Throne..... Ooooooooh.... Thorn!

8 November 2017
--:--BRT (EST + 3 hours)

--Thursday
I woke up at 07:00 (7am), got ready for school, and headed out the door at 07:30 (7:30am). The walk to school takes about 15 minutes, and while walking I noticed that the intermediate-level school was closed. Though it had been closed on days the high-school had class so I didn't think much about it. However as I continued walking I noticed that there wasn't even one other person walking, and I only saw maybe five cars drive down the road.
I guessed that we didn't have school that day, but I wasn't sure. So I made a plan, if school was closed, I would start walking back home through the longer route, and see if Amazóna do Pão was open. Sadly, every shop I passed, including Amazóna do Pão (I think that's the name, I could be wrong.) was closed. So I walked back home. Later, I learned from Paulo that we didn't have school, Thursday or Friday due to a holiday. (No one told me so I had no idea.)
Later, Paulo and I got to go out and have shakes! YEAH, shakes!

--Saturday
Saturday morning, we were suppose to go over to Odete's parent's house. I'm not sure what changed because Odete told me we weren't going anymore, but I can guess. During the night, it was storming a bunch (It actually knocked our power out for a short while again.) and I woke up to it around 04:00 (4am) I believe (At the same time, Odete told me we weren't going anymore). I'm guessing that because of the storm the roads would be too muddy to drive down to get to their house. (They live in the country side, so the roads are just dirt.)
So, instead, to my surprise, the gparents came here instead. We had lunch and then they hung out for a while longer.

--Sunday
On Sunday, the same happened. The gparents came here and we had a bigger lunch. (Sundays are sort of dedicated to being with your family, thus the bigger lunch.) For the rest of the day however, we just relaxed again.

--Monday
Monday, got up and started getting ready for school. However I felt a little sick. Not nauseous, but just my body felt tired and I was a little lightheaded and dizzy when I stood. I ended up not going to school due to this. I fell back asleep and woke up a little bit before noon, feeling a LOT better. (I probably slept between eleven to twelve hours total.) Later, I went and hung out at Cipex!

--Tuesday
CAT!!!!!
School was normal. However, later... I was hanging out a Cipex for a little bit, and then Andrea took me to her house so that I could take one of the kittens!! After that, we just hung out at Cipex until about 20:00 (8pm) than I brought the kitten home. (Also, she is only about a month and a week old!)

--Wednesday
So last night, I had kept the cat in my room, due to it storming outside (We couldn't move everything to her spot outside.). Due to this, she kept meowing and waking me up throughout the night. I was pretty tired but once I came home from school and tried to sleep a little, then showered and then I brought the cat to Cipex with me for a few hours again! By this time we (I put out a sort of vote for a bunch of people.) had figured out a name.... Aerith!!
So, Aerith and I just hung out at Cipex for about 5 hours. I figured out while we were there that she really likes being completely covered by whatever she's sleeping in. I had laid her in my sweatshirt and she burrowed her way through the folds so she was WITHIN the sweatshirt. It's actually really cute.

(Title is inside joke... sorta.)

Camping with Exchange

1 November 2017
21:45 BRT (EST + 2 hours)

~~Thursday
Thursday started out like normal. I went to school and such. Then once I got home, I relaxed for a short while, and went to hang out at Cipex for a few hours. Then, around 18:00 (6pm) I went home, finished packing my bags and relaxed a little more. Then at 20:00 (8pm) we had dinner and time went by quickly after that. Soon it was 20:15 (8:15pm) and I was rushing to put my bags into the car so that Odete could drive me to the bus station so I could buy my bus ticket for 20:30 (8:30pm) and get there on time. I did and Paulo met me at the bus station. We got on the bus and started our 2 and a half hour drive to Santo Angelo. That night, since the camping hadn't started yet, I slept at the house of a Rotarian. They had a small dog named Luna, and she was very cute. The couple whose house I stayed at were really nice. They also had neighbors that they introduced me to, they were also very nice. (They all lived in the same apartment/condo building but on different floors.)

~~Friday
WARNING: This is about to get really confusing. Throughout the weekend there were three different Paulo's. To try and keep this as not confusing as possible they will be "Mini Paulo" for the rebound from Santa Barbara, "Coordinator Paulo" or just "Paulo" for the one who is the Inbound Coordinator and "Host Paulo" for the one who's land we stayed on while camping.

The next day, around 10:00 (10am), the Rotarian I stayed with drove me to Paulo's house where some of the other exchange students were already waiting. Once everyone arrived, we went to have a lunch along with ice cream afterwards. After that, it was about 14:00 (2pm) and we all packed our bags into a trailer and piled onto a bus that took us to where we were camping. Once there, we were all introduced to Host Paulo and his wife and were told the random rules a such we had to go by since we were camping on their land. Then we set up all our tents, had dinner, hung out listening and dancing to music and then had a fire and went to bed.
(Happily, one of the other exchange students had a two person tent and I was able to camp with them, as well as another student had an extra sleeping bag!)
P.S. ALSO, we went on a trek through the woods while it was pitch black. It was really cool!! Though a bunch of the other exchange students kept getting spooked pretty easily.

~~Saturday
On Saturday, we all woke up about an hour before we had to. (I'm not sure how because I don't think anyone had an alarm set.) We then went about preparing for the day. The whole weekend was scheduled and so we knew that on this particular day we were going to a park. This particular park had rock climbing, as well as tree paths and zip lining. As well as lots, and lots of evil caterpillars. The first thing we did once we arrived was that we went on a sort of scavenger hunt. We had a map with locations of different posts around the park and with the use of a compass, we and our partner had to go to each one and stamp a paper with the stamp from each one. During this hunt, we had to cross a small creek/river. I might have taken a slight dip with one of my feet and got my shoe soaked through.
Next, everyone tried rock climbing for a while, and after that, everyone got harnessed up to go on the tree paths. While waiting for the chance to go up, one of the evil caterpillars got onto my back, right behind my arm. Once I accidentally moved it with my arm, I finally realized it was there because it started hurting me. (This is why they are evil.) I had also been stung by one the previous day, but it wasn't as bad because we were at the camp site. (Some info I learned last night about these evil creatures. They are perfectly calm until disturbed, aka when you touch or try to move them, when this happens they inject you with a small amount of poison which is why it hurts. This poison is deadly, but happily, only in large doses.) These things hurt, it feels like constant pinching all in one small area where the caterpillar is and was for a short while after it happens.
Now, when I finally got to go on the tree paths it was really cool. Terrifying because we were like 20-30 feet in the air, but cool. There were different parts of the path that were easier or harder to get through. The first was just a regular path but the beams were farther than a regular bridge. Then the next was the same but the beams were only like an inch and a half thick. The third part, was a single wire. On the previous two we had ropes to either side to help steady ourselves. On this part, there was only one rope on one side, then we had to balance and cross a smaller gap to the next part. The final part was the same as the previous, except it was longer and had rope on both sides. Once more, terrifying but really fun. Finally, the way to get off the tree paths was a zip-line. Not much to say about that, it was really fast.
After that, we went back to camp. We had some dinner, and a few of us jumped into the pool that was there! IT WAS FREEZING, but we didn't care. (Not actually freezing but it felt like it.) After that, a ton of us all had to wait on the single bathroom so that we could shower.

~~Sunday
Sunday, we all got up at about 07:00 (7am) and started getting ready for the day. We were going to a water part for the first three quarters of the day and then an archaeological site during the last part. While at the water park, we hung out, took TONS of video on both my, and Jan's GoPro memory cards (Jan is one of the two from Germany.), and I ended up trying a zip-line they had going from one side of the pool to the other.
The entire way was safe, it was over water and at the end they had stuff wrapped around the wire to prevent people from getting hurt. However they made sure it was safe for the majority of people, the ones that made it at least halfway down the zip-line. For some reason though, they had the water part set up so that the beginning half of the pool was only about 3-4 feet deep and the last half was deeper. Don't ask me why, I have no idea.
Well, the reason for me somehow trying this zip-line is that Mini Paulo went up the tower at the beginning and started not wanting to do it anymore. So I told him that if he did it, I would try it too. He did it, and so I had to uphold my part. Now, this zip-line is not the same kind we had gone on the previous day. It was just the kind you hold onto with your hands, and so.... After finally pushing off the beginning platform, I went down about five feet from the start and my grip slipped. I fell into the shallow half of the pool. I had managed to kind of roll back so that instead of my legs going in first, it was my back that hit the water first. After that my arm was the only thing to hit the floor below that. When I got back above the water I realized what all the books I've read meant by the air being forced out of you. I started sucking in air as fast as possible and moved towards the edge of the pool. It was not a fun day.
After that, I ended up getting out of my swimsuit and into dry cloths, though it hurt quite a lot for anything to touch my back, even if it was just clothing. Then Coordinator Paulo took me to the city and to a hospital to make sure that nothing was injured internally. After the doctor confirmed that nothing was wrong internally he prescribed me some pain medicine and we headed back to the water park. Having taken the pain medicine, I felt a lot better than I had before.
Afterwards, we headed to the archaeological site. It was an AMAZING site. It was an old castle-like building that we were able to walk through and take pictures of. After being there for a short while, going to dinner nearby, we came back after dark. They had a light show going on at the castle/building. I'm not sure exactly what it was about (There was talking to go along with the lights.) but I would guess it was about the history of the building. However, half way through the show I started tuning out, the pain medicine had started wearing off and it was REALLY cold outside, like constant shivers-down-your-spine cold. Which when you have a messed up back that keeps shivering, it's not fun. Once the show was over, we headed back to camp, to get some well needed sleep.

 

  
These two happened as we were walking back to the bus to gather for dinner.

 


~~Monday
Monday wasn't very eventful. Once everyone woke up at 07:00 (7am) we started packing everything up. Suitcases, tents and all. We had breakfast and Coordinator Paulo took me and a few others to the Police station in Santo Angelo to get our Brazillian IDs! FINALLY!!! After that, we all hung out at his house for a short while before we had to go on our bus home. Mini Paulo and I's bus was at 10:00 (10am) and it ended up being the same bus that two of the other exchange students had to ride!
After we finally got home, I unpacked my suit case and ended up sleeping for nearly three hours. Which, upon waking, I went and hung out at Cipex for two hours.

~~Tuesday
HALLOWEEN!!!!!!!!!
Tuesday wasn't very special at first, school ya-da ya-da. But afterwards, I got to go to Panambi with a bunch of the students from Santa Barbara-Cipex as well as Camila and Andrea for a Halloween party. (There is also a Cipex in Panambi, which is where the party was, thus the specification.) The party went by pretty fast, and shortly after 19:00 (7pm) I was home.

~~Wednesday
There isn't really anything special to today. However, we did end up having a free class instead of Math. I went outside and ended up playing basketball for a short while before getting too hot. Then after school, nothing happened. Just been sitting around relaxing my back. (We were suppose to have a party for one of the students at Cipex but it has been postponed.)

Soon... There Will Be More Chaos....

25 October 2017
20:06 BRT (EST + 1 hour)

~~Thursday
Well, I got up at 07:00 (7am) for school, having gotten a good amount of sleep. Yet I still felt like I hadn't even slept. I texted my counselor, Andrea and told her how tired I was. One thing, Andrea is amazing and so she said she would tell the principle of my school here that I wasn't going to be there today, and after that I managed to sleep another two hours. For the rest of the day, I simply relaxed around the house, enjoying the fact that I wasn't surrounded by hundreds of people.

~~Friday
On Friday, I did go to school. Which afterwards (After going home for a short while.), I went and hung out at Cipex until just before dark. Not much else happened.

~~Sunday
Well, I got my first sun burn! It wasn't that bad, because it never really hurt and is already mostly healed now (On Wednesday.). There was a march for cancer awareness that I went on with Odete. I didn't know what exactly we were doing and so didn't put on sunscreen. I didn't realize that we were going to be standing in direct sunlight for over half an hour, and so I had a perfect burn line of my tank top strap as well as the necklace I had been wearing!

~~Monday
Due to Mondays being the days we have school in the afternoon, as well as the day we have gym class, I brought a card game called Skipbo to class to try and learn how to play. (During gym, it isn't entirely required and so everyone mostly just does whatever they want to do.) Once I figured out how the game worked I taught it to my friend Kemillin and we played a game of it before class ended.
After school, I went to Cipex and hung out there for a while before heading home.

~~Tuesday
Tuesday was actually kind of confusing. While trying to figure out what was happening during the weekend, I also had school, a Rotary meeting, and a Rotary dinner. During the meeting, Paulo and I ended up going around to different locations (Hospital, school, even Cipex.) and some of the "higher up" Rotarians even got to talk on a radio station that is popular here. Also, I will point out that when I had been told of this meeting, the way it was explained sounded like it was just something short and then we would all go our different ways... It ended up being three and a half hours long. However, the last place we went to was Cipex and so I got to drop the proper exchange student mentality and just roll around on a desk chair while talking to some of the students. (Dinner wasn't really anything different from a regular dinner, except there were more people.)

~~Wednesday
Today was.... chaos.
It had been storming all last night and didn't stop until mid-morning while I was at school. How I got to school you might ask, I walked. Due to the umbrella I had been using breaking the last time it rained, I now have a plastic rain coat. So I walked to school wearing it. However, due to the insane amount of wind I still ended up with the front of my legs soaked, the bottoms of my soaks wet, and the ends of my sweatshirt sleeves and parts of my hood soaked through. By the time I got to school I was very cold. Happily though the rain stopped by the time I left to go back home and my leggings I had worn had completely dried out.
After arriving home, I went about gathering everything I needed to pack. Oh, I should probably mention what is happening this weekend. (I didn't even know this until a few days ago. Even some exchange students have trouble informing everyone.) So this weekend, we are going camping. This trip was going to be later in the year but due to a few exchange students who are scheduled to go home before then, the other students persuaded the coordinators to have it earlier so they could go too. (No, these students didn't do anything bad. They're exchange years are just set in a different time span than ours.) I didn't know about this until less than a week ago and so I am now scrambling to figure out everything. Since we are camping, I have to find a tent and sleeping bag to bring. Odete doesn't own either, neither does Andrea and so far no one I have asked has one. I leave late tomorrow. Hopefully someone has one I could use.
After packing, I felt really tired and managed to take a short nap before heading to Cipex around 15:30 (3:30pm). I was there for a short while and then the class that was there (Comprised of some more friends, Pedro, Guto and Ana.) plus Andrea and Camila's class all went to .....(can't remember the name.)..... Well we went there and had food and drinks. Also, I taught all three of my friends how to play Skipbo. It was REALLY fun!
Now I'm home again. Ready to wind down for the night before having a bit more chaos tomorrow.

Thunderstorms! But wait, there's more!

18  October 2017
22:02 BRT (EST + 1 hour)

So Thursday and Friday I didn't have school. Not sure why, but I didn't ask. Our weather forecast on this extended weekend was Thursday: Thunderstorms, Friday: Light Rain, Saturday: Thunderstorms, and Sunday: Sunny.
I will tell you right now, the thunderstorm was nice at first, I like looking at and hearing rain. That is until it knocks your power out. At about 21:30 (9:30pm) our power shut off, not sure what happened. I ended up going to bed not long after that, and thankfully I had kept my power bank charged and so was able to charge my phone overnight.

The next morning, at around 08:00 (8am), I woke up and the power was back on. I was able to go through any messages I had gotten when we didn't have power and just went about normally. then about 30 minutes later, our power went out again. This time, I didn't go to bed since I had just woken up. We didn't have power for nearly 6 hours, and after that for about 3 hours it would randomly turn off for a few minutes. Sometimes it was just the WiFi, others just the outlet I was using to charge my laptop.

For the rest of the weekend, I just relaxed (Due to the constant rain, I couldn't really walk anywhere.) and did various things on my laptop.

On Monday, I went to school, came home for lunch, went back, land then came home early because our Geography teacher wasn't there. (Not sure if they are sick or what.) Also, Geography is our last class, thus we can leave early. My plan had been to stop by Cipex after school, except Andrea wasn't going to be there until after 17:00 (5pm). So I walked home, and Odete drove me to Cipex because she had to go do some things at the same time. The reasoning for going to Cipex was that I needed to pay for the sweatshirt that my district of exchange students desgined. (We all pay for our own.) After that, I hung out a bit longer at Cipex and then headed home.

On Tuesday, not much happened, except I did try to figure out how far I had walked in total the previous day. The distance from my house to the school is 1.4 km, aka just under a mile. I walked that, four times: 5.6 km, aka nearly 3.5 miles. Add, walking home from Cipex and some other random walking from the bank and back, I walked almost 4 miles. While my legs were slightly sore on Tuesday, I was very happy I made the choice to take a hot shower (While I was going to shower, I wasn't going to take one as hot as I did.).

Now for today. Wednesday.
Today was fun.
I went to bed just before midnight last night.
And was planning on getting up at 07:00 (7am).
I woke up at 05:00 (5am).
Today, I was going with a group from my school and multiple other schools to be introduced to a college near here. One of those, "Hey, come here for college!" things. I had thought that I would go to school at the normal time and leave shortly after. I was wrong. I woke up at 05:00 (5am) because I had to leave in less than an hour. (Thank you Mãe for waking me!) The bus ride was an hour long and when we finally got there, I realized there were a whole lot more people than I thought. (I didn't know other schools were going as well at the time.) Everyone got separated into four different color groups, and then those were separated into different letter groups. Happily, a friend from school, Kemillin was there and she was my guide through it all. (Thank you!)
I don't want to go into detail about the whole day. It was long. Mostly, we were taken through the different courses the college offers and were shown parts of the campus. It was actually really cool. Except I didn't really appreciate how they told each group where to go and when to go there. Almost all the students were under a giant tent that had a stage at the front. Imagine outdoor concert. That was this, and it also included overly loud speakers and music too. At one point through the day, I decided that I had had enough of being stuck in a crowd and found a place to sit nearby. It was about 40 feet away from the nearest speaker but I could hear everything perfectly.
From this spot, I could also, see where groups were going when they were leaving and so when I saw my group leave (All the group leaders wore the group color and had a sign with the color and letter on it.) I just stood up and joined them. It made my life a whole lot easier for the rest of the day.
Now that I'm finally home, have showered to get the nasty sweat off me, and just about finished this, I'm ready to sleep. (By the way, I got home at like 20:45 (8:45pm). Having been surrounded by people all day has put this introvert in the hidey-hole for a while to recuperate.

Tchau!

Cats-Cats-Cats-Cats

11 October 2017

19:00 BRT (EST + 1 hour)

On Thursday, I actually had a surprisingly busy day. After school was over, I was able to go home, have lunch and relax for the normal amount we have on Mondays. After that, I had to go back to help with a class that two of the teachers were wanting to start. These two teachers are trying really hard to learn English and so they want to help teach some students the same. I don't know how they pick what students to participate or if they just come if they want. I don't know. Throughout this, about an hour long, class, we went through an American movie, then an American show, (We just went through a scene of the movie.) and if there were lines that they didn't entirely understand due to English slang or anything like that, I would explain.

Due to my role, I had to explain to my completely unknowing teachers and four students that ended up coming, what "getting laid" meant. *facepalm* That was not a fun moment.

Anyways! After that was over, I went to Cipex and got to go to a place called Casa do Pao, which means Bread House. It's a bakery and it has REALLY good food. On this particular day, they had free samples of different cakes they have for people to try. Andrea took me, and the class she had at the time, to Casa do Pao, and instead of just letting us try the free samples. She bought us the actual small cakes, and we all tried and ate them. They ended up having their class there and I headed home.

Next! I simply hung out at home again, showered and packed a bag of random stuff. I had been invited over to one of my classmates house to have pizza and watch a movie. I went over, and we did exactly that. She had about 5 other girls over and two boys and we had tons of pizza and then watched a movie called Nerve. It was SO good and I'm surprised I have never heard of it before!

On Friday... the only exciting thing was that we got a cat... though she kind of ran back to the house she had been living in before I think... We got her, and she was very affectionate, she would start meowing at me if she couldn't see me. Oh, and I should mention that she had to be an outdoor cat, due to allergies. And so, about ten minutes after we got her, of which I had been walking around outside with her just running around my legs, (SO CUTE) I went back inside. Then went into my room, opened my window and was half way out of it in order to pet her.

She is seriously cute. She is completely black with green eyes, and didn't have a name. I asked Odete if she wanted to name her and she said I could. Soooo, I named her Olive!

However, it was short lived because all of Saturday, Sunday, Monday, etc we haven't seen her. Another however! Andrea has a cat that recently gave birth and we should be able to get a cat from her in about a month and a half!

Saturday and Sunday, Odete and I were just potatoes, aka we just sat around and relaxed most of the time, which was nice.

Then on Monday, Andrea, Camila, Paulo and I all went to Santo Angelo for a few things. First, Camila and Andrea had to pick up their new passports I believe. As well as I needed to see if my Brazilian ID was finished... it was not. Then before coming back, we stopped by another Casa do Pao. Nom nom nom. After that, I just relaxed for the rest of the day.

Not much happened on Tuesday, it just rained a lot. Happily though, it didn't start until after I got home from school!

Now, today! It rained TONS last night and this morning. Now here was my problem with this. The last time it rained, it was so windy that the umbrella Odete was letting me use, broke! So it's pouring down rain, I walk to school and have no umbrella. Happily, the rain stopped about 5 minutes before I was going to head to school and stayed stopped for about half an hour! At school, we didn't entirely have class. There was a presentation during the later part of the class day and after that we all went home. Then I went to Cipex and hung out there for about 3 hours. Pretty calm day besides all the rain.

PHOTOS

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Here are all the pictures I took while on the trip! The majority are in order, but there are a few out of place to make it a bit more organized by size. (Sorry to any with OCD, it's not very good.)

 

    

 

 

 

 

 

 

NATURE

4 October 2017
22:36 BRT (EST + 1 hour)

Well, school has been the same as it has been. On Saturday, Cristiano got back from Carazinho and we went over to Odete's parent's shortly after lunch. I cut up some cuca, a type of cake bread thing that is delicious, and then got to watch them shear sheep. Them being, Odete, Cristiano and Eliane (Odete's sister) and their mom. It was really interesting and kind of funny to watch at times.

Nothing much happened Sunday, and then on Monday, I got to try a type of Popsicle thing there. They are only given out during the afternoons at school, and since Monday is the only day we have school in the afternoon, it was the day I got to finally try it. I can't remember what its called, I'm pretty sure it starts with an "l" but I'm not sure. It's sort of like the Popsicles I used to have as a kid, but slightly slushier.

Finally today, I was invited to go on a "museum" type trip with some younger students, about intermediate age, and went. We got to go around to different, what I assumed were, historical or really just beautiful areas around Santa Barbara. We went to multiple different parts of a river, all of which were beautiful and road on a little cart on one of the train tracks. (Some students took turns pushing it. Also, so far I have yet to see a train here.) I also got PLENTY of pictures... Tada...

(I guess I will be adding them later because right now I'm having a bunch of trouble trying to transfer them to my computer.)