Project = Go!

Oh hey!

BFFs

One of the new guys

This little dude was following me everywhere, I loved it!

These are some of the ones going to be released; they're hanging out in this little room waiting to be fed :)

The weather has been getting better the last few days, but apparently it is going to rain again this weekend! But that's ok, there will be lots of sunny days to come! I found out that the reason I didn't know what was going on Monday morning was because Joice (one of the girls working on the parrot project) was e-mailing the wrong address. She had sent out a message to everyone saying that they wouldn't start the project because of the weather we had been having. I would have been there to volunteer anyways - it is just nice to know what is going on.

Wednesday was another day of volunteering. I cleaned both the penguin areas while their fish was being prepared and thus gave me some time to have a little secret photo shoot with a couple of them! They keep the new ones seperate from the group that is ready to be released and they are a bit more affectionate than the other ones. There is one that could barely stand up on his own when I first got there and now he hobbles around trying to follow you everywhere you go! SO cute. Another one had either knife wounds or had been hit with a boat propeller and is healing up pretty well! One wound was on his back and the other on his right wing but now they are fully scabbed and clearing up. A couple more came in the last couple days because they had swam into oil infested waters and were absolutely covered. Such a sad sight to see.

After the penguins there wasn't much for me to do. I just helped change the birds papers and washed their dishes. A simple volunteer day. When I had gotten home I had received an e-mail from Cris (one of the vets) forwarding an e-mail from Joice saying that they were going to start the projects Thursday and she was inviting me to join them. I made sure to e-mail Joice back so that she had my phone number and proper address for next time and also to let her know that I would be there!

So today was spent catching and weighing their 22 birds and taking them to a seperate cage to see how each of them flies individually. This was done to get a preliminary rating (a scale from 1-5) so they can monitor how they improve over time. Manu (another girl working with the parrots) and I were sent to find pine cones and buds on the trees in the area and to collect a bunch for the parrots. They are trying to introduce them to the type of vegetation that they will see commonly in the area once they are released so that they will be more used to foraging from the trees. Other than that Manu and I didn't have much to do because Joice, Tais, and Sandro had everything they needed between the three of them. So in between each parrot Manu and I would sit on the side talking so I got to practice my portuguese! I think I'm getting better :)

Update on my project! The turtles have their own area separated from the tortoises now! The tub is now dug into the ground giving them more swimming area and they have a ramp that will let them have access to the natural substrate. But for now they aren't allowed to have time outside of the pool until we have all the primary measurements. Monday we will be weighing all the turtles, measuring their shell width and length, measuring the legions and taking pictures. After all the measurements have been done the turltes can run around wherever they want!

I was also given the task of finding papers related to the topic and summarizing them for Vanessa. I have found quite a few with where they like to spend their time, different skin problems, and even one about how to fix the "blindness" in some of my turtles! Turns out it's a vitamin A deficiency and with about 2 weeks of special care with cod liver oil added to their diet they will be good as new! I hope that they will be able to provide these things for these poor little guys.

Chuvenopolis!

Portuguese word of the day - Chuver; to rain! There is often a joke here to call Vancouver "Vanchuver" since it rains so often. I have also heard them call Florianopolis "Chuvenopolis" and it is definitely living up to that name. It has been cloudy and rainy here for quite a while now and it is starting to give me the blues. I find myself being very lazy and not wanting to leave the house to do anything. There has been lots of tv and movies and not so much portuguese studying or adventuring going on and thus nothing really to blog about.

I mentioned in my last post that the penguins were going to be released Friday afternoon; unfortunately since the weather wasn't cooperating we couldn't do that :( They did get all of their blood tests done and their permanent tags put on so they would be ready for the moment it was nice enough for release! The blood tests came back on Monday and all 11 penguins are healthy and good to go! GREAT new! Unfortunately the weather STILL wasn't nice enough that day to take them out. Fingers crossed we'll be able to do it tomorrow - although I'm not getting my hopes up with this crummy weather.

My turtle project got organized a little on Friday. Since we were not much help with the penguins (too many people) we had plenty of time to mark all of the turtles. We took them all out of their pool and put them into 3 buckets so we could seperate the ones that had been marked from the ones who still needed to get their colours. We used nail polish and a marking system that Vanessa came up with to number each turtle. 54 in total!! Do you know how hard it is to keep track of 54 turtles while you have one in each hand trying to help the nail polish dry faster? All while there is a giant tortoise chasing us around and trying to attack/head butt/bite us - those things are faster than you would think they are!

The marking system - artistically interpreted by yours truly

Monday I was supposed to help a couple people with the parrot project. They were going to be doing some behavior analysis and for part of it they need me to stand perfectly still in the middle of these 30 or so parrots for about 15 minutes; no problem! In return the vet who is on the parrot project was going to show me how I am supposed to measure the legions on my turtles and tell me what measurements I should be recording for each of them. Neither of these things happened though because none of them showed up. I would have started weighing the turtles and measuring them but there were a few problems: the only scale that they have was being used, there are 54 turtles and only one of me, and I didn't know what measurements to take and to only do half of them just to collect them all up again the next time seemed a little counter productive.

Monday was a pretty sad day for me. I felt pretty useless there - even as a volunteer. The morning was productive; we weighed and banded a new penguin that came in covered in oil, cleaned both the penguin areas, cleaned the sea lion and then fed him (he is sooo gentle when he takes his fish! Definitely the highlight of my day). After that however most of my time was spent standing around and watching one of the other volunteers talk to the penguins; yayyyy fun :( I guess he didn't realize that I had been shown how to carry them and that I could actually help him instead of just stand there and watch him feed them really, really slowly. Then we went to change the water for my turtles which went very slowly as well because there is only a small hole to drain the water from and we have to stand there holding the tub on an angle great enough to allow the water to drain for the whole time; maybe i'll have super toned biceps after all this? Then I had to stand there and watch as the water filled up again via the slowest hose known to man. The other volunteer that I had been working with went to get food for them as I supervised the water flow. When he came back I saw that he had only brought fish and not very much of it. It made me really mad that no one has taken the time to figure out what they need in terms of habitat and dietary means. For their housing that they have it could just be that they don't have the resources to get them rocks and such to cover the bottom of their tub but the least they could do is feed them properly. I am making it my personal goal to make sure that I can find more information from a reliable source that I can include in my research so I can show them that they need more than what they are being supplied.

Sorry for the rant and bits of sarcasm. It's just that Vanessa is out of town this week and she told us all that we needed to get as much done in this time that we have because she will only be back for a short time to tell me what behavior analysis I need to do before she goes out of town again. Not only do we need to get a base for each of the turtles but we also need to build a wall to separate the turtles from the tortoises. I really hope that tomorrow they will be there so that we can get this all organized!

"Deep breath in!" - Medical examinations

Numbers 52, 53, and 54! Done Marking

All painted and hanging out

Having a romantic moment with one of the penguins

Working!

Tuesday afternoon was another rainy day here in Florianopolis. Apparently the cold winds from the south and hot winds from the north have collided in a way that has been giving us some very impressive thunder/lightning/rain storms! I found a time during the day when it was dry enough to let me walk to a store down the road a little so that I could buy gloves and gum boots for work the next morning. This was another fun little solo adventure where I got to practice some more portuguese and ended really successfully! Because of the weird weather I feel like I need to dress warmly - that is so wrong. It may be wet but it just makes everything muggy! Just walking home from the store (about 10 minutes at a leisurely pace) and I was sweating like crazy. That night I was having a hard time falling asleep. Then I was having a hard time staying asleep. Then the birds started singing and I couldn't stop listening to them. They stopped for a little while (maybe about 45 minutes) and I finally slept a little bit. But around 5:30 I was woken up again by the loudest thunder I have ever heard! I swear it was right above the house. The storm was going at full force in no time and I couldn't help but lay in bed just listening. Soon enough it was about time I was awake anyways so I gave up on sleeping and started getting ready.
The storm stopped barely long enough for me to walk to the bus and then started up again - so lucky that I got to dodge that one! An hour and a half bus ride would have been made a lot worse if I was soaking wet. About 9AM there I was; at R3 ready for my first day of getting my hands dirty. I wasn't working on any specific projects but I helped out with a lot of different things:

Penguins
First was cleaning and feeding the penguins! Cleaning was pretty much just scrubbing the area they hang out in while they're waiting, not so patiently, in their feeding room. This wasn't so bad until it started to rain again. Hilda had leant me her jacket which is a little more waterproof than the one I brought (but still not completely waterproof) and it didn't take long before I was completely drenched! Other than my feet of course because of my awesome gum boots ;) I didn't care too much though because I was hanging out with penguins and I knew I had brought a change of clothes with me.
Feeding was more fun than cleaning because this is when we actually interacted with the little guys. Apparently something in fish depletes B12 levels (for penguins and the fur seal for sure - who else? I don't know) and so 3 times a week they stick a little B12 under the gill of one of the fish that each penguin is going to eat. After there was one B12 fish for each penguin it all started! the little room they were waiting in was blocked by a gate-type contraption designed so that only a couple are being fed at a time. Two of the sides are fixed and the other two can slide up and down; first to allow them in for feeding and second to let them out to the rest of their area. Some of the penguins eat really well and you can feed them rather easily. Some others tend to be more grabby and tear the fish appart which could result in them not getting the vitamins and also makes a huge mess. For these guys Vanessa would kneal down with one between her knees and hold their beaks open so that they couldn't bite at the fish. Then she would place the fish far enough into their mouths that they could just swallow it right up!
Once each penguin was finished eating they were carried over to the pool to clean themselves up. Fish oils on their feathers can make the penguins really dirty so they always have time in the pool after a meal. The way that we would carry them was one hand on their head and the other under one wing. They are really strong and we have to be careful around them because their first attack is to go straight for the eyes! Kind of scary. So first step is to get a firm grip on their head in a way that they can't wiggle around and hurt themselves while still protecting you from potential attack. Then the second hand just goes into their pit and voila! You are holding a penguin! I think that I probably had the most ridiculous smile on my face the whole time that I was carrying them around.

Tagging and Weighing
There were a couple new birds that had come into R3 and there is a routine that each has to go through before they are allowed in the bigger cages with the other birds. First they get some deworming; it takes a total of 3 days to be completely through their system and so that's how long they stay in their smaller cages. They also need to get their ankle band and be weighed so that their weight can be monitored during their stay and when they are released.
To weigh a bird you need to put it into a black bag small enough that they can't fly around and be crazy but not too small to restrict them completely. The scale was set to zero with the bag on it so that the reading would record only what the bird weighs. The problem is closing the bag without letting the bird escape. One of the birds that we weighed was not too happy about us doing this to him and got out of the bag before it was closed! It was ok though because every door is closed behind you right away just in case of this type of situation. This must happen a lot because Vanessa caught him again in no time.
The banding process is super easy. First you need to measure the diameter of the birds leg to determine which size/colour is best. Second you us some small plyers to push it open wide enough to get around the leg. Third step is simply squeezing it shut! Done and done.

Amputation
The final thing that we did Wednesday was operate on a seagull that had a broken wing. It was so bad that after the joint his wing was just hanging there - you could even see the bones sticking out. Before they could get started they needed to weigh him; using the same method as for the smaller birds. Once he was sedated they started assessing the wing and where they were going to amputate etc. It was really cool to get to watch and I think I'm going to be able to sit in on all types of surgeries during my time here! There's one scheduled in a couple weeks for a sea lion; not sure what they're amputating but I bet it's going to be cool.

And that was all accomplished before lunch!

Today I don't have much to report. I went to a couple meetings at CCA; I won't go into detail because it's nothing worth blogging about really. The only thing interesting is that we talked about what we're going to do the next couple of weeks at R3. Tomorrow (Friday) we're going really early to take some blood samples and a final weight for some of the penguins because later in the afternoon they are going to be released! I'm not sure where they will be released or if they have enough room for me in the car but they said if there was space I am more than welcome! I'll try and get pictures if they let me go :) There are also some things to be done with the parrots but I'm not sure exactly. And then if there is still time we're going to start tagging my turtles, measuring their legions for a starting point, and then possibly starting to build the fence that will separate them from the tortoises.
Next week Vanessa is out of town so I'm not going to start data collection with the turtles yet. We'll just be working on their set up mostly and I'll be helping with whatever anyone needs me to do! During this week I also have to research about what other people have done with turtles and if there is any information about legion incidence and severity depending on substrate provided.
And so it begins...

Balneário Camboriú

Last Friday night Joao, Tracy, Miagi and I set out on what I like to call a road trip. But in reality it was just a short drive to a place called Balneário Camboriú which is only an hour away. It was still exciting though because we had never been there before and we rented a car for the weekend! Joao's good friend Ana lives there and so we dropped Miagi off at his parents place and the rest of us stayed over at Ana's (I forgot to take a picture of our room but there were two sets of bunk beds in one room so there was lots of space for everyone! haha) After everyone got settled in and ate some food we got ready to go out and see Bruno's rock-a-billy band playing at a bar (or Hock-a-billy as they pronounce it here). Believe it or not Tracy and I were prepared for the weekend and actually brought some nice clothes along with us! So dressed in our skirts and heals we were all set for a good night!

Saturday morning we all got ready for a beach day. The weather wasn't so ready for us though so we ended up meeting up with some of our new friends and staying at one of the beaches for majority of the afternoon. A few of the guys are in a band and are apparently pretty famous in the area so the whole time we had guitar and singing in the background making for a really nice attmosphere - not that the beach isn't good enough but it really added to the mood. Once it was starting to get kind of dark out Bruno asked us if we had ever been to "Bald Hill". I was expecting him to suggest that we go there the next time we came out but to my surprise we all jumped into the cars and drove there right then! It is exactly as suggests it to be - after driving up the side of a pretty steep hill and parking followed by a couple sets of stairs to reach the peak we discover there aren't any trees but instead an amazing view of the whole city lit up at night. Pictures couldn't capture it but we tried! Next was a small bar where everyone played snooker and had a few drinks while deciding where to go/what to do that night. After figuring out a rough plan we all went to get ready before meeting up again for another night out (their nights don't really start until about 12 midnight and end somewhere around 6 am!!). This time we went to a bar called "Ooby Dooby" which also had a rock-a-billy band playing. This one was a little different though - it had a complete 50's theme around the whole bar! Everything was decorated with the expected booths, pictures, Elvis movies playing, a working jukebox, even the employees were dressed up!

Sunday was our last day there which we spent just relaxing and getting ready for our car ride home. We picked up Miagi from his parents house again and then went to check out a couple more beaches (from the road mostly because it was still cold out) before saying goodbye. There is so much more that we didn't see in that one weekend and we met so many good people that it is pretty much guaranteed that we will be back there; probably sooner than later!

Once home everyone was pretty tired from this fun filled weekend and I had gotten pretty sick! I spent the remainder of Sunday in my bed with a pretty wicked temperature and feeling fairly nautious and sorry for myself. Bad timing for me because Monday morning, today, I was supposed to start working on my projects at R3 but still hadn't recovered! I called Vanessa Kanaan in the morning to give her a heads up that I couldn't come in and she was very nice about it (like always) and just wanted me to get better. Hopefully I'll still be able to get to R3 for Wednesday to volunteer - I'll keep you all posted. By the afternoon I was feeling quite a bit better and managed to make it to our portuguese class. This week went a little smoother than last time; but not by much :P There were fewer people there this week and we had a couple more exercises to do. First we had a childrens song to listen to and fill in the blanks of the lyrics and then we did some talking in pairs; I found both things were a lot more usefull than her just talking at the class. By the time dinner was here I had my appetite back and was feeling pretty much all better. As for tonight I am just laying low and plan on getting a nice long sleep to recover fully.

Then tomorrow? Who knows ;)

It has been a while...

So it may seem like I disappeared and you may wonder "has Karen forgotten about us? is she too busy to update? is she still alive?" the answers are - no, no, and yes!

Lately I've been just playing each day by ear and mostly adventuring around getting more and more used to where everything is around here. My project still hasn't started but I was talking with Vanessa Kanaan today and she says that both the parrot project and my turtle project will start on monday! SUPER excited for this :D In the mean time I just didn't feel like writing about every daily thing I do would really be that interesting. There was one day that was pretty exciting for me though! What did I do? Well, I went on my first solo adventure! It was quite romantic actually. It started like this:

I had been hanging out around the house with not much to do since I didn't want to disturb Vanessa while she was working on her project and Tracy was out and about doing her thing. So Vanessa had a great idea of going out and seeing a new mall that I hadn't been to before! So after a shower and getting my stuff together I was heading out the door. I went to say goodbye to Hilda and she told me that I could probably see the sunset while I was there and what spots she liked to watch it from! So out the door and ready for some excitement I walked down to the bus stop at the end of the street. Here they don't have schedules on the poles or a number to text conveniently like home or anything so you never really know when the bus is going to get there. Sure enough I waited for a good 30 minutes before any bus came! But that's alright, I had a lot of time to kill. So expecting an uneventful bus ride I hop on and scan my card that lets me through the buses turnstyle (here the bus driver doesn't take your fare. They have another guy sitting a little bit further back called the cobrador and he will either let you scan your fare card or take your money and then allow access through the turnstyle that counts passengers. ANYWAYS) I scan it and sure enough - NO MONEY left on my card. But I knew I had a 5 Reias note so I figured it was no problem. Sure enough I had to have a little portuguese conversation with the cobrador about how he had no change and that I needed to wait at the front of the bus for a little. I was very proud of myself for knowing what he was telling me! After that the bus ride was normal.

Next I get to the mall - Beiramar - but walked to the beach which is right beside it to watch the sunset. I thought it might be kind of boring or lonely to be watching the sunset by myself but it was quite the opposite! I watched fish jumping and birds diving into the water. I even had a little bird friend hanging around with me the whole time I was there! It was so beautiful and relaxing to sit there thinking about absolutely nothing. I may even do it more frequently!

Once the sun had set - which didn't take long - I went into the mall to visit Vanessa's boyfriend Wilson at his store. He didn't know I was coming to see him so it was kind of a surprise I suppose but not a very exciting one :P He doesn't speak very good english and I don't speak very good portuguese but we usually can understand each other when we're all out and about. So that was a nice quick visit with him. Then I just wandered through the mall for a while, going into a few stores to check it out. I had a nice conversation - again in portuguese - with a girl who works at Renner (which is like our department stores at home). We talked about where I was from and what clothes I was looking for and stuff. Really basic but still, I'm learning!

Once I was finished looking around I decided to grab some food from the food court for dinner. The guy at the cash register was also very nice to me being patient with my slow talking and responding very clearly for me also. Then it was back home for me! I didn't realize when I was coming into the mall that there were 4 different enterances to choose from so I didn't really pay attention. Sure enough I went out one door beside the one I had come into and turned the opposite direction! It gets dark here very fast and things look quite a bit different at night - at least that is my excuse :P After walking around the whole mall I found where my bus stop was haha. This time my bus ride was completely uneventful; I'm getting used to the system I guess!

So then a bus ride and a short walk later I was home talking to a few friends inviting me over to hang out with them. After being home for about 10 minutes I was gone again on another adventure!

It wasn't a very exciting story but I needed to update SOMETHING for everyone to know that I am doing really good and having an awesome time here in Brazil!

Lots of love to everyone!!
Karen

BBQ's and Beaches

SO! It has been a few days since I updated. This past while we have been going to so many BBQ's that I feel like there is one going on all day every day! I've been eating a lot of meat and buns and drinking a lot of giant beers while meeting a whole bunch of really great people.

One day we went to see a few of Florianopolis' 42 beaches with Vanessa. So far we have made it to 3 of them haha. First we went to Mocambique. It was pretty windy and there were lots of strong waves crashing. We walked along the waters edge for a while and collected some shells - there were so many everywhere! It was so beautiful that I don't think I could ever get bored of just being there and taking in the scenery.

Next was Barra da Lagoa - it is the only beach that has a backpacker hostel (all the rest of the hostels are downtown) so this beach has a lot of tourists on it. The water stays shallow for a pretty long time and the waves stay fairly calm so it's also very popular to learn to surf there. There was even a guy on his surf board with his dog too! There weren't so many tourists there when we went though since it's still "winter" but once summer hits the beach gets crazy crowded. It also has a canal that connects Lagoa Conceicao with the ocean that the boats follow to get from the docks to the ocean. While we were here Tracy and I bought our first Brazilian souvenir! Everyone lays on the beach with their "Kanga's" instead of just laying on beach towels the way that we would at home. So we bought some designed like the Brazilian flag! We also stopped there for lunch which was all types of shrimp, salad, fish, rice, fries, and fish pirao "for two" - the three of us couldn't finish it though haha.

The third beach we went to was Mole. Mole means soft and it earns this name because of how soft the sand is. Another thing this beach is known for is the dragon and the indian. These are a couple of rock/land formations that look like Falcor from "The Never Ending Story" and an indian laying down taking a nap. We were taking pictures on the rocks that make up the indian holding up our Kanga's and a couple of guys came up and asked if they could borrow them to take some pictures. They were talking with Vanessa and were surprised to find out that Tracy and I were foreign! They must not of looked at us very closely because we're pretty white and don't fit in at all haha.

Other than that the only thing new I have to report is our first trip to R3 which is the animal rehabilitation place that we are going to be volunteering at and where my project will be. They have a few capuchin monkeys. They tried to introduce a few young ones that came in to the larger cage but the dominant male wouldn't accept them into the group - poor little guys are sooooo cute though. There are a couple marmosets which are a large problem in Santa Catarina State because people buy them since they are SO cute but then they become mature and turn evil. When this happens they release them in the parks here. Because they are so cute people like to see them there and then want one for a pet and thus the cycle continues. They have LOTS of birds there - all sorts of parrots and finches a couple vulchers and some tucans. Then there's the marine area where they have a little fur seal who is simply adorable. He had an eye infection, and I think he is now blind in that eye, but he's on the mend and I think he'll be able to be released again. They have SO many penguins there, and apparently the number they have now isn't even that large because they just released a whole group of them. The last pen is where the tortoises and the turtles are! This is where my project is going to be. Right now the Turtles are in this one pool that is really gross and they can't walk very well on it and it's pretty small for the number of turtles in it. The project is going to be making them ramps that allow them time on the substrate around the pool as well as time in the water as they please. First we need to build a seperate area for the turtles or a wall between where the turtles and the tortoises live. They have these legions on them and they think that they will get better if they have more time out of the water and this pool so part of the project is watching where they like to stay and if they spend more time on the substrate and the other part of the project is to measure the legions to see if they are improving. If we get nice results Vanessa Kanaan was saying that we might even be able to publish in a small journal! Now that would be cool! Since the turtle project isn't very demanding I'm going to be helping her with her large project that is with the purple chested parrots. There are going to be three of us working with the turtles and on of the girls is out of town so once she gets back we can start! I'm so excited to be working and volunteering around all these animals. Hopefully I can take some pictures to show all of you to see!

Tudo bem!

To follow up on our portuguese classes that we had signed up for a few days ago. We had been told that if too many people signed up that could actually attend the class that it would become a lottery; sure enough that did happen! But... yesterday as Tracy and I were checking our e-mail we had both gotten confirmation that we had won the lottery! WOOO classes start september 14th :D

Today we woke up and got ready to go to a meeting at the university. We understood about 10% of it... at most! I think it's time we start speaking and practicing more portuguese at home before classes start. After the lab meeting I finally got to meet Vanessa Kanaan (the lady that I will be doing my internship with - not to be confused with Vanessa Kuhnen who we are living with haha). She was so nice and welcoming and it was very good to finally get to meet her! We discussed the different projects that I'm going to be working on and so now I know what I'll actually be doing! R3 is a wildlife rehabilitation centre that we wanted to volunteer at - turns out that is where my project is actually going to be so I get to go there all the time! Vanessa Kanaan has outlined a project that me and two other girls will be running on our own. They have about 30 turtles at R3 and they don't have the proper set up for them to be healthy and happy little critters. So we're testing to see if they spend more time on the dry substrate that they are exposed to or if they just spend their time in the water. We are also going to be measuring these lesions that they have to see if over time they get better with increased exposure to dry land. Sounds pretty fun to me! This is just a mini project that we get to work on on our own and then there is also the larger project with the birds. She explained that since the work with the turtles will be pretty easy we're expected to help with the birds as well. And we can also volunteer with all the other animals there too!! I'm going to try and get some pictures but I'm not actually sure if I'm allowed to since it's government property protected by military :/ we'll see though! Sunday will be our first day there just getting oriented and handing in our volunteer sign up sheets. Oh and I'm going to have to get my rabies shots before I'm allowed to officially handle the other animals. Who doesn't love getting more vaccinations?! I am starting to think that soon I will be invincible haha.

After the meeting Vanessa (Kuhnen) Tracy and I went to get a sim card for the phone we have. Unfortunately the store we were going to get it from was closed down; bummer. But that's ok we'll just go to a different place tomorrow. We still went inside the shopping centre for some lunch. Their food courts are so much nicer than ours! They have REAL food with REAL cooks that make it RIGHT THERE! It was soooo delicious. Oh and you can also buy beer there, weird. After eating lunch we helped Vanessa do some of her english homework while we digested. Vanessa was still hungry then so she made tracy and I order her food for her from one of the places. They were so nice and patient with us - super cute! We totally made their day with our beginner portuguese. We had to wait for her snack to be ready and when it came up there was an extra smoothie drink on it that we hadn't ordered. Vanessa went to ask about it and the guys told her that they had made it for us! They definitely made our day too :)

Tracy and I walked home and didn't have anything planned for our evening. Hilda came into our room and suggested that we walk to a certain part of the beach to watch the sunset. Since it was such a beautiful day today (about 25 and sunny skies!) it was bound to be a beautiful sunset too! So out the again we started on a walk to another new place. Unfortunately the skies are still cloudy with smoke from the fires and seem to get worse at night so we weren't able to see the sunset. It was still nice scenery around us though so we took a seat in the grass and just watched the water for a while. It was nice and calm out and very relaxing. We saw lots of fish jumping too! I've never seen big fish jump as high as they did here - a little excessive if you ask me :P

Another nice long walk to get home and then it was dinner! We cleaned up after ourselves and now that I'm done my blog I think I will brush up on some portuguese. And a little after that Nivaldo is going to make us Tapioca for dessert! You'll never guess what we have scheduled for tomorrow night; another BBQ!

What a life...