Week Sixish

Hello Everybody!!!!
How are you all doing?
I´m alive, I swear! I know I haven’t written I awhile…but I´ve been up to quite a few things…and my internet has gone down at home…yiikes.
Myyy oh myyyy….Looking back over my Journal…I have Nine pages I need to Cover!!! So this will be a fun email to write, neh?

Where to start….
So a few weekends go my family and I headed out to their farm, Which is about 1hour and 30 minutes out….the important thing to remember here, the instant you step out of the city here your in no-man´s land. So belive me….One hour and thirty minutes out…your in a different world. The land out here consist of Dust, shrubs, some really really dry tree´s…and lots ´n lots of cows. My Father owns over 500 cows!!!!!! It´s crazy. Along with that he owns two different farms, his brother owns 1, and his diseast mother owns another one. )Her´s was the one we spent the night at!)
Her house had 5 bedrooms, and it was one level.Some of the ceilings had big holes through them, and most the walls had huge cracks running through them, making you think at anymoment the house would come falling down on you. But it diddent…so they were just cool effects. ;)
They own 7 horses, but we could only find one, so we took turns riding it around…poor thing must have been so tired!!! Along the way I saw some prretty cool Animals. Here they have LOTS of little green parrots, kinda like love birds…but while at the Farm I saw 2 big African parrots! (the blue and yellow kinda…or in other words…a pirates parrot.) I saw a pitch black shinny humming bird. It was so weird, I freaked out(in excitement) and tried to tell my sister about it…but he just kind of stared at me funny. I get excited over a lot of small things here…things they see ever day so it doesn’t really make a difference to them! I also saw these weird big birds, with long legs. At first I thought they were Peacocks…but then I realized they had no tail…and long legs. Anyway, they ran super fast and looked really cool. And last I saw a small Owl! Soooo cute!
Anyway, The next day João, Natalia, and I went for a small walk down to the river, along the way Natalia and I decided it would be fun to take a dip, so cloths and all we dove into the brown water and played around for awhile. Now later that day, Bruno and Marcela came down two…and we all played around. Lots of bug.
Funny story about that, as I read back over my Journal I found a funny little thing I said, “During the shower I looked down at my Belly Button and realized the skin slightly discolored around it, and I had a red dot in the center that looked like blood….I have to keep an eye on that…” Now at the time I was worried some how I had skin cancer, and I was like..´my goodness I´ll probably be the first person to get skin cancer in their belly button´…but no….oh no it was far from skin cancer. One of those Blasted Misquotes decided to have a little nibble there…and let me tell you…it hurt for days! My belly button got all red and Puffy…it was like I had a bug living in it, cause it formed the weirdest bubble! But as days past it heal itself…now the skin is just a little flaky. I know, too much information. Huaha.
So the next main event was that my family and I headed down to Belo Horizonte for the weekend for 2 reasons:


Reason Number 1: Federal Policia.
All foreigners here have to go to the Federal policia within 30 days of arrival to show them your documents, and get a small slip of paper saying it´s okay for you to life here. So First thing was first my family and I headed there. Now before I left the United States, My mother and I took the list of things they asked for and went out and got them…so when I went to the policia I could just hand every thing over, and everything would be A.OK! They also told us that we could pay in American Dollars as well!!! Guess Again. I had to buy new photo´s, be cause mine were apparently to big. Then when it came time to paying, they wouldn´t accept American dollars…and also…before I left..and on my documents…it said it was about 60 Dollars….or 160Reais….no. I spent 200 reais on it! Blargh!
Although, after that whole Fiasco things got a little better. My Family and I went to this Huge lake in the center of the City (or atleast the part of the City I was in….3mil people live in Belo Horizonte….there is no Centro.) It was sooo beautiful, everything in Belo Horizonte is SO green cause it rains lot, and the houses around the lake were absolutely BEAUTIFUL! (it reminded me of LO…huaha…all the Huge fancy houses around the lake.) I saw a crocodile in the water, and this HUGE rat like thing called a Capirada (pronounced: Cah-pea-va-da)
After circling the lake, we drove off to a University the size of my City. Huaha. It was HUGE!) We stayed at the House of their Cousin (You hardly ever stay in a Hotel here…some one always have Family somewhere.) We all went shopping at a Mall, (A real mall…the one In Patos Minas was small compared to this one.) I bought a pair of Jeans and a Tee-shirt. Then that night we all went out to eat at a restaurant.
Reason Number 2: ROTARY OREANATAION!
Whooohooo!!! So it started about 8am, and man I have to say…it was a blast! I walked in the room to find a bunch of kids dressed in Funky Rotary Blazers, and walking amongst each other. I dove right in and connected with the Latin kids. Mostly that day I hung out with 2 girls from Mexico, and 1 boy from Ecuador. One of the girls names was Sofia, she was a sweetheart and we hung out the whole day. It was awesome, because they spoke Spanish, and I speak English…so we had to talk in Portuguese…For that time I started picking it up really quickly(then as soon as I got home I was tired from thinking so much, and My family spoke some English to me, and my ón a roll´ faded away.) Anyway, Rotary Presented us the 10 Golden Rules…(I´m not going to write cause it would take me awhile…but they are things like Obey your Host family…lah lha lha.) They also talked about insurance, and the 4 D´s.
No Drinking.
No Dating.
No Driving.
And No Drugs.
(My Rotary in the USA has one more…and its No Disfigurement! A.k.a tattoos or piercing)
Then Belo Brasil (a travel company) Presented the 4 Rotary Trips of the year.
*Super Dream North Trip.
*South Trip.
* Amnizonia
*and the Pantanal.

They all sounded absolutely AMAZING…I really wanted to go to Amizonia…but I only get to go on one trip..and i´m choosing the Super Dream North trip because it´s 35 days..and I go ALL over North Brasil with it. It looks ABSOLUTELY amazing. (plus we get to spend Carnival in some big City…but they won´t tell us which one…I think it´s Salvador!)
After the meeting, Zach (the other Intercambista of my town) and I went out for SORBET!!! WHOOHOOOO!!!!! This whole time I have been eating Popsicels when other people eat ice crème..but B.H (or as they say Beh-Agah) has Sorbet!!! So I could actually eat it! It was SO damn good. Yum yum.
After that we went shopping ad I bought a super cute dress for 30 reais…which here is like the best deal you can get. Its like buying something at goodwill price…which is awesome. That night we went out for….MEXICAN FOOOD! YEEEHAW! I was sooo sooo soooo Happy! I ordered A burrito with Guac, and Sour crème…But I didn´t touch the sour crème…it looked like it had been sittin in the freezer for 30 years..then the thawed it out and gave it to me without beating it into a crème first. The Cheese of the Burrito was Plastic..and they didn´t have rice…but none the less I was still happy to be eating Mexican!
So after that we went to a bar, they ate some more…then we went home and Slept.
Oh and Also that day, while I was at Rotary my mother went out and bought me my Point slippers for Ballet. That´s right folks...Angela Ratto has taken Up Ballet. Now I can just see Shannon D. Reading this right now and being like, What??!! And Also wondering why I´m starting out on Point, and not normal slippers….well because here they don´t start out with regular…they jump straight to the point and start with point! Huaha. But MAN OH MAN!!! I have some Nasty Blisters. But it´s all good. I really really like it, and I have class every Tuesday and Thursday before Jump Class!
Ahh, and Finally down to the last event I´m going to write about before I run out of things to talk about.
This weekend I went on a trip with my Sisters English school in the town to São Paulo, to go to Hopi Hari ( and Amusment park) and Wet n´Wild!
So the voyage started out with 15 kids for João Pinheiro in the Car, and smushed in together in someone´s uncles van. The first part was 4 or 5 hours to Belo Horizonte… where before we met up with the rest of the caravan, we went to Mcky D´s for Dinner…I had bought some Pão de Qeuijo at a different place before so I ate that…but I had a appel pie thing there. I´m not sure which one it was..but my Acid Reflux got going…and Marcela (for the first time) got a small taste of my stomach abnormalities. Anyway, afterwards we went and met up with all the other English school´s in B.H….which was about 5 doubel decker tourist busses full. We all loaded on, I talked to some other Kids from Belo, and made some new friends. We watched Ice Age, and slept a lot. Then at 2 thirty in the morning stopped for some food at a resturaunt. I ate some coconut cake thing and Tea. The went back to the Bus and Slept. I think it was a totally of 10 hours of Driving to São Paulo. Which is A lot.
The First place we went was Hopi Hari…Kind of like Disney land…but not and fancy. They have one of the 5 biggest roller coasters in the world there…but I couldn´t go on it cause the line was 5 HOURS long!!!!! It was awful…after the first hour of waiting we gave up and went on 4 other rides. The lines were terribly long..and the Rides wernt that amazing…but I still had a blast!
The Second day we went to Wet n´Wild. Not as big as the one in Washigton, but we still had a blast on the few slides they had (I went on three I think…) Then I slept in the Sun….alot. and when I say a lot, I mean most the day.
Now an important lesson to learn is that Brasil Sun is different from the Sun in the United States…because it´s more closer to the Equador.
Let´s just say I one of hell of a fried Chicken right now. It hurts just sitting here!!! Then after that we took a shower, hopped on the bus, and came home. Which actually I arrived here this morning…took a nap…then got up and started writing this.
Then afterwards I think I´m going to get dressed (which is a scarry thought when I hurt this much! Hauhaa) Go and buy a Blank CD….copy all my Photo´s and this letter onto it…go to a Lan house…uplode all my Photo´s and spend this letter out!!!!!

Whooo….a lode full, neh???

Oh and oooone more paragraph.
My Mother wrote to me asking to Explain what school is like to you all in this update…so I´ll do Just that.
ESCOLA:
My general school day goes something like this.
Wake up @ 6, eat breakfast…walk to the buss stop and go to school.
Class starts at 7 or 7 20…I don´t know.
We have 6 classes a day, 3 before break, and 3 after. School ends at 12:20…we go home and eat lunch.
Every Tuesday and Wensday I have to go back after Lunch for more classes. It´s a pain!
I´m taking a grand Total of 13 classes right now…
Some are: Quimica, Fisica, Biologia. Lingüística, Math, Filosofia, Arte, Geographe, Espanhol, Inglais, Grammar...and some others I can´t really remember right now.
For the main part I just sit there and stare at the teacher all day…whishing I understood what they were saying.
I take notes when they write things down,a nd I take their tests. Ever 2 weeks they have a whole week of testing.Last week was it…and man oh man…I sucked. Huaha. Although I did Ace the English test. ;P
The Class room is Crazy. The kids are SOOOOO LOUD! And don´t respect the teach that much, a lot of them sleep all class. So Teacher of Riverdale…Please appreciate the calamity you have in your class, Its unbelievable how much more Organized School in the States is compared to here. I have no idea how the teaches put up with the kids here… I miss the quite. I miss writing Essays, I miss having serious conversations, contemplating Life, and everything like that.
I can´t wait until I understand What´s going on.
My Mom´s sending me a math book so I can just start teaching myself in the meantime…It kind of hard to understand how to do an equation when you have no idea what they are saying to explain it.
None the less I an still learning. Slowly, and quietly…but I´m still learning.

Aye aye aye…Well I think that´s all I have for now.
I miss you all, and hope your having a wonderful time…because I know I am!
Send me updates of Home!!!
Love you all.
Angie.