September and October

Well, time has certainly flown by since my last update. Since then pretty much everything revolved around our wedding.

After the fair, we turned around and went back to PA the following weekend for the wedding of my friends Cory and Austin. It was a beautiful wedding and gave us some ideas for our own!

We then turned around to come back on Sunday morning for another Latino music festival in Virginia.

Then it was planning, planning and more planning. I honestly don’t remember what else we might have done the entire month of September. Our wedding was October 10, and from what I know, all went well.

I drove up to PA on Thursday and got to hang out with some of my bridesmaids that evening. Friday we went for manicures and pedicures which was super relaxing. From there, we went to Olive Garden to eat and then to Tussey Mountain to decorate. The decorating went really quickly (I guess that’s what happens when you have 5 bridesmaids, 2 junior bridesmaids and a mom to help out!). I went to check the boys in at their hotel since we didn’t know what time they’d be getting there in the evening and then it was time for the rehearsal. Except the boys weren’t there yet.

So we took advantage of the time to decorate the pews (simple bows and leaves) and set up the church. Pastor Nathan also worked on his Spanish! The boys finally showed up only about 45 minutes late, minus the best man. Unfortunately he had to work and wasn’t there for the rehearsal at all! But it was okay because he didn’t really have to do anything during the service.

The rehearsal went well and then we had dinner in the church basement. There was a ton of food and a bunch of Grange folk came to help out (mostly because they wanted to see what was going on!). After dinner, the girls “kidnapped me” and took me to Jenna’s house while Matthew took the boys to Hooters.

The girls had gathered a bunch of ridiculous props for me (including a fuzzy pink crown, a Bachlorette sash, a veil and a huge blinking “diamond” ring), made even more food (which involved chocolate) and gave me a bunch of lingerie…I gave the girls their gifts which included a bag that I embroidered their first initial on, their jewelry for the next day, and a note.

Since some of my bridesmaids are good friends with the groomsmen and rarely get to see each other, we decided that it would be fun to get back together that night and just relax. We ended up at Cory’s parents’ house where we relaxed in the 12 person hot tub for a few hours before heading back to sleep!

Sleep? Who slept? Well, I did sleep, but not for very long! At 6 am or so, Jenna rolled over (we slept over at her house) and was like “YOU’RE GETTING MARRIED TODAY!” We did manage to get a little more shut eye before getting up for the day.

After breakfast and coffee (very important!), I headed to the church with Tina and Heather to make sure everything was in order. Susan and Greta brought the BEAUTIFUL flowers soon thereafter and we began to prepare for the day. Cory came to help the girls with their hair and make up while Jenna did mine. It took close to 3 hours for her to curl my hair, but it looked great when all was said and done!

We took a bunch of pictures before the wedding – mostly the ones with all the guys and the ones with all the girls.

The ceremony started right at 3:30 and went really well. The pastor did say that Elvis tried to call me every day for 6 months instead of 6 weeks (that would have been TOO long), but that just made everyone laugh. It was good that he made them laugh, because I made them all cry! I said I think the second line of my vows and then realized that there was no way I was going to get through the rest of them without crying. I tried to collect myself and continue, but it just wasn’t happening! Tears poured out of my eyes and, according to Aunt Thelma, “there wasn’t a dry eye in the place.” Before we knew it, we were pronounced husband and wife! We dismissed everyone from the church and then took more pictures. Shortly thereafter, we arrived at Tussey.

Everyone was announced as they entered, Elvis and I danced our first dance (a marimba waltz) and then I danced with my Dad. Martha (the girl I used to babysit) cried the whole time I was dancing with my Dad…so sweet! I just didn’t look at my Dad so that I could avoid doing the same! Then there was a toast, food, cake cutting, surprising Philip with a cake (it was his 21st, after all) and DANCING!

We danced for the rest of the time and it was SOOOO much fun! The DJ played mostly latino music, which was wonderful for Elvis and I, but we weren’t sure how my family would like it. Before we knew it, Aunt Thelma and Aunt Barb were up there dancing with us and George Witherite joined in, too! We did play some more typical songs like the Chicken Dance (everyone said don’t do it, but that’s the song everyone danced to!) and the YMCA (at which Uncle Danny decided he was dyslexic and wanted to dance the ACMY) and some slow songs as well. It was a LOT of fun!

We also ended up with the absolutely most perfectly wonderful sunset which was amazingly gorgeous and led to some beautiful photos!

After the reception, we headed to the hotel where we called Elvis’ family and talked to them some more. I really wish that they could have been there on the big day, but we knew that it wasn’t going to be possible, so calling was the next best thing. Actually several of his cousins and family members called during the day and we had a chance to talk to them then which was cool. We’re also planning on having a party sometime if we can get there to visit!

On Sunday, we opened gifts and then drove back to Maryland. We slept in on Monday and then headed to Shenandoah National Park in Virginia. It was absolutely gorgeous there with all the leaves changing color and the views over the mountains. We saw some deer when we arrived and camped on Monday night. It was REALLY cold, though, so we decided that we weren’t going to stay another night. We did head farther down Skyline Drive on Tuesday, saw a mama bear and 2 cubs, walked a bit to see a waterfall, and then left the park.

On the way back, we went to Luray Caverns because Elvis had never been in a cave before. It was kind of neat because it’s a self-guided tour (they give you earphones), so you can take your time to see the things you want to see. Elvis was kind of worried about a stalactite falling on his head, but it was really neat. There are actually some pretty cool formations in the cave. My favorite part is a section where there is water on the ground but it is absolutely still, so there is a reflection of the stalactites on the floor and it’s really pretty.

Wednesday I tried to clean some things up around the house while Elvis was back at work. That evening we received the news that my Grandma Walters had passed away which was upsetting, but was also something we knew was around the corner. We had already bought our tickets to see the US-Costa Rica World Cup Qualifying Match here in DC, so we decided that we would go there anyway. It was a really exciting match, but unfortunately we had decided to leave before the US scored the tying goal in the 5th minute of stoppage time!

Thursday and Friday were spent at the house cleaning and arranging things. Saturday we went to see part of the University of Maryland football game, but it was cold and rainy, so we went home early. Some of the guys came over to look at wedding pics and eat and such that night.

Sunday Matthew and I made the trek back to PA for Grandma’s viewing and funeral and then back to MD on Monday. Now things are back to “normal”, I guess. Worked some last week and this week is my first full week back in the office since…early August, I believe. Craziness, right? The one thing that isn’t completely normal is that Elvis is finally taking the class he needs to take to get his driver’s license, so he hasn’t been back home until 9pm or so. That means all the cooking, cleaning and other household tasks fall to me this week which is mostly okay, but somewhat tiring…oh well. Maybe someday everything will be normal…what is normal???

August

So the month of August was absolutely insane.

It's still standing!

August 1 and 2 were spent in Pennsylvania.  We fixed Mom and Dad’s flowerbed in the back yard that has been falling down for about 10 years now.  We also replaced a few boards that were about to fall down on the front grape barber and did some other random things.  The flowerbed turned out quite nice and hasn’t fallen down.  Yet.  That afternoon was also the celebration of Emily and Russ’s wedding which was fun and I got to see some of my cousins who I haven’t seen in awhile.  That evening, we tried to play mini golf only to find that the course was overrun by weeds and dirt, so we settled for Meyer’s ice cream instead.

Elvis and I ready to go to Latin Palace on his birthday.

The next week was spent at work and the next weekend was equally insane.  Elvis’ birthday was on the 7th, so we went to Latin Palace for the first time in FOREVER.  Don Enrique, the owner of LP was SOOOO touched when we gave him the invitation for the wedding that he almost started to cry!  Elvis got his trophy and was incredibly proud of himself – it’s the first trophy he ever “won”!    Saturday was spent preparing food and partying with Elvis’ friends who all came over to celebrate his birth.  Or something like that.  At some point in time, I wandered back into the house and fell asleep.  Sunday we went to Sandy Point with Elvis’ cousin, Gerson, his wife Carolina and their son, Anderson.  My friend Julia and her boyfriend Rene met up with us there.  We had a great time feasting on watermelon, spending time in the water and playing soccer.

Two Yawanawa leaders give a blessing at the opening ceremony for the workshop.

I left the following Wednesday to go back to Brazil.  After 36 hours of travelling, I arrived in Rio Branco on Friday and started to get things ready for the course the next week.  The course ran from Sunday through Thursday and was really well received.  The workshop was for indigenous community leaders to learn about payments for ecosystem services and REDD (what we work on here). Many people liked it and have asked us to repeat the workshop in their home state.  The only thing people complained about was the heat.  With the humidity factored in, it was 113* one day and we were outside!  Friday we had a  small public seminar which was also well attended and well liked.  This was in conjunction with the state government and on a slightly higher level

Beautiful sunset over the river near the workshop.

than the workshop the week before.

Saturday was spent tying up loose ends and shopping!  Then I flew to Rio de Janeiro.  Since the plane tickets aren’t any more expensive, I try to spend a few extra days in the country when I fly for work.  The first time, I stayed an extra day in San Jose, Costa Rica and went white water rafting and walked around the city.  The second time, I stayed in Cuiaba for an extra day to go to Chapada dos Guimaraes.  The third time, I stayed in  Sao Paulo, and this time I stayed in Rio.

Rio as seen from the Christ statue.

Rio is an amazingly beautiful city.  Mountains and beaches right next to each other – what could be better???  On Sunday I went to the market and bought myself a bag.  I don’t think I bought much else there.  Then I found my way back to the hostel and I went to Maracana – the largest

Me at the soccer game in Maracana

soccer stadium in South America – to watch a soccer game.  That was pretty cool. There weren’t too many people there, but they sure made a lot of noise!  Monday I went on a tour of Rio with a group from the hostel.  We went to see a place where they go hang gliding, a waterfall in a state park, the Christ statue, a small neighborhood called Santa Teresa and Lapas.

Me and Christ.

I wish that we would have had more time in the state park to walk around and do some exploring – this is definitely on my to-do list if I ever have the opportunity to go back and I can go with someone (walking around a state park by myself is not on Mom’s Approved List of Things Rebecca Can Do Alone).

Some of the steps.

My favorite thing, though, was probably Lapas.  Lapas is a neighborhood where apparently there are some crazy parties

See - told you he has a fascination with pregnant women.

that happen at night.  We were there during the day, however, and we went to see these steps – there are 215 of them.  This Chilean artist, Selaron, came to the neighborhood and decided to cover the steps with tile.  And he paints some of the tiles, and apparently changes them around. They have been featured in a Snoop Dogg video and in the newest Incredible Hulk movie. They are really neat.  Selaron, however, has some sort of personal problem and he always paints a pregnant person (not necessarily a woman) in all of his drawings.  They turn out pretty cool, though. He was out for lunch when we stopped in, but I bought a drawing from him which will be hanging in our apartment as soon as we get a frame.

Cool panoramic of the city - the drawing I got is similar to a part of this.

Beach shot at Copacabana - it was a little rainy and cold, so there weren't many people.

Tuesday was spent shopping and relaxing on the beach before my plane ride home.

My footprints in the sand.

Arrived home on Wednesday and slept. And did laundry.

Thursday I worked from Panera for a bit (man, I love Panera, I can’t believe there isn’t one in Georgetown!).  Then Elvis and I packed up the car and headed to Grange Fair.  Elvis really enjoyed the fair, especially the animals.  I got to talk with Tina for a long time on Friday night which was wonderful.  We also managed to get our marriage license, see Philip’s play and eat lots of fattening food in there.

Sunday was my bridal shower which was pretty neat.  I’m still not too sure how I feel about being the center of attention, but whatever.  I got a bunch of new kitchen stuff which is pretty exciting.  Some new recipes to try out, too.

We got back late Sunday evening and I didn’t even bother to unpack everything!  I was tooooooo exhausted!  Monday was back to work for the first time in 2.5 weeks, then unpacking and cleaning.  And all of a sudden, it was September!  Who’da thunk it???

Watching the horse show.

Elvis wanted to send these cows to Guatemala

Jenna and Heather with their award winning dress. Modeled by Margaret.

Hannah, Martha and Julia and their toilet paper wedding dresses at my shower.

the rest of the story

So on Tuesday, we set off from the shelter .  We passed through Sky Meadows State Park in Virginia which was pretty neat.  We even had a decent view at one point in time.  Suffice it to say that there are not very many views on this hike.  We rolled into the shelter (the Jim and Molly Denton Shelter?) at 9:15 pm and everyone else had already gone to bed!  I felt bad about making noise while setting up the tent and cooking dinner, but I was hungry!

The next morning Jenica, my hiking partner, wasn’t feeling too well, so she slept and slept and slept and we finally left the shelter a little after lunch time.  I wasn’t very happy about this, but have to have a healthy partner.  This was also the day that we started the Roller Coaster – a series of hills over a 13ish mile span.  It definitely wasn’t easy, but we went for the challenge, right?

Well, we made it over 2 hills and Jenica decided she had had enough for the day.  It was only 3pm.  I said “I don’t think so, we’re going over at least one more hill.”  She didn’t really like that idea, but went with me anyway.  We crossed the next hill (only 1.5 miles further) and ended up with a pretty cool campsite – there was a river (the water was FREEZING), a small waterfall, and someone else had built a fire ring there, so we got to make a fire!  (According to the “Leave no Trace Policy,” you  really shouldn’t build fires when you’re hiking because the idea is to leave nature as undisturbed as you can and fires are an obvious sign that someone had been there.)  We relaxed for a bit, cooked dinner over the fire, played some card games and went to bed.

The next morning, we set off fairly early, but we were pretty slow-going through the mountains.  I had high hopes of hiking farther than we did the previous day.  There were a bunch more ups and downs and eventually we had an amazing view at Bear’s Den Rocks!  We relaxed there for a bit, then hiked a little farther and camped off of the trail on the top of the hill.  I wanted to go farther so we had a more reliable source of water, but Jenica refused.  Luckily I still had plenty of water from the Bear’s Den (a hostel), so I let her drink the water out of the stream which had waaaaayy too many floaty things in it for my taste, though we did boil some of that to make spaghetti for dinner.  We hiked a total of 6.8 miles that day.

Friday we got off to a slow start and headed on through the roller coaster.  At the top of the first hill, we met Red Dog (everyone on the trail uses nicknames and not their real names).  Red Dog reminded me of Uncle Jim – you couldn’t tell which stories were true and which were figments of his imagination.  He decided he would hike with us that day.  In some ways this freaked me out and in some ways it was cool – we heard lots of interesting stories and had some company.  He also piled a bunch of logs on top of a copperhead for us so that we could pass.  (I did feel bad for the copperhead, though…he really just should have killed it!)  One way or the other, it pushed Jenica to keep walking.  We did have a good view along the way, here, too.  We hiked 8 miles that day in a shorter amount of time than we hiked the 6.8 the previous day.  We arrived at Blackburn Trail Center at 4 pm or so, maybe, and decided to stay.  The Trail Center is pretty amazing.  You can stay there for free, they give you dinner, and they have a solar-powered shelter.  It was nice.  We relaxed for the rest of the afternoon with Dreamcatcher – an amazing 60 year old woman from Texas who is hiking the whole trail and Red Dog.

I had thought that we would have made it into Harper’s Ferry either late Friday night or early on Saturday.  I realized on Wednesday that we weren’t going to make it.  I wanted to go white-water rafting in HF and we were hoping that Christy would be able to join us.  We decided we had 2 choices.  1) Call someone to pick us up at the Trail Center (there’s a road that leads there) or 2) keep hiking and give up the idea of rafting.  I wanted to make it to Harper’s Ferry since that was our original goal and I probably would have thought that anything less was a failure, but I decided to leave it up to Jenica as to what we should do.  She (reluctantly, I think) decided that we should hike the rest of the way into HF.  So then the question became do we 1) hike all 12 miles in 1 day (something we hadn’t done since Day #2) or 2) hike most of the way and then go the rest of the way in on Sunday morning.  According to the information at the Trail Center, the only trains back to DC were super early in the morning, so if we were to hike the rest of the way in on Sunday, we would have had to wait until Monday to take the train back to DC, so we decided to go all 12 miles in one day.  We were now off of the roller coaster, so we assumed it wouldn’t be nearly as difficult.

We started off a little later than I would have hoped to and made it to the David Lesser Shelter (3.2 miles) by 11ish.  After a snack break, I was ready to continue, but Jenica was in need of water.  The spring was .5 miles from the shelter (not on the trail) down a steep path.  It took us 1 hour to get going again (meaning we were averaging 1 mile per hour…and we still had 9 miles to go!).  The good part about this was that we met 2 women from Harpers Ferry who later met up with us on the trail again and offered for us to go to their home and spend the night (think soft bed, warm shower, home cooked meal).  They had never done something like this before, so that was pretty cool.  Around 3pm, we still had 4ish miles to go and the thunder started.  Luckily for us, this was the worst weather we had all week.  We decided to keep going until the heavens let loose at which point we quickly set up the tent in an attempt to stay dry.  The rain only lasted about 30 minutes, however, and we were soon back on the trail.  The last 2 miles of the trail were NOT ANY FUN AT ALL!  It was a whole bunch of steep downhill which was torture for my knees.  They were hurting very badly by the time we reached the Shenendoah River.  After crossing the river, however, it was a very steep uphill (we saw a buck at this point in time) for a mile maybe before we reached the town of Harper’s Ferry.  But we made it!  After some phone calls to family, Sherri (the woman we met earlier that day) came to pick us up and we went to their house to hang out for the evening.  We had a lot of fun there with them and in the morning, took the train back into DC.

All in all, it was a great learning experience and something I’d like to try again.  We’ll see when or if that happens, though!

What in the blue blazes?

Jenica and I maybe still in Sky Meadows State Park?

The downhills on the rollercoaster are more fun if you put your hands in the air and scream on the way down.

River on the Roller Coaster.

Me and my campfire on Wednesday night.

One of the few views along the way.

Me at Bear’s Den – possibly my favorite picture

View on day 5

The Shenendoah River at Harper’s Ferry

On the trail on July 5…

here we go again

So apparently people are still checking back.  And I’m still not good at updating.  But I’m going to update now!  Yay!

Exciting things that happened since June 19:

June 26 – 28: Went camping at Gambrill State Park.  This was a lot of fun, a new place that we hadn’t been camping before.  Went mountain biking, it was TOUGH.  Lots of uphills and downhills over rocky terrain (little did I know this was foreshadowing for my next adventure).  We went swimming in the lake, and just basically hung out just Elvis and I which was really nice.

June 28: Verano Zol – huge music concert at a fairgrounds near the house.  Had a bunch of really good Latino artists, WAAAAYYY too many people, decent food (though you had to wait 3 hours to get it), but it was a decent afternoon, even with the rain.

July 3 -5: Went home to celebrate the 4th.  Saw my cousin Zech be crowned as the next PA State Junior Grange Prince and a bunch of my Grange friends on Friday night at Junior Grange Camp.  Also met Tina’s daughter Sarah for the first time!  On Saturday Philip, Elvis and I went out for lunch with Tina, Norman and Sarah which was also fun.  Bought fireworks, built a campfire, made S’mores and mountain pies, set off said fireworks, went to bed.  Sunday went to church, ate lunch with Gram and Aunt Jean, drove back to College Park and crazily prepareed for the next adventure.

The next adventure was the famed APPALACHIAN TRAIL (thanks to the governor of South Carolina, I have heard many jokes regarding whether or not I was on the actual trail or if I headed off to Argentina.  I was on the actual trail.).

We set off on Sunday from Front Royal, Virginia, hiked for a little bit and camped for the night (it was like 7pm when we started to hike…and it got dark pretty quickly).  We camped on a downhill slope which was not fun and neither one of us got much sleep.

The first day, it took a lot of getting used to to carry our packs.  My pack probably weighed about 50 pounds at the beginning of the trip and my shoulders were definitely not used to that!  Everything was so new and different the first day, though, so we barely noticed it when we hiked 11 miles and arrived at the Manassas Gap Shelter fairly early that evening.  We set up camp, took “showers” with water bottles filled with COLD spring water and cooked dinner (spaghetti!).  It was at this time that we realized neither one of us brought a plate or bowl, so we ate out of the pans.  (Luckily I brought 2 forks along!)  Later on down the trail, we would learn that other hikers referred to the Manassas Gap Shelter as ‘Copperhead Shelter’ because there were so many copperheads in and behind the shelter!  We didn’t see any there, though, thank goodness!  I slept SOOO soundly that night – don’t think I woke up once after my head hit the sleeping bag (no room for a pillow in the pack!).

The next morning, after a breakfast of oatmeal, we set off on what would be the longest hike of our trek – somewhere between 13 and 14 miles depending on which guide and which signs you believe.

More later…

Brazil Round 2, Part 2 and everything since then

Well, I think 1 whole person saw the last entry that I posted, so I’m going to write another entry. Perhaps if I update more frequently, more people will tune in to my so-called life!

Let’s see Rio Branco went pretty much like this: eat, meeting, eat, meeting, eat, meeting, sleep, wake up, repeat. For 3 solid days. Not too much fun, and we didn’t actually accomplish much, but whatever.

The flights back were not fun at all because it was just after the plane en route to France “disappeared” off of the Brazilian coast, so I was a little bit more on edge than I have grown accustomed to be on planes.  I also did a lot of thinking about how the “safety” features on planes are not likely to save anyone’s life…seriously, under what conditions is a seat that helps you float going to be useful?  If, and only if, all of these conditions are met: 1) the plane is above water to start with, 2) the plane lands softly in the water, 3) you are able to get out of the plane before it sinks and 4) you are close enough to an empty cruise ship or land so that someone can come rescue you before your arms wear out or you die from hunger/exhaustion/hypothermia.  How often are all of those conditions met?  The Hudson River crash is the only time that I can think of….oh well.  Flying is still safer than driving.

Since coming back, we hosted a party (8 people plus Elvis and I) in the basement to watch the World Cup eliminations which was pretty cool (this, by the way on our new television – it’s like 4.5′ x 3′ or something crazy and cost $70 from the second hand store), we’ve been back to Sandy Point, went to a bridal shower and we went on a 10 mile-ish (maybe a little longer) bike ride.    We’ve also seen a few soccer games and been soaked by the torrential downpours which have been soaking the DC metro area every afternoon for a few hours (just at the right time so that you can’t enjoy the evening!).  We were hoping to go camping this weekend, but we’re going to put that on hold for another week – I’m kind of worried about the campsite being soaked and the bike trails being pure mud and ruining the weekend!  Well, that’s all for now folks, stay tuned for another edition!

Brazil Round 2

So I went back to Brazil, leaveing May 28 and returning June 5 – just one week.  I had three options for arrival:

1) Fly down early and spend a day in Sao Paulo with Continental (think 12000 airline miles)
2) Fly down on Saturday with a different airline and spend 12 hours in the airport (no airline miles)
3) Fly with Continental on Saturday (tickets cost $800 more), and spend 12 hours in the airport

Granted, with option #3, I wasn’t paying for the plane ticket, the company did, but I still try to do my best and keep an eye on my costs for them.  So that left 12,000 airline miles or no airline miles.  Of course, I chose the airline miles.  I landed in Sao Paulo the morning of 5/29 and took a bus and the metro to get to my hostel.  They were going to charge me 100 reais ($67) to go in a taxi and the bus/metro system only cost $5 or so – was there really an option here?  It did take almost 2 hours to get to the hostel, but traffic is anything but fast in that city, so I’m not sure how much faster a car would have been.  The one girl who is working with us called me brave for travelling this way, but really there wasn’t a question in my mind.  I also found that the subway was in no way more complicated that the one in DC, it was cleaner and possibly safer.  Also, it only cost 2.55 reais ($1.53) to go anywhere – no matter the distance.  If this were true in DC, I would save well over $100/month for transportation to and from work!

After resting a bit, I decided to head out and see some sites.  Nearby the hostel, there was a marketplace, so of course I went to check that out.  I was slightly disappointed by the wares – mostly antiques, some paintings, and old records and sunglasses – but I did get a pastel de bacalao (codd with some different seasonings that was then breaded and fried) which was delicious.

From there, I hopped on the metro to go to the Metropolitan Art Museum (MASP), but decided not to go in (it cost something like $8 and there was a huge line that wrapped around the block).  Right across from MASP, however, was a really cool park.  Called Trianon Park, it is a block of original Mata Atlantica rainforest that wasn’t cut down when they built the rest of the city.  It felt about 10* cooler inside of the park, and it was a great respite from the noise of the street.  There was also a cool drum band playing outside of the entrance which was pretty neat.  I walked up and down Avenida Paulista – the business center of Brazil, eventually found a place to eat (though I was forced to eat in a food court in a mall – something I refused to do in Philadelphia – but there wasn’t any other choice here!  At least it was Brazilian food, complete with farrofa).  From there, I headed back to the hostel (I was exhausted after travelling, though I must say I had an empty seat next to me on the flight from Houston to Sao Paulo so I was able to lie down and get a good night’s rest!).

On the way, however, I stopped at a cemetery which was a different experience.   Unlike the US where most people are buried underground, in Latin America it seems to be the opposite – most people are buried above ground and all family members will be in the same area – I guess this helps with space issues, too, since people can’t really be buried underground on top of each other, but they can be if they’re above ground.  Anyway, some of the tombs were quite elaborate with carvings and statues.  Others had a space that had a door, inside of which was almost always a small table filled with candles, crosses, and pictures.  Sometimes there was a chair that someone could go in and sit on while they prayed or what have you.  It was an interesting experience, though.

I slept pretty well that night and headed back out early the next morning.

After breakfast at the hostel, I got back on the metro and went downtown.  I had a list of places that I wanted to visit after doing some research on the internet, so I started at one metro station (called Luz – the name of the neighborhood where I lived in Ecuador!) and started walking.  My first real stop was the Mercado Central.  This was possibly the cleanest and most well-organized market I have ever been in in Latin America.  It was all food – prepared and unprepared – (and maybe some cooking supplies), but it was really neat.  There are two foods the market is famous for – pastel de bacalao and its sanduiche de mortadella (some sort of pork product – like bologna with more fat and cut thinner, maybe).  Since I had the pastel de bacalao the day before, I decided to try the sandwich.  My eyes popped out of my head when I saw it!  It was huge!  Two small pieces of bread enveloped a stack of meat that was at least 4″ high!  I felt slightly embarrassed, but not too much because there were Brazilians there who, also having ordered the sandwich, had the same reaction I did!  I couldn’t even eat half of the sandwich, it was so huge!  It tasted okay, but once was enough.  Even thinking about it now makes me kind of queasy!

I also saw the place were Sao Paulo was founded, some cool churches, walked up some massive hills (Sao Paulo might be able to rival Bellefonte for average incline per square mile!), and took my time exploring the city.  In front of the main church (next to the Supreme Court of Justice) there was a huge plaza (at least one block of solid concrete) with a really huge fountain that goes through the center of the plaza.  The most shocking part of it, though, was the sheer number of homeless people who were laying in the plaza.  Mostly men, they were sleeping on and under every available bench, stretched out in the corners and sitting on the edges of the fountain.  They were washing their clothes and faces in the fountain.  It was shocking.  Living in DC, I pass people begging for money every day, but never so many in one place!  Also, during my last visit to Brazil, we didn’t see many homeless people at all, so I was taken aback.

From there, I headed back to the hostel, prepared my things and headed off to the airport and Rio Branco, which I’ll have to tell you more about at another time because it’s time for me to go home and celebrate the weekend!

You can see pictures here.

Oops!

It has been exactly a month since I last updated…oops. Life has been busy. Let’s see, an update for the month of May…

I went home the first weekend in May and we got some wedding stuff done. I had ordered my dress online and it was waiting for me when I got to the house, so one of the first things I did was try it on, of course! It fits pretty well, but as soon as I have my shoes, we’ll take it to get some alterations done.

We went to see Heather’s last play. It was interesting. Yay for Heather and her graduation and all that! Also saw Margaret play some baseball which she was pretty excited about!

Sunday we went to talk to the florists and the cake baker – pretty excited to see how both of those turn out because I gave them a lot of free range within some basic guidelines…

The next weekend, Mom and Dad came down to celebrate Mother’s Day. We went to Arlington National Cemetery which was pretty interesting, came into DC to go to the American History Museum, went to a pretty good seafood restaurant for dinner, and watched the Pens beat the Caps (on TV) all in one day. On Sunday, we went for a short hike at a park near Matthew and had a cookout for dinner – it was pretty nice. That evening was the first Latino music festival for the season, so we went to that. One of the groups (the group Elvis really wanted to see – they’re from Guatemala) didn’t show up, so we went to see them at a club (for free) later that night.

The past two weekends we’ve stayed in College Park, but that doesn’t mean we’ve been relaxing. I don’t actually remember what we did 2 weekends ago, so it might have been relaxing?

Last weekend, we went shopping at the second hand store and Elvis bought a GINORMOUS television for $70. It’s like 5′ x 3′. So that meant we had to rearrange the whole living room area in order to fit the TV in. That took all day. That night we went to hang out with his friends, saw Heather’s new baby and were there until 1am or so. Sunday, we went to see 2 soccer games, had a cookout in the backyard in between, Elvis got his haircut and then we both passed out. Pretty exhausting.

Monday we got up and went for a 12-ish mile bike ride which was pretty neat, but my butt’s still sore. In the afternoon, we went to relax at Sandy Point (first trip this summer!), which was pretty amazing. The water was still a bit chilly, but nowhere near as cold as it was when we were in Ocean City!!! Elvis tried to fish for a bit, but didn’t have any luck and then it started to rain so we came home. It was a good day off, though!

Somewhere in there, Jenna and I went looking for bridesmaids dresses, found some and decided to let the girls pick their favorite of 3, so not all of the girls will have the same dress, but they’ll be the same color. I think it’ll look fine! Who knows, they may even all end up picking the same one, haha!

I’m headed back to Brazil tomorrow! For only 1 week this time, but all is well. This has been another massive update from beckaanne. Until next time!

did you ever

visit someone’s blog EVERY day just to see that they hadn’t updated??? And then you get frustrated because they haven’t updated??? I do that pretty often, yet I am guilty of it myself! Oops!

So the rest of my time in Brazil went really well. Rio Branco was probably my favorite town that we visited the whole time in Brazil which is good because I have to go back 2 more times this year!

The day before I came home, I went on a tour of Chapada dos Guimaraes, a small town near Cuiaba with some BEAUTIFUL cliffs and water. It was just me and the guide which was cool because we went at our pace – didn’t have to wait for anyone to catch up or be worried about staying with the group. We went hiking to the top of this mountain which was AMAZING (though my thighs were sore for the next 4 days!) and also went snorkeling in a river which was really cool, too. The current was so strong that you didn’t really have to swim and there were a bunch of fish (not tropical or anything, but still it was really cool), so that was a fun adventure.

Since then, I have been to New Jersey/Philadelphia for Eastern Regional Youth Conference where I won 2 prizes – for sign a song and speech – and I now go to the National conference in November in Grand Rapids…who wants to go to Michigan in November??? Crazy people. Anyway, my friend Jenica lives in Grand Rapids and I haven’t seen her since December 2006 (though she’s coming for the wedding), so it’ll be good to see her again!

Last weekend Elvis and I went to Ocean City, MD to celebrate 1 year of living together. It was a lot of fun. The water was SOOO cold, but we did a lot of mini golfing which Elvis loved and we found a good bar/seafood place that was really cool and basically just relaxed and enjoyed each others’ company!

This weekend we’re going home to my parents’ place to do some wedding planning stuff, the following weekend my parents are coming down here to celebrate Mother’s day, the next weekend I’m here and the next week I might be in Brazil again! Crazy!!!! C’est la vie! Guess I better start studying my Portuguese again!

Brasil Part 1

Wow. What a strange, crazy trip it has been. I left for Brazil on March 27. The weeks leading up to departure where absolutely insane with the preparation of the Katoomba conference in Cuiaba, Mato Grosso. There were agendas to be made and changed, flights to arrange, hotel rooms to reserve, speakers to prepare, and so many more things that I can’t even remember now, but at the time, they seemed like the most important things in the world. There were many late nights at work, and early mornings that I woke up early thinking about the preparations that needed to be made. I arrived in Cuiaba almost 24 hours after I had departed DC with Fiona, my partner in all of this nonsense.
We were met at the airport by Colonel Maia, the second in command in Mato Grosso, his assistant Karim, and a policewoman, Fernanda. Karim and Fernanda took us to Sesc Pantanal – a hotel about 2.5 hours away that was the site of the private meeting. We were there to meet with Marco, the general manager of the hotel and discuss details about the private meeting. It was great to finally sit down and talk concretely about logistics with someone.
The Sesc Pantanal is on the Pantanal – the world’s largest wetland. While we were unable to see the sites during this short trip, we were able to do so during the private meeting. There are more than 500 species of birds (there are only 350 in the US), caimans, capybaras, jaguars, anacondas, small deer-like animals, and who knows what else! We didn’t get to see jaguars or anacondas, but we did see a lot of birds, one caiman, a few capybaras, and some other animals.
Monday and Tuesday were spent back in Cuiaba making the final preparations for the meeting. Cuiaba is the capital city of Mato Grosso. The governor of Mato Grosso is Blairo Maggi. Blairo Maggi is the President/CEO of Amaggi corporation. Amaggi Corporation produces about 5% of the world’s soy. Most of that soy is produced on land that was deforested. Avoiding deforestation was the theme for the meeting. That’s the logic behind having the meeting in Mato Grosso. Also, National Geographic did an article on Maggi one or two years ago, and he didn’t exactly come out smelling like roses because of these facts I just presented. Because of the article, he decided he needed to start to clean up his image. Last year, he came to the Katoomba meeting in DC and gave a keynote speech and he decided to partner with us to hold this meeting in Brazil this year.
The meeting was HUGE – three times the size we expected. Over 1500 people came as speakers, organizers and attendees. If I thought the weeks leading up to the meeting were intense, these two days were even more intense because everything needed to be done immediately. People needing plane tickets (still), changes in the agenda (again), have you seen so and so, they need the list of private meeting attendees, can xyz share a room with uts, what time is the bus coming, where can we find the documents…wow! I’m not going to say that there weren’t problems, because there were more than I needed, but everyone seemed pleased with the event. Several people came up to me to thank me and congratulate us, so that was great. 6 governors, the Minister of the Environment, and a lot of other really big names showed up, so we were in all of the local newspapers, on the television, radio, everything. Pretty darn cool, if you ask me.
Thursday evening we left Cuiaba to return to Sesc for the private event. The private event was supposed to be much smaller, but since we were working with the government, it ended up being over 125 people. It was still okay, but it would have been nice to work with a smaller, more initimate group. Of course, upon arrival, the agenda that we had just printed that afternoon needed to be retyped and printed (always make sure you save copies of everything on your flash drive when using other people’s computers), someone didn’t have his plane ticket yet, and I didn’t get a chance to relax (unless you count a 2 hour bus ride “relaxing”).
The private meeting was only slightly less crazy than the public meeting – had to sign people up for field trips and make sure that everyone paid for what they needed to paid for, people needed to make return travel plans, *sigh*.
All of a sudden, it was Saturday afternoon and the meeting was over! Fiona and I spent the next 7 hours vegging in our room watching tv, talking with family and relaxing – finally! I had almost forgotten what it felt like!
Sunday began another journey. After a 2 hour flight and a 9 hour bus ride, we arrived in Cacoal, a city in the state of Rondonia which borders Bolivia. A small group of 12 of us came here to meet with the Surui tribe. They live about 2 hours from Cacoal and we are working on a carbon project with them. Monday we visited the site for the first time. The Surui tribe was first contacted by white men in 1969. At that time, there were 5000 people. Like the history of the native Americans, contact with white men brought new diseases and many other problems. Only 1 out of every 20 people survived. The population plummeted to 250 people. Now, they number about 1500 (their population doubles every 15 years).
When we were arrived, we couldn’t just start discussing the project, but there was a ceremonial procedure of meeting all of their leaders and introducing ourselves which took 3 times longer than normal because it had to be translated from Tupi-Monde to Portuguese to English for everyone present to understand what was being said. We moved from the ceremonial house to the school to talk more about the project. First, however, we were told about their first contact with white men and Beto, my boss, talked about the first time me had visited the Surui 15 years ago. Finally we were able to talk about the project. I’m not sure that they really understand the concept of carbon, but they understand the importance of the forest. Their understanding, however, I think is more related to their cosmovision – their history, beliefs and traditions – than the world and carbon, but they understand something. After a lunch of the most delicious fish I have ever eaten (catfish cooked over a fire), we visited the part where they are reforesting. They have already begun this part of their project (though not for carbon reasons) in several of their villages. The Surui are composed of 4 clans which are also divided into smaller groupings of houses (they call them villages). I’m not sure that their reforestation is really working, however. One of the trees they planted is mahogany. There’s a moth that comes at night and eats the tops of the trees, killing them. This is why it is impossible to plant plantations of mahogany. This reforestation was only a track about 10 feet wide in the forest, but they had planted the mahogany trees too close together, and the moths were already destroying the trees. So we have a lot of work ahead of us.
Yesterday, the village leaders came to a meeting in town, and we discussed with them everything from the concept of what carbon is, to what international law will and will not permit them to do. (Indian reservations in Brazil have a very long list of restrictions for the use of their land.)
The meetings were very productive, however, and we are now in full swing working on the next steps to bring this project to market. As I am writing this, I am on a bus to the airport, to go on the next stage of this expedition. In ways, it feels as though I have been in Brazil for 3 months and in others, 3 days. It has been a crazy journey, but also an unforgettable one.

It’s a crazy life, but someone’s gotta do it.

Things here are cRaZy busy right now.  But I’m going to take a break to update my blog.

We’re working on planning a workshop in Brazil right now.  Here is what makes it crazy:
-  We’re partnering with the Government of Mato Grosso. 
- Neither our role nor the role of the government has been well-defined.
- I don’t really know what I’m supposed to be doing.
- I don’t speak Portuguese very well…yet.  (Mas posso escrever um pouco. – that means “But I can write a little bit.”)
- It’s in a little over 3 weeks and the registration page was just finished last week.  And we expect more than 400 people to show up.
- We expect more than 400 people to show up.
- I need a visa.  (Luckily living/working in DC makes that slightly easier.)
- We don’t know what’s happening after the meeting – I might be going to stay with an indigenous tribe for a few days which would be cool.  Or I could be traveling Brazil on my own (a little scary).  Or I might go to Rio Branco where we’re having the meeting in June.  Really, I don’t know.

So I think that planning a wedding for 150 people in PV will be no problem after planning an event for 400+ people in Brazil.  Right?

So far for the wedding we have:
- a website.
- an idea for dresses and tuxes.
- the rings.
- an idea for invitations.
- the list of people who will be invited.
- bubbles
- floating candles (but nothing for them to float in)
- leaf garland
- and I have my jewelry.  

We still have 7 months (from tomorrow!) for everything else, though, so I think we’re in good shape.  Right?