This weekend we went to Rio. How awesome is it to say that sentence?! Still can't get over it, t'was incredible. A short weekend (too short)- but we fit a lot in. Of course, we hit up the classic tourist sites, ate feijoada on Saturday afternoon, and hot churros filled with dolce de leite for dinner. And felt pretty fabulous doing it.

The Corcovado was first on our list and we lucked out with perfect blue sky weather. It was Alex's first time, and it could not have been better! If you go, don't miss the amazing juice/smoothie you can buy at the top. I'm not really a juice person, but this actually tastes like you are drinking a mango...nothing like it.

After lunch, driving around the city and browsing through little shops, we made it to the Pão de Açúcar in time for sunset. This is by the far the best time to go! Must, must, must. And toms are too.

The next morning we headed to Ipanema for the Hippie feira. Apparently the feira started from hippies selling homemade trinkets in the seventies, and still only homemade art and crafts are sold today. We still have Frank Sinatra singing Girl from Ipanema stuck in our heads.

Rio's Botanical Garden was next. Loved it! 

Ant hill. Everything is bigger in the tropics.

We love you Rio. Next time we hope to just beach bum it and eat at a churrascaria. 

New

Good news… we are in Brazil! Alex has an internship with the HR department of Azul Airlines, and I’m working in marketing. When the opportunity presented itself, we figured.. why not? With only a semester(ish) left of school at BYU, Alex finishing his temp job with the NORC, and childless- we really didn’t have much tying us down. It also helps that I’m technically a Brazilian, but unfortunately a brasileira who didn’t speak a lick of Portuguese.

We arrived 3 weeks ago, and are loving it.  For marketing, so far I’ve been able to tag along to places like Rio and Florianopolis, while Alex resides in psychology heaven’s cubicle. But so far most of what we do is study. And study. 

Right now is the heart of Brazil’s winter- also known as perfection. The coldest it gets is in the 50s, but typically 70s. Everywhere is green. The food is fantastic, perhaps a little bit too much. There are gorgeous beaches everywhere. And one of my very favorites, the mercados every Saturday with all sorts of fresh fruit and vegetables that I've never even seen before, tasty pastels, homemade trinkets, and more. But the people here are even better.

There are definitely things I miss about the U.S. already, but it is so amazing to actually live somewhere else. Not a week or two vacation, not a month long humanitarian trip, but just live.
 ..even though I will take the other two any other time. I may be saying this knowing that in three months we will be back in the comfort of U.S., because anyone can do anything for 4 months, right? Either way, right now it’s pretty awesome.

pão de queijos 

Here we are with Paulihno from the tallest building in Sao Paulo, after a 3 hour wait. Trust me, do not go on a Friday.

Italia

We had an amazing trip. Incredible! I don't think I've stopped thinking about it since, and considering it was finals last week- that is saying a lot.

We started in Venice, drove to Florence, and ended it off right in Rome. Oh and a lot of darling towns along the way. I've never been to Europe before, and Italy was so unlike anywhere I've ever seen. I absolutely fell in love!

The beautiful rolling hills with perfectly straight lines of harvesting grapes, orchards of olive trees, and fields of yellow flowers. Then the cathedrals, domes, and museums that left us all awestruck. Killed me!

And what blog post of mine wouldn't include something about food? What can I say, we are food people. You'd think after having pasta twice a day, gelato (sometimes 3x..why not?), and endless pizza- I would be excited to get back to "normal" food. Not so much. In fact, I'm craving thin crusted pizza with prosuitto, lasagna, nutella gelato, and all the different types of pasta (that I embarrassed myself trying to pronounce) like it's nobody's business.

..And then when I came home and described this to the sweet girl I work with, she recommended Applebee's bacon alfredo pasta ("Seriously, SO GOOD!!")- I wanted to cry. Unfortunately, this trip may have turned me into an Italian food snob. Thanks, Italy.

Enough of the complaining, let's bring on the pictures! Here are some pictures from Venice. I really tried to narrow it down, but I suppose I'm a bit of a photography junkie.

 Some of my sistas

 The bag boys. What would we do without them? 

 

Erica's baby Adam. I missss him!

 

 Glass making factory

 Why yes, my husband is a model. You'll be seeing a few of these.

 San Marco's Square