I forgot to mention last blog about some of my bus troubles lately. I seem to have a lot of trouble finding the bus station, or the ticket counter, or my departure gate, etc etc. Something always seems to go awry so I always make sure to arrive like 20 mins early and then I end up being 15 mins late (not late for my bus, just later than I want to be). On my way to Porto Alegre I think it was, there was a very stubborn Brazilian lady in my seat. She would not move for the life of her, no matter what I said (of course we don't speak the same language). What happened was that here they have blank tickets that they put through a machine that prints out the info on them. Well sometimes the lines don't exactly line up so under her "seat number" she had 21:00, which should have been the departure time. She took it as her seat number and no matter how I tried to show her that it was just a bit off she wouldn't budge. Everyone around me noticed what was going on and a nice lady tried to come to my rescue and explain to the stubborn lady in her own language what was going on but she still refused to move! It was ridiculous! Finally I had to pull the bus driver back there who proceeded to look at her ticket and told her to move and THEN she moved without a word. What a wench. Another very gross bus story involved this man with really bad burns on his legs and feet. I felt very bad for him because every step he took he winced and breathed really heavy like he was in a lot of pain and it always took him a painfully long time to walk down the aisle. Anyway I noticed it when he got on but he sat at the back of the bus and I was near the front so I didn't see much of him after that except at our stops when we got out. But near to Florianopolis he moved to the front of the bus so he could get out before the station. Well I don't think he could wear shoes because he was walking around barefoot with his pants rolled up so you could see his burns and they were nasty. But the worst part was watching him walk barefoot down the dirty disgusting bus aisle with crumbs and crap on the floor on his burns and every step he took left a wet footprint of PUS. His burns were oozing something nasty and the worst was when he sat in the seat in front of me and let his feet hang over into the aisle and they dripped, dripped, dripped onto the floor. Bleck, I literally was trying not to be sick. So there's my bus stories! Also a good bus story is that I happened to be on the same bus tonight as one of my friends I met in Florianopolis, Jasmine, and we actually had seats beside each other! It was quite funny when she sat down beside me.

Well I had one more day in Florianopolis after my last post. I hung out at the hostel until 1 pm and then went to hit the beach for a few hours! I chilled out and practiced my Portuguese on my new audio cd. I now know how to say things like "I do not speak portuguese" , "excuse me", "thank you", "I am American" (even though I'm not), "I understand", "Hello/Goodbye", etc. Useful info! I walked back to my hostel from the beach (about an hour walk) because the traffic is crazy going back from the beach at the end of the day. I can walk faster than cars can get there because it's just a big jam. I can't imagine what traffic is like in the high season! When I got back I made supper and then got my bus to Curitiba. The night before I had gone for supper with my friend Paula and it was quite interesting. She really likes boys... Older boys. She had been on a date that day with a 35 year old she had just met at the bus station (she is 22) and when I balked at that she proceeded to tell me how she dated one of her college professors who was 61!! Uh what?! I was definitely weirded out!

On my way to the bus station in Florianopolis I was seriously depressed. I felt like I was leaving my heart behind in Floripa :(. I know I keep saying this about every place I go but.. I loved it there! And that has been the saddest I have been to leave someplace so it must be #1! Why are there so many awesome places in this world?! It makes it really hard to decide where I want to live! ;) I was depressed for my 6 hour drive to Curitiba and I had super weird and sad dreams the whole way there. I got in at midnight so I just checked in and went to bed. The next day was Monday and my only day in Curitiba so I had to see it all! I thought I would do their tourist bus which is supposed to be one of the best in the country. I walked to the plaza where it is supposed to start and waited around for an hour without seeing any tourist buses come and go. Before this point I was feeling a little better because it was a lovely day and Curitiba is a cool city. It has the best public transportation system in the world so that was pretty cool to see up close. They have tons of buses and their bus stops are tinted glass tubes! But after waiting for a tourist bus with no luck I managed to ask someone and found out it doesn't run on Mondays... Just my luck. The two things I really wanted to see was the botanical garden and the Oscar Niemeyer museum. The museum was also closed on Mondays... Apparently their Monday is like our Sunday. How annoying as it was my only day there! But I did manage to see the garden and that was quite nice. I walked around and ate my lunch there and enjoyed the beautiful day! Eventually I got back to my hostel and didn't do much for the rest of the day. I did see a car crash though. It came around a corner crazy fast, lost control and went up on the sidewalk and hit a sign post. If there would have been someone walking on that sidewalk they would have been toast. I made my own supper at my hostel and basically went to bed after that. I have been making my own suppers almost every night since I've been in Brazil. I don't like going to restaurants because I don't know what anything is in Portuguese yet. I had a 7 am bus to São Paulo today. I arrived at 1 pm to Sao Paulo and was supposed to have a 4 pm bus to Paraty, which I am on right now, but not after some heckling and panicking thanks to Bamba. For some reason they told me I couldn't change the time of my ticket to Paraty(I originally had a different time booked) because they had booked it online but I could change it once I got to the bus station. Well first off I was worried about having to change it myself because I can't speak Portuguese, and secondly that only left me a 3 hour window to purchase a ticket, what if all the seats were sold out by then? Well Bamba ASSURED me that they spoke English at the bus counter and also that there would be a seat available. Ya, ok. Well when I got to the counter of course they don't speak English. Thankfully they understood a little Spanish so I managed to explain my situation somewhat. When I finally got them to understand they said nope, the bus was full. My stomach dropped. Poo! But then I asked again and got them to check on the computer and in fact it wasn't full! So after that everything went ok and I got on the bus and am heading to Paraty right now! Soooo excited for hot weather (finally some high 20's ahead) and beach days! I have a schooner boat trip booked for Thursday where we get to suntan, drink, and have fun on a boat while we island hop and snorkel all day! Sounds like lots of fun. They also have this cool waterfall somewhere nearby Paraty that you can slide down like a natural waterside so I definitely wanna try to hit that up! I only have tomorrow to do that so I hope I can find it. Will keep you posted!