Last Day In Brazil

I'm getting ready to head out in a little bit to catch my plane back home. It's weird to think that in less than 24 hours I will be back in the good ol' USA. In some ways it seems I've been here for a long time and in some ways it doesn't seem long at all.

Yesterday I walked around Rio for around 4 1/2 hours. I walked up a trail up the mountain beside Sugar Loaf called Urca. It took around 15-20 minutes but I had already been walking close to 2 hours by that time and was worn slap out. Then I walked to Copacabana and bought a few souvenirs for my youngest nephews and then took the metro back. After 4 1/2 hours, there was no way I was going to walk back an hour back to the apt.

Thankfully two of my good friends from church let me stay with them these last few days in Rio. One of the guys lived in Gadsden, Alabama and did an exchange program at Gadsden State a few years back. Such a small world. He talks about how much he loved the people in Alabama. He actually bought me a couple of shirts as souvenirs to take back. One is a Brazil shirt and the colors are like Falkville colors, blue and yellow which I think is cool. The other is a shirt for a soccer team that I pulled for here.

Kind of sad and excited at the same time. I'm very excited about seeing my family and friends when I get back. I've made some good friends that I will miss as well as seeing beautiful latin girls everywhere. I've been asked what I will excited about the most when I go home and my immediate answer is peanut butter. I didn't realize how much a big part of my meal plan it was until it was gone. Seeing peanut butter here is like having a bald eagle sighting, not a real common occurrence.

Seeing Sugar Loaf one more time today was really special. I walked to the area that I first lived in Rio and thought about when I came here. I think about that if I had just stayed where I was I would have missed out on a lot this past year. I'm definitely glad I did it even though things were different than I expected, that's just life. I've learned a lot about myself which has been invaluable.

I really want this to be just the beginning of my travels. I learned a lot of what I want to do more of next time and things I don't want to do. I discovered that risks, although very uncomfortable, aren't as scary once you take them. I have some ideas for my next step. I always have a plan but ultimately God will show me the best path. I appreciate those that have prayed for me. God has really protected me in so many ways of which I am very thankful. My blessing for you is my favorite scripture:

The Lord bless you and protect you;

The Lord make His face shine on you and be gracious to you;

The Lord lift up His countenance on you and give you peace.

Numbers 6:24-26

Um abraco amigos!

Joel

Iguacu Falls

This was my last stop before heading back to Rio. From Curitiba to Iguacu Falls it was around 9 hours.

The falls are supposed to be bigger than Niagara Falls. The falls actually border 3 countries - Brazil, Argentina and Paraguay. I heard the view from the Argentina side is prettier but with an expired passport I wasn~t able to go over there.

I had pretty much one day to see everything. The first night a young couple from Liverpool, England is staying in my room. They were really, really nice. They were leaving the next day so I didn~t get to talk to them very much.

The next day I go to the bus station to wait for the bus. It took about 30 minutes for the bus to arrive and it was so packed. We kept stopping and adding more people and I really don~t know how. I felt like it was a clown bus where people kept being added and no one leaving. I thought maybe we were going for some kind of guinness record.

I get there and there is a huge line for the ticket. It took about 45 minutes to get the ticket and so I am expecting to buy the ticket and go in. No way Jose! There~s another line after you buy your ticket that you have to get in. It went back further than the line to buy tickets. Thankfully it only took about 20 minutes or so to get through. Then I had to wait in line to get on a bus that would take us to different points in the park. From the time I left the hostel, it took about two hours to enter the park.

It was really cool and I got some good pictures. I met some ladies that were on the bus trip from Curitiba to Iguacu Falls that were nice. I saw them at the park and they invited me to go on a boat ride around the lake. I really didn~t want to do the ride but the ladies were so nice and friendly I decided to go.

There was also a bird park that I heard was cool. It was pretty neat but not something I would really go out of my way to see. It was beside the falls so I went. I saw some cool parrots, a toucan but he didn't have an Froot Loops with him. At the end they had an enclose place where they had a bunch of parrots flying free so you could get pretty close. Right before you leave, they had a guy with a snake where you could have it on you and get a picture. I like taking risks but that is one I didn't want to do. I hate snakes!

When I got back another couple from England had moved in. They were from London and very friendly as well. We went to eat along with another guy they met from the hostel from England as well. When we came back to the hostel we sat outside and met a couple from Holland. They were really nice as well. A lot of good people there. This couple has been travelling for around 9 months and were gonna go back to England but they have a friend getting married in Birmingham, Alabama and are gonna travel until then and then go to Bham for the wedding. It's a small world isn't it.

The guy from Holland was a big Pittsburg Steelers fan too. We talked football for a little bit. It was really neat.

That last night there was a Chinese kid in our room snoring up a storm. Joe, the guy from London, woke up because of the snoring and said really loud to the kid - hey, your snoring is really loud. It wasn~t like the kid understood or could stop but it was kind of funny except for the fact that he woke me up around 3 am.

The next day I left on an airplane - Hallelujah! The bus ride would have taken 24 hours and only cost about $R50 more which is around $30 US but I figured by the time you stop every 4 hours at little lanchonettes for food it would have cost about the same. The airplane ride was only 2 hours. I was so tired of being on a bus, the airplane was so much better. I just love being on an airplane.

It was a good experience. I~m glad I did it. If I come back to Brazil, I~ll go to the northeast and see the beaches there and see the Amazon. Now I'm spending the rest of week in Rio with some friends and relaxing before I come back home on Saturday. It was a lot of fun and I still want to do some more travel but another country now. Now I need to learn some Spanish.

Curitiba

I had heard that Curitiba is one of the most developed cities in Brazil. The cities in the south have more of a European feel to them. A lot of people from Europe migrated to the south of Brazil and you can tell by the way they look. I thought the people from Curitiba almost had a middle eastern look to them for than a typical European look. Some still speak Italian and German I am told. The bus ride from Porto Alegre to Curitiba was about 10 or 11 hours, I don~t remember now.

Curitiba didn~t even seem like a city in South America. It looked very European, clean and organized. I was also told the people were more closed and not as easy to make friends. The weather was colder there than Porto Alegre and I liked it.

I met some nice guys in my room at the hostel and they invited me to do some stuff with them. I basically had one full day to do everything in Curitiba. I went to a Botanical garden, went into a tower with a panoramic view of the city, went to a park, went to a closed architecture museum and got lost a lot. I was tired but it was a good time. They had a train ride that I would have liked to have taken but I didn~t have time for it.

Overall it was a good experience.

Porto Alegre

This was my least favorite place that I visited. I don~t know why I visited here except somebody said the girls were pretty here but its Brazil, the girls are pretty everywhere. The bus ride from Florianopolis to Porto Alegre was around 9 or 10 hours I think.

It didn~t have a lot to do except look at the architecture of the city and see the sun set over the lake, which was cool. I was there for three nights. It was so stinking hot too. I thought south Brazil would be cooler because I heard in the winter time it is cooler. Nope, summer is just as hot here as anywhere else.

The hostel wasn~t that great and the first night they made a mistake and put me in a room by myself which was nice but outside the window people were talking until 2 or 3 o clock in the morning. The next day they put me in a room that didn~t have a window so it was really hot.

The people who worked there were really nice though. I met a nice guy from Belgium and a nice girl from Brasilia, other than that I didn~t really click with any people. I took a bus tour which just whipped around town and showed the architecture of the buildings which was pretty neat. They only had it in Portuguese so I had no idea what we were looking at. On the tour, you didn~t get a chance to get out. It was only a drive by tour. I would see something I wanted to take a picture of and it was like, Here it comes...there it goes. Never mind...I~ll get a picture of the next one.

I did get interviewed for something on TV which was cool. The people that worked at the hostel said I was a nice person and asked me to do an interview. I misunderstood what they said because I was thinking they wanted me to wait around and have lunch. Next thing I know a guy with a microphone and TV camera show up. They interviewed me and Gunter, the guy from Belgium about why we chose to stay in a hostel. I spoke in my broken Portuguese and had the uncomfortable look of staring at the microphone at first and then started looking at the camera. Somewhere, people in Porto Alegre are wondering why in the world that gringo is staring at the microphone and wondering what language I was speaking.

Oh well, it was a good experience and I met a few nice people and had a great buffet there so it was okay, just no Floripa.

Florianopolis

I just got back from my journey to south of Brazil and didn~t have much time while traveling to update and put pictures up.

My first stop was Florianopolis. This is one of the places that I really wanted to visit because they have 42 beaches there. I have to say this was my favorite place of all that I visited. I think it was more because of the people that I met in my hostel.

To top it off the bus ride was 18 hours from Rio, yes...18 hours. When I saw the schedule at the station it said around 9 hours. I left around 2 or 3 pm on a Thursday and arrived around 9 am the next morning. I was so tired of being on that bus. Even though the seats recline, still it was 18 hours on a bus. It stopped every 3 or 4 hours to eat so at least it gave me a break.

This whole travel down South was a new experience for me. I wanted to try out hostels because a lot of people I have met in Brazil from other countries have used hostels for cheap stays. For those of you that don~t know like I never knew before, a hostel is a house with several rooms that someone rents out. Usually they~ll put 2 or 4 beds in a room and you share with strangers. I thought it would be an interesting experience and it really was.

The hostel in Floripa (nickname for Florianopolis) had a ton of great reviews so I booked it online. The guys in my room were really nice. One guy was kind of arrogant but he was a nice guy. The hostel was beside a lake so there was a place to take windsurfing classes. Man, it was exhausting falling down and getting back up. It was a lot of fun though. By the end of the class I was doing decent. It was only $R20 for the class which wasn~t bad but if you wanted another class it was going to be $R80. Nah, that~s okay. I liked it but not that much.

The next day I went with some friends to a beach and took surf lessons for about an hour and a half. It was a lot of fun, I enjoyed this much more than the windsurfing. By the end of class I felt like a pro.

After surfing, we went to these sand dunes and did sandboarding because it was right beside where we parked the car. I had heard about it and wanted to try it. You basically have a snowboard with straps for your feet and you climb up these sand dunes and strap on the board and do down. I wiped out a few times but made it all the way down several times as well. Climbing back up was the worst part. You rent the boards for an hour, they won~t let you rent for less than that. After 30 minutes, I was ready to go. We stayed close to an hour but my trips up the dune were fewer the last 30 minutes.

We went to some place one night where a band was playing songs from the US. They played Achey Breakey Heart by Billy Ray Cyrus. I thought, you have to be joking with me. I~m in Brazil and listening to this, something is wrong with this picture.

We also went to a place another night where they were playing samba music and it was a lot of fun. I made some good friends there, it was really sad to leave. Some people you just make a good connection with. One girl said that it felt like we were a family. One of my roommates was a guy named Chris from France. He was funny because he didn~t like other people from France, especially from the bigger cities.

New Years in Coronel Fabriciano

left to right

my teachers in Rio (Vera & Fernando), coconut tree at the orphanage, me in front of a banana tree, the people I stayed with for New Years.

I had an invitation from a lady that I had met at a wedding a couple of weeks ago in a smaller town called Vicosa. I had met her son and his wife at an engagement party of a friend a few months back. She thought I was a pretty cool guy and invited me for New Years eve which is called Reveillon and New Years.

The bus trip from Sao Paulo to Col. Fabriciano was supposed to be 12 hours but turned into 15. There was some kind of issue with the toilet and it stunk to high heaven. They stopped off at some place and had it replaced. For me it was worth the extra time to get that smell out of the bus.

In Sao Paulo it had been pretty cool but when I got to Col. Fabriciano it was pretty hot. It ended up raining a lot over the next few days. I am so tired of rain right now. I can understand when they talk about the rainy season.

We spent New Years Eve at their church and then went to a country club for the rest of the time. Church ended around 11 30 and finished the time until midnight at the country club.

The guy that I had met at the engagement party was so nice and made me feel welcome. The whole family was great. No one spoke English but Jonathas and his wife Renate did their best to help explain by using words I knew and using body language.

They had some mango trees at the house but they were smaller and called mangitos. They are sweeter than regular mangos. Mangos are my favorite fruit so I was in hog heaven or mango heaven I guess.

His dads side of the family had a churrasca (barbecue) at one of the uncles farms where he has an orphanage for about 20 kids. They had banana trees, mangos, passion fruit and some kind of fruit that Indians put on as war paint.

We went to church that night and it was good too. The next day I left back for Belo Horizonte to get my bags and then go to Rio for a few more weeks. The trip to Belo was supposed to be 4 hours but it was close to 6 and a half or 7 hours. The traffic was really bad. I thing for a few reasons. A lot of people were coming home from the holidays, it was raining and the roads were bad because of so much rain that mud was on the roads and had slid down.

Now I am in Rio and going to Florianopolis tomorrow for another 14 hour bus ride (I hope its not longer) which is south. They have a lot of beautiful beaches and a lot of pretty girls. It~s a place that I wanted to visit before I left. After Floripa I will go to Porto Alegre and then to Curitiba and then to Foz do Iguacu which is a huge waterfall place and bigger than Niagara Falls. After that I~ll be back to Rio for a few days.

Christmas in Sao Paulo

I went to hang out with fellow teacher that I met in Rio. She moved to Sao Paulo and her birthday is actually on Christmas. She~s from London and since both of us were away from home for Christmas for the first time we made a pact to hang out for Christmas.

She had a friend that invited her to spend Christmas with him and his family. The bus ride from Belo to Sao Paulo was supposed to be about 8 hours but it ended up being about 9 or 9 and a half. The bus broke down and we had to get a new bus. I heard these guys talking in the back and I thought they were arguing. Next thing I notice the bus is going really slow and parks on the side of the road. Another bus pulls around us and stops too. People start getting off and I~m waiting for the driver to say something, like I would understand anyway.

Finally he comes on and I basically understand that the bus that pulled over is going to Sao Paulo too and has room for 4 or 5 more people. Another bus would be coming shortly. I decide to wait a little bit and let the others have the other bus. The other bus comes in about 15 or 20 minutes and I have a lot more room. The bus isn~t near as packed as the one I was on.

I meet my friend at the bus station and we use the metro to go back to the apartment. The metro is so huge and complicated, I~m glad I don~t live there. I think they have 23 lines of metro and train where Rio has 2. 2 is better and simpler for me.

We meet her friend on the way to the apt and he is ready to drive us to his family which is about an hour and a half from where we are and is still Sao Paulo. We get there and his family is super nice. He speaks English but no one else in his family does. Well, his wife speaks a little bit but not much.

The tradition is to wait to eat dinner until midnight, officially on Christmas day. I eat a lot, I mean alot. They were glad to feed to me and I was glad to eat. Kids opened presents, there were no presents for the adults. Then we went to sleep. I had a mattress on the floor which was comfortable. I found out the guy and his family are Christians. His dad is an Assembly of God pastor. Pretty cool.

The next day we eat breakfast and then go to the wife~s family and eat lunch, which I~m still full but as I feel it is my duty I go ahead and eat anyway. The wife~s dad has some Christian music which I listen to and I recognize one guy and then he says he loves Jimmy Swaggart~s music. Haven~t heard that name in a long time. He has a ton of songs from Jimmy Swaggart. So interesting to hear Jimmy Swaggart on Christmas in Sao Paulo, Brazil. Just not something I would have expected.

I get back to the apt Christmas night and am really tired and full. My London friend and I kept joking, Did you know today was Christmas. Because we really didn~t feel like it was Christmas at all being away from family. It was really good but really different.

While in Sao Paulo I went to some museums: soccer, art and the Portuguese language. I~m all cultured I guess now. They still had some Christmas lights up which were pretty cool. We met another friend of my friend and she brought along a friend. We ended up eating at a pizza buffet the next night. I think I ate around 20-25 pieces of pizza, including dessert pieces. Needless to say, everyone in attendance was impressed with my eating skills. I didn~t feel so well afterward though.

My next post will be about New Year and another long bus ride.

Ouro Preto

I~m actually starting from before Christmas and moving forward. I~m breaking the blogs into smaller ones with a main topic instead of putting it all into one. Trying to be more methodic and neat, what is wrong with me.

I went to a famous town outside of Belo Horizonte called Ouro Preto which means black gold. Minas Gerais, the state of Belo Horizonte is famous for its mines. Minas Gerais actually means general mines.

Ouro is a cool town with cobble streets and has a university there too. There are lots of hills and I got a good workout. When I originally bought the tickets, I was going to leave at 9 and come back at 7 that night. After thinking about it along with the surprise look from my friends when I told them how long I was going to stay there, I decided to change the return bus ticket the day of the trip. I changed it to return at 3 instead of 7 and thought everything was okay, remember what happens when you assume. More about that later.

I get there and start walking and don~t see a map so I~m just wandering around and think, Is this all there is to it. I finally find a guy who volunteers to show me around. He~s got on some kind of vest which seems official to me. He shows me around some of the churches which has a ot of things made of gold. Pretty cool stuff. He also shows me a good place for lunch. It had cabbage, rice and gravy and something else that I really liked. I felt like I was at Mom~s house. It was soooo good.

I hustle to look at a couple more churches before my bus leaves. I probably should have given myself another hour but I wanted to avoid work traffic coming back. Oh well. So, I am walking back to the rodoviaria and notice that when the woman who changed my return ticket made it a ticket going from Belo Horizonte to Ouro Preto instead of making it from Ouro Preto to Belo Horizonte.

I got worried because now I have to try to explain what happened in my broken Portuguese. I get up to the window and I try to explain and show her the tickets. I have two tickets to the same place, why would I do that. The woman at the bus station made an error. The woman in Ouro Preto said I need to buy another ticket. I told her, I don~t want to buy another ticket. I already bought one. She doesn~t understand so I get out of line to look up some words (not curse words) to better explain my situation. I get back in line and use my new words and they still don~t help. She calls her manager and within 5 minutes he issues me a new ticket and I get on the bus just a few minutes before it left.

Missing some Thanksgiving

As I sit here I'm thinking about all the food I normally would have woofed down by now: turkey, cranberry sauce, stuffing and sweet potato casserole and many other things I can't remember. Man, I really miss it along with the good family time. It's weird thinking about Thanksgiving at home because here it is just another day. It's about 86 degrees too.

I probably walked at least 4 hours today, no joke. I have lost probably 5-10 pounds since I've moved to Belo. I had already lost 10 or so in Rio but I'm walking much more here. My pants look like Bozo the clown pants on me.

I went to drop off my resume to two more schools and it turned out much different than I thought. Both schools had several locations but each had a place on a main street that I know. I usually take the metro and can get there no problem. I didn't pay attention to the building number because I had no idea where the numbers start close to the metro.

When I got downtown, I noticed the street numbers started in the 700s and the buildings I was looking for was in the 4000s. Each block isn't an even 100, sometimes each block is like 733-786 so I don't know how many blocks it was but it took me well over an hour to get there. When I get there, one of the schools didn't accept resumes in person, only on the internet. The other school closed that location but it was still showing on the internet.

The only school I dropped off my resume to was one that was handing out fliers as advertisements for students. I got a call from a school that I had dropped off my resume a couple of weeks ago for an interview tomorrow. I got an email from a school and have another interview next week with them. I also got a call from a guy whose mother I met at church. He's an English teacher here and gave me the name of a school I haven't heard of and he said he may give me a couple of private students that he didn't have time for. It was a productive day but not in the way I had imagined.

While I was way up in the 4000 range of blocks, I saw some signs of places to view the city. One is called Praca do Papai which is a little park that was built when the Pope came in the 80s. It's a neat place with a great view. I asked someone where Praca do Popeye was because that is how I thought it was pronounced. She said, do you mean Praca do Papa. Yeah, that's the one.

While I was way up there and had already walked an hour and a half, I see a sign for another place with an even higher view of the city. I thought, why the heck not. So I walked another 20 or 30 minutes to get up there. Really cool to see.

I walked back and finally got home not long ago. On the day when I normally eat so much I can hardly see straight, I walked so much I feel like I've lost another pound or two. Oh, the irony.

I would love to call my family and hear about all the wonderful things they've eaten but my modem won't pick up wireless internet so I'm having to plug directly into the router in the main room where everyone is and have no privacy. My brother is looking for a cheap laptop for me so he can mail to me. This one has other issues as well.

Oh yeah, the English pastor talked to me Tuesday night after service and said the Pastor wants to do a simultaneous translation of the services on Sunday and she was checking to see if I wanted to try and help out. I really need to work on my Portuguese but I'll give it a good Falkville try, for sure.

Well, Happy Thanksgiving to my peeps and family!

New Adventures In Getting Lost in Belo

Finally got settled in. I'm renting a room from a lady and her husband. They have 4 other guys who live here but I've rarely seen them. It's a good ways outside the central part of the city, at least without my own transportation. If I had my own vehicle, it would be very easy to get to the central part of town.

I have my own bathroom and it's very airy. It doesn't have air conditioning but I really don't need it. I thought I would but it feels really good in my room. It's in a house that has a front porch and a place in the back, not a back yard because it has all bricks. They have a clothes line out there where I can hang my laundry. It reminds me of Mom having a clothes line when I was a kid. The lady was excited to know that I'm a Christian. She is also and so is her family. She took me by her family's house which isn't too far on Sunday and introduced me to them. They were extremely nice as well.

The only negative is that it's so far away from the two churches that I visited. A friend that I met through a friend of mine in Rio skyped me Sunday to tell me he would pick me up and take me to church if I wanted. Sure nuff. It was really good praise and worship and the people were so friendly. Afterward, he invited me over to his family's house and they had some leftovers for us and it was so good.

Yesterday the lady I'm renting from took me downtown to get a phone. For some reason, the phone I had in Rio won't work here. The electronics in general are very expensive in Brazil and I didn't want to pay a lot. She told me about a place where they have a lot of cheap things. My kind of place. It was huge! It didn't look big from the outside but it seemed like it kept going on the inside. I got a phone that looked like a blackberry with fm radio, mp3 player, tv, camera and 2gb of memory for $R55 which is less than $40 in the US. I love that place, I'll be going back for sho.

Today my mission was to drop off my resume to some schools and get some business cards made. I wanted to take the metro because that's what I was used to in Rio. It doesn't go to as many places as it does in Rio but I wanted to try it out. I definitely got my walking in. I got lost so many times I think I set a record. I was able to find the place where a friend told me I could get some cards made, which are pretty awesome. A little old lady walked with me to the place because I had asked her for directions. Very nice! I got lost another time and I was asking for directions and a lady overheard me asking and told the lady that she would show me because she was going that way. They are so friendly here, it's great.

A guy at the place where I had my cards made took one of my cards and said he was interested in class along with a couple of others. The one school I finally found said she isn't hiring but said she would pass my resume on to other schools she knew and if she had students who wanted classes at work or in their house she would send to me. She was very helpful.

I went to a mall close to where I live with the purpose of asking some of the stores if I could leave my business cards on the counter. I was nervous about this because I really don't like going up to people and asking for something. I had to do this even if I got shot down to prove to myself that I could. God is so good! Every person I asked was very nice and allowed me to do it. One guy who worked at a restaurant lived in Connecticut for 12 years and said his boss was wanting someone to teach the employees English and was wanting this guy to do it. He said he would pass my card along to his boss. It was a very positive experience today except for getting lost and walking around for about 6 hours but it's part of the learning curve.

Every day is a new adventure now. I like the new challenge. I feel like I'm in the right place.

P.S. One thing I forgot to mention about sleeping in the bus station was when I was walking around, probably after Barney Fife woke me up, I was charging my phone. As I was standing there, I heard some whistling. It was a familiar tune but I couldn't place it. Finally it dawned on me, it was an old hymn I heard growing up "Are You Washed In The Blood of The Lamb?". I kept listening because I thought that it couldn't possibly be but even when it got to the chorus it followed the same tune. I looked around but I couldn't see anyone whistling. There weren't that many people there so it shouldn't have been hard to see somebody whistling. Besides, how many times do you hear an old hymn being whistled at 3 am in a bus station in Rio de Janeiro. I'm not sure because it was my first time. Just thought it was an interesting thing to share.

Sleeping in the Bus Terminal

I`m sitting in a bus terminal as I write this. I bought a ticket to move to Belo Horizonte this past week and told the guy I wanted to leave 12:30 am Nov. 5 because I wanted to get there in the morning and have all day to get adjusted to my new surroundings and go to the English service tonight at the church I am interested in.

A friend of mine came with me to the terminal and I go through the gates early and the bus that is in the slot that mine is supposed to be in just left. I showed a guy by the buses my ticket and he said, your ticket is for 12:30 pm instead of 12:30 am. I was pretty ticked because I thought I confirmed with the guy at the ticket office.

My option is to either go back home at 1 am and pay $R60 round trip for a cab ride home and back on Saturday or sleep in the terminal. Lately I`ve been looking for new adventure so I opted for sleeping in the bus terminal. Not sure if it was the wise decision.

The chairs are a slab of metal with legs and a bar in between each seat so you can`t spread out. I laid down on the cold concrete floor and this birdhead security guard hits my leg and tells me go get up. I didn`t know lying on the floor was a security issue.

I maybe slept two hours on and off throughout the night. I found a bench in another part of the terminal that was made of wood, a little more comfortable than cold steel and it didn`t have a divider so I could stretch out. Wouldn`t you know it that birdhead security guard comes over again and bumps me and tells me to get up. It`s a good thing he couldn`t understand what I said. I`m like, come on dude. There is hardly anyone here and no one is exactly fighting for a place on the bench. Oh well, here`s to my option for a new adventure.

It`s at least close to time to leave now. It feels like I`ve been here since April. On to my new home.

Hang Gliding in Rio de Janeiro

Well, I finally did it. The Wednesday before I leave Rio I went hang gliding which I've been wanting to do for a long time. I've attached a few pics but I have a couple of videos and more pics on facebook.

The weather hasn't been good for the past few weeks when my friends from church could go. I had been praying for good weather. We were planning on going Sunday but when I called to confirm the guy said they weren't doing flights because the winds weren't good. I was disappointed but glad that they didn't want to just make some quick money and were taking precautions.

I started praying and put it down on my prayer list for good weather today because it's a holiday here and people from church could go. This morning was a little cloudy but I believed it would be a great day and the clouds starting breaking up the closer we got to the time to go.

The owner of this company has been doing this for 29 years and took Curt Cobain from Nirvana years ago. He was a very relaxed and reassuring guy. My instructions lasted less than a minute - bite your lip and run like heck. Not really but not too far off. He said to have one hand in this rope attached to my jacket and the other on his back. He said to just look at the horizon and run when he said run, that's it.

When it got to be my turn I tried not to look down, only at the horizon. It actually worked. I just started running and when we left the ramp it was just smooth. I felt like Superman. My brother John would love this. At one point as we were making a turn you could see Sugarloaf mountain an I could also see Christ the Redeemer in the distance. It was pretty awesome!

This was more than just hang gliding for me. I don't know if I told many or any about this story but I was reading a book that had inspired me to take action for this journey in the first place. I had been looking at language schools in different countries and for some reason Rio kept coming back to me. I was reading the 4 Hour Work Week on the way back from my wonderful Aunts in Mississippi when I read a chapter and it started with a guy going hang gliding in Rio. The whole premise of the story was that risks aren't as scary once you take them.

When I read that, I felt like Rio was the place that I needed to go. I still remember the moment riding in the car when I read this. So for me to do this was a big deal to come to the place where someone's story had inspired me to launch out and do what I wanted but was scared to do. Just like the hang gliding, the risk of coming to Rio hasn't been as scary since I've taken the step.

I'm moving to another city for the rest of my time here, called Belo Horizonte. It's the same city I've visited a couple of times. The scenery isn't as nice but the people are great. I think I've said before how they remind me of Southerners.

Lots of Stuff

All my classes were canceled today so I thought I would catch you up on stuff. It's been a while since I've updated anything. Let's start back at the earliest thing, my birthday. I went to Belo Horizonte with a buddy from church to visit his friends and my friends now. I met them the last time I went there and they really liked me and so did their dog, or my leg anyway. Just good people, they remind me of southern folk.

We got there Saturday and went to a different church that my buddy wanted to visit. It's a different church than they attend. It's much smaller, only 30,000 members. They had a young adult service that was really cool. It was long like all services but it really held my attention. A preacher would come up and read a scripture and talk a bit and then people would come up and act out the verse he had talked about. It was really, really cool. They also had some street dancers do a couple of numbers. I felt like getting up there with them and doing the worm, my only break dance move, but I refrained myself.

We ate a meal when we got back with cheese fondu, meat and bread. Really good! The next day the wife woke up really early and blew up red and white balloons because they know I'm a big Alabama fan. She also printed off the Alabama logo off the internet and gave me a CD of my favorite Brazilian Christian artist, Fernandinho. (Side note: He used to be a truck driver and not a good person. His wife started going to church and one night he got angry at her and got a gun and was going to shoot her and she cried out to God to help her and the gun wouldn't fire. He ran out and got in his truck and kept thinking about what happened and came to a church that was still in service and surrendered his life to God.)

Before we had lunch on my birthday the wife wanted to say a few things and my buddy interpreted and she said that when they first met me that they invited me into their house because it was the Christian thing to do but now they invited me because they feel that God put me in their life and many nice things like that. Then the husband prayed and thanked God for me and asked God to bless me with a great wife and for his blessing on my life. I'm not an emotional person but I told them after the prayer the only thing I could say was "Thank You" because words couldn't say how much I appreciated it but the real reason was I didn't know if a tear of two might sneak out, of course I could have blamed it on allergies.

I actually got a couple of birthday cards which was a great surprise. A lady from my office at Blue Cross bought a card and had people sign it and another friend from Blue Cross mailed me one. It really did my heart good. I really miss the people that I worked with. When you're somewhere for almost 11 years you build a lot of good relationships.

I also got another care package from home last week. It had some Christmas presents in it which I've been told not to open, but what they don't know won't hurt them. I actually haven't eaten all the oatmeal cream pies yet nor the swiss cake rolls. I think it's some sort of record for me. I've been feasting for the past few days.

Oh yeah, weirdest thing so far. A week or two ago on Sunday night I hear this really loud music outside and I think,"Oh, it's some sort of street party." So I decide to go outside and see what's going on. I go outside and the first thing I see is a guy with his arm around another guy. The first thought in my mind was,"I think the guy is hurt and his friend his holding him up." Not so much. It was a gay parade in Copacabana. I start looking around and seeing all kinds of crazy things, things you don't see in Falkville. It doesn't take me long to figure out what I've stumbled into and go back to my room. My buddy from church calls me and said he and his brother are going to get some ice cream so I said sure because it would be good to get away from the area for a little bit. I go to the Metro and the line is all the way out to the street. I've never seen it like that before. I then decide it's better to stay home. I wanted to go back and take a shower. The paper the next day said 1.5 million people were in Copacabana for it. Craziness!

Hanggliding, Favelas & College Football

Tudo bem? It's been a while since I've updated. I've attached a few pics from a place I visited in Rio called Pedra Bonita. It was absolutely amazing. Some friends of mine came in town from Belo Horizonte and we went there a Saturday a few weeks ago. I didn't know this was the place where people can hangglide or paraglide down to the beach. If I had known, I would have brought enough money to do it. It costs $R250 which is around $150. I just knew we were going to a mountain. What is interesting is that several cariocas that I told about this place never heard of it. I want to hangglide and paraglide before I leave, for sho.

Last week I wanted to visit Jardim Botanico which is a botanic garden. I waited kind of late to go. To begin my journey I printed out directions from google maps. I wanted some exercise so I decided to walk instead of taking a bus. Well, I started walking and started noticing I was going up hill and there was a lot of doggie doo on the sidewalk. The climate of people seemed a little different too but I kept on trucking. It kept going uphill and the area didn't seem to improve. I finally see these police officers and one kind of speaks English and they are talking to this couple. I'm kind of thinking that I'm in a favela and turns out I was right. I ask them for directions and what I can understand is that Jardim is very difficult to get to from here. I'm not good with directions that involve more than two turns in English much less someone giving me detailed directions in another language. They stopped this motorcycle taxi and asked how much he would charge to take me there and he said $R15 which is pretty expensive for a mototaxi. Yeah, it's a motorcycle where they slap a helmet on you and take you to your destination. Not my first choice so I said that was too expensive and I would walk back to where I came from. Because of my late start I did get there but had to meet a friend and didn't have time to go in and have time to enjoy it but I did see it from the outside and it looked nice. I'll catch it from another day.

I'm currently looking for another apartment because this one is so expensive and the pay as a teacher is not stable. My schedule is pretty full and if everyone that is scheduled comes to class then there would be no problems but life as an English teacher here is not stable. You never know who is going to cancel. I'm gonna have to find a place with a roommate and that will save me a lot of money plus it will help me with learning Portuguese. I found this site and have been emailing apartment owners and it hasn't been promising so far but I know I'll find the right place.

I went to a place Wed night and they had two rooms in this place with 3 other people who seemed nice but the two rooms were smaller than a prison cell (don't ask me how I know how big a cell is). They wanted $R800 for the smaller room and $R900 for the "big" room. Nah! I said "Thanks"and smiled and thought "There is no way I'm gonna pay that much money to live in a glorified closet."

Today I went to a place that I really wanted because of the price. I needed someone who spoke Portuguese so I took a friend with me to help negotiate. I found out why it was so inexpensive. Yeah, another favela. The house was kind of dark and gloomy and I didn't have a good feeling but I was so focused on the price I was ignoring the bad vibes. I'm glad my friend came with me because she talked some sense into me after it was over. My friend I went with reminds me of my uppity cousin Lee Ann who is one of my favorite people. I'll keep looking and my goal is to find the right place this month. Just pray for me to get the right one and the best price.

Today I was in crisis mode because it's the first Saturday of college football and I couldn't watch. It was difficult. I was supposed to get cable this week but there was some sort of issue so hopefully it will be in time for next week. I did find ESPN streaming radio at night so I did listen to some football and got a Domino's Pizza and Coke and listened. It felt so good. I did have a Portuguese class with another teacher from the school I got my certificate from. She speaks very little English and I speak very little Portuguese so it was a good match. It was very helpful for me. Sorry for the long entry, it's been a while. I'll try to update more.

Southern Hospitality In Minas

At a lake in Belo Horizonte









My JCPenney look









Lake in Belo

Tudo bem? I'm just showing off my little knowledge of Portuguese. It just means "Is everything good?" It's a common greeting and I use it all the time. After that, I got nothin' else for you as far as conversation goes.

Last weekend I went to Minas Gerais which is another state here in Brazil. A friend of mine had an engagement party there and I went with a friend of mine from church. I've met a few people from Minas here in Rio and they're so friendly. I had expectations of what I thought the people were like in Minas and I wasn't disappointed.

At the engagement party, there was a couple there who's getting married in December and they invited me to their wedding. Another lady there was talking about setting me up with some girls. A couple that we stayed with in Belo Horizonte were sooooo nice. We went to their church Sunday which has around 45,000 people. It has a main building which has services going on all the time and there are several blocks of buildings that they use as well.

The couple we stayed with bought me a Brazil shirt with a faith shield on it. They said "Joel, we like you so much we wanted to give you this shirt." I was like "Man, these could be southerners. They're just good people." The city where we stayed was called Belo Horizonte which has around 3 million people. It reminded me of Birmingham a little bit. If I come back to Brazil, that is where I would live next time. It's not as pretty as Rio but I just like it, mainly because of the people that I met there.

I added about three more students since last time. I've started working with another school which pays more than the others and I picked up two more private students. The private students are just coming from word of mouth. One of my new students asked me a question about present perfect in our first class and I was able to give him the correct answer. He said "You are good. I've asked that to other teachers before and they couldn't give me an answer." I did my Barney Fife sniff and was like "Well, that's how I roll."

I Just Got Scalped

I'm going outside of Rio for the first time this weekend with a friend from church. His roommate who is a friend of mine as well is having an engagement party in another state so we're taking a road trip. I'm looking forward to it. I've heard the people in Minas Gerais are very friendly and there's a church in Belo Horizonte we're going to visit that has around 40,000 people.

My hair was getting a little shaggy so I wanted to look decent to meet a lot of new people this weekend. I went to the place I normally go for a haircut and they were booked but I wanted to go ahead and get it cut now because I had a cancellation this morning and was the best time for me.

So I go down the street a couple of blocks to another place because there are salons on every other corner. I haven't had a bad haircut since I've been here so I figured why not. Either I didn't communicate my idea very well or he's part Indian and needed to fill his quota for a scalping.

I felt like I was in 3rd grade when my Dad did the same thing and cut every portion of bangs off me in perfect timing for picture day. I tried to tell him I only wanted a little bit cut off. I think he interpreted it as I only wanted a little hair left when he got done. He wanted to shake my hand after he was done. Why would I want to shake your hand after that? Then I have to pay for it. Come on man!

I keep going back to the mirror and hoping that I'll think "Oh, it's not that bad" but it hasn't happened yet. The word that comes to my mind every time is "Dang!". Good news is I won't need a haircut for about 6 months. By the time I come home I'll still be riding the effects of this haircut probably.

Just had to share.

Getting Married In Rio...

Ha! Just wanted to see how many people would read this with that headline. Who knows what will happen here, I may bring someone home when I come back. You just never know.

Since that's out of the way, I thought I'd give an update because it's been a while. My recent highlight was getting a care package from home. Man, it felt like I had won the lottery with oatmeal cream pies, pringles, oatmeal, peanut butter, etc. Oatmeal cream pies...gone in less than 2 days. I haven't eaten everything yet because I'm trying to make it last but the oatmeal cream pies didn't have a chance.

I found out that the tutor that gave me a couple of students when he had to leave the country in April is coming back in September. One of the students is a high school kid who is going back to the US in October so I was planning on losing him but the other students are a husband and wife couple that I tutor twice a week. It's a pretty good chunk of change from those two students.

I found out from a friend of mine about another school that pays better than any of the other schools. I emailed the lady this week and she gave me three times where she needed a teacher. I should be able to rearrange my schedule and get those three classes. Those three classes will completely replace the income I am losing from the two students I'm losing in October. God is good!

I've added a couple of new private students that are really nice. Most of my students are from one company which is a bank. It all started with a friend from church sending a notice to people at the company about my classes. One of them said her boyfriend wants to take classes too so that will be great. I'm really thankful that I really have a great group of students.

I'm also trying to get some other students to give myself some cushion. I found out that in December, January & February that it's pretty slow for teaching so I may come home in December. I'm not sure yet, I'll just have to play it by ear. I don't want to just be sitting here and paying rent without teaching. It all depends on my situation at that time.

I just found out tonight that I sold my Alabama tickets for the year. I will miss the Alabama games so much this year. I'll figure out a way to watch them on the internet somehow.

I found out this weekend that some people I know from Alabama were in Rio and preaching at a church outside of Rio. I googled the address and it would take 3 hrs to get there by bus. If I had a car it would only take 1 hr. At first I wasn't going to but I talked to my brother and he said if I didn't have anything else going on I could do some good reading on the bus ride. I decided to go do it and waited about 45 minutes for the bus and it never came. If it had come I would have been about 45 minutes to an hour late and then have another 3 hr bus ride home. So I just came back to the apartment. One thing I miss is being able to get in my car and go where I want. Even though I have no desire to be in this traffic its the principle of going where I want to go and when I want.

I talked to a couple of friends this week and one of my brothers which made it a great week. It always does my heart good to talk to someone and be able to communicate. It's the simple things that I miss like basic communication. Well, tchau for now amigos e amigas!

Hillsong Comes To Rio & The Tide Rolls In Rio

As I'm sitting here watching my Brazilian soap operas (it helps with my listening comprehension), I thought I would give an update. I forgot to email about something that happened several weeks ago. I was walking down one of the main streets in Copacabana and I'm waiting for the green light to walk across the street, I start hearing shrieks and screams behind me.

I turn around and I see this big rat running right down the middle of the sidewalk and people are dodging right and left like they're avoiding a locomotive. He's hoofing it and takes a right turn into this women's clothing store that had its door open. I see all these people almost immediately jump onto chairs and tables. He was in there for about a minute and I guess he didn't see anything that would fit so he came back out and went back in the direction where he came from. It was like his sole purpose was to go into that store. That was so funny! It made my day.

This past weekend Hillsong came to Rio and the church where I attend sponsored it. It was Darlene Zschech and her band from Australia. There was 4 different acts before them. It was supposed to start at 4 so I get there a little early. I should have factored Brazil time into the equation because it started close to 5.

Hillsong actually started around 8 and went until close to 10. Then our pastor came out and I guess he was giving an altar call. He can be really long winded and I wasn't exactly sure if the concert was over or not because a lot of people were leaving so I left too. It wasn't exactly in the best part of town so I didn't want to stay really late. As I was outside the stadium I heard them playing again. It was a very worshipful experience and did me so much good. I'm not good with numbers but there was probably 20,000 or more there.

I've had a lot of students on vacation or canceling classes lately so I've had a lot of free time. I've been walking or running by the beach a lot. Well, Monday as I'm running I have on my Alabama shirt and then I hear this family that is going the opposite way yell "Roll Tide!". I thought "Hallelujah, country folk!" and almost thought I heard angels sing. I yelled "Roll Tide" back and had a huge smile on my face the rest of the day. A couple of weeks ago I saw a guy on the metro with a University of Alabama ball cap on. We're international baby!

I've had some nice comments on my last post and I appreciate them. In case anyone is interested here's the link to the free 8 day email course on changing your thoughts and focusing on what is going right in your life - http://www.the48principle.com/toolbox.php. It's called the 8 day challenge.

Oh yeah, last night I was coming back from one of my classes and took this little van. The cost was $R2.30 and I gave him a $R5. He gave me some change and I started to look at it pretty closely, which I don't always do. He only gave me .70 back. I almost didn't say anything but I thought, "No. I can't let these people walk over me just because I'm a foreigner." I was trying to figure out how to say it but I told him "You gave me..." and then pointed at the change. He was like, Oh, I'm sorry (in Portuguese of course) and kind of smiled. He knew what he was doing.

Some of the people in the van started saying something to him and I heard United States and English with my translating skills. The guy who shortchanged me was saying something and making a face like "I didn't do it on purpose" or that's the feeling I got. It seemed like those people were taking up for me. Regardless if they did or not, that's the way I choose to think about it. I was still nice to the guy and slapped on the back and said "Obrigado amigo" when I left.

Quick Testimony

I just had to update on this week. This is probably more for my benefit than for anyone else. This has just been a good week and today was the best of all. Just lots of little things.

You see, I had allowed myself to get pretty negative about some things. It hasn't been all beaches and bikinis, there have been some rough patches. I told God last Sunday that I needed to hear from Him that night at church. He really showed up and the pastor gave a great message about how changing your negative thoughts and replacing them with God's Word can change your life and situation. I took so many notes and really got me encouraged to take action.

I had taken a free 8 day course a few years back regarding changing your thoughts. He's a Christian author that I had read before and really like called Tommy Newberry. I signed up again Sunday night and started getting the emails Monday morning. I could tell a difference already on the first day. It helped me out soooooo much.

Today's email was on being grateful for what you have. He said gratitude is focusing your attention and energy on what is working instead of what isn't. The more you appreciate, the more you notice things to appreciate. I've been doing that today and it was just a good day. I got an email from a guy who knows a friend of mine that used to work at Blue Cross. I think he does some sort of mission work here and I'll meet him tomorrow. That will give me another contact here which is great.

I was on the bus to see a student tonight and this pretty girl sat beside me and recognized me and spoke to me. I couldn't for the life of me remember who she was. Note: In Rio, when you see so many beautiful women every day, they almost run together and you can't remember which ones you saw the day before. Just unreal. Well, she could tell I didn't remember and reminded me that she had helped me before with directions and we got off the bus and talked for a while. Nothing major but just talking to a pretty and sweet girl can always brighten your day.

Finally when I got home tonight I had a card slid under my door. It was the first piece of mail I've received since I've been here because I just had a permanent address recently. It was a letter from the online campus at my church in Bham signed by everyone. It did me so much good. I had to write and encourage myself with this and share it with everyone else as well. Gratitude is something I will continue because it can change a dim outlook into a sunny day. There's so much to be grateful for, for sho. Word!

It's Been A While

This is a pic of my new friends I made from one of the companies where I teach.


I'm sitting here waiting for my first class of the day and thought I would update a little bit. I normally have a class at 8 & 10 on Monday but the 8 canceled and the 10 is in the US for a couple of weeks. I picked up a new student that starts today from 12-1. I'll have him on Mondays and Wednesdays...more money.

The weather is actually cooler than I thought it would be. I thought they only had one season - hot but I was wrong. Some of the nights have been in the 60s but it felt good. The days are in the 70s and I love it. It makes me think of football season.

I met a friend at one of the companies where I teach and I went the past couple of Sunday mornings to hang out while she took photos. She works for a company that photographs walks & runs like last week was a breast cancer walk and yesterday was some sort of 5K and 10K run. She told me I could make some money by handing out their company flier to runners after they were finished. Maybe it will be steady thing, that would be great. It's easy money and maybe I can meet some more people.

I'm trying to plan ahead for money because the student I tutor will be leaving at the end of July and going back to Florida. That is a pretty good amount of money per month. I could probably handle one more private student plus the new student and photo company gig will more than compensate for it.

I ordered a 3 inch foam mattress pad and had it sent to my brother in Bham. He mailed to me last week and it should be here this week or next. I can't wait to sleep in comfort again. The bed is not bad but it's not what I was used to in the States.