First week back in Rio! It's ON!

I've been back in Copacabana for a week now and it's been great! I made a friend on the plane ride over here and we've hung out a couple of times and run together on the beach which is always awesome. There can be no complaining when you live in the land of fresh, chilled coconuts and acai, two blocks away from a beautiful beach lined with soccer fields and beautiful views all around. Beyond that...late-night pillow talk and movie nights with my wonderful, new friend, Alessandra. What more could I ask for??

I also started a language exchange with a friend I met through couch surfing who's a tour guide here in Rio. I was only looking for the language part but we've done plenty of walking around and it's like having my own personal guide for free! Day one alone he took me to the huge library downtown, The Selaron Steps (which I loved), the Cinelandia area, a few museums, apparently one of the 10 fanciest/most beautiful bakeries in the world--random, I know--the market at Uruguaiana, the Lapa Arches & more! We're about the same level in each others' languages so we talk in both, helping and correcting each other along the way.

I've also started an exchange with my friend that I met when I was living in Cuzco. I'm teaching him English in exchange self defense classes. He's a jiu jitsu master and has his own gym in Cuzco but has come here to learn more from the even bigger experts. He started off teaching me some different techniques but we quickly found that I like boxing more than everything else we've done. Something about punching someone is really fun to me (which will in no way surprise either of my youngest siblings). I guess I figure we all have everything in us....violence and non-violence, patience and impatience and so on. Even if the one side is much smaller than the other, it's gotta be in there somewhere! I wouldn't consider myself a violent person but, I gotta say, it's kind of a blast letting that part of me come out! (The only issue is that sometimes I have laughing attacks because I'm having too much fun and my friend....a much more serious person than me...doesn't know how to handle it and gets kind of pissed. I'm working on it.)

I've also started taking two Continuing Studies courses online that I'm already really enjoying--a Linguistics course and a Creative Writing course (maybe these blogs will eventually get better). ;)

Life is good when you're in Rio de Janeiro! All that's left to find is a new Capoeira class, Art of Living and a job!