1, 2, 3, jump!

Hello to all!

I hope you had a good weekend. I did!

The End...Just kidding!

So, Friday was a regular day of class and then dance class again in the afternoon. Attendance at class with Taty was on the low side, though it´s kind of funny...three people showed up (myself included), and it was Norway, Switzerland, and USA....aka my Portuguese class! A class that learns together dances together...or something like that. Anyway, it turned out to be another good workout, and Taty is still really fun. Hopefully by the time Carnaval rolls around in a couple of weeks, I will be up to speed on my Afro-Brazilian moves.

Then at night, a bunch of us went out in Pelourinho. We saw a dance show, replete with costumes, capoeira, dancing, singing, and albeit kind of touristey, it was still pretty cool. Afterwards, we hung around in the cobblestone backstreets of Pelourinho, jamming to some live music and hanging around. At one point, a few of us (we were a group of seven) went into the bar where the band was playing and by the time we came out, the rest of the group had made friends with an undercover military man. We had thought it was great, because since there were a lot of people in the streets, we had police protection on our side. He stayed with us for a seemingly long time, but then by the time four of us headed out awhile later, the guy (who had introduced us to a bunch of his military men colleagues) walked us to a taxi and waited for his fee. We told him he never told us about that (I think he was trying to charge us the equivalent of $20 USD or so), but he kept pestering and pestering (and annoyingly so), so we eventually gave him a few dollars just to get off our case and scram, and not cause any trouble. One of those ´´too good to be true´´ situations, I guess...the guys in our group had just thought the military guy just had a crush on one of the girls! Sadly, that was not the case.

Saturday, the school offered an excursion to two islands off the coast of Salvador, Ilha do Frade and Ilha de Itaparica. We took a big catamaran type of boat with about 60-70 other people out there (we were on our own..we didn´t go with the school; the school just organized it), and there was a band playing on the boat, so, naturally, there was a dance party in the middle of the sea. When we got to the island, the thing to do was go swimming and hang out by the beach. We were there for a couple of hours before we boarded the boat to move on to the next island (Itaparica). When we got to Itaparica, we had the option to take a boat to shore (our boat didnt bring us all the way to shore) or jump off the boat and swim to shore. So, yup...1, 2, 3, jump! It was a good swim, and surprisingly, we beat the boats. And it wasn´t because there was a buffet lunch waiting for us when we got to the island. Our two options of things to do on that island were either to stay at the beach or to take a tour of the island. Of our group (12 people), some people went on the tour (myself included) and some people stayed at the beach. The tour lasted about an hour or so, and we got to see a few neat sites of the town (I´m not sure how much ´´town´´ there is, but I´d like to think whatever highlights there are, we saw), and then by the time we got back, it was time to board the boat to go back to Salvador, a nice leisurely ride of an hour and a half or so.

Sunday was also a day of day tripping, but this time it was to Cachoeira, a town about two hours away by bus. We mostly just explored that town and São Felix, a town you get to by walking from Cachoeira across a bridge of death (a bridge comprised of wooden panels, some shaky). A good daytrip experience with fun little hole-in-the-wall places to explore, including this one literary café place in Cachoeira where we met the owner of the gallery, who is also a poet..very cool guy.

All in all, a busy and on-the-go (but relaxing at the same time) weekend.

Hope your respective weekends were fun, too! Have a good week!
missy :)
http://andsmilestogobeforeisleep.blogspot.com