Rainy Days

The month of March is known to be the rainiest month of the year, but it seems this year Florianopolis has been breaking records of rain fall. Basically it has been raining for the past 6 days strait here! (Luckily two of those days I was river rafting about an hour inland from here and it was sunny). The rain here is beautiful though, it's still warm outside so I can go for runs and have it rain (its more like a mist most of the time) and it keeps me nice and cool. Sometimes the a real storm will blow in and it will thunder and lightening so loud it sounds like gun shots! When the lightening crackles across the sky and you can see it's reflection in the ocean it is breath taking, some how everything is beautiful here. The only down fall about rain is that this island has mostly outdoor-adventurous  things to do, so when it is raining that scratches almost everything to do off the list, so you have to get creative if you don't want to be bored out of your mind. (But keep in mind this is for someone who has no job, and school is not very time demanding, I am sure Brazilians like the days off because they have more things to do than I do. Another thing to keep in mind it that Brazil is not like the US, people here like to do nothing, and enjoy free time to do more of nothing! lol they are very relaxed, slow moving, easy going people, who are never in a rush (also never on time) because time is not as critical as it is in the US, there are no DEADLINES, and people don't run around all stressed out, scrambling around like chickens with their heads cut off, it's simpler, easier, slower here, which honestly takes some getting uses to, coming from the busy fast moving US.) But I have been talking to Brazilians asking them what they do for run when it rains, and most of them say go to the mall, which makes perfect sense, because fashion and physical appearance are very important in the Brazilian culture. It is not uncommon to see most women walking around in high heals whether they are running arends, taking their kids to school, going to work, going to school, or just grocery shopping, they look their best to do anything and everything. They also dress "up" compared to San Diego standards to do most everything as well, and they love to shop, especially the ladies, and it seems shoes are their number one money maker here. They also like to go see movies in the movie theather, which is interesting because almost all the movies here are in English with Portuguese subtitles (which is very convienent for me) the movies and concessions are also a lot cheaper here, a movie in 3D costs $12, a regular movie costs $9 and if you are a student it costs $5. The large popcorn costs $3! and they have salted popcorn or sweat carmel popcorn to choose from (that's another interesting thing about Brazil, they LOVE their sweats!! almost everything here has some sort of sugar (acucar in portuguese)  either on it or in it, everything from their bread, to fruit juice, to nuts, to avocados). Other things that Brazilians like to do on rainy days is cook! They like to bake sweet breads and make soups when it is cold, for example the famous feijoada (a traditional brazilian stew). They also like to have traditoinal brazilian BBQs and play poker tourniments, they even have secrest poker rooms in a lot of the restaurants around where I live, I have not figured out how you get invited to those poker games yet though, I will keep you posted on that. But as for now, it is another rainy day here (this weekend it is supposed to be sunny again for 5-7 days which I am very excited about, so I will enjoy this rain while it lasts) and I have some shopping, movie watching, baking, cooking, and poker playing to do :D 

Just another day in paradise.