A little walk...

Hi friends!

First of all, here are some photo links for those of you who are not my facebook friends:

http://usfca.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2043745&l=22500&id=7103173

and

http://usfca.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2044094&l=69430&id=7103173

and these are the Thanksgiving pictures:

http://usfca.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2044095&l=dd36e&id=7103173

Thanksgiving went really well, there was a fun group of celebrants and we made turkey hand drawings and went around and said what we were thankful for and ate a lot. Afterwards we were maybe going to go to a forró but that didn't happen because everyone was incapacitated by the traditional Thanksgiving Food Coma and no one was in the mood to get jiggy with it.

All last week we didn't have capoeira because our teacher was in Salvador for a big capoeira event, and that worked out really well because I spent a lot of time looking for Thanksgiving ingredients and cooking. However, by Saturday I was feeling rather sedentary and like I'd gone a week without working out and had had Thanksgiving besides, so I decided to go for a little walk around Lake Pampulha, which is probably 6 or 8 blocks from my house.

It's a big Belo Horizonte landmark and I hadn't been yet, so I figured I should explore it a little before I left, and seeing how as I lived so close I didn't really have a good excuse for not going. So, I put on my sneakers and set out for what I thought would be probably about an hour of walking. Well, turns out the lake is a little bigger than I thought. I walked for quite a while, and then decided to try running to make it go faster, and then got tired of running, so I walked some more, and then got bored of walking and ran some more... About 2 hours into it, I happened upon a fruit stand and bought myself half a pineapple to munch on, which made me feel better (did I mention that I left the house about 11:45, having only eaten a light yogurt for breakfast?). However, the sugar high from the pineapple wore off after not too long and I started getting really done with walking and running. The thing is, I didn't know how big around the lake was and I didn't want to turn back because I hoped that I'd already gone around more than half of it and that it would be quicker to just keep going. So on I trudged.

Every hundred meters all around the lake there is a little post that tells you how many meters you've gone. The place I started was 5.200 meters, which maybe should have given me a clue that this was kind of a large lake... but anyway, I started noticing that the reverse sides of the posts were approaching 0 (there are different numbers on each side, so that no matter which direction around the lake you are walking, the meters count up). This was sort of exciting - in only 600 meters, something was going to happen! When I reached the post that should have said 0 on the other side, it was at a giant sign that said "O," which I'm assuming is for "origin" and this post informed me that all the way around the lake is 18.300 meters, also known as just over 18 km or about 11 miles. Yeah. Had I known this before starting, I would not have tried to walk all the way around, but I guess ignorance is bliss/really sore legs. This also meant that there were only 5.200 meters left until I could leave the stinkin lake and start walking back to my house. Those last 5 km were hard, but at least I had something to look forward to. I finally got home just before 4pm. First, I took off my shoes and took a little rest in front of my fan. Then, I ate a whole bunch, and then I showered and took a nap. Now it's Monday and my legs still hurt, but at least I have seen all that Lake Pampulha has to offer, which is more than a lot of Brazilians can say!

Saturday night was my Portuguese professor Henrique's birthday party, so we all went out to a club and danced and made merry. I got home Sunday morning about 4:30, slept until noon, and then got to work on my papers.

In the approximately 3 weeks I have left in beautiful Brasil, I have three papers to write and a test to take. One of the papers is partially done, one of them is a group project and my group is really smart so that's good, but the other one I'm doing by myself and I just figured out that I'm sort of behind on the reading for that class, so I've been rushing to read and write as much and as quickly as I can. I'll get it all done, I always do, but it's just sort of stressful right now. Oh, and did I mention that two of the papers and the test are due/happening within two days of each other? I'm going to work really hard this week, so that hopefully all I'm doing the night before everything is due is proofreading. That would be nice...

Enjoy the photos, and I'll see you later!