Eu nao sou de ferro!

I am not made of iron. This is a saying here which means basically that people have to rest sometimes - you can´t push yourself indefinately. Somehow, I never seemed to apply this to my life before comming here. Now, though, I can. This weekend I am kind of taking a break: Last night I stayed home, went running in the gym at our appartment, showered, played some music for my family (we each sang our country´s national anthem for eachother, too, which was alot of fun), and watched "The Fantom of the Opera." Tonight, I was going to go to one of my friend´s birthday party, but I was too tired, so I stayed home. I wanted to go, but it was at a club and I just didn´t feel like I would be able to endure partying until 4am. But this is how things are here. People like to go out on the weekends, and a typical day might include getting up early to go to the beach, staying there until late afternoon, eating lunch, going to a bar, then comming home and getting dressed up to go to a club until early the next morning. This is too much for me. I have concluded that Brazilians are, in fact, made of iron. As for me, I like to party, but I also like to sleep. :)

What I did do today, however was go to the beach with my family. We went to the appartment of Clara´s brother Ulysses, and from there on to a marina where he has a boat. Then we hung out there for a while, and took a boat ride. The marina had a restaurant, and we stayed there for a while and had a snack of french-fries (which you eat with a toothpick here...this is actually not as hard as it looks) and crab (which is harder to eat than it looks). :) Then we returned to Ulysses´appartment and had lunch (this was around 5:30pm, really late, but it was still considered lunch). It was alot of fun, but everybody was tired at the end of the day- myself included; so we went home after that.

Some other highlights of the week:
I went to Rotary again and met my counselor! I am very glad to have finally met my counselor, who turned out to be a really cool guy, too. His name is Laercio, and he is a doctor, so he is very busy. Laercio has a great sense of humor. Also, his soccer team is Sport, Nautico´s rival team, and he said he would take me to one of their games. :)

Another exciting thing I did this past week was go to a concert. This concert was at the Brittish Country Club, near Catherine´s family´s appartment. I went with Catherine, her host-sister Rebecca, her friend Claudio, and her mom. This was really alot of fun! There were a variety of musical genres (Samba, MPB= Muisica Popular Brasileira, forro, etc.) The bands were Nos4 and Madeira Delay. I really liked the music, and we all danced for most of the concert. We stayed until around 3am, and then went to go eat a sandwich. By the time we got back to the appartment it was 4 am (I spent the night at Catherine´s appartment). Then, the next day, we went to a churrasco together (BBQ). There was not anything for me to eat there, but it was fun anyway.

Sunday was Dia dos Criancas (children´s day) a holiday on which parents give presents to their children. We don´t have this holiday in the US, but here it is a big deal. We all went to a children´s mass in the Jaqueira Park church, and then came home, where Clara hid presents around the house for Gustavinho to find.

During the week, I continued with my usual activities of school and basketball. Except for wednesday, which was another holiday (dia dos profesors - teacher´s day). There was no school on this day, and teachers had the day off. I went to my guitar lesson that morning, and then, since Clara is a teacher and had the afternoon off, we went to run some errands and go shopping. This was a lot of fun, and a break from the usual routine.

And... that´s just about all for now, because I´m not made of iron you know... I need to sleep! :)