.Brazil.

While riding the plane to Brazil, I kept bugging our ONE Portuguese speaker to teach me some words. I was convinced that I would learn five words a day. I ended learning probably ten. I still remember some:

Obrigado/a: Thank you

Desculpe: Excuse me

Frango: Chicken

Bom Dia: Good day

eu falto: I miss you.. for brady of course!

Brazil was gorgeous! The first city we stayed in was RIO de JANEIRO! One day I will take b back there! Our hotel was right on the beach. My favorite day was spent body surfing, laying out and playing beach soccer and volley ball. We also visited sugar loaf, PUC-Rio (a brazilian university that was surrounded by jungle), O Globo, Natura and the enormous Christ the Redeemer statue.

Some of my favorite things about Brazil were :

The Halls they sold on the street. They sell them individually for $.50 as mints.. tried it. Gross.
Inca Cola! Soo Good! The waiters would just assume everyone wanted one. I loved the glass bottles they served them in.. I felt really cool.

Arcor! A chocolate manufacturing plant was the perfect place for me! It was fun to see how everything was made and packaged. As we were leaving they gave us a HUGE bag of assorted chocolates. It took all I had to save some of this pure bliss for B.

We were able to go to a neat pottery museum. It was fun to spend time with my girls and needless to say we got a little crazy!

Speaking of crazy...

We toured Natura, the manufacturing natural make up plant. At the end of the tour they let us sample all the make up we wanted! We went subtle.

. kind of... .... :) I do like make up!
The beaches of RIO! Look how blue the water is and white the sand is!
This statue is over 130 feet.. it's huge! So cool!
The food was SOO good! One night a couple of us stayed home from a club and went to a local restaurant that was so unbelievably tasty! We also found a cute bare footed band playing on the beach.
The all you can eat pizza in all different flavors. I ate (or at least tasted) slices! Everyone was amazed! There was everything from BBQ shrimp to chocolate strawberry. It was fun being rolled out of the restaurant.
The awesome Capoiera group we saw performing on campus at PUC-Rio. It's a dance group that looks like they are fighting.. it was soo fun to watch! Especially since Turbo Jam uses it in their work outs!

The funniest story in Brazil happened while we were laying out on the beach. A cute little old man wearing a speedo came around selling henna tattoo's. No one wanted one so he gave a few of us free tattoo's to use as marketing. I was the third one to get a "free" tattoo. He just grabbed my arm and started drawing. As I was walking away he yelled at me and said.. "Where you going? You owe me money!" So the above Rio tattoo is my free/non free tattoo. Oh Brazil! I do miss you

.. made from the chocolate of the all-you-can-eat pizza!