brasília :))

on tuesday morning, i woke up and went to the living room where my father asked me:
"ariana, do you want to go to brasília tomorrow?"

and just like that we went. typical brasil.

little info on brasília, the capital city of Brasil:
the city is only 50years old, fairly new, and was completely designed, from every building to every street corner there was an architect planning the location.
much like the US, Brasil had other capital cities as well. the first was Salvador, then Rio de Janerio then they finally moved it in the middle and center of the country to spread out the population, therefore creating Brasília.
much like the US, Brasília is inside it's own "state," District Federal but also inside another state, Goiás.

Dia 19 de Janerio
my father, my brother, my sister, and i left early wednesday morning for the 12hour drive to Brasília. yepp, 12hours in one day. my body is still hurting from sittting all that time. now when i ask the distance between ipatinga and another city, and then answer is less then 12, i just sigh a relief becasue anything is closer and better than 12hours.
we stopped for lunch at a resturant that was almost in Rio de São Franscico and ate fish that tasted like it was just caught that day
then back into the car where we jammed to sumba, forro, axé music ooh and Black Eyed Peas (everyone here LOVES them) my brother had a litttle dance party in the front seat, me &my sister tried to sleeep (tried) and my dad averaged aroun 120kph (im tooo scared to translate that into mph)
we arrived later that night to meet my father's ENTIRE family. this was the first time meeting his family, they alllllll live in Brasília, and again, it was really confusing to meet so many people, remember names and faces and relationships. and worse off, they just kept calling each other, Primo, Tio, Tia, Prima (aunt, uncle, cousin) ..that wasnt helping me any.

Dia 20 de Janerio:
we didnt explore the city until after lunch, nothing happened until after lunch, make that, wayyy after lunch here in Brasília. it would go a litttle liek this: okay are you going? (10minutes later) so who all is going? (20mintues later) okay go get ready (45mintues later) let's go to the car (15minutes later) finally, FINALLY, we would actually leave.
this was due to all the talking and talking and talking. it was a huge italian family. all they did was talk and eat. God Bless their souls...
when we actually got into the city part Brasília, it was so different from other cities in brasil.
its allll flat so you can seee miles (kilometers?) and everything is so organized and CLEAN. to be honest and i think all brasileiros know this, brasil is not clean. people say that everyone is uneducated therefore they throw their garbage anywhere they want. countless times ive seen on the bus, kids just throw their candy wrappers out the window. why couldnt you wait until you got home? right now, there is a hugeeee mound of garbage sittting in front of my house, waiting for the garbage man to pick it up. which makes me throw up sometimes because the garbage is in a bag but because there are street animals, they rip the bags open, therefore throwing garbage everywhere. eww. enough about garbage
but Brasília didnt have that.
we first went to the TV Tower where you take an elevador up and are able to seee alllll of Brasília. I took some realllllly nice pictures !
Next we went to this riducously beauitful catholic church. it was formed into a dome with "crowns" at the top. the whole ceiling was stained glasses with angels floating. so amazing.
after, we made it over just in time for the changing of the flag in front of the president's house.
this was no White House where Obama and the First Lady stay
it was blue and kinda old looking and if i had binoculars, i would be able to see the president having lunch. it was guarded in that there were snipper men hiding in the buses, protecting their leader but that was alll. there were the flags, a litttle river, a hugeeeeeee lawn with absolulety no treees, then the house. meaning if i jumped the litttle river, dudged the snipper men, and ran like cheetah, i would be able to ring his doorbell.
i asked my brother if the president was home because i wanted to meet her, and i'm sure she would really enjoy meeting me but unfortunalty she wasnt there. Oooh, Dilma
finally, we went to another church which is a church for all religions, a place for meditations and to feel closer to God. everything was translated into different langauges and i liked the fact that no matter where you were from or what religion you were, they was a place for you to take time and give praise to God.

Dia 21 de Janerio:
more site seeeing after lunch. we went to another church; on the outside, it looked like a normal catholic church but on the inside.. Meus Deus..
the walls were broken into sections and each section was alllll in stained glasss, all stained glass blue. and in the corners, purple. it felt like the church was glowing, it was mesmorizing. man, with all these beauitful churches, i will be redoing my vows with my husband every other year just so i can be married in all these gorgeous Houses of God.
after we went to one of the lakes of Brasília, taking pictures with the bridge, Ponte JK, which was designed with the help of my father, how cool is that! we ate açai by the lake and had a donut which is a rare. and first time i saw this fattening food here in brasil, and frankly, havent really missed seeeing them
later that night, my family bought 40 pizzza crusts (for 25people) to have a litttle "pizza party"
i ate so much pizza, it was so goood though.

Dia 22 de Janerio:
we didnt do much on this day.
only i got DRILLED with questions about my homeland country.
we sat around the table for hours and i got EVERY question there is about US.
Health Care Plan, College applications, Drugs, George Bush, War in Iraq, Obama, Racism, Prostitues, Football, Snow, Dealth Penatly. You know it, it was asked
mind you this conversation (all conversations from now on) was in português and i am trying to explain to them what Obama is trying to do with the Health Care Plan, my plans for college and how people feeel about illegal immigrants from Mexico. This is when i wish i had an opinon on the government becasue here, everyone HATED Bush (believe it or not, ive heard someone say that they think that Bush was behind 9/11 ..like our president would do that) and they adore Obama.
so i start throwing questions at them.
i asked them, when you hear of the US, what do you think of?
the one positive answer i got (ofcourse they think of mcdonalds and that we are better than ervyone else) they said we are alll patriots of our country. we have american flags waving in our front yeards, wear red, white and blue and have stickers of our country everywhere.
they said the only time they are patriots is when it is the World Cup and Independence Day.
i found this surprising.
for me, i was neverrrrr a patriot for the US
..until i left the US.
the US always comes up on the news here, people know our current affairs and history and everyone talks about our country &culture.
i get defensive, especially when i dont understand everything they are saying about US.
Dont you dare talk about MY country, MY home, MY culture, like you know it when you only know whats happening because of the news or because you spent a week in Disney World when you were 15.
i find this kinda of funny, after i cool off (i never freak out on anyone but in my head..ooh man) because i would trash talk the US when i was there, but now, because i have seen another land, another world, another culture, i am a proud american. Estados Unidos !

Dia 23 de Janerio:
On our last day in Brasília, we had a BBQ (churrasco) and spent the majority of the day in the poool.
i got burntttt even though i put sunscreeen on! the sun is sooo strong here. verão no Brasil..
later that night, "os primos" went to get mexican which only jenna eppinger knows what happened laterr.. it was really good mexican!
the following morning we packed up the car and i tried to survive 12more hours in a car. (i figured out that in ONE week, because of traveling to Brasilia and to BH, i spent a total of 30hours in the car, sittting. wowoow)

so now i know the capital city of Brasil, Brasília and what a beauitful city it is.