The Last Night

Yet again, not much was on the schedule for the day. I woke up around 10:30 and took a shower and started thinking about what I would pack where, and where everything was. Ana walked in the door a little bit later on her lunch break, saying that she needed to go to the mall, so she asked if I would like to come along. I said sure, and we headed out. She needed to get some pictures developed and some special edits done to some, so we did that, and that took about an hour. While I was waiting I ran into Yago, Blake, Michael, and Andre. We said hi and talked for a little bit but they had to go and pack, just like me. Once Ana was done at the photo place, we walked around the mall in case I wanted to pick up any last minute things. Nothing caught my eye, but we stopped into a little grocery store so I could  buy some snacks for the trip home. We bought some chips and chocolate and headed out. I knew that I would need to get going on packing so I was a little anxious. Once we got home, I started gathering all of my things and placing them in the correct suitcase. Once everything was in, the weigh-in was due to happen. I weighed the big bag, my checked bag, and hoped that it would be under 50 pounds. The scale beeped and as I dared to peek at it, it read 59.25 lbs. Well, that was a problem.

I called my mom and thought about what we could do, and we came up with a solution. I must buy another cheap bag, and put 15 pounds of clothes or other stuff in it from the big bag. I would check my two bags, and then have Nikki (who was only checking 1 bag) check my other bag under her name. I didn't have time to figure out what bag I was going to use or when I would have enough time to get it, because we had to head off to the sleepover. I left a note on Ana's bed that explained the whole situation.

The sleepover was a blast! We all arrived, one by one to Julia and Mileah's house. It is a very nice house, three stories! We hung out for a while playing Guitar Hero and watching soap operas in portuguese, but that got old after a while. Finally, at about 2:30, we decided to put in Harry Potter. I have managed to see this Harry Potter probably about 6 times throughout the duration of the trip, but I gritted my teeth and watched it. Well, more like slept through it.

The movie was finally over at around 4:30, and some people wanted to go to sleep. Bruce organized the boys to go in one room and girls in another, and we instantly fell asleep.

We were all woken up about 10, which seemed like 5 because we had gone to bed so late. We cleaned up everything and had one last Brazilian breakfast. What an unforgettable last night in Brazil...

A Farewell

I woke up this morning around 10. Ana had already left for work and Marcelo was working on something at the table, so I got on the computer. We didn't really do anything all day until about 7:00 tonight, which was when we headed to the farewell party. When we drove up I could hardly believe that it was a farewell party, it made ours look much worse. It was held at one of those kids fun places, with the little rides and trampolines. In the main room it was all dark and there was a DJ at one end of the room. There was a fog machine going which highlighted the green lasers perfectly. We all rode the rides and danced for a few hours, and it was a great farewell party. There was lots of loud music, dancing, it was unreal. Then all the lights came on and we did the new version of the candlelight ceremony. There was a ball of string, which started at one person, in this case, Mileah. She would say what about this experience she enjoyed and what impacted her, and then she would throw it to somebody else. This process would continue until everybody had gone, each holding on the the string. It created a dreamcatcher, held together by all of us. It was clever, really, and thanks to Bruce and Maria for the idea of the dreamcatcher. We can truly catch dreams now...

Rio - The Real Deal

4:00 am-Everybody involved in the interchange arrives at Kathe and Nikki's house to get on the bus to Rio de Janeiro (River of January). And I thought that 7:00 was a bad time. I don't think that I even remember anything that happened in the morning, just after we woke up. Every single person on the bus fell asleep within the first 10 minutes of the bus ride. I was one of the first people to wake up in the morning so I listened to my iPod for a bit. It was very cool to recognize some landmarks and buildings as we were driving into Rio. When I came to Brazil last February with Colorado Children's Chorale, Rio de Janeiro was my favorite place, and we got a very informational tour, and I have remembered a lot.

As we were driving into the city, I pointed out the Christ the Redeemer statue standing with open arms on the top of Corcovado mountain.

Our fist stop for the day was the Christ the Redeemer statue. We all got off of the bus and got in line to get tickets to go take the Trem de Corcovado, the train that takes us up to the top of the mountain. It is about a 20 minute ride, so we bought our tickets and got on the train. When we got to the top, there are exactly 220 stairs (Blake counted) to get to the top point of Corcovado. The view from the top is magnificent. You can see all of Rio and all of Guanabara bay, which is beautiful in every aspect. The statue is breathtaking. It stands so high above our head and watches over the city, it is hard to look up to the top of it it is so tall. We all gawked around for a while and then headed back down the stairs to enjoy some fresh juice and peruse the shops. I found some nice souvenirs and then we headed back down. We got back in the bus and headed for downtown Rio. We drove along Copacabana and Ipanema beaches, both of which are very famous. The sidewalk at Copacabana was pointed out to us-it is one of the most famous sidewalks in the world. We enjoyed some lunch, buffet style, with Guarana of course. We walked to Copacabana and had the chance to walk on the sand and stick our feet in the water, and then it was back on the bus.

It turns out that Rio de Janeiro is a candidate to host the 2016 summer olympics. There was an area that we bought a ticket to that had information about it and some shops that would help pick Rio to host the olympics. We went to a ferris wheel that could give us an amazing view of all of the city. We got on and took in the amazing view. The ride only lasted a few minutes, but it was fun. We walked back to the bus and then drove around Rio for a while. We got to see a lot of the local areas and just see the city. After that we headed to Sugarloaf mountain. 

To get to the top of sugarloaf you have to take a gondola to a smaller mountain, and then another gondola from there to Sugarloaf. We got our tickets and headed up. We didn't spend any time at the first mountain because time was crunched. The view from the top of Sugarloaf is truly breathtaking. You can see everything, even Christ the Redeemer. We hung out at the top for probably about an hour or so. What we were really waiting for was the sunset, and it was truly worth the wait. The view of the entire Guanabara bay, seeing all the beaches and the mountains, and Christ the Redeemer, all silhouetted against an orange sky, it is simply incredible. We all snapped some nice pictures, but no matter how hard we tried, nothing could capture the breathtaking view of this gorgeous city.

We were pried back down the mountain, and then we headed for the bakery to snack on some cheese bread and Guarana, which we inhaled. We all got on the bus, and some of us stayed up and some fell asleep. 

Around 11, we stopped at a mall about halfway back to São Jose for some dinner. We all woke up and realized we were hungry. We shoveled in some food, bought some snacks and hit the road again. This time, almost everybody instantly fell asleep. What seemed like 20 minutes later, we all were woken up by the lights of the bus, back in São Jose. We all cleaned up the bus and headed home and crashed. More tomorrow...

National Night

It seems like everything here in Brazil has been late. We arrived at Carol's apartment building 2.5 hours late to start planning for the USA national night. And that was only the boys-the girls and Bruce arrived almost 45 minutes after that. Before the girls arrived, the boys began preparing the dessert-toffee. Blake had brought his favorite recipe so we got started on that. We had some difficulty getting all of the measurements correct because here in Brazil they don't use cups, so we had to do some conversions. The ovens here don't have specific temperature markings, just a temperature dial for hotter or cooler. The first batch didn't turn out very well-we didn't have any Pam cooking spray and the oven was way too hot, but the next batch turned out delicious!

Once everybody else arrived we split up into one group for cooking and another for decorating. I was assigned to decorating, so I went upstairs and Bruce busted out the decorations and games. I set my sights on finding how to hang a 100 foot plastic banner with red white and blue streamers coming off of it. At first we tried to put it around the edge of the room, but there was already another group putting up another one that looked the same there. And suddenly, I had an idea. We duct-taped the end of the streamer to a full water bottle and threw it out the window. After navigating it away from people under us's balconies and TV dishes, we tied it to the window frame and went to see how close it was. It was probably only about 10 feet too short from reaching the ground, and that makes sense seeing as that we were on the 11th floor and the streamer was 100 feet long.

All was well until the wind picked up. Because of the sudden high winds and the large amount of surface area for the wind to catch on, the banner went around the corner of the building. It managed to get itself caught in some cables and hooks on the side of the building and then break. Bruce said that before we were allowed to leave the building, it had to come down, so Michael and I headed down the elevator looking for a solution. We went to where the bottom of it was and glanced over to some private storage units where we spotted the bottom of a ladder. We ran over to the ladder and took it off its hook and placed it on the side of the building. Michael held the bottom while I climbed up the ladder, barely reaching the bottom of the water bottle. I grabbed it, and luckily it came loose very easily. As I was climbing down from the ladder, we glanced over and saw the security guard walking in our direction, so we quickly put the ladder away, grabbed the streamer and ran to the elevator. We made it back upstairs just in time to finish up setting up all of the games and decorations.

After finishing up some last minute things, everybody arrived. We had some games and appetizers for people to entertain themselves as we were waiting for everybody to arrive. Once everybody arrived, we all got into our costumes. We explained what they were and what they represented in the United States and then gave a preview of what we would be doing. We all did the Cha Cha Slide in our costumes and then had everybody enjoy some macaroni and cheese that Nikki and Gen had prepared from scratch. Everybody loved it, and then we hit the games. Everybody loved all of them! We played them for a couple of hours and hung out until about 10:30 when we all started to get tired and thought that it was about time that we were heading home. We cleaned up the mess that we had made in the kitchen, took down all of the decorations, and headed out. We all wanted to get our sleep because we would have to get up early for Rio tomorrow...

Beach Paradise

It looked like the trend of waking up early had become more of a regular event. I don't necessarily know if I see that as a good thing, but it was a nice change from waking up at 1:00, as nice as that was. We woke up around 8:30 and somehow planned to get to Yago and Andre's house around 9. Bruce had come to spend the night because he though it would be easier for Maria not to have to drive him to Yago's because Maria and the girls weren't planning on leaving until later in the afternoon. We woke up and Bruce and I took showers, and I double checked my bag to make sure that I hadn't forgotten anything. I didn't see anything crucial that was still sitting in the closet, so I zipped it up and put it next to the front door. We made it to Yago's and talked to his parents for a while and then we headed out towards the Beach.

We were headed to a beach that was a little ways Southwest of Caragua. It took about 1.5 hours to get there, so I listened to my iPod and talked to Michael and Yago. About 20 minutes before we were there, we stopped at a rest stop and looked at a nice waterfall. We took some pictures and then continued heading to the beach house. 

When we got there, it was very nice. There was a nice covered patio where we could hang out, in addition to a beautiful living room and kitchen area. Upstairs was my bedroom, where me, Bruce, Blake, and Michael slept, and the other bedroom for the Brazilians. We all settled in and changed our clothes and headed for the Beach. The beach we went to was about 5 minutes away, and it was beautiful. The waves were fantastic! We went though some that were probably almost 8 feet tall! We enjoyed the water for a couple hours, and I had the chance to enjoy some coconut water, straight from the coconut! We headed home and had some dinner, hung out for the night, and went to sleep. We tried to watch Lord of the Rings, but we all fell asleep and finally everybody but Michael went to bed before the movie was over.

I was the first one to wake up other than Marta and Aldo (Yago and Andre's parents). I walked downstairs to a delicious breakfast spread put out for us. I later learned that this was the way Yago and Andre had been eating every day! There was bread, rolls, cream cheese, butter, jelly, juices of all kinds, cereal, Brigadeiro cake, passion fruit cake, yellow cake with chocolate frosting, everything! We all woke up at different times to enjoy this delicious breakfast. We decided that today we were going to meet the girls so we called the up and we decided that we were going to meet them at the private beach that was part of the place the Kathe lives. We all met there and enjoyed some more waves, all just as good! We stayed there for a few hours and then we all met back at the kind-of clubhouse area for some snacks. We had french fries and I enjoyed some fresh passion fruit juice and strawberry juice with condensed milk. It was all very yummy! We went back to Kathe's house where we immediately jumped into the pool in her backyard. We swam and played games for a while and then had some dinner. Yet again, it was all very delicious. We stayed and hung out for a few more hours and then headed home. One interesting thing that happened while we were there was that a truck drove down the street and behind it a huge fog would appear. There was a rig on the back of the truck that let out huge amounts of insect repellant-like stuff into the air that created a huge fog. It stayed for about 15 minutes.

We headed home and attempted to watch Lord of the Rings 2, and actually did well. We all stayed awake for the whole movie, and it was very good. We all went to bed and got some nice sleep for the next day. We woke up around 10, and enjoyed more breakfast, just the same again! I can't believe that that is how some people eat every day, it is incredible! We headed off back to the beach, the same one we had gone to the first day. We tried to call the girls, but nobody answered their phone so we just had to go alone. We stayed for a couple hours, surfing the waves and enjoying coconut water, and then we headed home. We planed on going to the mall later that night so we all had to get cleaned up before we could go. There was supposedly internet access, but when we got there it was closed for the night. We still had some dinner and then walked over to the cultural center where we looked at some art and the like. We all went home and then watched some TV and late-night movies.

We had to wake up a little earlier than usual because we were planning on leaving in the morning. We all woke up around 8:30 and packed our bags and enjoyed even more breakfast. We packed the cars and headed back. We were supposed to get back at noon so the Americans could plan the national night, but there was some traffic so we didn't get back until about 1:00. Now we are all back and getting ready to meet up again so we can get ready! More to come...

São Paulo

7:00 in the morning is not always the most welcoming time to meet with a group of 13 other sleep-deprived kids, but I guess everything runs a little differently here. Unfortunately, I only got 5 hours of sleep last night because of the differences in wake up times from the day before. I woke up at 6, having to leave the house at 7 for the São Paulo city tour. We all met in front of Nikki's house then and got into our bus and headed off to São Paulo. It is about a 1 hour and 20 minute drive, but I noticed that we kept stopping for Ze to go to the bathroom-maybe 4 or 5 times. I thought that something was probably up unless he had just drank 6 gallons of water. I asked Maria if he was OK and she said that he wasn't feeling at his best, actually worse than less than at his best. He was really nauseous and just didn't feel good all around. When we arrived in São Paulo and got off of the bus to do a walking part of the tour, Marcelo met up with us and took Ze back home, but don't worry, he is feeling fine now. We walked into a Cathedral and through one of the main parts of the city where we ended at a small café. We all got espresso and brigadeiro and had a nice break from walking. We met back up with our bus and then had some time on the bus while we went to another part of the city.

We got out of the bus and I realized that I recognized the buildings. I looked down the street and we were very close to the hotel that I had stayed at when I was in São Paulo previoiusly. I recognized all the buildings, I already have pictures of almost everything in the area! It felt really cool being in the same place I had already been...IN BRAZIL!!! We walked around some more and ended up in a bookstore where I picked up a Dave Matthews Band album and the newest Fall Out Boy CD that just came out. We spent some time in the nice air conditioned bookstore and then walked back outside to brave the heat. We met our bus again close-by and headed for some lunch. I enjoyed a pastel, a sort of deep fried large pocket with cheese and meat inside, and of course, Guarana Antarctica. From there, we drove to a nice park where we sat down and rested for about a half an hour. From there, we went to a local shopping mall where we spent a couple of hours there.

Of course, all of the girls were very excited to get some new clothes, whereas the boys just trudged around and tried on sunglasses. I was going to buy a nice new pair of Oakley Gascans, but I looked down and the price was 500 Reals, YIKES!!! I guess I'll just have to wait to find a better price. We spent lots of time just hanging out and then finally had some dinner and headed back to the bus. Everybody slept on the bus except for me, Nikki, Gen, Blake, and Bruce. We talked about a variety of things, and it was nice to spend more time with them. Unfortunately, when we stepped off the bus Gen came over to me and told me that the happy couple was no more. They had decided that they were going to break up on the bus ride back. I guess they just didn't work, but had some fun while it lasted!

Tomorrow we all head out back to Ubatuba for the beach sleepover. All of the boys are sleeping at Yago's house and the girls at Kathe's. Gen is heading off on a cruise so she won't be there, but I'm sure we can still have some fun! I won't be able to get on and tell you all what is happening, but more to come on the 12th...

The Undead Spider-by Mileah Rayburn

It started with a first sighting, and then came a chain reaction of everyone at the minicamp spotting the giant spiders and their young on the ceilings of the ranch. There was fear in the air. They crawled like...well, they crawled like spiders. But they were the size of large pine cones, dangling above our heads like we were so vulnerable, their legs each moving like they had a mind of their own.  

It wasn’t long before four heroes emerged: Bruce, the leader. Michael, the strange. Blake, the determined. And, Skye, the, umm, well, Skye... Together they hatched a devious plan to rid the minicamp of the spiders once and for all. 

Armed with nothing more than a ladder, a broom, and a can of bug spray, the brave ones set off on their epic quest.

But little did they know that when Bruce climbed the ladder, hundreds of tiny newborn spiders would be poised for the attack. Unfortunately, there were. But, with his amazing wits and quick reaction, Bruce lifted in his hand the only weapon available, and vaporized hundreds in a cloud of poisonous mist. 

Unfortunately, this little move made the largest spider of all very angry, and out it came, hissing and dripping from it’s lengthy fangs a deadly venom. 

But, just as it was ready to attack, Blake threw the can of bug spray with perfect agility and aim to Bruce, and once more, the button was pressed, freezing a half of the spider. 

As the heroes retreated, there was a sudden movement. The creature WASN”T DEAD!

With another swift move, Michael knocked the spider from it’s dangling web with the end of the broom and Skye leaped to the rescue, ending it’s life with a shower of bug spray...again.

But still, IT DIDN”T DIE!

Finally, one last burst of heroism brought the brave ones to a level they’d never hit before. They trapped the spider in a plastic drinking glass and fed it skillfully to another of it’s kind. 

A new found light washed over the camp now. Some cheered, some shivered, some cried. All except for the heroes, who walked off in a cloud of victory to eat their chocolate breakfast cereal. 

(All events depicted in this story are the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth so help me god. This is a true story-it really happened.)