Preparation

It's been some time since I last wrote… There's many things that have happened in the past few months… I've finished school, two new americans have come to São João, and I've decided to tour Brazil one last time before I go back to the states. I find it interesting that overtime that I preemptively write for my blog, I'm sitting in a bus between some town in one place and an exotic city in another; today, I'm on my way to Iguaçu. I guess maybe, like the rest of my blogs, I'll start at the beginning, I'll start from São joão.

it's a Friday night tonight. Most Friday nights are full of parties and going to the bar or drinking in the streets, especially these days as the two new Americans (Kayla and David) have come to stay in the same house as me. This Friday night however is a little different, I decide to try to keep it quite for the next 432 hours of my life will be almost excessively intense (Not to mention I have to stay up until 4:30 a.m. to pick up yet another American(Jose) format he bus station). David, Diego, and I go out for a few drinks at the bar but after a few hours they realize that drinking and staying up just wasn't going to happen for them: they crash out, I watch the first half of Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. When I arrive at the bus station (4:45 a.m. July 17) I find it, well I guess after being here a year, not surprisingly weird anymore. The crazy woman outside talking to herself and walking in circles, the taxi guys kind of snickering to themselves about who knows what. You see some families half asleep eater waiting for there bus to go home or waiting for loved ones to return; I take a seat and begin to ponder how long Jose will be late this morning or if he had already come and just walked to my place. After a good 45 minutes of sitting, standing, walking around, smoking, breathing, and waiting, he finally arrives. With a goofy grin on his face, we set off back to my place by foot. We catch up, talking politics and social life. At around 6ish, when the sun is starting to rise, we go to bed to await the following day.

I wake up to Jose introducing himself to David in the room next to mine. Like usual, the first thing that they want to do is go out to eat and so we take off to Pantanal, one of my personal favorite restaurants in the city. Afterwards, they decide to watch the soccer game, I go see Susan. We all meet back up around 6 to commence the festivities of the night. First things first, clean the kitchen, followed closely by the purchase of 24 600ml beers, Set up table, align cups, pop bottles, and our beer pong night had commenced! For the second time playing beer pong in Brazil, i thought I did decently, Jose and I won the first round, David and Kayla won the second. Pong was then proceeded by some kings, and then by some asshole. As I'm sure you can imagine, we were flying through the beer. we got to one bottle left when David decided to go to bed, so the rest of us (now including Diego) went out to a bar. Had a shot of cachaça, a beer and a burger and called it a night.

Sunday
Woke up, went out to Açai with an english teacher that I've been teaching, and then went to the bar to meet with Jose and Kayla. It was the World cup final and Jose was also leaving today right after the game.
This is where I'm going to stop and take a little brake to explain some things.
today is the 11th of July, Susan and I leave the 27th of July back to the states. that gives us a little over three weeks to do everything that we possibly can in Brazil. So far what had been planed was we would leave a few days early to Rio with Susan's host family and then they would take us to the airport from there. Also, it turned out that Jose was going to be in Rio that preceding week also so if possible, we and/or I would go a little early to stay with him and the hang out in the city some more. So that took care of the last week, we had two more weeks to plan for. For the past two or three months, I'd been scoping out cities, beaches, attractions, contacts with whom I could stay with or a kind of list of events that I'd like to participate in before I go. a kind of road trip if you will. Well it was a Sunday and Jose was leaving back to his home town in Arcos and I was adventure thirsty so I figured, fuck it, this end of year escapade could start today.
So, back to where I was before, I meet up with Kayla and Jose at about 330 when the game is starting, they tell me David is on his way and asked where Susan was. I tell them I'll go find her. I grab the first mototaxi I find and book over to the other side of town. I tell Susan that We should take advantage of Jose leaving tonight and go with him to his town for the night, after a little encouragement, she agrees. I leave her to pack and finish the things she was doing to go back to the game. I get to the bar at the end of the first half. I order a beer and a soup which don't get served to me until overtime. I end up leaving a little early because I haven't packed yet and we're leaving in about an hour. I get home and as time ticks away, Susan and I come to realize that a few hours of preparation for a 2 week long trip just isn't enough so we decide to go exactly 24 hours later. the "American click" comes back format the bar, Jose grabs his stuff and says goodbye to everyone and I take him to the bus station. I tell him I'll see him the following day the be prepared to party hardy. I head back to the house, make some popcorn, watch some movies and call it a night.

Monday

The first thing that I feel like doing is some 3D so pretty much immediately after waking up, I head to a nearby cafe, set up my computer, order the usual(medium expresso & orange juice) and work on creating wind and gravity dynamics for a project that I'd been working on for the past few weeks. At around 4 in the PM, I head home to start packing and at about 530ish, I actually start packing. Talking to Susan over Skype the entire time, we coordinate whose bringing what and what we need to be able to wake up in a different city everyday for the next two weeks. at 6, I leave the house, buy a bottle of wine and head to the bus station. I buy the tickets, meet with Susan, we grab some food, hop on to the bus, and the adventure commences.