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!