this is me

and mixed feelings about coming home...i have definitely gotten much better at portuguese, and i think a couple more weeks here would make a big difference...but i´m really ready to get back to my life in DC too. I will upload my pictures when i get home and send you guys all more info about the last week of my trip!

one to go. i think i´m making decent progress - definitely feeling moore comfortable speaking, and i went out with Priscila and some of her friends last night and they all said i speak really well...hopefully i´ll make the most of my next 5 days of class. i emailed the director to see if it was possible to put me in a class with more of a focus on speaking, rather than just grammar out of the book that i can pretty much learn on my own, so we´ll see. the challenge of being in a small class is that if one person doesn´t understand, or is slower, it holds everyone back...and i feel like the class isn´t as fast paced as i want it to be. nonetheless, it has been a good investment! it´s been a rainy week, but i have wandered Rio´s downtown a bunch. the one afternoon it was actually sunny i hadn´t brought my bikini, and since i take a bus and then a ferry ride across the bay to get home, which takes about an hour, i decided to just sit at a table on the beach at Copacabana, drink a bee...

more than just alliteration...it really is beautiful. i wonder if it is the hilliest country in the world (or if hilliest is a word, for that matter). despite an 8+ hour car ride that should have been maybe 3 from the beach to the airport yesterday, the scenery has been gorgeous -- the beach i stayed in near Ubatuba was very secluded, not super touristy since it´s so hard to get to and i´d guess you have to have some money to rent a house there...we stayed at a house of Flavia´s family friends that they´ve known all their lives which is about a 2 minute walk to the beach. It was fairly rainy for most of the time i was there, but i managed to get some funky tanlines none the less....i´ll be sure to share pictures when i can. seriously, that´s the one thing i really want to avoid each time and i always end up getting them. i did buy a brazilian bikini...but the least skimpiest you might ever find. here even hugely overweight women walk down the beach wearing next to nothing, and no o...