Home Sweet Home

I've been back in the country almost 2 days now! It's obviously very nice to be back home and starting seeing all the friends and family I've been missing, but I've also been really busy getting stuff done (filling out insurance forms, figuring out what to pack, etc).
My last few weeks in Brazil were perfect. I had a few going away parties and got to say goodbye. As a going away gift the people in the lab gave me a USB pen drive filled with Brazilian music; each person put on whatever they thought I would like. It was a perfect gift for me: I love the music there and it's small enough to take with me everywhere I go. The music is fantastic (in fact I'm listening to it right now!), and it's fun to hear what different people put on. While I wasn't excited to leave all my friends, it was much easier because I was heading to do some serious traveling.
I got into Angra dos Reis Monday morning after taking a night bus from BH, and caught the 8am boat over, getting me to Ilha Grande in plenty of time. Ilha Grande was really nice, I felt like I was on a real tropical island (I was!). One thing that took some time to adjust to was becoming a tourist again and seeing so many gringos. Once I did that though, I was able to enjoy the island much more. One day I hiked over to supposedly one of the nicest beaches in Brazil (I wasn't all that impressed, and saw better later), another day to a waterfall and around, and the last day was spent hiking 982m up in 6km and ~2hrs to the top of the island. This last day was the highlight of the island for me, as the hike was really through the forest (very thick and diverse) and the views from atop the island were amazing. Overall the stay on IG was very good; I met some nice people, had a good hostel, saw some nice sights, and completely exhausted my legs!
After returning to Angra by boat I hopped a bus to Parati. The drive down was really picturesque with lush forested mountains right next to the sea. I got into Parati and looked around that afternoon after getting checked into my hostel (another nice one, with the atmosphere I was looking for and all you could eat home cooked meals!) looked around the colonial city center; it was nice, but no where as nice as Ouro Preto (it was also the most expensive area I saw in all of Brazil). The next day I got to chill out and spent an afternoon on a beach in Trinidade. This beach, was to me, the nicest I found throughout Brazil; very relaxed and more secluded. Neil, a Brit I met at the hostel, came with me for that day; it was nice to actually be traveling with someone for a change.
That night, after all you could eat BBQ and drink capirinhas, I had no problem falling asleep on my night bus to Sao Paulo. I had another great hostel in SP, and I really enjoyed the city even though I had heard less than stellar things about it. It is just a HUGE city, but the energy and diversity of the city was nice. There were also a number of really nice museums that I went to on the correct days to get into for free. The museum scene was a nice change from what I had been doing. Another highlight of SP was the municipal market; not the cheapest, but great food! Ibirapuera Park was also amazing, with its size, facilities (athletics, museums, open grass, etc) it was probably the nicest city park I've ever been to. Oh another highlight of SP was going to the hidden jazz bar on Saturday night; this place was literally at the back of a parking garage. You would never be able to find it if you didn't know where it was (a local took us). But once you got back there, the jazz was fantastic. That night was a lot of fun, as was all of my time in SP, traveling that last week and really all of Brazil.

I'm sure as I get more removed from the trip I will be able to appreciate it even more, but my summer in Brazil was absolutely perfect and perhaps the best of my life; I would do it again in a heartbeat and cannot wait to return.

But now it's all about Indonesia! I leave next Friday (the 28th) have about a month of training and dealing with things before I get to my pesantren until the end of May. Wow! I think I've found the city where I will be though. I've included a link below that should pull up a map zoomed in on where I will be. You should then be able to zoom out and get a feel for where I am.

http://maps.google.com.br/maps?f=q&source=s_q&hl=pt-BR&geocode=&q=Parepare,+sulawesi,++Indonesia&sll=-3.784781,119.729004&sspn=1.296274,1.760559&ie=UTF8&ll=-3.689647,119.675049&spn=0.005064,0.010943&t=h&z=17

I'll be seeing some of you soon, but for everyone else take care and feel free to send me an email to let me know how things are going with you (and sorry in advance if I don't respond for a while, it's not because I don't care).