Today was AWESOME!! I woke up at like 7:15 this morning (that part wasn't so awesome) and ate breakfast and got ready to go to the Circus. It was incredible. It was only like a 25 minute bus ride from our port, I fell asleep on the way there. I went to bed at like 2 am last night, so this early start thing was no good. But once we got there, we got out and sat down and learned about the circus and what they do there. They mainly take kids off the streets (Brazil has an unfortunate horrible problem with how many kids are on the streets) and teach them skills to perform in the Circus. It's really an incredible thing they do. None of the workers there spoke English, but our tour guide was our interpreter. They showed us a couple tricks and then let us all get up, warmed us up, then set up stations and taught us how to do everything! It was amazing! I thought we would get to try one or two things, but we got to try everything! First I went on the Spanish Rope, which is the rope you climb up, put your hand in the loop thingy and they spin the rope around. (pictures are provided of me climbing up and then swinging around on it.) It was so hard to climb up there and get your hand in the rope. The first time I did it once I got down, I couldn't feel my fingers and I was shaking. Not because I was scared, but you have to hang on so tight, and it takes crazy upper body strength. The second time I tried it was easier, but I got mad rope-burn on a couple spots on my legs. It looks like I got beat up. But oh well, good battle scars for souvenirs. Then we learned how to juggle. Or to put it better, they showed us how, gave us bean bags, and I just kept throwing mine too far and dropping them. Then we got to go to the stationary trapeze and do some cool tricks. There are two pictures of me on that. Then it was on to the tight ropes which I swear are impossible. I tried to walk across it and keep my muscles tight so I wouldn't loose balance, but that just made the rope shake. It was pretty funny. The guys who worked guided us across and taught us cool little tricks to make it look fancy. Since none of them spoke English, they pretty much just used arm and leg movements to let us know what they wanted us to do. So there is a picture of me on the tightrope and one of the workers. Then we got to do the spring board onto a trampoline onto a mat. That was fun. I didn't get any pictures of that though, it was kind of hard to catch. I got to try a front flip though. It was awesome! Then the workers showed us some cool human pyramid stuff and picked out some students to be in them and they picked me, so there is a picture of me in the middle of a rather large human pyramid. Then the last picture is me and Ali with a few of the workers. That trip was so fun. But I was still so worn out after, so I came back and took a nap and was going to go with a group to Carnival again, but it ended up being too large of a group with like 15 girls and only 4 guys, and Ali and I didn't know many of them very well, so we didn't feel safe, so we sat out on the deck ate some frozen yogurt and talked for a while. It was nice and relaxing. Plus, we have another trip at 8 am again tomorrow, so it's probably for the better to stay low tonight. The circus took so much out of me though. But today was probably the most fun I have had on this trip so far. I still got 12 more weeks to go!