First Post! BY MIKE

Hey everybody!!!!!

For my very first ever blog post I will be giving you a quick update on what we have done so far in Brazil! Our first stop was in the city of Belo Horizonte where we spent time with Nivea's family. It was amazing. I especially loved walking through a bamboo forest - Mangabeira Park - and feeding all these weird creatures I had never seen before (pics below... or above... or however a blog works). The futebol game was also awesome! I went to see Atletico (Ronaldinho) play in their home stadium. Those people are crazy for soccer. It was unreal. You know when you see those crowds at soccer games from Europe or Latin America who are out on the street in a cloud of smoke from the fireworks crowding around the player's bus? Yep, that was me. I was in that crowd.

School here in Sao Paulo is great. My campus is a 12 story building downtown. I take a single 40 minute bus ride to get there every morning. My classmates are European or American mostly. I'm a tiny bit scared of the Russians and Germans but I hide it for the most part (I'm joking here for random German and Russian viewers that wouldn't know my humor. I should probably learn how to make this private.) My favorite thing about my school so far is this little bakery about a block away. Every morning, whether I ate at home already or not, I get this huge hot pocket thing that is stuffed full of ground beef. It's only 1 US dollar! I ask them what it is called every time I go in, but I can never remember. I justify spending the money because  I'm exercising again and Nivea wants me to get buff so I can intimidate hooligans that might want to rob this beautiful American man (FYI in Portuguese men can also be beautiful).

That's about it. I'm not sure who will read this or how you will respond to it. If you know how and you have questions feel free to ask! Emails; Facebook also work great.

Quai Chi (Spelling?)

Cool park in Belo

FGV Sao Paulo

Bamboo is cool. Nivea wouldn't let me climb any though. You can't believe how much maturity it took to resist.

the fam!