Saturday, 21, 17:24 hours

Got to sleep in today – sorta. Woke up on my own about 10:20 am. The hotel requested that we move rooms because they were going to start construction on the 10th floor we were staying on. We quickly got our things together and then moved up a few floors to 1201. This room is pretty similar, but nicer. It has a better view from the front of the hotel, and other little things that make it just more comfortable.

I then went to the SRE office to make a few phone calls. The SRE is closed on the weekend, but I have keys to get in. I called my friend Jefferson and arranged to go to his church tomorrow and eat lunch w/ his family afterwards. He wanted us to go to a dance tonight, but me… not a big dance. David is, but he agreed he was tired and that we should stay in and study and rest. I’m sure we’ll have plenty of dancing or whatnot in Floripa. Maybe I’ll even pick something up… ha. But I wouldn’t count on it.

About 1 in the afternoon we walked to Fast Clean Laundromat and sat their reading for the hour our clothes were being cleaned. Has anyone heard about the $1.4 million dollars that were smuggled from Cuba to President Lula for his campaign? I read it in a November ’05 issue of Veja, a newsweek type magazine here in Brazil. Anyway… interesting stuff.

It’s weird how in brazil everything is closed on Saturdays. For real, I don’t really understand. We wanted to buy some books for our class, but none of the book stores were open. There were some cool vendors on the streets today, but nothing that we needed or wanted. We ate lunch at some weird snack shop in the mall by our hotel. When I ordered a hamburger and Dave ordered a hotdog, we were surprised to see them reach in their freezer and pull out premade food, but it on their george foreman-type grill and just heat it up. Needless to say, I won’t be ordering a hot dog or hamburger from there again.

Now we’re back at the hotel. I took a nap. Not much else going on. It’s raining again today.

I talked on skype for a bit with my friend Lauren who is in England for a study abroad. Pretty crazy how clear the conversation is on skype. I got to talk to mom and dad and scott at the same time on skype the other night. Fun stuff.

David and I went to the supermarket in the mall attached to our hotel for dinner about 8 pm this evening. The food was expectingly awful. I got a mini pizza and a beef and then a chicken salgado (like a lil hot pocket of sorts). We watched Behind Enemy Lines on tv in the hotel. I’m not sure how that movie is in English, but in Portuguese I thought it was kinda lame.

Alright, have to leave for church at 7:00 am tomorrow. Off to read, then to bed. … probably more internet too, there’s not much else to do. Well, homework… yeah… I’ll probably do that instead.