A new beginning from an end

Brazil has now been my home for 1 week! My brain is telling me it has been the longest week of my life, but then again, i only left NZ 5 minutes ago?

I'm not going to lie, before I left New Zealand, I pretty much compared exchange to making daisy chains in a field! Boy was I naive! It's haaaaaard and I think if i had been able to see a futuristic video of my first three days here I would have glued my butt to my bed back home and tied all my belongings down! In my description of this blog i describe this year as a 'rollercoaster' and at the time i had no idea how right i would be! But as the days roll by I am slowly coming to appreciate this opportunity a little more and enjoy my year!

The first three days are a blur of crying over skype, not understanding portuguese and trying to take in all the 'bizarre' differences at once! And believe me, this was a task! hahahahaha there have been so many moments where I've tried not to laugh, or sometimes cry, because the cultural differences are so massive! I will include a few now, and keep in mind that many of these i have to live with! hahahahaha

• The driving. I'm not sure it deserves the word driving. haha no, its not that bad, but I did come to realise rather rapidly that even the slightest need to go toilet does not lead to a pleasant ride! The 'legal' age to drive is 18! so parents are playing taxi pretty much the whole day! Especially since there is no such thing as public transport in my town :( palmy guys, its worse than there! Buuuuuut the parents start teaching there kids to drive around 10! I'm not sure if they think there kids are a little slow and will take 8 years to learn! or if its because there is no such thing as indicating or looking before you change lines, tailgating is okay and the speed limit is really only a 'lower guide' so in in this case they like to give their children plenty of practice to ensure they live past 18yrs and 2 days. 

• Everytime i cross the road i just about call my mum and tell her i love and she'll be alright without me! There ARE pedestrian crossings, well thats what they look like, but no one actually stops for pedestrians hahahaha so its a bit like 'ruuuun and hope i dont get killed'

• Hair. Woman wax absolutely everything exceeeept the hair on there heads and their thigh hair. The wax their arms, so i am yet to understand what makes thigh hair so sacred??? 

• Nudity. There is no such thing as body issues or embarrassment.

• Meals! Everything here is very different when it comes to food! I'm not really sure yet how breakfast works, but there is no toaster, and i haven't come across cereal, just bread rolls! This is delicious enough however the Brazilians don't eat the inside, and most delicious part of the bread because they are scared they are going to get fat, so its mostly crust! Lunch is a full on meal! I am slowly getting used to it! and they always drink juice with every meal, never water! BUT I LOVE WATER!!!! and then dinner is 'get it yourself'. I do miss sitting down and atleast having two meals a day together to talk about the day, but i think because i understand zilch, i don't even feel like I have one!

• They don't flush their toilet paper down the toilet. Enough said.

• I had my first rotary meeting on Friday at lunchtime. There are 10 people in my club! I was laughing about it the whole half an hour. It only had to be half an hour because there were only 10 people who had to speak! It made me miss the homely feel of the rotary clubs back home though! 

• There is a massive divide between wealth and poverty! Never and my life have i seen such a vast contrast between living conditions in such close proximity. The wealthy live in private condo areas, which have security gates and the security is so tight they don't even need to lock their doors when they leave! The less fortunate live in tiny houses with numerous people living there. Because i live in a more rural area it is normal for most people to be living in houses. However the poor aren't what we would call sensible with there money and spend it on looking rich and parties. 

• Every room has a bathroom attached! 

Soooo i'm pretty sure thats it for now. On one of my first days here I tried something called acai! Its like a fruit frozen yoghurt purple thing and in the bowl they put melted chocolate around the outside, and chocolate balls on top!!! :D it so delicious! There is a picture on here!

The most hilarious things that has ever happened in my life was when i was shopping with the other exchange students and the ladies at the story asked if we could model some of there clothes so they could take pictures! Purely because my legs are 5m too long i have been attempted to recruit as a model three times :P

My name here means she. Whyyyyyyy. I am starting to feel so sorry for people with names like diamond and shabolly - haha i made that one up, but i would feel sorry for that person! I tried to make myself a nickname but ellie, sounds like ele and = boy, el sounds like eu and = I, bella =beautiful sooo i am stuck being she all year. Thanks mum.

The parties here are not half-assed! They start late and end late and then you do it all again the next night! They are also hilarious because the adults always get tipsy! Last night i went to a masquerade ball that was run by the 'country club' i am a member of and it was so incredible! I will put some pictures up! It started at 11 and went until the early hours of the morning!

I will start school in a week! I love vacation here! But the routine will become school from 7.15 to 12.15 and then going to the club (country club) after school for a swim or to go to the gym, or just to go to town! I will let you know how that goes and will update when i sometime in the futureeeee!

Beijooos!

So I am finally doing a blog post aaaaaaaaaaaaaand I have arrived in BRASIL! :D

I spent three days in Santiago and had the freaking time of my life! We're all crazy - you have to be I mean we've left our family, friends, comforts all at the age of 16 and 17 - and literally spent the whole time getting up to crazy adventures. The flight from Auckland to Santiago was an hour delayed, so thinking we had ages so chill we had some food, used maccas internet etc. When we started to make our way up to board the flight attendants said to us all, everybody is on the plane already, turns out, the good old Chileans had decided they had brought the departing time forwards again but only notifying passengers in Spanish!


We arrived in Santiago at 11.40pm local time, somehow making up the hour delay in flight! First we went to the hotel to drop off our bags which took around an hour purely because the 7th floor button on the elevator didn't work so we spent our time going uuuuuup and doooooown. Rather than sleeping we went straight to the largest mall in South America via underground subway where I learnt the tricks and trades of ensuring my belongings stayed my belongings. Literally in this mall there was no such thing as PDA, people were making out left, right and centre, and bedroom stuff at that.


The next day we went to Valparaiso! The most beautiful city I have ever seen! The architecture was amazing! Here I had my first churro! I had so much food over these three days in Chile and I could see how exchange students gain weight! But in brazil they eat literally nothing! Lunch is pretty much it! So I might come back even lighter! :P During our day in Valparaiso we went up cable cars to see the city, had a tour over the river where we saw many seals. Our lunch was tuna.....no matter how much I forced myself to eat it, I couldn't. I even ate the fish with bones still in it. But the tuna was something else.
The Beach here was amazing! It was packed! there were even some of those cute people walking around selling ice-creams! hahahaha the beach attire was also very different to that of New Zealanders! I took a picture which is shown somewhere on this page.

After returning from Valparaiso we went to a restaurant/club for dinner where there were traditional Chilean dances! I was so intrigued! They were very similar to the pacific island dances! Later that night we were dancing and all of a sudden this man comes on and starts taking zumba-like classes! it was 1 am! I have never had so much fun in my life! He invited people up and all of us exchange students went hahaha. You would never find middle aged men or woman dancing like that in NZ. It was really cool to see!

We didn't get to bed until 2.30am and the next day we had to wake up at 7 -_-. We had a tour around the city in the morning and then went to t rotary guys house for a swim and just to relax! it was nice to unwind and have some time to chill!

The next morning we got to sleep in until 8! It was such a luxury! and were off to the airport after saying goodbye to all the exchange students staying in chile! It was such a sad time! We got so close over those 3 days!

At the airport there were so many people! There is one line for all the people going internationally and I had to wait for one hour to check in bag - weighing 23.2kg- I freaked, but then they let another guys go through whose weighed 27kg sooooooo......we went through customs at 12.50, went to sit down and then I looked at the flight board and it said we were boarding at 12.40! all four of us going to sao Paulo actually sprinted and the lady goes no 'it be 20 minute late' hahahaha s \o we have lunch etc. turns out the plane will be 2 hours delayed and somehow I have to get hold of my host family telling them this :P I try to ring mum at home, she doesn't answer, then I ring my sister, 'hello' and then I realise its like 6am in NZ, I literallu have time to say flight 2hrs late, send email before I run out of credit, because it costs 8 dollars per minute to call home! Buuuut I got to Brazil in the end!

Everyone is so lovely and welcoming! I haven't started school yet and am a little worried about that :P because I understand nothing especially when people speak fast! When they slow down they miraculously think i'm going to know the word now though and that is not the case! hahaha hopefully it will get easier and I shall update soon!