For Vicky <3 Yes. That is snow in a can in my hair and on my face. :] Usually, I don't like those people who take pictures of themselves, but this called for it.
PS Vicky: Do you remember that shirt? Haha. Oops. Sorry.
Alright, well, before I start off with this painfully long blog I’m gunna write, I’d like to say, from the bottom of my heart, UBER THANK YOU TO VICKY. :] I got the package and it was absolutely AMAZING (my favorite was definitely the snow though, I think… No wait. I don’t know! I loved it all!) I’d also like to say thanks to Julia, Mr. Helwig, Mr. Hasley, and Grandma. Vicky, you’re my bestest friend 4-ever and you know it. (: Thanks for the stickers, scrapbook goodies, snow in a can, the t-shirt (Derek! The GSA shirts are AMAZING!), the toy skateboard, and the mini game, it will be greatly appreciated. Thank you Mr. Hasley (Baseball. There, I mentioned it) and Mr. Helwig (Go Euclid!!) for the letters, thank you Grandma for the card and the beautiful earrings (which I’m wearing as I type), and thank you Julia for the card and the beautiful picture (which is hanging on my wall)! I don’t know what I’d do without you guys. (: Love you all. Big hearts to Aoi. <3
ANYWAYS. Now that I’ve said that, as most of you know, I haven’t updated in about a week and a half (-die- -gasp- What did you guys read!?! The newspaper!?! How awful!!) because I was at the beach! But, before that, I figured I would start at the beginning. I spent Christmas with my first family and had a delicious Christmas dinner made by my Mae, with turkey and rice and all the goodies that make my tummy happy. It was delicious! Christmas was also incredibly warm, and sunny, and lacked the indefinable charm of snow so to be honest, it didn’t feel like Christmas to me at all. And I wasn’t homesick, surprisingly, unlike most of my exchange student counterparts. I’m not sure why, but I just wasn’t—and I was expecting I would be. Anyhow, Christmas was great! We exchanged gifts, pranced around like ponies, and ate a lot. <3
Then, on the 27th, my second family picked me up at three in the morning to head out to some of their family in a city called Ubatuba, which is nicknamed Uba”chuva.” The whole trick behind this nickname is chuva means rain in Portuguese, and since it rains a lot there (being subtropics), well, I’m sure you can put two and two together. Here, we stayed in a giant house (seven bedrooms!!) that was right off the ocean and was owned by my mae’s (second family—Marcia) brothers. Little did I know that I would be spending my New Year’s in Japan-land. Marcia, being Japanese, has a Japanese family that enjoys celebrating their Japanese heritage. The entire family gathered, a huge family, and there were people running everywhere talking in about a million and a half different languages (English, Portuguese, Japanese, Italian, Spanish, you name it… it made the World Nations look pathetic). And it was fantastic!! We ate a lot of food (tons, tons, tons of food), went to the beach everyday, everybody hung around and laughed all night. Anyways, as I was saying, my family takes pride in their Japanese heritage, and so, many of the customs were Japanese. For example, one evening we pounded rice. This includes the men taking a giant wooden mallet and obliterating a clump of rice until it is turned into a moosh-like substance, then the women roll it in to a thing called Motchi. We also ate a lot of Japanese foods, in fact, almost all of our meals were Japanese.
But, New Year’s was definitely the best day of all. During the morning, the entire family did the ‘norm’—shower, nap, go to the beach. The real New Year’s began at around eight o’clock, when everybody was all jostling together preparing different foods. Turkey, Yakasobi, rice, everything… One particular dish was a Japanese soup (which name fails me) that you eat right before the end of the New Year. The name translated out to being “the last soup of the year.” So, we ate that, then everybody got dressed up in white clothing. In Brazil, it’s tradition to dress up in white clothing over the passing of the year. It’s also considered good luck to wear white underwear and extra good luck to wear brand new white underwear. For anyone who was curious, I did have white underwear, but sadly, they were not new. D= Then, we went down to the beach….
And I think we all almost died.
In Brazil, they lack the same fire safety as the United States, so thousands of people gathered on the beach to celebrate the passing of the New Year. Every twenty or so feet were stations for firecrackers all down the miles of beach, and they were being set off like crazy until nothing but a blanket of fireworks lit up the entire sky and smoke crawled down the beach. Sometimes, a firework would misfire and go shooting in to the crowd, where people would dance around trying not to get hit by the falling ash. It was terrifying at times, but fun. Then, everybody on the beach counted down to the new year, we screamed, we danced, and then we all got a small handful of the Motchi (the beat rice) and went to the sea. It’s good luck to jump over seven of the small waves and then throw the Motchi into the sea. I did this, and so far, I have yet to see any change in my luck. But we’ll see. (:
Anyways, that was New Year’s. Then, the following morning, we all ate another soup that is the opposite of the “Last Soup of the Year” as this one was called “The First Soup of the Year.” Go figure. But, we all ate this and it was delicious. For those of you who are waiting for me to finish, I’m not done yet. Haha, sorry guys. I wouldn’t read all this either if it was someone else.
THEN! The day after New Year’s, my family took me down to a city called Paraty (pronounced Pair-ee-chy), which is considered one of the oldest cities in Brazil. It was established under the Portuguese and if you look at some pictures, you can see that it is still very European looking. The stones in the street are still made of the rock that the Portuguese had originally brought over. Anyways, it was a very busy tourist city. It’s very beautiful, very crowded, and a bit hectic. They still use horse and buggy there to get around as well, but unfortunately, the conditions of the horses broke my heart. I feel they deserve much better than how they are treated; but I won’t get into all of that now, to save your eyes. But, I bought a T-shirt, a Brazil flag sinch for my blazer, and a postcard. Then, Marcia (my Mae) bought me some amazing Indian earrings for Christmas. (: …
Okay. Noooow I’m done. XD Pictures. Have fun. <3
-Vivers
Christmas Dindin
"The Last Soup of the Year"
Making rice with a giant mallet! Go, go!
Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!
Making the drinks of Juva (Uva=grape in Portuguese) and Caipirinha (The national cocktail of Brazil)
A portion of the family
Paraty!!
The poor pony that stole my heart and ran away with it.
The package!!
PS: I burnt SO BADLY it's horrible. My fair-skinned self got roasted. My shoulders, my chest, my lips, my cheeks, and my nose got it the worst. My nose is all peely, my shoulders are red, and I'm just pulling chunks of skin from my lips. Kind of gross to picture, but it really, really hurts. I'm doing better now, but I'm still a ridonkulus (hehe) shade of firetruck.
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