Eu gusto fruta Brazilian!

I love the Brazilian fruit! No, no really I do. I have been here for for vinte e oito (28 hours) and have had 3 mini bananas, grapes, a tangerine, guava, something that looks like an orange tomato and a yellow something that you open and eat the seeds. It is my new mission to try a new one every hoja (day) until I have eaten them all. This is much harder than it looks because um(one) Eu quero comer mesma fruta novamente (I want to eat the same fruit again) e dois (and 2) No tenho como (I don't know how). I have never seen these frutas and it is a total gamble on how comer (to eat) them. Today, I have gone by the bite and see method, (worked once - orange tomato looking thing), ask an English speaking person (worked once - guava), and the last, which is best if you have exhausted methods 1 and 2, the cut in half and eat with a spoon (yellow something w seeds). The last method, I feel is easy way out, although the yellow something tasted furry when I tried to bite it, so those less experimental with tastes may prefer this to other methods.

So to catch you up, yesterday I arrived in Florianopolis after a 10 hour flight from Chicago to São Paulo (SP) and then a one hour flight here. I got a cab straight to my host, a grad student and her cat Guile (very big cat!) and their cute apartment, which is about 2x my Chicago studio. I then went to the school to make sure I could find it, introduce myself and then went to grocery store where I fell in love (w frutas!)

Today it was rise and shine early, 7:30 for breakfast (comes w the host family experience) which was cafe, cereal, fruta (!) and other things I forget what they are called. Then I scurried off to make my 8:30 group class. I had anticipated my class to be a bit larger, but it was me and one Australian petroleum engineer living in Canada, who decided he needed a break from work as well. Most of the class was spent with us staring at the teacher while the teacher spoke to us primarily in Portuguese. I think I have a leg up on the Aussie, having studied Spanish, but when the teacher asked me a question, I answered in Italiano. I took Italian for a day when living in Italy, a decided I preferred sleep to an 8:30 am class, a 40 minute walk away. No idea where the Italian came from, but I am not sure if my language blur will be an asset or liability.

After 3 hours of feeling very confused, I was informed I had a 2 hour makeup class that afternoon (I started 2 days late - flights are cheaper on a monday vs. sunday!). My first start was what - no praia (beach)?!?! My second thought was the second class was much more challenging as the teacher spoke no English, but surprisingly we could still communicate. And it was just me, so we got to stare only at each other with confused expressions.

After that was more boring errands. Random fact: plastic baggies (freezer bags) cost 11.9R (around $6usd). I found that insane. To compare: 3 mini bananas cost 1.3R.

Successes of the day: asked a clerk where I could get a hair dryer (40R) and she understood me (and didn't laugh when I busted out my dictionary), ordered a cafe, and that is it.

Time for a cerveja. Maybe that will be success number 3?