So I'm not sure why, but this blog website won't let me copy and paste anything. I guess maybe to avoid copyright problems? Either way, I am very annoyed because I wrote an entire post a few days ago and it got messed up so I couldn't post it... so I saved it in a word document and thought I'd be able to paste it in here. But nope. Rather than re-write the entire thing, I'll summarize: last weekend was grrrrrreat! My friend Fabio took me, Ellie, and his newly-wed friends out in his dune buggy for a ride around the city. We saw some really cool sights, got some sun, got some rain, and ate some delicious food. The next day, Fabio had a "churrasco" at his house in a neighborhood called Barra. Yes, you heard me right, HOUSE. This is the first actual house that I've even seen in Brazil thus far... with a pool in the back yard and some really cool outdoor plants, etc. A "churrasco" here is like a barbeque for us. Only Brazilians do barbeques wayyyy better than we do. Instead of having burgers and hot dogs, they have delicious meats of all kinds, cheeses, fruits, etc. etc. etc. all cooked in a brick oven with lots of salt and some farofa on the side. "Farofa" is something that I simply cannot explain. I would try, but I would fail. Maybe you should look it up yourself. Either way, it is delicious and is eaten with meat. So Fabio invited all of his family and friends and hired a cook to make the food. It was probably 30ish people in all, including some adorable little children. His parents, siblings, good friends and their parents and siblings, and more, were there. Gustavo was telling me how he was glad I could be there to experience the "Sunday Farofa" with them... I'm not sure if I totally understood what he meant (I'm kind of just always a little bit lost in translation here), but I think he was using "farofa" as a metaphor for family life and family gatherings. I definitely agree with him; it was a very cool experience and I'm glad they invite me and my friends to those kinds of things.

Gustavo and his family have kind of adopted me into their family. I love it. They invite me to everything, and they're always doing things together. Here, if you haven't married yet, you live with your parents until you do. And then even after you marry, you still spend almost every single day with them. So I spend a lot of time with Gustavo, his (beautiful) wife Renata, their (beautiful and almost identical to Renata) daughter Luana, his brother Sancho, their very active and friendly parents, and a handful of their close family friends. I'm really lucky to know these people, and I'm excited to introduce them all to my real family WHEN they come to visit me!

Ok so I'm going to do some cheating right now. I know I'm not the best blog-writer ever, and I don't update as consistently as I would like to. But I have a friend named Tyler who is also from Berkeley and doing the same program, who has a very good blog that I think is worth checking out. Most of the things he writes about are things I've been experiencing as well, but they're things that I don't necessarily think of to write about. Here's the link: http://www.fryerbrazil.com
The video of the dog he lives with is especially great.

Please please please forgive me for not having photos yet. I'm really lazy with photos. If we're facebook friends, you can see a handful of them there. Otherwise, you're going to have to wait until I actually start using my camera and I take the time to upload the photos and everything.

Anyway, I am now going to make a running schedule so I can start training for the half marathon that I signed up for in July! I hope you are all well, and I miss you very much!