bugs n stuff

        Hello everyone! Tomorrow morning we will dock in Brazil and I will have my first real cultural experience!!!! Not that Dominica wasn’t “real” but I think Brazil will be unlike anything I have ever seen before.
        Today in order to give us a heads up on classes we’ll have after Brazil we had a “reading day” which basically means no class!!!!!!  The day is supposed to be used for homework but people kind of just hang out, relax, sleep in and do whatever they want.
        I’m still not really sleeping well because our sailing is so smooth – how weird is that? – so I didn’t get a great night of sleep. It’s still better than most of my friends though who are having nightmares because of the malaria medication. I’m glad I’mi not part of that 25% - apparently it’s pretty common.  Anyway, a couple of us decided to stay up all night to watch the sunrise two nights ago but around 3:30 gave up and went to bed, mostly because we planned on sleeping outside forgetting that the Amazon and not the middle of the Atlantic = HUGE BUGS! Seriously, they’re everywhere.
        After tossing and turning I finally got to sleep and got up this morning around 7:30 with the sun. I rolled around in bed for a while but after realizing I wasn’t going to get back to sleep I decided to start my day.  I got up, put on my bathing suit and headed up to the top deck to lie out and do some reading.  It was HOT.  And I got a beautiful tan, no burn!!!! I guess that actually works when you’re rigorous with sun screen – I literally reapplied every hour and after every time I swam.
        I spent most of the morning reading as the pool deck filled up and by noon it was bumping – meaning all the fratty people blasting terrible music, splashing each other and bitching about tan lines. My friend D came up to do some reading but we ended up just hanging out, listening to Passion Pit and swimming while waiting for the rest of our friends to filter through.      
        One of the coolest things about being here is definitely the sky. It goes on for miles and miles in every direction and the clouds are amazing.  There are crazy formations everywhere and we would sail under a dark cloud, it would rain for 5 minutes, then when we were passed it it would be done. We also watched it rain in different places far off in to the distance while the sky was blue over us. Apparently there was a super epic rainbow but I missed it =/
        When we had enough sun we went inside and I spent the rest of the afternoon wandering the boat and catching up with different people.  I was all salty (the pool is saltwater) and I didn’t want to shower and then go the gym so instead I did crunches and danced around my room. In the middle of an epic twist (listening to Beats Antique of course) Ashley walked in with a friend and it was almost awkward but luckily as always she thought it was funny… she must think I am the craziest roommate!
        Around 7:30 my friends and I met up and we went to dinner and spent the meal laughing and telling funny stories and I decided since I’ve been good about not drinking on the boat I could have some wine with dinner. It was crazy, two glasses of red wine when I’ve barely been drinking and I had a great buzz!  Following dinner we had the preport meeting so I definitely needed to be.  The meetings are always funny, they do a great job keeping us entertained, but they are wayyyy too long. A lot of redundancy. Regardless, though, we had a good time and managed to laugh quite a bit.
I’m excited for Brazil but there are so many dangers up ahead! We learned about a million different fevers if we don’t take all of these preventative measures and apparently Brazil is extremely dangerous and crime is normal enough that local woman carry two purses, their real ones that they hide and a fake one to give to muggers when they’re held up.    That’s why I’m really glad I’m on an SAS sponsored trip. That means they know what’s up, have taken all the right safety precausions, have reliable transportation and hotel, etc. I’m not going to bring anything of value to Rio though so I won’t have my computer or camera and, while I’ll probably bring my phone, I definitely won’t walk around with it.  I’m not trying to get robbed!
The past few hours have been really fun as well – I love having such a large social group because there are always different people to hang out with.  I got ice cream with my main crew, then had a music exchange party with a couple of other people who I’ve been wanting to spend time with and I showed them Supernews – they were very impressed.  Afterwards I found the rest of my friends to say good-bye because I won’t see them until after Brazil and now I’m hanging out with Ashley in the room and talking about plans for tomorrow.
That’s about it! I am extremely excited for the next week but I can’t even process what’s in store for me, so we’ll see! 

One last thing – tomorrow, January 23, is my wonderful boyfriend Rollie’s 22nd birthday.  Happy birthday baby, have a great day, I’m sorry I can’t be there but you’ll probably have more fun without me because you can at least go to the bars. I love you! Be safe, be bold, be mega.