Curitiba...clean!

We spent two wonderfully clean days in one of the most pro-environment cities in the world, Cutitiba. Architects and city planners from all over come to this Brazillian city to study how it is run. The streets are clean, public works are everywhere, and you can get lost in the number of parks spread thoughout the city. There was really not much to do, but it made Nicole's inner hippie geek so happy, we rested after Rio, and Stacen finally got some of Medical school applications in. We did get the chance to visit Latin America's largest organic market, filled with kilos upon kilos of fruit, vegetables, nuts, teas, and herbs. Stacen almost died of joy when he saw a huge bucket of chamomile! Adding to the awesomeness, there was pet/bird store filled with chickens, geese, turkeys and... bunnies!!
The most drama we encountered was convincing a drunk guy in the park that we would NOT be sharing some wine with him. We met a bunch of interesting people in the kitchen, one of which was a 50 something year old brazilian with a crazy accent. Nicole was able to understand him if he talked slowly, but Stacen unfortunately was lost without the translation.
After these two restful days, we hopped on a 26-hour bus to Montevideo, complete with five movies dubbed in Spanish (!!!), breakfast and snack (which were actually both the same thing--a trans fat uruguayan hoho the horror!), and a dinner served in the bus. We finally arrived in Montevideo (Uruguay capital) yesterday morning, and you guys will get an update soon...

Rio de Janeiro... cidade maravilhosa

Waking up bright and early on Wednesday, 10 do Freb., we excitedly boarded a bus that would take us to the famous Rio de Janeiro, the city famous for Copacabana, Jesus, Ipanema and of course... CARNAVAL!!!
Looking back on that day, it taught us to appreciate how beautiful things are and the balance of life, the ups and downs. So, it sucked. The bus ride was 6 long hours of turns and jolts. Nicole can actually drive stick better than the bus driver can. And, for the first time in her 22 years, Nicole got motion sickness, and threw up. Twice. After arriving to the bus station, we were greeted by about ten creepy women hissing at us to use their taxis, each charging us what our Lonely Planet guidebook had promised it would cost. We got to our hotel, located in what we thought was the booming Centro of Rio, but turned out to be the depressing part filled with the homeless and an intense smell of pee. There is actually a campaign to stop people from peeing on the streets hee hee!! In the end, we would see at least 5 guys in mid-peeing action.
To cheer ourselves up, we decided to treat ourselves to a fancy meal at an italian restaurant. First though, Stacen leaned on the wonderful small diital camara, completly cracking the screen. So, for the next 6 months we are just guesing at what we are taking pictures of :)Sorry if you notice the pictures are always a little crooked! The ´treat´ turned out to be the most expensive place with the meanest waiter we had ever had! We are acually positive he spit in our food! And the food was so bad, we both got so sad. So, we went back to our hotel room, hid, and planned out the next 6 days, reminding ourselves that there is a reason that Rio is called the ` Cidade Maravilhosa´... the city of marvels.
We woke up the next day to a beautiful sun, and headed off to the famous Copacabana beaches, singing ´her name was Lola, she was a showgirl...` the whole way. As we walked up the metro, we saw the beach and rocks that are legendary. We picked up our carnaval tickets for the famous parade, and walked around the beautiful boardwalk. While, happily sipping on some cold Skol (the national beer of Brasil), we bought Stacen amazing Ray Ban sunglasses, Nicole got a rainbow colored wrap from a nice Peruvian woman, and met a really cool guy from Mallorca! We were both so happy to speak Spanish and understand someone! Adding to our happiness, we climbed on a rock with a beautiful view of all of Copacabana, then on a four hour walk on the beach in Ipanema. Most importantly, we passed about 200 of the hottest gay men in speedos you have ever seen!!!! Like wow. Nicole enjoyed :)
The next day we retuned to Ipanema to meet Tomer and Ziv, who were staying with Ziv´s aunt in the beautiful neighborhood of Leblon. We had a total bum day at the beach, where we decided we would travel South America together! The four of us then went to eat dinner at Anna´s (Ziv´s aunt) apartment-- we ended up eating there every day, with delicious meals complete with things like filet mignon, shrimp, swordfish, waldorf salad, and at least 2 desserts! so wonderful. On Saturday, the four of us met (after a CRAZY, amzingly fun bus ride where we almost killed 10 pedestrians!!) at Corcovado, the famous Jesus statue. After taking a cog-train up the mountain, few tourist shots with the big guy, we headed over to Centro to check out some Carnaval parties. There, we discovered an insane orgy-like party. Sadly, even in carnaval, there is a pretty huge class divide. The parties in the Centro were those for the majority of Cariocas (people form Rio), those from the favelas (ghettos), and were unsafe and a little scarry. So, we returned to beautiful Ipanema and got to party with costumes, drag queens, and just had fun. (Nicole was very sad bout the unfair carnval experience).
Continuing our carnaval fun on Sunday, complete with fairy wings and butterfly headbands, we all headed over to the Hippie Fair, a super cool open market. There, we discovered that Israelis are the BEST barterers in the world, and that we are never buying anything without Tomer´s help ever again. He got an art vendor to lower the price by more than half on a painting that we simply fell in love with (our first piece of real art!!). We were so excited. After wandering around the steets and chilling at a bar enjoying all the sights and sounds, we headed to.... Avatar!! we know, we know, avatar in Brasil?? But it was awesome !!!(even though Nicole only saw fuzzy lines because she does´t see in 3D and is so scared that all movies will be like that from now on). We then hung aroung Ipanema for a few hours in an outdoor bar and headed home.
Monday the 15th was the big carnaval day.... the parade!!! Not only was it our 6 month wedding anniversary (awwww!!!!) but it was the day we had been waiting for. After a delicious lunch at chez anna, we planned the next month through Uruguay, Argentina, and Chile with Ziv and Tomer. We headed to our hotel for a power nap and a pizza. Then... the event. That night, from 8pm to 6am we watched the most beautiful parade in the world. Our eyes could not absorb all the colors, dancing, costumes, fireworks, sparkle we saw. We were amazed by the samba and the crowd´s energy-- they were still actually people samba-ing at 6am!!! In a happy daze, we walked home through the amazing street parties to breakfast, then to bed.
We woke up that afternoon at 2pm and headed to Pão de Azucar, the famous gondola/teleferico (and where James Bond fought Jaws in Moonracker, as Stacen reminded me 30 times). We walked around the beach (there are always beaches), a rainforest park, saw three monkees (the scene was 4 little kids and Stacen all staring up into the trees with raptuous joy), and went up to see sunset and the city lights come on. Truly, the most beautiful city view either of us had ever seen.

Yesterday, we chilled with Ziv and Tomer all day (their place has a pool on the roof!), then headed off to the eco-city Curitiba on a night bus, where we arrived today a few hours ago....

Party in Paraty!

We have discovered an amazing hidden little beach town halfway between São Paulo and Rio called Paraty. It is being considered by UNESCO for World Heritage site status. It is known for having the best preserved Portuguese colonial architecture in Brazil, and it is beautiful! ALSO, it is known for it´s beaches. It has over 300 little rainforest beaches scattered over the surrounding 65 islands!
We arrived after a beautiful trip through the jungly mountains, and quickly discovered that this was the hottest place in South America. No joke, 110 degrees every day according to the thermometers. Our hostel had no air conditioning, and the only window faced an alley, so no ventilation except a very strong fan. We quickly got into the habit of taking 3 cold showers a day, although since the ´cold´ water was so warm it wasn´t that bad. But it sounds a lot worse than it really was. We actually slept like rocks...on top of the sheets and making sure that we didn´t touch.
The biggest surprise we had was that this sleepy little town has more nightlife than William and Mary x20! While that is a hard stat to beat, Paraty had about 30 bars and outdoor cafes, with people partying until well after midnight on school days!
The first full day we took a schooner tour throughout the islands, stopping at several beaches to snorkel over coral and gaze upon the tropical fish. Nicole discovered her love of snorkeling!!! We had an amazing freshly-cooked lunch of fish! We spent the rest of the evening hanging out and attempting to cook more fish, which Stacen royally destroyed until it resembled canned tuna. That night, however, something magical happened. All i have to say is...shalom. We met an israeli couple who just happen to be travelling 6 months in south america too! Tomer (boy) and Ziv (girl), our new travelling buddies!
We went out that night and watched as people practiced for the Carnaval parade in Paraty. The drums are mesmerizing! And the rhythm kept Nicole´s hips moving all night! There were also some street performers doing devil sticks that were lit on fire, but there was this girl with them that was just kind of waving them in the air and we couldn´t figure out why anyone was giving HER money because her act was just really stupid.
We hiked to a couple of beaches the next day, through a rainforest! We explored an abandoned Portuguese fort. We explored a graveyard (much more interesting down here). We cooked fish and hamburgers with Tomer and Ziv and went out that night. We tried Cachaça, liquor from cane juice, which was pretty firey.
The next morning, we left for a very bumpy and jerky ride for RIO...more to come soon! We know we are behind and we are working on it. Sorry. We have had complaints. Ben.

Olá de São Paulo!!

Hello everyone! We have just spent the 4 most surreal days of our lives. After taking off in a plane and runway covered in snow, we landed the next morning in 90 degree sunshine. After a memorable taxi ride through the infamous São Paulo traffic (the cars/buses/motorcycles WILL HIT YOU if you don´t get out of the way...and they don´t exactly obey traffic laws) arrived at our little hostel in the middle of the city. The first day we spent getting our bearings and trying to figure out the map. We soon discovered that the map is not to scale, and it only includes the inner-most part of the city--so this place is huge. Over 20 million people live here! The next day we spent the entire afternoon walking through the old city center, complete with literally thousands of street vendors selling everything you could think of. Stacen, in his hippie traveling ways, found a hemp bracelet and coral necklace. Nicole enjoyed happily listening to street musicians in the sun. We stopped at a cafe for a drink, and met a local when he tapped Stacen on the shoulder and said in very accented english: "where are you from? I can tell you are´nt from São Paulo becuase you are drinking a very bad beer."
In São Paulo we have enjoyed experiencing the afternoon thunderstorms from 4-6pm. For the past 44 days it has rained like CRAZY every day. The whole city just knows to expect it--you start seeing people running for cover and you know you had better do the same.
Yesterday we visited the beautiful Parque do Ibarapuera, seeing hundreds of cool South American geese and ducks! We had our first South American Coconut water--straight from the coconut! We saw the biggest trees ever! After making Stacen put his shirt back on (he has been trying to tan so that he can blend in more with the locals) we made our way to the MASP, Museo de Arte de São Paulo, known as the "concrete monstrosity"--it was build in the 60´s. However, across the street was the green monstrosity...A RAINFOREST!!! Stacen´s eyes glistened with happiness as he saw his first rainforest, smelling the fresh air, gazing upon the spiders.
Walking back to the hostel, we passed a man who had adorned himself with palm leaves and was joyously passing out other pieces to strangers. Nicole had never been happier. We are not sure if he was crazy, but he was awesome. We ate a watermelon for dinner.
Today, we walked to a market that appeared to be semi-close, but of course, took 3 hours to get to. On the way, we walked through the richest street we have ever seen in the fanciest neighborhood of São Paulo, Jardins. The street, Oscar Frei, had, among other things, pairs of jeans that cost $400, and dogs that probably are eating better than us. We also picked out our future home. Stacen bought a sexy rainbow headband and does not look gay. Nicole got a beautiful turquoise bracelet that complements her beauty in every way.....
São Paulo has been amazing, even with us having no idea what people are saying to us. That´s right, a knowledge of spanish really doesn´t mean much here. We can read things, but that´s about it. And the rough part is apparently we look Brazilian?? Because people keep trying to talk to us and giving us quite confused glances when we just mouth "no falo portugues". Luckily, the hostel owner and his friends all used to live in Ireland, so they have saved us. Goodbye for now. We are about to go buy street noodles from a Japanese couple that ALSO don´t know a word of Portuguese. Tomorrow, we are off to the beaches of Paraty, Brazil!
Love and miss you all!