Halfway Up the Stairs

Hey Y'all,
     Happy Halfway Day! I've officially been here 160 days today and I have 160 more to go until I return home. In honor of Halfway Day I'm posting about my recent vacation and then I'm sharing some exciting news that I hinted at in my Christmas post. So here we go....

My family and I spent six days at a family apartment near the beach. The beach was beautiful. We drove there, unpacked, and immediately headed to the beach. We were joined by our family friends who have kids my sisters ages; a 16 year old son and an 11 year old daughter. All ten of us were staying in a three bedroom apartment about five blocks from the beach. On the second day we went to the beach around ten am and stayed until about two. The brazilians preferred to stay on the beach and chill but Germany and I took off into the water. Germany decided to take over mom duty and remind me to apply sunblock every hour and when I rolled my eyes at her, like I do my regular mom, she took to spraying me with it when I was distracted. Despite the sneaky German's tactics I got horribly sunburned. I was bright red! I was sunburned everywhere; my back and shoulders, my legs and hips, and my face. It's by far the worst sun burn I've ever had in my life. It started with two days of mind numbing pain where it hurt to move. Then it bubbled. Horrible bubbles all over my front and back. Giant shudder inducing bubbles. Then came peeling. So the third and fourth day of vacation were spent with me hiding out in the apartment, avoiding all sunlight, and trying to remain as still as possible. Did I mention we had no wifi? I'm pretty sure I've now seen the Veronica Mars movie a hundred times. No joke. The fifth day i ventured to the beach again, this was after pain but before bubbles. I thought I was home free. Ha! I spent my time at the beach playing in the waves, drinking coconuts, and I bought knock off Ray Ban Aviators. It was a great day. The next day I bubbled. I bubbled hard. We went to the aquarium in the morning. It was sad to see how tiny the animal's cages are. Then we went back to the beach to ride a banana boat and a spinny boat. Germany literally shoved a t-shirt over my head and told me to deal with it and that I would NOT be making my sunburn worse. The banana boat was a fun if mellow ride but the spinny boat... well let's just say Mama, Auntie, and my youngest sister jumped off early. I was tempted to but was too stubborn to give in. The ride goes like this, this large disk like float is placed at an angle so we're all falling and gripping onto the handrails. The boats pulls us which causes all the passengers to flop around and fall all over each other and just generally get sick. Three people were tossed off of the one that went before us. I was determined to hold on despite the fact that I had a giant headache and being thrown around was definitely not helping. But I'm American and I had to represent. So we all spun around and cursed like sailors before being tossed into the ocean. We went back to the apartment and I took a nap to clear my headache while Saint Germany packed our bag, bless her. Finally, it was time to go.

The horrid spinny boat. If only we knew
what we were getting into.

Germany and me. I am not amused.

If you read my Christmas & New Years post you probably noticed that Germany spent both holidays with us and now went on vacation with us. Have you guessed the good news? The family has expanded to include one insane German who dances and sings Glee too much! The week before Christmas she came over for a normal sleepover when her host mother suggested she spend the weekend. This seemed a bit suspect to all of us but I shrugged it off until my host mother pulled me aside to ask how I would feel about her being my roommate for a month with us until she found a new family. I told her that of course that was fine with me. Germany's host parents were having issues and thought it would be best if she was moved to a new family while they try and work it out. She was quickly packed up and moved into our home. I'll admit that I was unsure at first how this would go. I'd only been with this family less than two weeks. I still wasn't completely sure of my place in our home. Would they like her more? Would I be slowly pushed to the side? Was it possible that she'd stay and I'd be shuffled off to a new family? Would she use all my mascara? The answer to one of these is yes but my mom sent me more mascara for Christmas so it's ok. We slowly but surely found our footing as a family with four daughters. My parents are saints for taking both of us in and immediately making us feel part of the family. Even our Aunts & Uncles, cousins, and grandparents instantly welcomed us to the family with Christmas presents and concern about our eating or lack of (is this a brazilian habit or just a grandma habit?) Around week three they announced that they were thinking of keeping her by buying a new car big enough to hold all of us. Then this week Germany's counselor called to tell our parents that they'd found a family that wanted to meet her. Our mother responded by saying, "She's my daughter now. She will be staying with us. We bought a car big enough for us all." And that was that. We're keeping the German. Have there been road bumps? Of course! We're currently sharing a full size bed until our two twins get here and I can tell you that she kicks and rolls over on me. (When I get married I'm definitely getting two twin beds.) Our poor father has four daughters and I'm quite certain the estrogen is just too much sometimes. Nobody in the family can tell us apart. We're both tall and blonde which apparently makes us twins, we've both learned to respond to each others names. We're thinking of getting name tags. When AFS asked me if there was anything I wanted in a family I told them I needed a sister. I now have three. Three sisters to share clothes and makeup with. Three sisters to jump on me. Three sisters to gossip with and who go through my stuff and harass me about boys. I'm never ever alone. There's always a sister somewhere. I went from the youngest with one older brother to the oldest with three younger sisters. The differences are astronomical. For example, I can't remember the last time Dave borrowed my clothes or asked me if his butt looked good in those jeans or came into my room at four am (when I was sleeping!) to talk about the latest text from the boy he liked. But at the same time I couldn't borrow his clothes, okay just his sweatshirts, and he refused to tell me whether my butt looked good in my jeans, and if I woke him up at four to talk about a boy he'd kill me. I'm excited to see my only brother in 160 days but it breaks my heart to think of leaving my three beautiful, wonderful, deranged sisters. If I could just get Germany to stop singing Glee it would all be perfect. Welcome to the family Germany! 

A Merry Christmas and A Happy New Years

I hope y'all had an amazing New Years! It's hard to believe it's already 2015. The year I turn 18. The year I go to college. 2014 was an amazing year and I know 2015 will only be better! For Christmas, my family had a huge party! Brazilians celebrate Christmas on Christmas eve so we had the whole family over and Santa even came over.

The whole family.

Germany and me.

The entire extended family.

We ate dinner around ten and opened presents at midnight. It was a wonderful night and I got many awesome presents from my generous family.

Next was New Years eve! It's tradition to wear white for a new start (I think...) and what color your underwear is is what you're wishing for in the New Year. We drank champagne and watched fireworks.

Family!

I hope you all had a wonderful Christmas and New Years! Tchau! 

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!