Ahh, so much has happened!



Had a slight difference in opinions with my host dad, (i.e. he thought that while his wife was in hospital alone in another city it was OK for him to take me out to dinner, tell me i was beautiful and he loves me etc. and i didn't) so i'm now living in a new home with a host mum, her lodger, and another student from the school which is great. And I get a double bed.



Last weekend we went to the Dunas de Marapé which was really beautiful. Amazing white sand beaches, with a river going down to the sea and little grey monkeys in the trees arund. We'd been out for a few drinks the night before to see off Karen and Peter so we ended up sleeping on the beach for most of the afternoon (amazingly i didnt get too burnt!)

One of the teachers at the school, Pedro, is also an artist and one of his designs was in an interior design show that opened thursday and he invited us all along. So we arrived in flipflops and normal clothes, to find that it was reallly posh, all of the women in heels and dresses, all of the men in suits, free champagne all night, free canopés circling all night. It was like the cast from a telenovela. It was interesting to see the other side of life in Maceió, especially after going to the favelas a couple of times. The contrast within one small city is unbelievable.

Friday was sad because a lot of the students who had been here since i arrived left. In the evening a few of us went to the beach to eat Tapioca, a local food which is a little bit like tortillas, where you can get lots of fillings but the classic is cheese and coconut. After that we went to a party in one of the host houses though for a farewell which was really fun. There were a lot of home made coctails and attempts to dance forro.

Saturday early morning we set off on a trip to Maragogi, a town in norhtern Alagoas near the border with Pernambuco. On the way we stopped at yet another beautiful beach. It was bizarre because the sea was shallow until really far from the shore. We swam for a while and had a doze on the beach then had an amazing lunch and went on to Maragogi. When we arrived we watched some amazing Brazilian TV in the bedroom, including a highly intellectual show in which a woman was confronted with 3 men and she had to guess which was married, which was gay and which was single. In the evening we went out for pizza and then a few of us went back to the hotel and played silly drinking games and other went to a bar. The plan was to meet up later to go on to a club, but when we got to the bar at about 10.30 all of the others had gone to bed, and in the end only 4 of us went to the club. Which was strange and noone would dance, so we went home early.

Sunday we went on a boat out to some amazing natural swimming pools, areas where the water is very shallow and there are lots of coral reefs and beautiful fishes swimming around everywhere. We got some awful pictures taken there too, some of which i may put up later.