Her name is Rio and she dances on the sand

Hey Y'all,
So for those of you who haven't hear I've moved families. I lived with an amazing family and they were wonderful to me and I have a great deal of love for them. My new family is wonderful! I have two sisters that attend my school. One is 15 and the other is 11. We also have two wonderful parents, a pool, and two labrador retrievers. They're a fantastic family!
                                                                                                                                                              

How do I describe Rio? Hmmmm.... Amazing? Beautiful? A better version of California? It's pretty much all of those things. I LOVED it. If there's any city I could see myself living in,here in Brazil, it's Rio. It's very chill and relaxed, very clean, and just absolutely gorgeous. I visited Rio with Germany, Italy 1 & Italy 2, Hungary, Yoda, and a German boy from German 1's city joined us. We only spent three days there unfortunately, but we did get a lot done.

We started by visiting Sugarloaf Mountain. The whole mountain was clearly a giant tourist trap and was covered in stores but that didn't detract from the breathtaking views.

Ah-Mazing! To keep to our tourist agenda, can you guess what we saw next? Christ the Redeemer! We took a little train like thing up there and the views were awe inspiring. I was sitting behind German boy and across from Germany. We were all holding a conversation but since they both spoke German the conversation kept getting switched to German, leaving me sitting there nodding and looking confused. The man sitting next to me nudged me and said, "Why are they talking in German but you're talking in English?" I looked a lot like the Germans. Once up there we proceeded on to take a million goofy pictures and of course the required Christ photo.

We also had the opportunity to attend a fuetbol game. Brazilian fans are crazy! They were waving their flags, jumping on their streets, and screaming at everything. 

These are some of the highlights of Rio. I had an amazing time and I'm hoping to go back in the Spring to make even more wonderful memories. Tchau!

Bye Bye Bonito

Hey Y'all,
So instead of breaking up the next few days and prolonging this story I'm going to cram the last of my trip into this end post (#SorryNotSorry), but seriously people I still have the Rio trip to catch you up on so lets make this short and snappy. As they say, "A picture is worth a thousand words."

Activity 1) We did what was probably my favorite activity of the whole trip and went snorkeling! The fish and scenery were beautiful and I got to do it with my best friends on the trip.

 

Activity 2) Rafting. Rafting was so so. I've been spoiled with rafting. I started when I was six and so now I'm used to huge, giant, mind blowing rapids and these were little bitty rapids. There are no pictures but you're not missing anything cause I looked bored in all of them.

Activity 3) Scuba diving! This was an optional activity that only eight people participated in. Canada encouraged me to come do it with her and I'm so glad I did. I had a tiny panic attack at the beginning but overcame it. There wasn't much to see but that was probably for the best cause I was concentrated on my breathing the whole time. 

New profile pic?

Final Activity 4) Hiking down into caves. The cave was gorgeous and the big deal about it was because the water down there was amazingly blue. Just the most beautiful blue! Unfortunately, we were so deep down that I had a tough time taking pictures. 

Sorry for the crappy pics but I assure you it was gorgeous. 

 

So there we go. Those were the fantastic activities that we did during my trip. The activities were fun and kept us on the go the whole time. The best part of the trip were the amazing friends I made! I now have people to visit in Australia, Canada, Belgium, France, Zimbabwe, and so many more. I'm so glad that I was able to be a part of this wonderful group and get the chance to meet these fantastic people. It was horribly sad to say good bye to everyone and everyone was crying but I'm still in touch with my friends and I know I'll get to see them again and we'll have more adventures.

Tchau for now!

I Kissed Claro

Hey Y'all,
The day started out with a nice long hike in the mountains. A nice, long, grueling hike straight up a mountain. Just how I like to start my day at 6am. Thankfully, we got to stop and swim in seven waterfalls.

   

The views were amazing and it was an adventure to swim through the waterfalls. We were also able to jump off the top of one waterfall into it. It was fantastic! After hours of trekking in the jungle and swimming, we loaded back up into the van to drive to a snake sanctuary. Yuck! Canada and I decided to sit in the back and slink down low but our plan was foiled by the counselors who made everyone sit up front. The man that owned the sanctuary is a former exchange student who fell in love with snakes when he was in Australia.It was exciting to hear how one moment in his exchange changed his whole life. He kept insisting that snakes were awesome and of course due to a life time of prejudice my thoughts sound like, "Liar, liar, pants on fire!" As you can see this trip has clearly matured me. But this man is insisting that snakes are neither good or bad and that these snakes are trained and won't hurt us. He told us that no one who had come here had left without holding a snake, ever. Challenge accepted. I was not going to be the first person too scared to hold a snake. 

Our wonderful host, Claro, and the man holding him.

The snake is kissing me.

Australia and me

I,of course, found the one cat
wandering around the sanctuary. 

So not only did I let this boa constrictor wrap itself around my neck, I decided to be one of the few brave people to let him kiss me. Claro was dangled in front of my face and started "kissing" me. Crazy! It was a blast getting to swim in all the waterfalls and being kissed by a snake was definetly an experience. Tchau for now!

My Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day

Hey Y'all,
      Sorry for the lack of updates but things have been hectic here. For this blog post I'm going back to October 31st which was my first day in Bonito and what goes down in history as my most embarrassing day ever. Ever. It was painful and for your viewing enjoyment I'm going to relieve it all. Every humiliating detail. Here we go...
                                                                                                                                                                   

My day started at the ungodly hour of six am. I'm exhausted and we all pile in to our luxury bus to head out for our day activities. After a drive, that was unfortunately too short for sleep, we arrive once again in the middle of no where. Theres one of those small vans, the kind associated with either hippies or child abductors, waiting for us. I and five others pile into this strange van that might be taking us to our death and off we go. It was another small drive right up a bumpy hill. It's important for everyone to know that I'm not graceful. I don't have a single graceful bone. I'm just clumsy through and through but this really took the cake. I'm the last person to exit our hippie van and the young good looking driver is holding the door open for me, so what do I do? I get tangled in a seat belt, cut my leg on a sharp part of the seat, bang my knee into the door, and trip and fall, literally, on my face. Yep... I had a large bleeding cut and a bruise on my leg all just from getting out of a car.

Activity one of the day is a canopy walk. Now, I'm afraid of heights but I'm also picturing a nice bridge like structure over the top of the trees for us to stroll on. I could totally handle something like that. Wrong. It was an obstacle course in the trees. An obstacle course complete with trees to use as steps, walking on long thin poles that swing , and a net to climb. I made it through eight of the activities before I started crying big fat crocodile tears and then shaking. One of our leaders was able to convince me to do two more activities before I had a panic attack. I was shaking so hard it looked like I was vibrating, crying huge sobs, and hyperventilating. One of the guides had to take me back but since I hadn't made it far enough to be repelled down I had to turn back and redo the part I'd already completed. During this trip back, the guide walked backwards to hold the obstacles steady since I was shaking so much, I started dry heaving, and at one point I was crouched down clutching a tree and whimpering. He dropped me off on the ground and went to catch up with the others and left me to my own devices in the forest. So of course I sat down and cried for an hour before calling my mother. It was not a proud moment. Only one other person didn't finish. Heights suck.

Don't I look so naive and innocent? Poor child.

I'm the second girl. You can't tell but as this picture was being taken
I was telling the photographer that if he didn't stop shaking the ladder I would
murder him painfully. Canada translated for me. He looked a little scared of me after that. 

Second Activity was archery. Nothing big happened here. No panic attacks here. I won't be the next Katniss Everdeen but I wasn't terrible either.

The photographer probably wouldn't be too happy to see me with a weapon.

Third activity was tubing. This one was my favorite by far but there was still a little humiliation to be had. We walk out there and are preparing to get in our tubes and the man in charge has told us to belly flop onto them (he's clearly Satan). Canada tried to belly flop on but didn't get the right distribution and  went flying into the water. Since I'm such a great best friend I'm standing on the little dock laughing my butt off because what else are friends for? As I'm laughing the man tells me to get on my but I'm still laughing and now I'm also walking so of course I trip over a step and go face first into the water and on to my tube. The distribution was, unsurprisingly, wrong so I go flying into the water. Did I mention there was a photographer there to capture this wonderful moment? Yep...Frame by frame.

As the photographer took it I said,
 "Do you think I want a picture of this?!"

So overall the day involved a lot of humiliation and threatening photographers. As embarrassing as it was I still enjoyed the da, minus the canopy walk. Overall I had fun with most of the activities and now I know to keep my feet firmly on the ground. Tchau!