Churrasco

Churrasco is the Brazilian word for barbecue. It consists of cooking marinated meat over an open fire-pit on skewers. It's similar to an American barbeque, but the cuts of meat are huge and they slice off pieces on the outside of the skewer and return the skewer over the fire to cook more. The meat is pretty salty by US standards and they marinate it in garlic and lime. It's awesome. I am telling you all of this because this was my birthday present from my family. My family bought about 20 pounds of chicken, beef and sausage for my churrasco birthday party on the beach. Since it is tradition to throw your own birthday party here (and pay for all of it) this was a really nice thing for them to do. I only had to pay for part of the drinks from the beach bar (turned out being about $25 bucks which is a lot by Brazilian standards- these people love their pop and beer). We stayed on the beach from about 10 until 5 and just sat, talked, and ate under the palm trees. Every now and then I would need a break from Portuguese (Brazilians never need a break from talking), so I would make the excuse that I wanted to go to the ocean to cool off. Grant and Renata were there and since Renata's birthday was yesterday, she bought a cake and celebrated her birthday too. Also, Nicole's mom and little sister came into today and they spent most of the day with us on the beach. They will be here for the next week or so.

After recovering from eating all day, I decided to go on a run. I ran straight for about 65 minutes and I think this was my longest run yet, but slower. Then I went to the station on the beach and did some exercises. I really find comfort in working out because it gives me time to think and listen to English (through music), but I found that listening to Kenny Chesney made really excited to be living at the beach but really sad to be skipping my last semester of college and especially Spring Break. Laurel is in Puerto Rico with her whole fam right now, and I really wish I could have gone. Ticket prices were ridiculous no matter what time I would have booked, so I guess it just wasn't meant to be. I keep telling myself that I'll just do it another year, but I looked on the WVU SOM calendar and I think that only second year med students have a Spring Break. Great! Why am I going to Med School again?

Nicole and her mom wanted me to go out to eat with them at a crab restaurant, but I don't have enough money to keep spending everyday and I was really tired after being on the beach all day. Amanda really wanted to go, but couldn't go by herself so she tried to talk me into going but I've learned enough Portuguese now that I am finally comfortable with saying no. Anyways, she tried to make me feel bad about this but I'm glad that I don't have to do everything that everyone wants me to do now. When I first got here, it was tiring just keeping up with everyone's demands for my time. On a separate note, I feel like I need to start being more efficient with my time so that I can accomplish more. One thing I want to accomplish is relaxing more. It sounds counter-intuitive, but I want to be busier, so that I can relax more. Also, I feel like I need to keep in contact with my friends and family more. I haven't been able to talk to my grandmother once since I've been down here and I feel like I should try to catch up on what's going on with my friends. At first, I didn't want to contact people because it made me sad, but now the end is in sight and I am realizing that I have been removed from these people's lives for over 2 months!