Bye-Bye, Spring Break

It's difficult to believe that spring break has come to an official end, and it's even more wild that I have less than twenty-four hours left in the only other country I'd consider living in (so far, at least).

As amazing as my time in Brazil has been, I had no trouble leaving the country yesterday for a quick foray into neighboring Argentina. Well... "no" trouble may be too strong. Our program strictly and unequivocally forbids leaving our host country at any time. So while Sally and Jenn were super nonchalant and brave and like--

I was cowering in the corner of the taxi like--

I have been and probably always will be too much of an authority-respecting rule follower to enjoy engaging in illicit activity. But most of my fear evaporated once I got that big, blue, beautiful Argentina stamp on my passport. Though Sally printed out forty or so pages of evidence in both Spanish and English to prove that yes, indeed, Obama DID visit Argentina and that no, we as American citizens do NOT need to pay a reciprocity fee, we ended up not needing them. We pulled up in our taxi to the Argentinian passport office and our driver (and true homie/fab friend) Giovanni speedily explained the situation in Spanish and the Argentinian border patrol officer simply responded (in a yell) "OBAMA!!!' And let us through. WOO.

I was overjoyed at entering Argentina for multiple reasons: the euphoria in international travel, seeing Spanish (a language I can almost understand!), and getting another stamp (wahoo!). We withdrew some pesos in order to pay for our entrance fee, and then we entered Iguassu from the Argentinian side! We had heard from multiple sources that the Argentinian side is much better than the Brazilian, and while it's difficult to compare two views of perfection, I can understand what they meant. While Brazil provided more panoramic views of the Falls, Argentina allowed you to be practically in the waterfalls.

Stunning, right?

We hiked up and down the waterfalls for about five hours, avoiding the gorge of crowds that filled the park on what was apparently the "busiest" weekend of the entire year! Wow! Sally, Jenn, and I were absolutely awed by Mother Nature's power and beauty. We headed back to Brazil in the early afternoon in Giovanni's car (he is such a homie, you guys) and quickly crashed in our fluffy beds, recovering from the excitement of our day. We woke up in time to watch Eclipse (you know, the Twilight movie) in Portuguese, and then we raced down to the buffet once again to partake in the deliciousness of Brazilian food. We once again gorged ourselves on bread, salad, tenderloin, and white wine sangria, and then took on the dessert table. We decided it'd be an absolute waste to allow our full stomachs to dissuade us from taking advantage of the all-inclusive sweets, so we literally snagged about twenty pieces of brigadeiro (a Brazilian fudge candy) to both eat on the plane and to hand out to employees that helped us on Easter. They appreciated it.

We woke up around 6:45 AM and rushed to pack, brush our teeth, pay the bill, and eat some breakfast before hopping into Giovanni's cab and heading to the airport.

Goodbye to paradise ):

Today was honestly a blur of sleeping, taxiing, and eating delicious ramen, but I'd love to take a moment to discuss the two families that I had the pleasure of celebrating Easter with today. First, my Brazilian host family. They truly welcomed me into their home and made me their family. I consider Maria Luisa to be my niece (that cutie pie) and Liza to be my honorary sister. I had the lovely opportunity to say one last goodbye today due to my forgetfulness (I had to grab my straightener from the house). They are seriously so wonderful. It's not easy to call a place a "home" after only four weeks, and yet, today it felt like I was going home. I also got to "see" my real fam today over Skype!!! Though I was extremely jealous of their Easter gumbo dinner, I loved seeing their faces and laughing at Sierra's hysterical jokes.

Well, I'm currently watching some South African movies on Netflix in order to prepare for tomorrow--I can call that homework, right? I can't believe my time here is ending!!!! I can't wait for my next adventure(:

On to the next,
Aubs

Riooooooo

So... I'll give you one hint as to where I am right now...

(PS: the title of this song is "Girl From Ipanema")

YES THAT'S RIGHT!! I'm at Ipanema Beach in Rio de Janeiro for what is about to be the best best best spring break of all time! After weeks and weeks of stressful site visits, lecture after lecture after lecture, and constant mental engagement, it is FINALLY vacation and it's time to enjoyyyyy.

(and sleep)

Getting to this point of total freedom from responsibility was, however, not quite easy; these past two days were packed full of hair-pulling stress, nerve-wracking warnings, and cut-it-with-a-steak-knife tension. Just to give you some idea:

STRESS:

30% of our grade for one class and 30% of our grade for another were due within 24 hours of one another and could only be done between Thursday and Friday night due to information/research restraints. So, while the assignments were quite interesting, attempting to complete them while also worrying about packing and trying to finish two classes midterms at once was kind of stressful. I didn't even watch Netflix for like two days.

WARNINGS:

Yesterday, after finishing one of our midterms, our country guide sat us down in order to explain to us the strong likelihood of an abrupt and tragic disaster due to political, medical, and/or personal factors. First off, we were told that she doesn't "trust our judgement" as we have shown her that we cannot take good care of ourselves.

my reaction tbh

Turns out she wasn't talking about me specifically but instead a group of peers who'd happened to get sick and lose a few important items (including one passport). But it was still kind of mean in my opinion, and I was like--

But then, we got into the real warnings that really freaked me out.

For example, Zika (which I like definitely have). They warned us that this is the PRIME TIME for mosquitoes, and should we experience any of the symptoms (which I absolutely have) we should contact a doctor immediately even though we may have to wait for hours in the office. I kind of sunk down, trying to hide my joint pain/fever/headache like--

But just as I was really investing my worry in Zika, we were alerted about another great source of fear--civil war!!!!

So as you may or may not know, Brazil is in the middle of this crazy political moment in which millions of Brazilians are calling for the impeachment of a corrupt president. Brazil's democracy is only 28 years old, so many fear that such a diversion from the democratic process could endanger the entire governmental structure of Brazil. Fun awesome yay! So we were warned not to wear the colors red, green, or yellow, because we may accidentally align ourselves with one side of the movement or the other and risk attracting "uncontrollable" aggression.

But don't worry, we have an excellent evacuation plan in case of the outbreak of civil war... which we haven't yet been told... We'll worry about that when we get there, apparently.

TENSION:

Ten weeks of constant (and I mean constant) interaction, has put all of us on edge a tiny bit. I feel like we are just one "can you move just a little bit so I can see the PowerPoint?" away from--

Sally made a great point in that we all have multiple "selves" in different contexts. These include the classroom self, the home self, the India/Brazil/America self, the site visit self, etc. etc. And it's gotten really hard to navigate all these selves and form a sense of identity when you are constantly in contact with everyone else in all of these different contexts. So I think we are all getting *slightly* tense, and that spring break came at just the right time.

~~

Sally, Jenn, and I hopped on our plane to Rio and endured the very short ride to a beautiful, compact airport at which we immediately got our bags and drove to our awesome Airbnb! We have views of two different beaches, and we are literally one minute away from the beach that inspired the above song. We are currently relaxing and napping, because we each (for three different reasons) slept for only three hours last night. Then, it'll be time to scarf down some Mexican food (yaaas @ guac), try some Rio caipirinhas, and enjoy some nightlife!!

So excited to explore another city in the country I've come to love!!!!

Feeling ~decidedly~ unstressed, unworried, and untense,

Spring Break Aubrey!!!