O Nordeste

I’ve been back in Rio for over a week now, but it’s obviously taken me a little while to get back to the blogging. I wanted to keep it short and sweet, but it was an eventful week so I decided to do a couple of installments instead. Also, if you’re more of a visual person, there are pictures! Just to warn you, most of them are of old churches, beautiful beaches, and random creatures (which just about sums up the trip). But here are a few more recent updates first:

• I made mango jam. It was a stressful process, but you know what they say: all’s well that ends with something delicious to put on toast.
• I had 2 street-crossing incidents in 2 days, and have been kind of paranoid every time I leave the house since then.
• Brown-in-Brazil took us to a little town called Vassouras in RJ state over the weekend. We visited a restored coffee plantation (where they had cake and coffee for us, such a win) complete with a really cool old car collection. Then we ate lunch in town and walked around some; there was also a really nice green space on a hill that reminded me just how long it’s been since I’ve seen grass! Overall, good day trip.
• Continuing the common theme of food, last week we had an American-themed potluck, which probably could have been called 4th of July food instead. I made mac & cheese, which I think turned out well despite the lack of cheddar cheese in this country.
• Mosquitoes driving me crazy.

So then, Recife! Louisa and I set out for the airport Friday evening; at least the rain was enough to stop almost the entire time we stood by the road in Copa, although we were out there waiting for over an hour so it still wasn’t exactly ideal. And then our flight was 3 hours late (and changed gates several times too), meaning that it left at 1:30am. Perhaps the universe was just trying to prepare us for the transportation difficulties that were yet to come?

Since our few hours of sleep on a cramped plane and an airport bench weren’t especially restful, catching up on sleep was a priority the first couple days in Recife (both on the beach and at the hostel where we slept on the floor of the laundry room). It was cool to meet other Brazilians who were traveling, as well as some other foreigners (including 2 girls who are studying at PUC this semester too!). On Saturday we headed to Centro and ate some cheap food and walked around the bridges and old buildings for a while. We also found the biggest store ever, called Atacado dos Presentes – at the time I thought it had something to do with being attacked by presents, but after some internetting I think it actually means wholesale… either way, they had some great mugs that I would have bought if I wouldn’t have had to carry them around the entire week. Then after being defeated by the buses (the first of many times), we headed back to Boa Viagem (the neighborhood where we were staying) for some beach time.

The next day we headed to the mall for some bathing suit shopping – I would now have enough bathing suits to last me forever, except I’m not sure how comfortable I’ll be wearing them back in the US. Then after that we went looking for the bus to get us to a certain museum, but instead found a park with a big festival going on; we think it must have been for Children’s Day. There was a little zoo there (the kind with sad cages though), tons of colorful inflatable balls and toys, and more cheap food. Definitely a win. We also explored the Cidade Antiga and the market they have there on Sundays, were I found some sandals. Then that evening we hung out at the beach in Boa Viagem and tried to figure out where exactly we were going the next day when we left Recife! So that’s my cliffhanger, more later.