March 31st, 2009 -- one month until departure

Time is ticking away and Brazil is a month around the corner. Preparations for bringing the cat are being made, which, surprisingly is the most frustrating part. Paperwork, vaccinations, health certificates, authentications, airline service fees, pet holding fees, sanitations and seals. The list goes on. Fortunately, I have Catholic parents who are praying for me.

As April 30th draws nearer like the birth of a child, I am pushing and pulling simultaneously; terrified with butterflies. I will be a traveler, trying to gamble between being an American, through experience, and Brazilian through blood. I am a carioca (what they call people born in Rio de Janeiro, like me) and a middle class kid from California's Central Coast fortunate to have an internet connection, a college degree and been adopted, something cariocas know little of.

My challenges will begin when I turn my phone off and have no internet connection other than the local (reliable?) internet cafe, in a town where whale watching and surfing are what put it on the map. My life, at first I imagine, will consist of looking for food (figuring out the labels....) getting toilet paper, sleeping and mastering the art of tanning without burning. Oh, and the language...well, I have been bragging that my Portuguese is good enough to get by but failed to mention that Brazil is such a huge country, when I traveled with my Brazilian friend from the Sao Paulo area to Northeastern Brazil, HE could hardly understand what the locals were saying. Goes to show I may have some humility to practice.

All in all, I'm excited but wasting the time away with friends until my departure. Who knows what I will find in this huge country; food, family, a way of giving back to the world, I don't know. That's what I'm going to find out.