And the fun begins...

Im going to start this blog out with a disclaimer so before you read any further please take note of this.

DISCLAIMER: I am on summer break in a new country that I am trying to accomplish a lot in. That being said, I will not pay any regard to spelling, grammar, etc. because I can't even spell half the words here yet. In addition, I am setting high expectations for myself with this blog so if daily posts lead to weekly posts which lead to not posting after the third time then tough.

DAY ONE

So my 20+ hour journey mostly involved sleeping and crappy food so I won't go into much detail except for the fact that Florianopolis has one of the smallest airports I have ever seen. I was technically an international traveler and made it through the airport in five minutes with bags in hand. Quite crazy and I also met two star surfers at the airport who were coming out to Florianopolis to practice for some tournament.

Anyways, fast forward to the condo I am living in. I met my host sister, Angela, as soon as I got here. She's a host sister because she's 27 and I don't think that would qualify as a host mom. This lady is ridiculously well-educated. She is a lawyer working civil and environmental suits in Florianopolis. She speaks about 4 languages and understands a couple others. She watches german, italian, french, english, and portuguese cinema and she is of brazilian, chilean, german, and italian descent. I felt pretty "American-like" because all I really know are American shows of which she knew all. She really likes the simpsons.

While I unpacked in my room, she cooked an amazing traditional Brazilian feast minus the meat because she is vegetarian and explained to me how these standards vary throughout the country. The meal consisted of white rice, black beans, a baked pasta dish, salad with lemon and salt dressing, scrambled eggs (as a substitue for fried eggs), and oranges. It was soooo good that I tooked three full plates before saying I had enough. The food was also accompanied with a sweetened cashew juice and an amazingly hot chili sauce from this special city in Brazil. I finished half the bottle. We dined while listening to the Amelie soundtrack. Needless to say I felt very cultured at this point.

Post-dinner we talked and I got to meet my three house cats: Nina, Lucy, and Liz Taylor. I didn’t have much of a liking for cats until I met these ones. I was filled in on the personalities of each of the cats as I met them. Nina is a clean freak and attention lover. If something is out of place in the house, she will paw at it until someone does something about it. I soon figured this out when she started scratching my computer. Lucy is the anorexic cat because she used to eat a lot and they used to mess around with her so now she eats minimally but is still a closet fatty. Liz Taylor is the fat, shy, adorable cat like the kid from Up that kinda just stares at you until you have something she wants. She literally flew at the sound of opening a container of yogurt. I now call her the yogurt fiend.

I also found out that they have an Indian soap opera here that is the new craze. I sat down and watched an episode with Angela and this is by far the most ridiculous thing I have yet seen. Brazilian actors and actresses playing roles of traditional Indian families while speaking Portuguese. I am not too sure how this became a hit, but they love it here. The key phrase from the show “Mere Baaba” which essentially means “Oh My God!” is the new it thing over here. My host brother and sister have a close-knit group of approximately 30 friends who live indifferent parts of Brazil and they keep in touch through an e-mail list serve. When Angela told them that I was coming to Brazil and I am Indian, a lot of them replied with “Mere Baaba.”

After the show, Chiago, or Chee for short, showed up. He is related somehow through some sort of cousin and is studying medicine and physical therapy. He plays a lot of sports and is supposedly really good at volleyball. His English wasn’t as good as Angela’s, but he taught me some Portuguese words instead. Soon after, Andre, my host brother, showed up and was not exactly what I expected. There was nothing particularly Brazilian about Andre. If you saw him in the U.S. and he didn’t speak, you would think he is American. He shaved off his Mohawk yesterday because he didn’t wanna have a bad impression on me. He has a pierced ear, but at the top and was wearing a hurley jacket and jeans. Indistinguishable almost. He graduated with a degree in cinema and is currently in school, has an internship, and is working a job to pursue his goals of graphic design.

Anyways, Andre was quite the character making jokes and passing funny comments almost every minute. They have a lot of extravagant plans for me including trips to rio, san Raquel, and some other city I can’t remember the name of. In addition, tomorrow we are going to meet their Chilean grandparents who are cooking us a Chilean feast on the beach and next week we are celebrating some festival called junino with all their friends.

After this another friend, Eric, came over to visit me. He speaks zero English and is also a very funny guy. He has a mom exactly like mine calling 3 times a day to make sure he is ok. His mom brainwashed him a bit when he was younger and made him believe all these random “facts” that are not actually true. Some involved butterflies trying to blind you. Needless to say he was hilarious. He also told me a story about how Chee sent out an e-mail earlier today on the list serve of a youtube video involving some fat girl in a hot tub and then Andre told me that another friend, Luis, almost got fired for watching the video at work. It’s gonna be an interesting 6 weeks!