No I'll actually start the volunteer work soon, I promise

I did go to the favela yesterday for like an hour, to meet the coordinator of my project. She speaks no English -- I had a translator but the woman would just speak and speak and speak in Portuguese for 15-minute chunks and the translator would like squeeze in a 5 sentence explanation when she took a break. At one point the Brazilian coordinator started weeping and of course I had no idea why until 10 minutes later. Anyway, starting TOMORROW (afternoon) I'll be spending 2 hours in the morning and 2 in the afternoon playing with kids, teaching them as much English as possible while doing it. This is a very new project, so my co-volunteer and I basically get to create all the structure ourselves. The favela didn't feel that dangerous, but then again, I was getting a guided tour with a large man raised there so that could've helped. MORE about the favela/children/work when it actually starts tomorrow.

I only work Mondays Wednesdays and Fridays so without even beginning I had a day off. I went to the beach. It turns out the beach we went to the other day was Ipanema (nobody figured it out until yesterday, when a volunteer whose project is a surf school on Ipanema realized it was the SAME place - Copacabana is apparently larger and more commercial.) Here are more pics from a large rock (is it totes obnox when I'm in them? I feel like it kind of is):


























Then I hacked up (hawked up? spent.) the 44 Reais to take the cable car to the top of Pao de Azucar (Sugarloaf Mountain). We hit it at the perrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrfect time, sunset on a clear night and pictures can't describe how incredible it was. The funny thing is though, its beauty was so expected; I still keep getting taken aback by the most common things, like the walk up the hill home or passing random buildings in the bus. It's really hard to forget that I'm a long way from Milaca/Nofo, but I like that.


















































New food obsession of the day: CHURROS. Holy SHIT they're this tasty dough noodle that some vendor squirts chocolate through (through! better even than dipping like Spain) then rolls in sugar. And they're only R$1. And there are men selling them all over. BOSS.