i can see clearly now, the rain is gone :)

i don´t know what i expected, exactly, when i came here...to me, brazil was exotic, unknown, full of vibrance and friendly people. it still is. to look at the landscape here is to see yourself in a paradise...i work 3 blocks from the sea, the forest fights the city and you can see trees, flowers, and other random plants seeping through cracks in the sidewalk or over fences...it´s gorgeous, really. the people are great, all very helpful, very passionate people. everyone talks with their hands, greets friends with a hug or a kiss, and loves to relax. maybe that´s why before i came, when i thought about being here, i thought it would be like a vacation. in some ways it is, but some ways not in that it´s much more difficult than a vacation, and i feel like i´ve gone through a whole other growth cycle even in the past week, ha ha :)

for instance, i rode the school bus for the first time when i was about 5 years old...that was the day i became a "big girl," one of my first travel experiences without my mom or dad by my side. when i came here, it was like learning some things all over again...i make my bed differently, had to learn how to ride the bus (and i still only know a very small part of the system, ha ha), i´m learning how to write, read, speak, and understand a language all over again (from scratch), meeting all new people for the first time, eating different food, learning what´s normal and what´s not, what´s acceptable and what´s not, etc...and i´m definitely not at the adult stage yet. you never think about all the learning that went into things that you do every day until you have to learn some of them all over again, especially when the initial learning took years and years...

so now i´m slowly learning to communicate, learning where things are, and becoming somewhat independent, yay! i´m definitely still a child here though, trapped in a 20 something´s body with a 20 something´s thoughts. let me tell you, what a weird feeling...