Christmas in August

So on Tuesday (August 11th) we flew out of São Paulo to Recife, the capital of Pernambuco (a state in Northeast Brazil). We spent the night there in a hostel before leaving early the next morning for Natal. Since it was my first experience with a hostel I didn't really know what to expect, and at first Jeff and I both hated it. Then we started to get to know the people running it and the other guests and we started to really like it. It didn't help that they had plumbing problems and had no running water at the hostel that night. They filled up some big buckets of water, so we took showers by dumping water on ourselves with an empty half-gallon ice cream container. Surprisingly effective.

Wednesday we took an early bus to Natal, the capital of Rio Grande do Norte. As you might have guessed from the title of this blog post, Natal means "Christmas" in Portuguese. We stayed with the Orikaza family, a half-Japanese family that Jeff knew from his mission. Their daughter, Mayumi, had a car and served as our unofficial tour guide. That afternoon we went souvenir shopping in the center. We bought some really cool soccer jerseys, and I bought a hammock. The guy started off asking for 60 reais and I wound up buying it for 30. Now I just need to figure out how to hang it in the backyard....

Thursday we met up with Elder Nascimento, one of my missionary companions. By way of explanation, on the mission he was known as Elder E. Nascimento. The "E" stood for Elder, which literally is his first name. His parents weren't even members of the church, they just saw some missionaries one time and thought Elder would make a good name. He got baptized when he was a teenager and went on to personally baptize the rest of his family.

Anyways, that morning we went to Ponta Negra beach, which is one of the most famous in Natal (since I'm tired of explaining that all the beaches we went to are really famous in Brazil, from here on out you can just assume they are - that includes Miami Beach too). When we first got there it was raining, but since winter in Natal is at least as hot as summer in Utah, that was not a problem. After a while the weather cleared up enough for us to realize that we'd gotten sunburned through the clouds. That was the last time I took my shirt off without first putting on a layer of SPF 50 sunblock. (The odd result of this trip is that I'm really not that tan. Apart from a little color I got at the beach this past week I'm disturbingly white for having spent two months in a tropical country.)

That afternoon we went to see an old fort and walked pretty much all over the coast of Natal. To Get to the fort we walked along a really cool beach with some reefs that broke the waves and created some tide pools and stuff along the shoreline. While in the fort we discovered that 16th century Portuguese and Dutch soldiers wore really gay-looking uniforms,
that the English translation of "banheiro masculino" is "won's bathroom," and that the "secret passage" now leads to what smelled like a septic tank.




Friday was one of the highlights of the trip: the sand dunes at Genipabu beach. They had a lot of things to do there: you could ride dune buggys, a sandboard, or even camels. (We got into an argument with Elder and Mayumi since they both said that they weren't camels since they only had one hump and that the proper word was "dromedaries." Yeah. Sure. Whatever.) I went with the sandboard because it was cheaper and sounded really fun. It's a lot harder than snow or wakeboarding because the sand gives pretty much no traction so you can hardly cut at all. Maybe if I got some more practice.

After the dunes we hung out at the beach for a while. Once the vendors figured out that we were tourists they started bringing us lots of cheap seafood. It was great. We bought some shrimp kabobs and a whole lobster. The lobster was only 5 reais (about 3 $US). It makes me sad to think that I can't get them for nearly that cheap here, especially since the shrimp and lobster were really good.

That afternoon we spent lying around in hammocks drinking from coconuts, eating the coconut meat until we were stuffed, and then using the rest of the coconut meat to make candy. Yes, coconuts are amazing, and yes, I would like one right now, thank you.

The next day we left Natal early in the morning for João Pessoa, the capital of Paraíba and the home of Diego Santana, one of my other mission companions. We'll leave that for the next blog post.

More soon,

-Kev

Déjà Vu

Thursday (August 6th) I got up at around 5 and headed to the Tieté bus station, the largest bus station in Latin America and the second largest in the world (the biggest is in New York). Despite the hype, it was pretty much like every other bus station I've been to in Brazil, except it had a subway connected to it. (I'm really starting to like the subway. It's a lot nicer than the bus and a lot faster.)

Anyway, I took the 7:30 bus to Ribeirão Preto, where I served my mission. I got there around 12:00. I'm staying with the Bittencourts, a member family from my last area, which was in Ribeirão Preto itself. In the afternoon I visited some members and converts, then in the evening it was the Bishop's wife's birthday and they had a party for her, so I got to see most of the members.

Friday morning I made pancakes with maple syrup for the Bittencourts. They have a 17 year old son and an 11 year old grandson who are addicted already. I spent the afternoon visiting converts and members I knew well. It's pretty crazy. Friday evening was pretty cool since a bunch of the youth and young adults in the ward went to the center to play pool and hang out. We ate dinner at a fast food place that had some arcade games for free and I was destroying everyone. It was cool to see what it is normal Brazillian kids do for fun.

One cool story is a guy named Guilherme. Elder E. Nascimento and I met him about two weeks before the end of my mission. He said he was less active but wanted to start going to church, so we went to his house a few times and he went to church once or twice. After that I never heard anything else about him. When I got here I found out he's super active and getting ready for his mission. Today (Sunday) he baptized one of his friends. He's a really cool guy.

Saturday I got on the 4:40am bus to São José do Rio Preto to visit my first area. I visited two families I baptized, then headed back to Ribeirão on the 5:00 bus and got back to Ribeirão Preto around 9:00. It was a long day, but really cool. At some points I could really feel the Spirit pretty strong as I was thinking about my mission and seeing how the gospel changes people's lives. It made me really grateful for the gospel and helped me remember how important missionary work is, how much it really helps people find true happiness.

Today (Sunday) was also pretty cool. One of the Elders who's in this area now, Elder Gall, was in my zone last year and we did splits a few times, so it was cool to see him again. It was also a really great experience to see a convert baptism and see some of the new people in the ward who got baptized since I left. In the afternoon I went to see the family of Raul, a boy we baptized about 3 weeks before I left Brazil. His stepdad, Fernando, is inactive and his mom, Marcia, isn't a member, but they're way cool. We visited for a while, then I found out Fernando is addicted to video games, so we played Tekken and Mortal Kombat for a while. That's one fun thing that I always wanted to do as a missionary.

Tomorrow I head back to São Paulo and Tuesday I fly out to Recife, so there's still another week and a half of adventure left before I head home.

More soon,

-Kev

Ubatuba: Free Bikes, a Boat, and More Giant Rats!

So last weekend we went to Ubatuba, a city on the coast in the state of São Paulo. Of all the hotels we've stayed at this one was the most fun. It had a really big pool, and lots of amenities, like pool tables, ping pong, and even a 9 hole mini golf course. They also had bikes you could check out from the front desk to take for rides along the beach. I was pleasantly surprised that none of this stuff cost extra. The bikes were probably the coolest, since there was a trail that goes right along the beach just for bikes.

On Saturday (August 2nd) we took a boat out to an island just off the coast that used to be a prison. There were a bunch of old buildings, and for some reason the island's caretakers had a bunch of capivaras, the worlds largest (and awesomest) rodent. There were also a bunch of beaches on the island that were basically empty except for us. The boat also took us to some beaches that are only accessible by boat.

Saturday night a few of us went to the Ubatuba aquarium, which was pretty cool. It had some tropical fish, as well as a sort of "petting zoo" where you could reach into a tank and touch sea urchins, sea cucumbers, starfish, and a ray.

Sunday we went to church in Ubatuba, then headed back to São Paulo. Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday we went one last time to a few of our favorite places in São Paulo that we'd been to, like Avenida Paulista, Liberdade, and Avenida 15 de Março (a street with tons of cheap street vendors). I bought a really sweet São Paulo soccer Jersey and some ties. Wednesday our classes finished up, and Thursday I headed to Ribeirão Preto to visit my mission, which will be my next blog entry.

As you may have noticed I went back and added pictures to my old blog posts. Feel free to check them out.

"Here in America we don't tolerate that kind of crap, sir!"

Not much to report on since my last post, but here goes.

Tuesday we went to Avenida Paulista (the commercial center of the city - kind of like wall street). While there we went to an exposition with a bunch of video games you could play for free. One of the guys in our group, Brad, played Halo 3 against some 12 year old kids and threw down some US style domination. We had a good laugh about it. I also dominated at Mario Kart.

After that Jeff and I hung around the Avenida for a while going down some side streets and stuff. We bought some coconut candy and I became a junkie. We also bought some cheap fig newton knockoffs filled with guava jelly (goiabada) and some amazing sugar-coated gummy candy. We also went to the Livraria Cultura, which is supposed to be São Paulo's best bookstore. It was pretty cool, but a disappointingly high percentage of the books were in English. We also got some sugarcane juice (definitely mankind's greatest achievement) and pastels.

Yesterday (Wednesday the 29th) we went to the Campinas temple. I acted as a witness for some baptisms, then we did a session. It was way cool because we didn't get any English translation. I also got some pictures of the temple. I've been wanting to get those since the MTC when we went but couldn't take our cameras.


Today we got to go to the US Consulate. Dr. Fails knows one of the guys who works there so we got a tour, then had a few guys from the State Department and Foreign Service talk to us about what it is they do there. It was really interesting. Apparently consulates are like smaller versions of Embassies, which means I was on US soil for a few hours today. We all kept thinking of the Simpsons episode where they go to Australia. They didn't have a machine hooked up to the toilets though, so we had to put up with clockwise-spinning flushes.

Thats all for now. Ill get in another post next week.

-kev

Happy World Land and the World's Nastiest Cake

It's been a pretty busy weekend, so I'll try to fill y'all in.

Friday afternoon (the 24th) we went to do baptisms for the dead at the São Paulo temple. Two of the girls in our group haven't been endowed so we wanted them to be able to do something at the temple. It was a unique experience that lends a lot of credence to the phrase "the church is truer in Utah." Long story short, what we expected to take 45 minutes took 3 hours. It was still a really great experience, though. Even with all the hassle I left feeling really good.

Saturday five of us went to a theme park called Hopi Hari. It's about equivalent to Lagoon in terms of rides. The good news is it was just a little rainy on Saturday, making for really short lines all day. We rode everything we wanted 2 or 3 times. The annoying part was the music playing from most of the speakers. If anybody has seen the Tiny Toons "How I Spent My Summer Vacation" movie, the music was just like the Happy World Land theme song. They also had some weird arabic music (I think the theme of the park, if it had one, was the middle east, but they didn't stick to it very well.) and a knockoff of the Superman theme. It was a lot of fun though.

There was one incident at the end of the day. They had one area that was Sesame Street themed for little kids, and they had a ride that was like the teacups at Disneyland except with Oscar the Grouch's trash can instead of teacups. Jeff, Rebecca, and I got into one and discovered that whereas the Disneyland ride kind of limits how fast you can spin, this one doesn't. We got spinning ridiculously fast and were probably pulling several G's throughout the course of the ride. Between the lightheadedness, spinning lights, and all of us laughing hysterically it felt kind of like what I imagin being on drugs is like. When I got off I got really motion sick and threw up into the closest garbage can. It was the first time I've ever thrown up because of a park ride. I know it sounds like I'm ragging on the whole park experience but I seriously did have a blast.

On Sunday Jeff and I went with a guy named Aaron from our group to visit one of his old mission areas (he served here in São Paulo in the Interlagos mission). It was kind of a poorer area, and reminded me of some of the poorer places from my mission (until now we've mostly hung around the prettier, tourist-friendly parts of Brazil). It was fun though, and made me really excited to visit my mission next weekend.

One of the families we visited gave us a piece of the world's nastiest cake. This was after we left a really poor house that smelled like the walls were molding. Jeff described the cake best by saying that it tasted like the moldy house smelled. Other than that the day went really well.

As you can tell, I'm keeping pretty busy. I may not get a post up again until next week. Hope all is well in the States.

-kev

Argentina, Curitiba, Twilight, and a Snake Museum

For day 2 of our time in Foz de Iguaçu we went to the Argentine side of the waterfalls. Without meaning any disrespect to Brazil, I have to admit the Argentine side was a lot cooler. The first thing we did was go on a catwalk that takes you right up by the Devil's Throat, which is where the waterfalls make kind of a circle and all dump into one place. (As a side note, why is it that really cool things are so often named after the devil? That kind of reflects badly on human nature.)

After that we went on some paths that take us along the whole length of the falls on the Argentine side. Basically the format of the falls is like a long hall with waterfalls on either side and at the end of the hall is the devil's throat. I don't know how well that explains it, but you can always look it up on Google Earth or something. It's probably worth the 30 seconds of effort.

(Pause for half a minute......)

The highlight of the day was a boat ride we took. The boat went right up next to the falls. We obviously couldn't go underneath the falls themselves, but the water hitting the surface of the river splashes up enough to create a kind of cloud that's almost like a secondary waterfall (this is really hard to describe, sorry) and we went into that cloud and got absolutely soaked. It was really fun.

After that we bought some souvenirs and stuff, then went to the Three Corners area where Brazil, Argentina, and Paraguay meet. We couldn't jump back and forth because the boundary is actually at the intersection where two rivers make a kind of T shape, but over the course of the weekend we did go to all three of those countries, so I'm up to 5 countries I've been in now (thank you Canada!).

Saturday night we went to a really nice churrascaria called the Búfalo Branco. After eating more meat and grilled pineapple than was probably wise, safe, or legal in certain countries, I went to try and take a picture of the kitchen where they have a bunch of meat roasting on spits. The people in charge saw me and let me go back in by the grill and get a picture with a big chunk of meat on a spit. It was pretty cool.

Sunday afternoon we left for Curitiba, the capital of the state of Paraná. It's one of the cleaner, more modern and European cities in Brazil. We spent most of the day Monday visiting parks and stuff. Monday night we went to a mall and they had a booth set up where if you buy a can of some Coke product you can play Rock Band as much as you want, so a couple of us hung out there for a while. We absolutely dominated.

On the ride back from Curitiba to São Paulo the girls kind of revolted that we'd been watching mostly guy movies and somehow convinced Gustavo to turn on Twilight. Since I had nothing better to do I watched it. It was hilariously terrible, and I laughed pretty hard during most of the "serious" parts.

Yesterday we played soccer for a few hours. I got schooled. I also got a huge blister on my left foot. It was a lot of fun.

Today we went to the Instituto Butantan, which has a snake museum. They had a mini-zoo with a bunch of exotic snakes and frogs and stuff. They had 3 or 4 anacondas in one of the tanks. They weren't full size yet, but were still pretty big. They also had a huge Indian Python, and at one point got out some false coral snakes and were letting people touch them. I felt kind of stupid because most of the people in line were little kids. On the other hand, how many times do you get to touch a Brazillian snake (without getting strangled, poisoned, or robbed by it I mean).

This Saturday a few of us are going to Hopi-Hari, which is an amusement park. From what I understand it's supposed to be "better than Lagoon, but not as good as Six Flags." We'll see how that goes. It's only 75 reais for a day pass and the bus ride to and from the park, which seems pretty cheap to me. It's supposed to be lousy weather on Saturday, which will hopefully translate to shorter lines.

That's about all the latest news so I'll go ahead and close this post.

Best Dam Trip Ever

Hello everyone. Right now we're at a hotel with free wifi so I figured I'd get a quick post up on the blog here. I'll try to add some pictures as well.

Yesterday was a ridiculously long bus ride from Sao Paulo to Foz de Iguacu. We left at 6 in the morning with a 15 hour trip ahead of us. That would have been the case except that when we stopped for dinner around 7 the busdriver discovered that the weird sounds we'd been hearing during the trip were because one of the axles was breaking. We had to wait for a replacement bus to come before we could continue on, which took quite a while. I'm not sure how long it took for the replacement bus to get there, but I do know we watched Bolt from start to finish and the new bus still wasn't there yet (for those of you who haven't seen that movie yet, go see it now. If you don't absolutely love it then you're probably reading the wrong blog). When our ghetto replacement bus showed up we had another few hours drive and got to the hotel at midnight.

This morning we went to the Iguacu cataracts, which are some of the biggest falls in the world. It was pretty cool to see. The city we're in is called Foz de Iguacu and is right on the borders between Brazil, Argentina, and Paraguay. Tomorrow we're going to see the falls from the Argentine side and get right up close to the Devil's Throat. (We saw the Devil's Throat today from a bit of a distance. It's pretty impressive).

In the afternoon we went to Itaipu, the world's most powerful hydroelectric dam. It supplies 90% of Paraguay's electricity with one or two of it's turbines, and the rest supply 20% of Brazil's power. The dam tour guides took us on the dam tour, where we learned a lot of dam facts and they answered all our dam questions. I decided not to buy any of their dam gifts from the dam gift store since their too darned expensive. (You all thought I'd slip up on that last one, didn't you?). As a random side note, on the way out we saw two pink tour buses. They were pretty gay looking, as you can imagine.

For dinner we went to a pizza buffet. Luckily the hotel has a gym of sorts where I could atone for my sins afterward.