one week of class down,

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 beer, and do my Portuguese homework. :) it wasn´t as touristy as i had expected, but it was a Thursday, so i´m sure things look different today. Friday one of the profesors took some of us on a tour of a monastery and the Cultural Center of the Banco of Brasil, which has some cool exhibitions. even 3 years after traveling all over Europe, i still feel kinda burnt out on visiting churches and museums...but it was good to go. :)Edna (Priscila´s mom) told me there´s a fun artesan fair in Ipanema on Sundays, so i´m hoping to head over there.
as far as night life, tuesday night i went out with the family to celebrate Edna´s birthday - a lot of places here have what they call ´rodizio´, where you pay a flat fee and they bring various kinds of pizza and pasta to your table throughout the whole meal. they have dessert pizzas too, with various kinds of chocolate and fruit...yum. it was fun to be out with a big group. wednesday and thursday were low key nights - we watched Brazilian novelas on tv and relaxed. last night i went out with Priscila and one of her friends to the main strip in Niteroi, where we met up with a couple other people and just sat at an outdoor bar, ate, drank, and talked - it was fun. i think some of us are going to a club next wednesday, so hopefully i get a taste of brazilian dance then. most of the people my age speak some english or spanish, so it´s been fun using all 3 langugages to try to get my point across. today i slept in (getting up at 6:30 has NOT agreed with me) and went to the beach down the street to read for a bit before lunch. not sure what we´ll do tonight, but i´m just enjoying relaxing!

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