Hey there readers...been awhile hasn't?

Well hello my very dedicated readers! Sorry I haven't updated my blog since I think October? I'm not sure why I haven't updated it so long, I think it's because the brazilian culture has gotten to me. If I haven't talked about it yet, brazilians are very very laid back people. So in turn, it has rubbed off on me and made me neglect my blogging since october. ALOT has happened since the last bloggity blog, I will do a super mega ultra (all of those are portugues words) synopsis. In november and december it was pretty uneventful. a few things here and there, school hanging out with friends and just saying some goodbyes. Then I had brazilian christmas, which was really really cool. I got to watch the christmas play, performed by the little kids of my family, it was pretty fun. Not to mention the food, I do love my food. Then my family and I went to a beach called Guaratuba, it was my first time seeing the ocean so naturally, IT WAS AMAZING! Sorry, just had to get that out, my family here couldn't believe that I had never seen the beach, *cough* *cough* parents. Your fault on that one. But it was really really neat. Not tidy though, like neat cool. hahah grammar jokes. Then in January I stayed home mostly cause I didnt want to go out since I was going on my big trip. End synopsis. I'm on that big trip now!!!! We are in the capital city of the Amazons called Manaus. Its very pretty.. The difference of cultures is very interesting. We have 5 americans, 2 denmarkians, 4 mexicans, 1 guy from the netherlands, 2 canadians, 1 taiwanese, 5 germans. Its a pretty diverse cultures we have going on here. We flew from Bauru to Sao Paulo to Brasilia to Manaus, it was very cool to see all the cities. Sao Paulo is HUGE. I think that we could fit like 3 New Yorks in it. And then Brasilia was different, it was an archeticheual city. When we arrived in Manaus at 2 in the morning, we boarded a boat and slept in hammocks for the night. Then in the morning we embarqued. So for those that live in my state, this "river" is waaaaaayyyy bigger than any lake we have. Nossa, its huge. Not to mention its all freshwater and warm, so its a huge change from all of our cold lakes. Its pretty amazing though, at one point there was a meeting of two rivers, and it looked like black vs. brown. We were on the Rio Negro (black river) and it met the, Ssomething river, which was brown. They created this crazy looking thing of idk like oil meeting mud but it happens because of the diference in the acidites. That same day we saw some pink dolphins, it was outrageous! Dolphins, pink, amazons, woah. Later that day we got to hold sloths, alligators, and anacondas, which was really neat, minus the fact that the anaconda pooped on a canadian and peed on me. Pretty epic if I do say so myself. The next day we went fishing for piranas, snappy snap. Actually it was a really cool experience, I mean you dont get to do that eveyday, unless you live in the amazons..still. Also, people live right on the border of the River. Its crazy! The houses are made of tin and wood and anything else they can basically find on the riverside. It was a different but still a great experience. The next night we went alligator fishing. One of the denmarkians caught one! Pretty cool. Oh, our tour guide was really cool, pretty native. We also got to meet the indians and watch some of their ritual dances. This culture goes way back. After we got back to the city we went to the plaza and one of the two canadians, the guy one, went up to this band and started cheering and then he got to sing "I'm Yours" in front of tons of brazilians, gotta love exchange students! We got a city tour today, and then at 2 in the morning on Wednesday, we are leaving for Fortaleza, a beach up in the northeast region of brazil, and their we commence our northeast tour. This exchange has been amazing.

Until Next Blog Update,
Matt

In the words of Eli "Today".

Today has been pretty legit. I woke up at 10ish and skyped with Jon for 3 hours. That was great, we talked about our exchanges and I met his family and it was really good to see him again. Afterwards I talked with my family at lunch which consisted of rice, and this cream chicken. It was delicious. I love the food here and I'm definitely gonna miss it like none other. After that we watched some game show things and now I'm skyping with Eli Price. He is this dece kid from my district back in Iowa and I guess we sorta are friends. Just messing, haha him and I are good friends and for some reason skype regularly. He is exchanging in Madrid, Spain. I have seen the pictures and it looks hella good! I'm jealous cause he lives in the center of Madrid so he is close to everything as where I live on the outskirst of Marília so it's a bit difficult to get places. A little bit ago, whilst skyping Eli, I spoke with his grandma that's visiting from Uruguay. Since Uruguay is relatively close to Brazil so she speaks Português. So her and I had a good conversation in Portugês and Eli just sat there staring off into the abyss. Eli and I have discovered that we both get forced to eat when we don't want to. In Brazil they kind of shove food in your face and don't really give you that much of a choice if you want to eat it or not. Anyways,  skyping with Eli currently then I think I'm gonna go to a bar with some friends and then to a club afterwards! Should be fun!


Até mais meus amigos!

Sorry for the wait guys!

Ok sorry for not updating this for awhile, I have been busy and lazy. But I am now which is the important part, so all you readers can see what's up in Brazil. Ok so a long time back, probably around 2 or 3 weeks, I went to a Brazilian rodeo with Travis and Natasha. It was pretty annoying in my opinion. It's like rodeos in the US except they speak Portuguese and have different food. I guess it was kinda cool to see people getting bucked off horses and bulls and watching some of the crazy people in the crowd such as this guy carrying a stroller for a baby over peoples heads hoping to put it someplace. There was no place to put it, there were 35,000 people there. Oh well. After the rodeo we went to Natasha's relatives house and stayed there till 5 in the morning and that was probably more fun the the rodeo, go figure. Since the rodeo I have just been hanging out with friends, going to school learning Portuguese, going to parties, the normal Brazilian thing. It's been really fun though! I love churrascos here. Churrascos are BBQs and they are delicious and fun. Tons of people come to them and you eat and drink and usually swim and play soccer. Its pretty epic and the US doesn't have it so I'm gonna miss them alot when I return. So a new transportation that I have been using recently besides buses are MotoTaxi's. I use them when the buses stop running, which is after 12am. They are easily put, scary as hell. They will take you anywhere in the city for about R$8 which is more or less $4. So that's really cheap but you are betting your life everytime you ride one. Haha just kidding...sorta. They just get you to your destination as quick as possibly even if that means swerving in between cars or running lights or taking streets you didn't know existed at "fun" speeds. Main thing is they are nice to have. I love the food down here. I thought I was gonna hate it cause they eat rice, beans, and some meat everyday but it's still really good after 2 months! Also the dessert here is divine. Some of my favorite desserts are pastel de brigaderio, brigadeiro, white chocolate cake and many many more but all delicious! Last weekend my friend Taly's Dad's friend has a chaqara, which is a farm, and we went there for the day and it was absolutely beautiful. There was a pond and palm trees and it was just what you pictured Brasil as, there should be some pictures of it around this area. Tonight I'm going to my friend's churrasco and tomorrow I'm going clubbing! Woo! Clubs are awesome here, I will take some pictures tomorrow and post them with the next post! The Club I'm going to is called St. Jame's Pub and there are 3 clubs in Marilia, St. James, Unik, and Berlin. All really fun! The second week of November my cousin, Mariana, is taking Travis and I to São Paulo for the week! I'm so excited! We are gonna get to see the city in the week and on the weekend we are going to the beaches! Plus in November also, Harry Potter 7 comes out down here and a bunch of my friends and I are going to see it so I'm psyched about November. I wish there was a way to put up a album of pictures on here in case you read this and don't have facebook, I wil try to find a way but if not, check out my photo's on facebook! Ok that's all for now and I will try to be more diligent about updating this! Tchau meus amigos! Até  mais! :D

Brasil thus far! As of last post!

Sorry rapazes e moças! I have been very busy and neglecting my blog updating! Well when was the last time I updated? I don't remember,  I just kept putting it off. Brazil is getting to me with their "amanha" saying, which basically means "I will do it later." Well I will just go off of what I put up on facebook, pictures that is, ya'll should check them out! Ok so last Friday(?) I went with my friend Eduardo to a party, it was awesomely fun! Then that Sunday, I went to a REAL Brazilian futebol (soccer) game with my good friend Travis Ambrose. He is also an exchange student from the USA if I hadn't mentioned already. That was really fun! Brazilians take their soccer seriously! Then this week, I have gone to school and hung out with some good friends I have made! So today and yesterday, I hung out with Travis, Taly ( a girl from my school) and Samantha (an exchanger from New Zealand but not with Rotary) and we just walked around town both days, it was pretty fun! Today we went to the mall and had some suco (juice but outrageously good) and pastel de brigadeiro, probably my new favorite dessert! After that we went to these supermarkets, Tauste and another one that I can never remember the name of! But we decided to be weird in Tauste and take some pictures with mannequins. That was a bad idea for trying to stay "normal and fit in". We had a crowd of about 15 people watching us intensely, it was hilarious! After that we went outside and were sitting on the grass and this security guard, the third one that day from various stores, said that we had to get off the grass cause we could "hurt it". Oh boy, the really care about their grass here! Well today was awesome and I'm lovin it here!

Tchau and until next post my followers!
Até Mais! :D  

Segundo de Setembro

Ah! Today was a great day! Let's start out with school. Today I went and visited my friend Eduardo's school called Colegio de Creativo. It was awesome! I made many new friends and had a really good time! After school Eduardo, Travis (another exchange student from the USA), Barbara, Karina and I went to Esmeralda, a shopping center in Marilia, and ate lunch. After that we went and got ice cream and explored downtown and had tons of fun! I put many pictures up on facebook if you want to see! This weekend Eduardo is taking the exchange students around town at night time! It should be fun!

Tchau meu amigos! :D

Rotary Weekend

Rotary meetings here are much better than our Rotary meetings in America!!! It was really fun this weekend! Every foreign exchange student in our district met up in a city called Salto Grande. I met many people and made a lot of new friends. I found three other exchange students that are living in my city so I'm going to meet up with them soon! On the first day of the meeting it was pertty boring but it got better as the days went on. The second day was a free day so we all just hung out and swam and did other fun stuff. My friends from Taiwan brought a lot of tattoos so a bunch of us went around and got about 60 people to have Taiwanese flags on their foreheads ahahah. That night we had a festa de junho, which is essentially a shotgun wedding party. It was amazingly fun! We did redneck brasillian dances and ate good food! On sunday we all went home with an addiction to guarana, a extremely tasty soda in Brasil!

Tchau amigos!

2nd Day!

Ah so much to talk about! lets start with the plane rides, from Des Moines to Atlanta the lady next to me puked :S and then from Atlanta to Sao Paulo was long and I only slept 3 hours. But when I got to Brasil, around 8 in the morning, it was awesome! Sao Paulo doesn't smell that great but it was really fun! We went to 25 de Marco, a famous street in Sao Paulo, it was crazy, awesome, crowded, and really cool all at the same time! Everything there was so cheap! I wanted to buy so much but I restrained myself haha. I tried my first Brazilian food at the top of a shopping mall in Sao Paulo, it was great! Salty but still really good! I think my favorite food so far is pão de queijo, check it out, it's really good! We then drove home to my city, Marília and I went straight to bed! The next day I moved into my room and then learned some portuguese and then Lu made stroganof, it was very tasty! Played poker with my family and Lu's boyfriend then made some American chocolate chip cookies! It has been awesome so far! I'm off to Salto Grande tomorrow for a Rotary meeting. Won't get back till sunday and I have my first day of school on monday! I probably will not post again until next week so its bye for now and I miss you all! Tcahu amigos!