non-related AWESOME post

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oDbAxhV2ofM&eurl=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.facebook.com%2Fhome.php%3Fref%3Dhome&feature=player_embedded

See the little lifeguard post in the center bottom of the photo? Now look at how huge the waves are. This was an epic surf day. Brave souls surfed and fought for waves for hours.

New Argentinian friend, Marianna

Jujubee's night of getting so drunk that a friend had to inject her with something to rehydrate her body.


Our beach, Rosa South


Lucy and boyfriend

The view from inside Ivo's living room

Jujubee's awesome eggplant salad

nose kisses outside my house

Jujubee and Rodrigo playing around on a nearby beach

more photos

(from last to first photo)
as promised, me in my bikini.
next, me spanking tod
then, the scary road i had to walk at night when living with ivo
out with ivo and dani (another female friend)
me and rodrigo (one of the two only gay guys here haha!)

finally!! photos!!!

traveling is more important to me than teaching english, so i have decided to buy a ticket through bolivia and to peru. the woman who wants english lessons is taking her time. she postponed our lessons, again, because she had a chemical peel treatment. this behavior is irritating, so i~m leaving for maccu picchu!!!

juju and ivo are continuing their love affair (did i already mention they were trying each other out?) and both are talking in each of my ears. i have gotten past the awkward "friend dating the brother" feeling and now just sit back and watch it all unfold. it~s drama. one day, he says he doesn~t want to be with her unless she wants a relationship, the next, he is spending the night at our house.

on a lighter note, i took a cute photo of lucy~s dog sniffing a cow nose to nose. we are still waiting loyally for the whales to show, and praying for warmer days. a few days ago, we had the coldest day of the year. i could see my breath in the house, and we don~t have a fireplace. a heater is unheard of, so we all snuggle up in blankets and lots of clothes. the shower water is heated electronically, so if we take longer than ten minutes, the lights go out. these are some of my challenges. i believe my challenges are internal and that everything i deal with can be a lesson of patience, so these challenges will manifest as simply events. the valuable lessons brazil has taught me is to be grateful. when i have to turn off the hto shower at ten minutes, i no longer think "damn, i don~t want to get out". i think, "i~m so glad we have hot water". when a stinky stray dog follows me home, i don~t tell him to get lost. i am grateful i have a dog to protect me in the dark on my way home.

i have added some photos. finally, my memory card fits into lucy~s camera and i have found a computer to recognize those files!

the first photo is ivo. this is where we layed out while we lived together.
the next is jujubee and lucy
then there~s a photo of me doing dishes, which jujubee thought was pretty exciting to document.
the next is a night of making fish with a friend, buddy
the last is me spanking our friend tod.

classy.

so, a friend of mine, who is usually very modest, quiet, soft-spoken and wise, told me that he had a dream of me doing things that would make ron jeremy blush. seriously, why would anyone tell me that?? he~s going to buenos aires for a few weeks. was this his way of telling me he~s interested? classy. i mean c'mon... who tells someone "hey i had a dream you were giving me fallacio" (not in those exact words)? it~s surprising because lucy and i were having a conversation about him. we said, he doesn~t talk much, but when he does, he has something to say. i guess he just really needed to say it.

transcontinental crush aborted

well, i think i know what to do about my transcontinental crush. absolutely nothing. there are some things that turn me off, that i know i can~t deal with. there are other fish in the sea.

i realize this blog is very personal and as a friend advised, it should have a theme. besides the theme of travel and living abroad, i think a theme has grown that describes the food, lifestyle, entertainment, the manners, moral and ethical laws...
clever titles hardly qualify as a theme but it is the title that either has you at hello or has you clicking to CNN.com.

"pao veijo"

i~m watching a game show that i can~t believe is being aired. 7 contestants are on stage and they are asked to say how long they last when they have sex. then, their spouses are interviewed and they have to say how long the contestant lasts. whomever gets closest wins. it~s hilarious becuase some men say they last 45 minutes and the wife says 15 minutes, putting him to shame in front of millions of brazilians watching the show.
there is also another show similar to american idol. musicians submit a video of their music and the audience and at-home viewers text in to vote, then there is a winner. the songs that come on are unbelieveable. one was about a car a man gave to his wife. this car was called " pao veijo". he talks about how she loves to ride in this car, that she loves the car, that it~s all hers and that he gave it to her to use every day. well, the term "pao veijo" has a double meaning, the other being "old cock" in portuguese. so the guy is singing about how his wife loved the "old cock" that he gives her to use every day. HILARIOUS. the things brazilians get away with...
another observation: when i came to brazil, people would say "oh, the land of samba, soccer and sex." but it really is true! the women here have sex all the time with whomever they want at the moment. sadly, even friends sleep with other friends' boyfriends. not all the time, but it happens frequently. i was talking with a friend about this. she told me a friend of hers slept with her boyfriend. i asked if she was still friends with the girl and she said yes. i didn~t understand how this was possible. i mean, isn~t it a written code among women (and some men) that you don~t sleep with your friend's mate? but she said, in the realm of love and in the heat of passion, there are no rules. she weighed her priorities and decided her friendship was more important than being angry. jeez, with friends like that, who needs friends? i guess, in brazil, friend is a four letter word.

another great day!
and dinner was spectacular as well..
for appetizers, we ate fresh mussles from the rocks on our beach. we ate fresh bread with lucy~s home made garlic mayonaise dip and drank starfruit caipirinhas. i made pizza for everyone from scratch! dough and everything. the available food here is limited so as toppings, we had potato and garlic with white sauce and one with tomatoes, onions and bell peppers with red sauce. another was made with onions, of course, cheese and green olives with red sauce.

today we are going to the beach again, hopefully to see the whales arrive. i have been spoiled living with lucy and juju because we have a friend, rogerio, who owns a car and drives us everywhere. i have not had to walk much and living in the valley, there are no hills to climb. fortunately ivo brought some bananas he cut (that are now finally ripe after two weeks) and rogerio has been making shakes every morning with guarana powder. guarana is a root extract that is used as a vitamin, it is a defensive toxin and boosts energy. so my health doesn~t suffer too much from my recent lack of exercise.

i am looking forward to renting the studio on august 3rd when it becomes available. right now i buy food for 5-6 people and i am kind of the mother of the house...well, lucy and i take care of everyone. living with jujubee is like having a ten year old or a teenager living in the house. the world revolves around her and she needs a lot of attention and care. we cook and clean and take care of the hopeless men who can~t cook a decent meal :) as far as bills go, they could help out a bit more. bringing over weed doesn~t cut it since i don~t smoke.

and now, something to look forward to... REGINA IN HER BIKINI!!!

oh yes, it~s time to show off the brazilian body i have acquired by working so hard walking and sunbathing. someone took a profile-worthy pic of me at the beach on this huge rock where waves crash, so as soon as i find a computer that will read the files, i will load some of my favorite pics for you to see...one of my favorites being, me spanking a friend with a wooden pizza pan.

EPIC non-sequiter

I saw the biggest waves i have ever seen in my life. i was raised in california on the coast and have never wittnessed waves this huge! they reached about 15 feet. there were about 100 brave surfers sucking it up too! amazing. the sky was orange and violet as the sun was setting and there was no beach left, just foam. so, i watched from the restaurant above. what an epic day.

i have moved in with jujubee and lucy and i know from just one night that i am not going to stay. in a nutshell, i need space, quiet and my own bed that no men will creep into....so, i am going to rent a studio just a few steps away. our neighborhood is small, with just about 10 houses all clustered on a hill with cows and dirt roads. all our friends live nearby. i will essentially be living alone but i can be with my friends whenever i want.

praia do rosa is known for surf and whales. the whales should be arriving soon. every day, we take the binoculars to the beach, rain or shine, and look for surfers. i mean whales. :)

so many conversations i have had are about traveling to other parts of s. america. i was talking with a friend, freddy, who is a 24 yr old prodigy of travel it seems. he has already lived all over, barcelona being the last. we spoke about going to maccu picchu together by train. it goes from brazil to peru and is named "el tren de morte", the train of death. i said, yes, let~s die in maccu picchu together!! but i have to tell my parents first. i can~t imagine why the train is called that, but i can imagine it takes some pretty steep, narrow roads, the kind goofy and mickey took when they were sporting the aerostreaam.

brazil finds a "jeito" or way of doing things other people can~t or won~t do. for example, a poster is adhered to a wall with toothpaste. hangers are made of cut bamboo. cell phone credits are charged at 5 dollar intervals, just like the petrol in cars is added. only 1/4 tank of gas is added at a time. sarongs are used as fitted sheets and bamboo chutes are rolling pins. plastic bags are used to cover food and containers that hold jam and butter are washed and reused as plastic storage containers. brazilians are conservative and they only use what they need. even old bread is mixed with leftover rice and beans to feed stray dogs.

good news.... since my things were stolen, i have been moping about not being able to post photos. well, one day, lucy and i thought "wow, maybe my memory card fits into her camera". we tried it and it fits! so we loaded all my photos onto juju~s computer and saved them to a disc. if i can find an internet that will read those files, i will have a bunch of new photos up soon. let~s cross our fingers.

i did it my way

at the moment, i don~t feel restless. i haven~t traveled through s.america during this trip, and i am happy for that. i am sitting here in a rented house with close friends, listening to lucy~s sentiments she wrote about her boyfriend who just went back to live on the island where he was raised. we are preparing dinner with our local goodies, blending drinks of passion fruit and sugar, listening to brazilian music and looking at our photos from the beach excursion. my god, does it get any better than this? it is so simple but that~s what makes me feel settled.

i have accepted and been accepted. i feel like although it~s obvious i~m a foreigner, i am one of their own. people look after me. they ask where i am when i am not around. i am always invited, without question, to anyone~s house or if they are going out to the beach, it is a given that regina is coming too.

i am so so fortunate and i remember that. as much bitching as i do, deep down, i know that i am so blessed to be where i am. i know that i will have peace of mind in old age, to know that i did exactly what i wanted and i did it my way.

i~ve got a sweeter song than the birds in the trees

i was going to bitch about how i had to wait an hour for juju to go to the beach but the reality is, i live in paradise!! i had one of the best days of my life!

a few friends and i piled into a car headed for a foreign secluded beach. our plans to lay out were thwarted by an overcast sky so we wandered instead . . . right onto a grassy trail that led to gigantic burnt sienna rocks being slammed by waves. we climbed the slippery boulders until we reached a point that seemed to be the end of the earth. the sea was stormy, waves crashed against the fortress of rocks and dolphins were jumping out of the choppiness. the splash reached about 3 stories and drenched us all completely, through our clothes, like buckets of water were being thrown on us. we stripped down to our bathing suits and laughed our asses off and looked for the nearest point to be even more drenched by the next wave.

time after time, we were pounded by even bigger waves, us laughing uncontrollably. after about a half hour of pure entertainment, we were numb to the core, sore from laughing, and decided to move on. i wondered into an old hut that housed a fishing boat, some benches and a stove with a pot of coffee. it was as if someone lived there during the day.

while our clothes dried on the beach, we played soccer, rode bikes and listened to music while drinking mate (all at the same time). on the way home, we stopped by the store to pick up fresh bread and then, all sandy and salty, made a huge feast of chicken, pasta salad, veggies, beans and rice for friends. lucy made a mayonaise with garlic, parsley, milk and oil, and i swear, it is of the gods. all those hours of watching food network tv never taught me the other way to peel garlic from i~s skin by soaking it. i could put a bowl of this mayo by my bed at night and eat it with my finger. (but we used the fresh bread as a vehicle for the sauce instead). of course no dinner is complete without brazilian reggae, dancing (i did a scarf dance, to everyone~s amusement) and cachaça! what a perfect day!!! brazil brazil brazil!!

skazi!

jujubee got so drunk on cachaca one night that a nurse friend injected a hydration solvent into her arm. i think it was some kind of sugar. she was pale and her eyes were red and watery. the girl is so crazy that when she felt better, about 20 minutes later, she said "i~m good to go!!!" and started drinking again!!! she was on a mission. there is a myth here, just like the lockness monster, that the lagoon here is so deep, there lives a monster called "cocomura". when someone gets really drunk and vomits, we say they saw cocomura. jujubee saw cocomura that night.

i took a new path to the beach one evening. i walked down the mountain past an empty house, through someone~s old wooden gate, past a grassy clearing and into a forest of bamboo trees. after the slippery shady forested slope, holding onto bamboo shutes and vines that reach 4 stories, we got to a small dirt path next to the lagoon, where a cow moos, and walked up and onto the main road. it was a nice tangent.

i made a new friend, marianna from argentina. now there~s julianna, lucianna, marianna, roberto (token gay), and ivo. just to keep you updated. marianna encourages me to do more traveling in south america because it~s safe as a woman traveling alone. she says bolivia, chile and peru are even cheaper than brazil.

i have been introduced to the wonderful world of SKAZI!!!!! an israeli band, probably the best house music ever!!! i have a huge star crush on the lead dj (with the long hair---he~s nuts!) he~s going to be here in brazil at the largest festival in south america. he will be dj-ing for over 15,000 people. the ticket is about $125 though and i don~t know if i can justify spending it when there is traveling to be done. regardless, here you go, for pure energy!!!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PIL2ttBqTsM
there are tons of other songs on youtube. and just for mom and dad, don~t worry they~re not satanic. they~re anarchists.

long post about love...and failure...

i have recently been receiving emails from an ancient ex boyfriend.

get this:
we dated for 4.5. years. he and a close friend of ours sat me down one sunday morning at her house in long beach and said "we have to tell you somethng". then they say "we are in love with each other". my poor little 22 yr old traumatized heart is broken and i leave him there with her and drove back to santa barbara, where lived at the time. we broke up and we haven~t seen each other in 12 years.

turns out they got married and have a child together. the wife (our freind) turned out to be an alcoholic and almost comitted suicide a short while ago, putting herself in the hospital and jeopardizing the welfare of their child and marriage.
now he says he will meet me "anywhere in the world to collaborate on art or whatever". he~s a photographer. he thinks he can just pop into my life when his life is at a crossroads, and i am supposed to unearth him from his problems...that~s the message i~m getting. i have created a harmonious life and i never leeched onto anyone to make that a reality. as much as it is within my power to keep my life simple and peaceful, i will do it. i know it~s not withn my best interest to let him back into my life; not a positive step. he wants me to teach him how i arrived at where i am with art, travel, life, etc. i was never a teacher and i decline to teach him anything partly because i don~t know anything different than anyone else and partly because the idea of having him near scares me and threatens my world of happiness.

this blog has turned out to be an open book and i am starting to like it.

there is still a place in my heart for him but i don~t love him the way i did. not by a longshot. in fact, i hardly think about him and haven~t since i got over the trauma of the breakup. how do i be buddha about the situation? how can i peacefully and with a kind heart, decline his offer to meet, collaborate and start a new life together (in a friendship sense)? my interests are with myself, and i owe myself a life of happiness, of fulfillment, purpose and love. just like he lives to support, love and raise his daughter, i live to give myself that same undyng devotion and stability. i won~t jeopardize what i have built for someone else even if he was my first love.

true love has happened once in my life. it was a thing of fairy tales.

i met my ex husband through a mutual friend. we dated for two weeks and fell in love. i thought, this is it for me. i knew that i didn~t want to be with anyone else, that i could never meet another man who would match me in every way. i knew that i would never look at another man lustfully or with the same amount of love, and i didn~t. he proposed after those two weeks and we were married 2 months later. it was a whirlwind engagement and marriage. he was everything i ever wanted. we were the perfect match. he was spontaneous and adventurous, playful, kind-hearted, loved to laugh. he was bold, never cared what anyone else said or did. he was a self-made man with ambition, work ethics, an exceptionally imaginative brain, he was off the charts beautiful and has a sense of humor that made me laugh until i peed my pants. we loved being together and he was my best friend. we passionately collided in love and in arguments. eventually he wanted one thing and i wanted another. he began to settle and i wanted to move around. our fights were always about everything but nothing in particular. we didn~t know each other well enough to have said we would stay together forever, and although we did everything we could to honor that committment, our love wasn~t enough to keep us together, and just as spontaneously as it flourished, it combusted...4 years later, a rocky road, two separations and finally a divorce. i still have an enormous amount of love for him. but "i" am more important than "we" if "we" means sacraficing the core of "i".

i guess my point is i love, but i love myself more.

new housing

i have secured a house with jujubee and lucy. it is a two bedroom in the valley of praia do rosa, so it is safe and located a short walk from the center of the village. yeah, it only has two rooms, but i plan to travel around a bit since they are willing to watch my cat. i would just pay my portion of the rent and take off.

the owner of the pousada (hotel/bed and breakfast) where i will be teaching english had postponed my start date, but confirmed with me yesterday that she wants to start our lessons in a week. so having an income will enable me to travel. although i didn~t come to brazil to work, i do enjoy being usefull and doing something with my knowledge and time.

i have discovered my migranes are not related to cachaça, as i have given it up and am still experiencing pain. i believe it is from the fumes of the gasoline ivo has stored below the living room. i will be moving into our new house today, so hopefully the migranes will subside.

i have become an expert on mud. it has been raining here non-stop and i can~t lock myself in the house, so i brave the roads. this thick red mud is the kind your shoes sink into. there~s dry mud, sandy mud, wet soggy mud which is the worst kind, then the thin mud that tricks you into thinking it~s safe but is actually a slick surface on the stones that make up the road. it~s a delicate skill to have, walking here when it rains.

i finally met my old landlord. he teaches english in sao paulo but is staying in rosa for some time at my old house. he is very polite, handsome, modest, intelligent and kind. i think i~ll show him some fun with my friends and i before he leaves again for sao paulo. he is trying to sell his house and if he does, he won~t return to sao paulo but instead, travel around south america.

missing and loving all of you,
beijos (kisses) from brazil

c~mon people...

seriously, i posted that i needed advice and not one person left a comment for me. i know some of you like to give unsolicited advice ALL THE TIME and now that i legitimately want it, where are you smarties??

is anyone there??? hello?? can anyone hear me???

i have been blessed with a double-edged sword. i am pretty good at almost everything i begin to do, whether it be athletic or kinetic, but i get bored easily and move on too quickly to be great at any one thing. but there is one thing i want to do and be great. i want to be a travel writer.

i want to share my adventures with anyone who will read about it. i have done that so far, but i want to reach a wider audience because i believe travel brings people together and transforms the myth that people are different, into an understanding that people all want the same things in life, which is to love and be loved. it opens the halls of the mind, a passage with a vanishing point. just as having children is (i imagine) a committment for which no one can prepare, when we travel, we have a completely personal experience that cannot be expressed in words. so i continue to describe what i see, what i learn, always knocking at the door of that knowledge, knowing you are on the other side. there is no password to get to the other side. but i hope that with humility and an earnest documentation of my own travels, i can encourage you to at least look through the peephole an eventually push the door wide open, as your eyes will be when you see what is on the other side. i can promise that i will not quit before i become great at telling the story. and from now on, i am going to refer to myself as a tourist, because that is what i am everywhere i go. someone wise said "a traveler is just a pretentious tourist" and i totally agree.

bananas

ivo cut bananas from a tree. there are at least 40 pounds! then he took the machete and chopped the chunks off the main stalk. they~re all green now but will be good to eat in a few days. we~re going to make banana everything! banana pudding, banana pancakes, fried bananas, banana cake, banana with brown sugar, butter and vanilla ice cream....

i don~t know if bananas would be a good ingredient for caipirinhas, but i am giving up cachaça for a while. i have been waking with migranes and i don~t know if it~s because of the gasoline and paint ivo stores in the garage under the living room, or if it~s the cachaça, so i~ll see.

advice

so, i need advice from you wise people ... especially those who don~t play games and have a deep capacity for love.

i am smitten with someone. i don~t know that he is interested. he knows i exist, but he doesn~t know i like him. this sounds like gradeschool, but he makes me blush every time i see his photo. the problem is, he lives on another continent. i am a firm believer that anything can happen....EXCEPT... you can never make anyone love you. and humans can~t fly. but that~s beside the point. how can i make someone love me??? how do i initiate conversation with someone in this situation? i have always been the agressor, and now, i am timid as a mouse. help!!

a typical day for me (blow by blow)

wake up and have a glass of ice water. go outside on the balcony and enjoy the view. look at the waves. how many surfers can i see? what time is it? is it warm? cold? windy? sunny? cloudy? this will determine what i wear and what i do for the day.

i take a shower which is directly above me and the showerhead doesn~t move. the pressure is good and the water is as hot as i want it to be. the temperature is controlled by twisting a long rod that extends from the showerhead. after the shower, i get into clothes and take some up to the washroom which is just off the front of the house. the washsink is like one you would see in a garage. the detergent comes in a small plastic bag, and i shake some onto the sink and scrub scrub away, then take all the clothes to the balcony to hang dry. i use the surfboard leash to hang the lighter clothes. then? breakfast, my favorite meal of the day.

there is a lot of fruit here so i make a salad with papaya, kiwi, banana, mango and apple with yogurt. sometimes i make toast with cheese. but there are no toasters. i use a long metal-handled tool that has two flat plates that clamp the bread together. i hold it over the stove and as it heats the bread, the cheese melts. then i join ivo in watching a movie or two on the couch in the living room... the couch i will probably have to replace because tb has peed on it. she~s becoming a pain in the ass. we watch what he has which are either war movies, jail movies, or violent capture people-type movies. i tell him in jest that i am going to lock my bedroom door at night.

after one or two movies, he says he~s late to wherever he~s going, which he always does, then spends over an hour getting ready. this is my time to watch tv. watching tv is a very important part of my day. when i watch tv or movies, i learn a lot of portuguese. it~s all in portuguese or subtitled, so i have no chioce but to learn. believe me, there aren~t a lot of channels to choose from. i have fuzzy brazilian music tv, qvc, novelas, news, and the religious channel. i would watch the religious channel if it were some crazy candomblè african voodoo or orixàs jumping around chickens and convulsing, but it~s catholic, of which i am all too familiar. so i watch news. this way, i learn proper portuguese and get to know what~s going on in my country.

after boredom sets in, i go make that long walk to the internet place, which will be gone monday. i will find a new place. the roads are dusty when it~s dry and slippery and muddy when it~s wet. i keep a look outside and at the clock to make sure it~s not dark before walking home. at this time of the evening, many people i know are at the internet place, which is the center of town because it serves as a hostel and restaurant and convenient store. people invite me out. if i decide to go out, this is how it goes...

i go home to eat. i sit around watching more tv. around 7:30, i crave cachaça. i pour one or two drinks or make a caipirinha, then make my way back down in the dark, being more motivated and feeling more relaxed about walking alone. it~s quite safe but i am always aware of my surroundings.

i land at jujubee and lucy~s place, and we jump up and down in a group hug. they make food and caipirinhas, which are plentiful in variety. maracujá, or passion fruit, is my favorite type of caipirinha! maracujà is a fist-sized fruit with a firm yellow skin, as thick as an orange peel but with the smoothness of a baseball. it is cut in half to reveal an orange jelly that holds black seeds resembling watermelon seeds. the jelly is scooped out and eaten raw, or used in pudin (flan or pudding) breads, cakes, caipirinhas, etc. when eaten raw, it~s a strange sensation in your mouth. the jelly slips around and there are harder pods that hold the seeds. the pods pop and the seeds are crunchy and edible. it~s really sweet, and if you haven~t tasted passion fruit, it is a gift from the gods and you~re missing out. delicious! or gostoza as they say here.

another fruit here is goiaba. it looks like a green orange and has a pink inside that is scooped out. the other fruit, and i don~t know the name, is really weird. it looks like a smooth green pinecone, and when cut open, holds a white pudding with pale yellowish seeds. the pudding is really gooey and semi-sweet, but i find it unappetizing.

after a couple shared drinks, we make our way out to a club (just a bar, but they call all the bars clubs). everyone shares their drinks and we talk and dance. we stumble home, laughing, saying we love each other, make fun of each other, and generally do what friends do.

they persuade me to sleep at their house, but there is only one bed they will sleep in. they won~t have it any other way. it~s a brazilian thing. if you all sleep in the same bed, it means you~re friends. so there we are, me, jujubee and lucy all happily alligned in a double bed, and they say "good night my friend". they don~t like not seeing me for more than one day. they think something is wrong. then just before i doze off, juju, in her broken english says "regina, it~s ok when you run away, but i always come to get you. i love you my friend". i say i love you too.

it~s the sweetest way to end the day.

future plans

i think my time with ivo is coming to an end. i will have lived for free for two weeks but when i find a new place to live, i will be living for 1/3 the price of what i was paying before i moved in with ivo. ivo is going to his flat in time square and doesn~t know when he will return so that~s my cue to find a new place.

me, jujubee and lucy are on the lookout. the only problem is lucy has a dog that likes to eat cats. so we~ll see....

as i am always thinking about what i am going to do next, when i start to get bored, i have been thinking i will stay a bit longer here, find a place, pay rent and take off traveling while juju and lucy watch tb. i told them they could even rent out my room while i~m gone and that would be their payment for watching tb. i still want to see a lot in south america....peru, northern brazil near belem, iguazzu, uruguay, paraguay...it~s funny, the people in brazil blame paraguay for the poor quality of electronics. paraguay is like the armpit of south america. it always gets shit on...like bakersfield in california.

anyway, the plan is to return to s.f. in january, visit and stay with friends, work to save more money, and possibly move to paris with my good friend, anne marie. she speaks french and we can teach english there. we would rent a small flat with our savings and go from there. she is one of few people i know who will drop everything to do something memorable, life-changing, follow her dreams, not stop until she~s satisfied. i have found a kindred spirit in her. her family is all french, so she has traveled to france many times. i have been twice. paris once. i don~t like the cold, but i am a trooper and will do what i have to do to survive. and so will she.

just to clear things up

I~M NOT SLEEPING WITH ANYONE HERE. it~s a rumor the guy started cause he~s a douchebag. i never did anything with him.