Sunday, May 8, 2011

First Reactions in Brazil....

Well I have arrived! Plane ride went really well and I have had the opportunity to meet most of my "housemate". Everyone is so nice and shows the same enthusiasm that I do. Ronnie, Leigh and Cindy were here before we arrived. They are doing 9-12 week trips. Leigh first went to Cape Town with CCS and then came to Salvador and Ronnie is leaving today to make his next 12 weeks stay in Guatemala. So cool!

My first reactions are WOW....this city has so much history, culture, different types of people, different types of food, the list goes on and on.  When we got in the van to go from the airport to home base the first thing we saw were slums, known as favelas. They are stacked high up on a hills and most windows were open with laundry hanging to dry. There are bars on all the windows and around buildings here safety and it is sometime hard to tell when you are going from a "rough" part of town to a "good" part of town. Again, where we are staying is known as Garca. (I spelled it wrong in my last post). Right by home base we have a bank across the street and believe or not, there is actually a Subway and McDonalds here. I'm going to stay away from those, I've got enough of that back home in the states! =-)

I did take a long hot walk around town and down to the beach. (The humidity is worse than Houston and there are no air conditions here) To get down there it is about a 15-20 min walk downhill and to get back a 20-30 minute uphill hike! lol We all went together to a the north end of the beach where a line of "bars" are. It reminds me of a Brazil version of Broadway in Lubbock, McKinney Ave in Dallas or Broad Ripple if your from Indy. My point is, there is a line of little windows that each represent a different "bar/restaurant." Kind of interesting.

Getting around town is pretty easy. We wither walk or take a cab. Most of the locals use the bus system. When we passed by various bus stops there were upwards of 80 people around the stops. The buses all have open windows for air. Reminder: no air condition here. Because they don't have air conditioners you will see shutters on a lot of the building so that in the summer time (this is not summertime for them) they can "shut out" the sun to keep cool.

More to come tomorrow!

Boa noite,

Nicki
 City and Beach View

This is Vinnie's car. Brazilian's that have cars typically have one that is small that looks like this. He is getting it ready to sell b/c he said he doesn't really need it. He said it costs 25,000 reias (pronounced heyis). This is approximately $15,000.

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