It is now officially summer break in Brazil for those who didn't know, which means I should probably start putting up more entries :). Anyways for anyone who does not know geography very well, Brazil is very very muito hot. The Onion puts Brazil as sweltering in the north, blistering in the south, and searing along the coast. I live in the south and can testify to the daily dizziness from the 45 degree Celsius heat. My day now consists of waking up and eating lunch with the family, going to the gym for about three hours and swimming there, and after coming home, think about doing a journal entry and occasionally doing one, then going to bed. All with this comes really bad sweating and dizziness as the only air conditioning that exists here is individual ones that only run at night which is the only cool part of the day. Besides the unbearable heat, Brazil is a wonderful place in the summer with all of the young people on break, you can usually walk past bars or restaurants and they will be pretty packed. The other night I walked past a popular bar and it was a friday so filled to the brim that they had chained of the entrance and people were sitting on the bars that were the outside wall. Also Brazilians love to play water sports such as bitiball(volleyball in the pool) and just hanging out in the pool. On Sundays at the chacara we BBQ and swim in the pool, this consists of what we do most on Sundays. It is very relaxing though to get away from everything at a nice little hangout. A very other unique thing about summer in Brazil is that there is Christmas and new year. I am from Florida in the US but I'm still used to it being somewhat chilly during this time. Also nobody plays any Christmas music or says merry Christmas to each. I was in the mall about two days ago and I said feliz natal to the cashier worker, and she just laughed at me. I asked my host mom about it later and she said it was still very early to be saying that and it was just another cultural experience to be learned. I think that Christmas is a bit downplayed here because Brazilians have so many other holidays such as Carnaval and others. I'm especially excited because in January I will be able to travel along the beach from Sao Paulo in the South all the way to Recife in the northeast. They call it O viajem dos sonos or the trip of dreams. It is a 28 day trip along the beach of Brazil, it'll be hot but definitely worth it. That about sums up my summer in Brazil on foriegn exchange, I'll put more about it in other journals I'm sure too. Abracos e ate mais!