Billy's been back and gone again

I left off the last update just before leaving for the tour, so I'll pick up from there. The tour was of the old historic district, not the actual city, it was free, and you got to see a capoeira show. The tour was in Portuguese, so we didn't really understand any of it. The jist is that there's these super old houses and a couple churches from the colonial days. As in these building are all from between 1500-1800. The colony was at the top of the hill, so there was a gorgeous view of the ocean. I'll post pics if I ever get them from the guys.

After the tour, we had the bus drop us in town for lunch and shopping. The guys wanted to get some stuff, like hammocks, gifts, etc. Well, at lunch time, even on a busy tourist weekend, it turns out none of the stalls are open. Only the brick and mortar shops, and those are overpriced. We grabbed some lunch and walked around for probably an hour before grabbing the bus back to the hotel.

I then had to work for the afternoon, but planned to go back to town for dinner and the concert that night. We decided to put off going out until about 9:30. At 9, we got to together to 'pregame' like college students. We sat around drinking cheap vodka with orange fanta discussing politics, religion, Big Brother, and a variety of other random topics until 11. We never did get dinner, but finally made it to the concert around 11:30. That was fun, I got to go dancing for a bit with the guys and some brazilians they'd met previously at a club. I bailed at around 1:30 and caught the bus back. I wanted to get some sleep before going snorkling at 7:30.

I didn't end up going snorkling though. I didn't get much sleep because apparently I'd gotten food poisoning at lunch. I've been here for months and never gotten sick like that! Figures it would be when I was gonna go out for a fun tour. Luckily, the tourism council girl gave me back the money I'd paid for the trip (about $50). I spent the morning feeling horrible, but eventually the medicine kicked in enough that I was ok. I didn't get an appetite until 3pm. Since lunch the day before I'd only had a couple bites of chocolate bar, some fanta, and one slice of watermelon I forced myself to eat for breakfast. Anyone who knows me knows I rarely go more than a few hours without eating, so I was very sick. When I was finally able to convince myself to eat, I decided to try out lunch at the Toa Toa across the street. It's slow because it's so busy there, but the food was yummy. I got a huge pastry filled with chicken. So much that I had left overs for the next day! After that and the mango juice I felt a lot better.

We got together for dinner again that night around 7 or 8. We were all tired and indecisive, so we just walked over to the Toa Toa. For dinner I split a yummy chicken rice veggie dish. There was a really good capoeira show, then these weird singer that everyone went nuts over! Basically, it was like the brazilian Tom Jones. Yeah, it was weird. Very weird. And it turned out it was actually an impersonator (like how people go crazy for elvis impersonators sometimes). He was a good singer though. The place pretty well died after he left. I hit up the dance club portion for a couple songs, but the guys wouldn't come dance to the electronica music, and even that part of the club started to die down, so we left. The guys went downtown for another concert and were out most of the night I'm told. I went home, called billy, and tried to get some sleep.

Yesterday, I worked all day and the guys went on a full day tour to another beach town. Billy made it back from Ipatinga in record time, but had to make lots of phone calls and write emails when he got in. We went out to dinner at 8 (just for tapiocas) and the guys came along. We left them downtown so they could finally do their shopping. Billy had to go back out again at 10:30 PM to the airport to buy a ticket for a flight out today. Yes, the ticket counters are open that time of night. He had to go then, because the place wasn't open we he tried in the afternoon! So he was here for the night, went to work as usual in the morning, got back here at 11ish, showered, packed, and left again. He'll be gone until Friday this time. At least he gets to fly instead of drive (it's really far to wherever he's going in southern brazil). Then I think we both pack up all our stuff and fly to Curitiba this weekend. I'll let you know when we get those plans finalized.

Busy few days, but it was nice to have people to hang out with for once!

Being out by myself is creepy. That's why I never do this stuff on my own. Just sitting on the bus alone was bad enough (weird drunk guys blowing kissing through the window, etc. - so glad the only people who got on the bus were couples and chicks!).