made it to the airport around 4:30 am and waited...and waited. We sat around, talked, played solitaire and I tried paloma jerkey aka pigeon jerkey. I had no intention of trying pigeon meat since I hate those birds, but Jamel and Paul found it quite amusing to force it in my mouth. It was gross. But hey! When in Argentina right?

After about 2 hours of waiting, the check out lines opened. I've never seen so many people in one part of the airport before. We made it to the END of the line on the OTHER side of the airport. Literally, we waited in line for another 2 hours until we got our plane tickets.

We said goodbye to Jonathan Schreven who was going back to Walla Walla for third quarter, and made it through security. We thought we were gonna miss our flight, but we ended up waiting another 2 hours until our plane got in. Got a lot of reading done and learned a couple new vocab words, so I was somewhat productive!

The flight was nice. I sat next to Jamel and Ashley, we all passed out during the flight and almost safely arrived in Rio. I swear the runway was about 10 ft long 'cause as soon as we landed, the pilot put the brakes on HARDCORE. It was a beautiful day and I was excited to finally be in Brasil.

We made it to the hotel and checked in, which also took forever. Our hotel was literally right on the beach. It was beautiful. ACA took us to this buffet, which we pigged out and succumbed to a nap. Chelsea and I roomed together. We had to share a bed and our A/C didn't work for the first couple days.

The first day, ACA took us on a city tour of Rio de Janeiro and then had the rest of the day free. Us girls decided to hit up the beach, where we played in the water and soaked up the sun. We had the next day off so we stayed up all night. The girls went out to the beach with some other ACA people while I stayed in my room and ended up talking to Jamel until 5 am.

We all slept in until about noon then went to find lunch and head back to the beach. We spent the rest of the day at the beach with our guy friends, playing in the ocean and playing volleyball. Watching Paul and Adam frolick around in the sand and the water, was a fun way to end the night on the beach. Chelsea and I went with the guys to this chicken place and ate. It was good. They had the most delicious dessert I've had in a while.

We ended up staying up late that night again talking to people in our room withOUT A/C mind you.

The next morning we got up and made our way to Jesus. It sounds funny, but I don't know how else to put it. In Rio, there is a huge statue of Jesus up on a mountain and we went to see it. We took a train up the mountain. That ride was rather boring. We climbed 220 steps and took pictures for an hour. It was awesome to say that I've been there as well. The train ride down was so much more entertaining. A band got on our train and played music for us. My lovely classmates would yell out names of girls that would dance with the lead singer...I was one of those lucky girls. Why my name was yelled and everyone thought I should dance, I have no idea, but I boggied down for a bit and had some fun. Then Sandra, one of teachers went up..That was entertaining. :)

They took us to a restaurant. Another buffet. It was good, no the chicken was DELICIOUS. Half way through, the lights went out. So after being stuffed full of food, i took a small siesta because we still had half the day. After lunch, they took us to Sugar Loaf, which is a beautiful site. It came with more waiting and by this time we were all ready to just be back in the hotel and chill.

We finally got back to the hotel and were starving so we went to find food. Chelsea, Elisa, Paige and I found Domino's. We chowed that pizza down like non other. I don't think you all realize how much I miss American food. Anyways, once we got back we got a phone call that changed our lives. We were gonna go out on the town and check the night life out. So 10 of us girls, showered and quickly got ready and made our way to this samba club. That was a blast.

We slept in and then checked out around noon. We walked around town to buy stuff for ourselves, families and friends and then headed to the airport. We waited some more and then finally found ourselves on our way back to Argentina. A lot of people stayed in Buenos Aires for spring break so the bus back was quite empty. We finally got back to the la UAP around 6 in the morning.

Brasil is a beautiful country and since my visa doesn't expire for 10 years, I would love to go back and visit it, Lord willing!