[Gerbiljiujitsu]

And here is the second update. These are copy posted from my blog that I use to keep my friends updated.

Hello everyone and thank you for stopping by to read abou my newest stories and adventures.

I have gotten a chance to settle down and explore the area a little. The other people in the house have become great companions and I cant express enough how much it helps to have a friend that speaks Portuguese and English.

Ryan (the guy from New York that speaks Portuguese) has been taking Pascel (the guy from Germany) and I all over the place. I'm not sure I would have ever felt comfortable enough to go do the things I've been doing withough Ryan, so I need to give him the credit he's due.

I've been to the beach, although I dont typically like the beach, the water is VERY nice...not to mention the scantly clad woman walking all over the place. We had some coconut water/milk stright out of the coconut. They drill a hole and stick a straw in it which looks very funny but tastes a thousand times better than whe I've had it out of the bottle. I was very concerned to look like a "gringo" (forigner) but as I looked around it appears that everyone does it. The bets part is the cost which runs around 1.25 american dollars.

Food in general here is VERY cheap. An awesome meal that would cost 15-20 dollars at home costs less than half that here and you literally cant eat all the food...trust me I try. The fruit is AMAZING here, always fresh and when you order juice ...well it's not like anything I can compare it to. I'm not sure I'll ever be able to have juice again when I come home. You can get a Mango juice that takes probably four or five mangos to make for less than two 1.50...it's ridiciouls.

The difference in one area to the next here is kind of insane. Each house is completely different from the one next to it but you cant really see what they look like on the inside unless they open the door. It kind of reminds me of a bunch of different embassys right next to eachother...it's kind of weird. You walk down the street and you think that it's a poor area becaus you dont see anyhtnig nice. The sidewalk is rough and there arent really any cars on the street becusae most of the people park tem inside their little "embassasy" but in reality the house are REALLY nice once you get inside. For instance the house I'm staying in looks like a rickety fence on the outside but when you come in there is a rather large front yard with lime trees and coconut trees all over. Then there is a large in ground pool and the house has like 5 beedrooms, 2 kitchens 3 or 4 bathrooms two livigin rooms...it's kind of funny at first.

Although there are some really nice things about this country there is one thing that kind of bothers me. When we go out to eat Brazilian cuisine it's really tasty, the portions are awesome and the fruit fresh, but there is an alarming amount of other types of food available that arent as tastey. For instance I was talked into eating subway at one of the malls here and it was subway looking...but not subway tasting. For instance the pickles looked like pickles, they were called pickles....hell they even felt like pickles when you bit into them, but they didnt taste ANYTHING like pickles. It was like they left out the vinigear. The same happend when Ryan wanted to eat at a mexican restuante...i was expensive and the food was a cheap imitation. My suggestion if you ever come to this country would be to enjoy the local food. It's good, clean and healthy on top of being cheap and abundant.

I've taken a lot of good pictures, mostly of the landscape and I will post them soon. I havent gotten a lot of pictures of myself or other people yet becuase I feel like a dork breaking out my camera to people that i barely know yet and I dont speak any Portuguese. I'll do my best to get better pictures.

While walking the beach yesterday and admiring some of the females we walked by a coconut stand and there was this group of extremely good looking woman. When I looked over at here and smiled she smiled back. I guess I've done something wrong in a previous life becuase this pigeon took off from the ground next to her and flew right into her head. She started screaming and I laughed my ass off....I'm not sure why I feel the need to include this story but seeing a pigeon fly into someone's head from point blank range is funny to me, I hope it is to you too.

Last night we had party at one of the fighters houses and they did a lot of drinking. I got to hang out with some of the guys from the academy and get to know them a little better. Some of them had been a little standoff-ish the first time I met them but really opened up to me last night. Even though I dont speak the language we had a good time. They got me to walk up to woman and ask them to kiss me. Although it as mildly embarassing I chalk it up as an investment to making friends becuase the guys found it VERY amusing. One lady in particular couldnt even understand what I was saying becuase I'm a language retard. She thought I was speaking Engilsh...go figure even when I try to speak the language I fail LoL.

So today's quest has been to get flash cards and inprove my Portuguese. Unfortuneatly the stores here are really weird. They appear to have a lot of the things you would want but it's deffinatly not America. There are some things you really hav to search for. For example it was a major pain in the ass to find Bengay, a microphone for my computer, index cards and a quality comforter. It's almost like shopping at a high class flea market (please dont be offended by that, I'm not saying the stuff is bad quality just poorly organized).

Part of the problem is the weird tax that the Brazilian goverment places on imports, electronics most specifically. ANything eletronic here is very expensive which doesnt make sense to me. It really keeps computers and mass information out of the hands of poor people. It's like the food is way under priced but the computers are way over priced. It leads to people surviving but their quality of life sucking ass. They should really do something about that.

I'm not sure what else to write for now so I'm going to go grab a bite to eat, read a little, study and then hang with the guys. I'm not sure what is planned for this evening but I'm sure it will be fun. Until next time!