WE finally arrived in Salvador!  My parents were thre to greet me!

2-1-05

Salvador, Brazil

We arrived in Salvador around 6:30 am, but we weren’t able to get off of the ship until noon.  It took a while for the ship to be inspected and cleared for immigration.  The weather was so hot when we got off the ship.  The sun just beats down on you, and since we are so close to the equator, it is really intense! 

Maria and I saw my mom, dad, and Eugene (Eugene lived with my family as a foreign exchange student for the 2002-2003 school year.  Salvador is his city, so my parents and I stayed with his family, and they showed us all the best of Salvador!)  Down below the ship waiting for us to get off, so, my dad took some pictures of us on the ship and of the ship in general.

When we got off of the ship these costume ladies greeted us with these colorful ribbons that had a prayer of blessing on them, as well as a welcome sign for us!  This was a nice welcome.

Maria came with us to spend the day with my family.  We went to see Eugene’s apartment next, and so I could drop off all of my luggage for the week.  Eugene then took us on a city tour, so we could see the beauties of Salvador!  It really was great to have a local tour guide!  He took us to this Cathedral that is one of the oldest in Salvador, and is known for its beauty.  The interior is all gold, and the exterior has paintings illustrating different proverbs. 

After spending some time here, George, Eugene’s driver showed us around the city, drove us down all these narrow streets, and then over to the center of the city, where the government buildings are. 

We went into a few of the little shops and looked around, and then we walked over to the city square, where there are more little street venders and a large fountain.  This is also where the elevator is.  The elevator separates the upper and lower parts of the city and is very famous to the city.  This is such a great view from here!  Right on the coast! 

As we headed for the next attraction, we also saw these statues along the way, in the water; they are part of the Combare religion here among the African Americans (high population)

After our little city tour, we went to the open air market, and did some shopping from the locals.  It was fun to see the kinds of things that they sell there, the different kids of clothing, and house accessories. 

We also went to visit Eugene’s new apartment that he is moving into next month.  They are still building it now, but it will be beautiful when it is done!

We then returned to Eugene’s apartment to get ready for dinner.  This dinner was AMAZING!!  Probably some of the best food I have ever had!  We ate at a Japanese restaurant called Soho.  It was suppose to be sushi, but everything we had was cooked, and oh so good!!  I loved it!

There were 8 of us total at the restaurant, and everyone agreed that the food was better than great!

We all went home with happy bellies that night!

2-2-06

Salvador to Rio de Janero, Brazil

In the morning, we went on a hospital tour.  I needed to do this for one of my classes, but it turned into a really long, long morning. Eugene’s mom was really excited to take me on a tour, and even got Eugene’s grandpa to show me around, since he is a doctor in a clinic. 

The problem was that I don’t like heat, and my body really can not handle a lot of heat, and it was really hot out.  So after about 2 hours of riding around in the sun, getting in and out of the car, sweating and then sweating some more, I was feeling sicker and sicker.  I tried telling my tour guides that I had enough information and this would be really good, but they wanted to show me more and more and more.  Finally, I convinced them that I had enough information, and we returned back to Eugene’s Apartment to pack up and fly to Rio.  This is a picture of the staff and Eugene’s grandparents that showed me around for the morning. 

Everything at the airport went fine.  We just had Eugene go up and talk to the guy.  I think he has a way with words, or people just don’t say no to him.  The next thing that he was telling us, was that he got us on an earlier flight and our plane was boarding now, so we ran to the gate and walked right on.  There seems to be a lot less security in this airport. We only had our ID’s checked once when we checked in, and that was it.  We walked right through security.  Here is a picture from the plane of Rio. 

This city is incredible!!  And even that doesn’t say enough for it.  I was told that Rio is the most beautiful city of all the cities of Brazil, and I think that I would have to agree, even though I only saw one other city, I can see how it would have that reputation!  The city is built around the mountains.  So, every where you look, there are mountains and the city moves right around them, built into them.  It is also right on the water, and the beaches are amazing!  And the view at the beach!  Not only is it crystal clear blue water, but there are mountains jetting out of the water as their own private islands, all over the place!  If you can stand the heat, and want a place to go to in Brazil, you have to see Rio!  My favorite city before this journey was always Barcelona, Spain, but I would have to say, Rio is even more beautiful!  I wonder if this will change again as I continue on my journey…

That evening, we went back to Eddie’s apartment, and met his family.  (Eddie is another one of my Brazilian brothers.  He lived with my family for one year during the school year of 1998-1999.  When he came to live with my family, he spoke no English, so it was fun to watch and see him improve throughout the year!  And when he picked us up, his English was still pretty good!)  Most of the exchange students that have come live with us (we have had 6 total), the family comes at the end of the stay and we get to meet them, but with Eddie’s family, we never got to meet them, so it was really nice to have the opportunity.  His father made dinner for us, which was excellent and a typical Brazilian meal of beef beans and rice (and this crunchy grainy stuff they love, I still don’t know what it was, but I didn’t really like it).   After dinner, and chatting some more, and sharing pictures, we decided to head to bed.  This was a very exhausting day.  My dad likes to tell everyone that I speak Spanish, even though they all speak Portuguese.  This is very exhausting to try and cipher out something, anything that sounds even familiar to a word in Spanish, and to make a sentence out of maybe the two words that I did understand.  So, Eddie’s dad is trying to carry on a conversation, with my mom and me, so I am trying to translate for her, but it is very difficult.  We did make it through, and were able to communicate to some extent.  We really didn’t take very many pictures the first night. 

2-3-06

Rio de Janeiro

We decided that today, we would be tourist, and go see the touristy things for the day.  The first thing on our agenda was El Christo.  When ever you see any pictures of Rio, they always have El Christo in them.

It was a long drive up a narrow, windy road, and then it was hike up a little further to the steep stairs.  It was sweltering hot, more than I like to handle.  On our way up, we made a furry little friend; probably a relative to the monkey, there was a man feeding him a banana, so we took the opportunity to get closer!

El Christo sits on the highest peak of the city, that way it can be seen from almost every where in the city.  This is to remind the people that there is hope in Christ; you just have to look to him.  This is the most famous monument of Brazil. 

After spending a good amount of time on top of the city, and even more time dying from the heat, we decided it would be a good time to go visit the air conditioned mall.  I was dying from the heat, so it was really a relief to get out of it for a while.  We were on a mission to get clothes that were better for the weather, something light and airy, and I can’t even tell you what a difference it made to have lighter clothes!  We also had lunch in the mall, which was ok, like mall food.  The popular foods are rice and beans, and meat, at every meal.  This is my mom, me, Eddie, and Elanie (Eddie’s girlfriend),   enjoying our afternoon at the mall.

After the mall, we drove around the coast line some more, and after driving for too long (we didn’t have very good decision makers for guides), we finally stopped, got out and played on the beach until after sunset.  The coast line is beautiful, but I much rather be on the beach then in a car. 

We returned back to Eddie’s house around 8:30 pm (remember we had lunch around 1:00 pm), and we still were not even headed in the direction of dinner.  I knew that they ate later in a lot of the countries that we are going to, but it kept getting later and later, and they were just sitting around and talking.  At 9:15, the family decided to go swimming.  Swimming felt great!  It was still hot outside, so we were all still soaked from the heat all day.  Well we swam for a while, and my mom and I were wondering if we were still going to dinner that night.  Well, we finally started to get out of the pool, and return to the apartment around 10:00 pm.  We finally went to dinner at like 10:30 pm.  We went to a “Brazilian” restaurant, and it was SO good!  So, when you get to the restaurant, it is a buffet, so you go get what ever salads and sides from the buffet that you want, and then as you are sitting there, these guys come around with huge skewers of meat, all different kinds.  The meat was incredible!  The only problem is that you have no idea how much you have eaten, because you just get a slice each time from which ever skewers you want, so your plate is not like running over the whole time.  You realize that you must have eaten a lot when your stomach hurts so bad you wonder how you are going to get out of the chair!  The food was so good, but there was way too much food!  As soon as you sit down, not only do you go to the buffet to get salads and sides, but waiters also come around and just put plate after plate of fried foods on the table too (like French fries, potato chips, cheese balls, onion rings, bananas, corn mush…)  Way to much food!  We could have fed at least 3 more people just with the food on the table!  And they never stopped bringing more food!

            Needless to say, after dinner, we rolled ourselves out to the car, and went home, straight to bed!  In the apartment that my parents and I stayed in (Eddie’s aunt was out of town, and since her apartment was so close by, she let us use it for the week), there was only an air conditioner in the main bedroom, so I slept on the floor in there, as it was too hot to sleep on the couch in the living room.  I think we all slept great that night in our cooler room, and full bellies!

2-4-06

Rio de Janeiro to Salvador Brazil

I really didn’t have much time in Rio, or Brazil in general.  When we got up this morning, I packed up all of my stuff, and sorted out some of the camera stuff (I am missing a few pictures that I would have liked to post, but my parents have them if you want to see more.)  Eddie came over and picked us up, and we headed back to Eddie’s apartment to have breakfast with his family.  After breakfast, we decided to head over to Sugar Loaf.  Sugar Loaf is two mountain peaks that you can get to by taking the cable car up to the first peak and then over to the other peak and back down.  We had such a great view of Rio from the cable cars! 

Sugar Loaf was great just because you could see all over the whole city!  If you look in the back ground of some of the pictures, you can see El Christo in the background, on the mountain top.  It was once again, incredibly hot, you just sweat all day!  (I am starting to get a little bit of a tan though!) 

We all started down this trail for a hike in the woods.  The woods kept getting thicker, and we kept going down and down.  I would have been fine with this, but we were warned so many times about Dungee Fever.  You can get Dungee fever from a mosquito bite.  Dungee fever is called “Break Bone” fever, because it feels like all the bones in your body are broken.  There is no cure, and each time you get the fever, it weakens you immunity, to the point that around the third time you get it, it usually kills you, so not something that I wanted to get.  The hike would have been ok if I had some mosquito repellant on, but we never got around to buying any.  So, after I saw a mosquito bite my leg, I had enough, and wanted to get out of there as fast as I could.  I really didn’t want to remember the rest of my voyage by how sick I was from bug bites.  Here is a picture of my mom in the bamboo forest.  We both decided to leave.

We got back up to the top, out of the trees, and headed to the refreshment bar for some cold water, and then to find shade.  Eddie, Elanie and my dad came back up probably a half hour later, and they were disappointed that we didn’t go all the way down there with them, but it just wasn’t worth it to be sick for the rest of my voyage.  Instead, we enjoyed the view from Sugar Loaf. 

After Sugar Loaf, we headed back down in the cable cars, and headed back to Eddie’s house for lunch.  He and Elanie made us a lunch of spaghetti in a garlic sauce, with meat and beans.  Next, we headed back to the airport, and I was on my way back to Salvador!  In the airport, there were like 25 other Semester at Sea kids also on the same flight, so we all talked about our different experiences!  It was fun to hear what everyone else did!

The flight was uneventful, which is good.  (Just a disgusting story for anyone that wants one… So, I was eating my potato salad on the airplane, which wasn’t very good, but I was hungry, so I was trying to eat it, at least I was until the old man next to me sneezed, and the food from his mouth went all over, including in my salad, and in my drink.  Needless to say, I lost my appetite pretty quickly after that!  So much for eating my dinner!) 

            When I arrived in Salvador, Eugene was at the airport to pick me up.  We went back to his apartment, and waited for his sister to get home so we could go out to dinner.  (Eugene’s parents were at their other home on the island, about a 20 minute boat ride away from Salvador, so not very far away).  For dinner, we went to this really nice restaurant, so we all got dressed up, and we were finally off to dinner around 9:00 pm.  I had Paula (Eugene’s sister) order for me since the menu was all in Portuguese.  I got a really good fish dish with rice, beans and potatoes.  I was so hungry before I go tot the airport, but after that meal, I was stuffed to the brim!  The food was so good!  I have no problem with Paula ordering for me, she has great taste!  After dinner, we just went back to the apartment.  I was so exhausted!  I think I was asleep as soon as my head hit the pillow!  (Just as a side note:  For those of you that know me well, know that I LOVE coffee.  That is one thing that I was really looking forward to in Brazil, great coffee.  Well, in Brazil, they automatically put sugar in the black coffee before it gets to you, and nobody has ever heard of putting cream or milk in your coffee, everyone just drinks in black and sweet.  Well, I like my coffee creamy and bitter, just the opposite, so I was having Eugene order me coffee without sugar and with cream, and he and the waiter both thought that was the weirdest thing!)

Happy 50th Anniversery to Grandma and Grandpa Rouch!!

2-5-06

Salvador Brazil

This is the day that I have to board the ship, and start on the next leg of the journey.  I got to sleep in, which is the first time that I have gotten to sleep in on this entire journey, it felt wonderful!  When Paula and Eugene got up, it took us a while to get around, and make a decision, but we finally decided to go out to lunch at the Yacht Club.  Once again, Paula ordered my lunch for me, and once again, it was fantastic!  After lunch, Eugene and I dropped Paula off at a friend’s house, and Eugene and I went to the mall.  He needed to get some things for school, as it started the next day (which is actually today as I am typing this).  We also stopped at a little coffee bar and for coffee and dessert, now that some time had passed since our lunch.  The mall was fun, and I finally found a good Brazil t-shirt that I liked (I don’t hardly ever wear any t-shirts, I much prefer clothing without logos or writing on them, I hate being a walking billboard).

            After the mall, we headed back to Eugene’s house, because he wanted to take a nap, so I tried getting as much done on the internet while I could, since whatever I could get done at his house, I wouldn’t have to pay to do on the ship.  However, I did not count on his internet being slow.  I was getting very frustrated after the 5^th time his internet kicked me off and I had to start my page over, so enjoy these pages, they took a lot of time and work!!  It took me 4 hours to get 2 pages up.  When Eugene woke up from his nap, we decided that we should get some food before I had to be on the ship.  The on ship time was at 9:00 pm.  If a person is late, they are penalized with “dock time”.  Dock time means that you have to wait for so long before you are allowed to get off of the ship.  Well, for every 10 minutes that you are late in getting back to the ship, you get 2 hours of dock time in our next port, Cape Town, South Africa.  I really do not want dock time, and explained all of this to Eugene, just so he would understand the importance of being on time.  Well, it was around 7:45 by the time he was ready to go eat.  He really wanted to take me out for pizza, so I could experience a Brazilian Pizza.  I was already starting to get nervous about the time, since it really did not leave us very much time to go eat at a sit down restaurant, and then get back to the ship, all before 9:00 pm. 

            On our way to the restaurant, his girlfriend called and said she was home alone and scared, so Eugene said he would go pick her up and she could come out to dinner with us.  I was excited to finally meet her, as my parents had met her earlier in the week, and told me how nice she was and how good her English was.  By the time we picked her up and went to the restaurant it was already 8:05.  I told Eugene that I didn’t think we really had time, and that maybe we should just get something quick, and take me back to the ship, but he insisted that we would have time and that I wouldn’t be late.  Well, the food didn’t arrive until 8:35 pm (And my pizza was a little weird.  I told Eugene just to order me something, since the menu was all in Portuguese.  Maybe this was his revenge on me.  The pizza had hard boiled eggs, peas, ham, onions, heart of palm, and black olives.  A very weird combination and I can’t say that I liked it.)  By the time he finished his pizza, and paid the bill, it was now 8:48 pm. I was really getting nervous, and Eugene kept insisting that we have enough time and that we would make it back.  We got in the car, and he drove the like the “Fast and the Furious”

            Well, I got back to the ship right at 9:00 pm, so I still don’t know if I clocked in on time, or if our clocks were even the same (I was going by the time in Eugene’s car).  There were all of these people standing out on one of the decks just to watch people race in at the last second, and they all cheered when I got out of the car with my bags, and were chanting “Dock time! Dock time!”  So, I am pretty sure that I will have to wait two hours before I can get off of the ship in South Africa, which I am bummed about, but at least it is only 2 hours, nothing I can’t handle!!  I handed my passport back into the Pursers office, and headed back to my room to unpack.  (I didn’t take any pictures on this day, so there are none to show for it, but Salvador looked the same as it did the three days before when I was there, so look at those pictures again if you want something to look at!!) 

2-6-06

We are crossing the Atlantic to go to Africa right now!! It feels crazy just saying that!  I never imagined that I would ever do something like this, but let me tell you, I am loving every second of it!!  This is great!!  Take care!!  And sign my guest book I like hearing from you too!! 

Love Laura