Last week i managed to get my photos of Rio de Janiero and Belo Horizonte onto Facebook. Click and take a look.
Tomorrow i should get some more photos up, and i will post the links on LJ as soon as i can.
On Wednesday i was going to go to the south but today i was having second thoughts and think maybe i will go to the north instead. this is because i want to go there far more than the south and if i dont get time to go to the north i will be much more dissappointed. I was mainly going to the south to see Xavi but then he quit Portuguese and returned to England. I decided if i go to the north on Wednesday instead it is possible to do most of the southern cities over long weekends. The other thing is, its HOT HOT HOT in the North. :D
ALSO, i dont know for certain that i will extend my trip from returning on the 8th to the 28th July, as i dont know how much it costs to change the flight, etc. and might have run out of money by then anyway... so i decided to get the most out of my stay but probably in my order of preference. Saying that i might just change my mind again - i seem to do that quite a bit.
Theres are shit load of ants in my house and i dont like it, and am looking forward to my 3.5 weeks of travelling partly to escape them. They are in the food, in the kitchen, the bathroom, my room, everywhere!!! On Saturday i got out of the shower and wrapped the towel round me and there were dozens of ants crawling all over my wet body, drowning. some were biting me and i had to turn the shower on quickly and wash them off as quickly as possible. it was HORRIBLE. They have taken over my room too. so not only do i have termites, but ants now. GRRRRR!
- Location:Belo Horizonte
- Mood:
at the ants
Will let you know about my 3.5 trip to the south and how it goes. i am very excited!!! just got to watch the cashflow! I dont have any students yet, but i am possibly getting one next wednesday! And my parents are not paying the money in til may, but they are paying me two months allowance in one go. Im suprisingly good with my money here. the 3 days in ouro prêto and mariana were around 67 pounds because i was careful with my money, but here, thats a lot of money. but still i reckon i can make my savings stretch to get me to all the places i want to travel to!
This weekend i am doing a very brave day-trip to three cities and because it is to three cities it is brave - i will have to get up REALLY early to catch the first bus out of Belo Horizonte and get the last bus back, to get everything done in time, but its worth getting up at 4am, just to save money on youth hostels (as if i went later, id have to stay there over night to see everything) so i am going to go there early and sleep on the bus on the way there. Plus the best tourist sight in first town i am going to is, according to my guide book , best in the morning light. i should get there around 7am!
- Location:Belo Horizonte
- Mood:
tired
- Apply for film and TV placements in England and Berlin for August and September
- Improve my film portfolio: Finish "Pretentious Beyond Belief" and re-draft "The Bue Hour In A Red Week"
- Get involved in UFMG TV
- Make a short documentary of Brazil
- Go to the cinema and a gay bar here at least once (i am v broke y´know!)
- Teach English in a favela
- Throw a tea party
- Cook British food for people
- Improve my portuguese by studying hard
- Teach english to earn money
- GET A TAN!
so what do you think to that?
- Location:Belo Horizonte
- Mood:
ambitious
My parents are going to give me 50 pounds a month, as from 1st April so that will help me out a lot, and they might even raise that to 100 when my Dad returns to work. i am also going to teach english and german which get suprisingly good money - if i have 5 students a week, my rent is covered completely! So i want to get around 5! I have worked out the traveling should come to 1000 pounds, which is a lot but i am going to use my savings to do all i want to here, as otherwise i will be doing and seeing nothing whilst i am here and whats the point in coming? So yeah i want to extend my stay until the end of july and do a tour of the North East - fly to Fortaleza and go all along the coast from there to Vitória and then go inland to Belo Horizonte, by bus in 3 weeks! i am also going to visit a friend, Xavi in Florianopolis, in the south (just north of Porto Alegre) and do a tour to there by bus via Curitiba and take a different route back (via Igaçu Falls) so i see as much as possible. So i am happy :D
I
- Location:Belo Horizonte
- Mood:
happy
However, ive just realised ive a bit of a tricky financial situation at the moment. I can live on R$170 for bare minimum (rent, food and bus money) which is 53 pounds / $106 a week. But only for 10 weeks. After that ive no idea what i am going to do, use my savings, or get my parents to help, but i have the whole week stressing about it, as i am here another 20 weeks and i actually want to travel around and see stuff! But i dont want to starve...
i go onto campus only two days a week and i stay there all day - which is helping with the low bus fares. I am going to put up posters to teach English and German on those days too, to get extra cash, and spend Tuesdays at home, doing my washing, studying, buying food at the supermarket, etc. Then spend my savings going away for long weekends. This is all, of course, as long as my Technical Vocal class is on a mon or wed. (the board says 4-6pm mon and i hope it stays at that time but you never know here, they are so disorganised)
In other news i completed my module form for final year Portuguese and was disgusted at my ´optional´ module choices. Portuguese language was compulsary and I had to choose two other modules from the ´optional´ module list! In the Autumn semester there was 3 and Spring semester 2 modules to choose from (excluding dissertation options, which i cant do anyway, cos i want to do it in German and they dont allow us to do 2!) So i didnt actually choose in Spring and for Autumn, i knew one was a dead cert, but i could not choose between the 2 crappy leftover ones. There is a professor who is really boring and he teaches one of the Spring ones that i am doing, and i wasnt going to take his Autumn one as well, but the other one was a follow on module from one i did quite badly in last year, so i didnt choose it. Well, as long as i can stay awake in the boring man module i should pass, it looks interesting (as his modules always do), but he just makes even the most interesting of things dull. He has the same mannerisums as Tony Blair! GOD HELP ME!
- Location:Belo Horizonte
- Mood:
hungry
So ive been here a week, the bus journey was 6hours - and my bladder isnt good enough for that long, so i was trying to pee whilst travelling at 60mph over probably the most mountainous region in Brazil. not fun. Here is good, i´m staying with a family, a bus ride away from campus, but they dont have internet - hence my lack of posts. I´ll have access at the uni, hopefully from next week on. the family are very helpful and nice - sometimes too nice and havent given me key yet which is bugging me, depite telling me three times that ´"i´ll get you a key today". I´m gonna stay with them for convience and cheapness (though they also mentioned they wanted me to pay more, so we shall see!) But ive not much money and things are tight.... i wanna use the weekends to go travelling as ive only lectures on mondays and wednesday at the moment, (9.20am to 10.30pm with a few hours of breaks in between for food and doing more work!) but my singing module hasnt been timetabled as they are still finding a lecturer. which means no classes for 3 weeks. Anyway, the way my classes work out at the moment i get a long weekend, so i wanna take lots of trips to neighbouring cities, and spend tuesdays all day doing work, so i not only pass but also see as much as i can whilst i am here, money pending......its hot here, 33oC today, and i got sunburnt. Also i hate the mozzies, as they seem to love to devour me in my sleep.....
- Location:Belo Horizonte
- Mood: thirsty
Three days of amazingness in Rio and i arrived in Belo today, its an amazing flat, for a lot of money but from next week i'll be paying 35 pounds a week for bed and breakfast (private room) with a family, so i am not too worried. I just got the name and address of my person and i will email or call them tomorrow. kinda excited and kinda scared, as to what it'll be like. Hope we get on. I loved Rio so much that i am going back. it was 34oC there and here its only 27oC so its not as hot. The beach there is lovely and there's no beach here! But i will travel a lot, to the north and south of brazil... so i shall see what i like best. V excited now about studying at uni again. cant wait for orientation on Tuesday it'll be awesome!
So i survived the first week and a half in portuguese speaking countries and aparently according to the taxi driver tonight, he said my portuguese is good. so its gonna be great when i return!
- Location:Belo Horizonte, Brazil
- Mood: excited
Right now, i'm at the hostel, but although i've offically checked out, they are letting me store my massive case in the garage and i'm using their internet. I wasnt sure if there'd be internet at the hotel for free, so i'm making the most of it here. Then in an hour or so i'm getting a taxi to hotel i'm staying in with Adam. I definitely did break my toe when i painted my toenails, as the cobbled streets worsened it and its hurting quite a lot, and although Ailsa used surgical tape to tape it to my next toe, i dont think i'll be able to get to the hotel by public transport. However, i have saved a lot of money on what i did food wise the last few days so i can afford it. Breakfast is included and you can have as much as you want, and there is coffee and tea there all the time which you can help yourself too, and i went to the supermarket and bought a load of stuff to make lunch and dinner with. i ate in on tuesday and thursday night and Ailsa paid for the meal that we had on wednesday at this veggie restaurant, as a birthday treat (one of the yummiest ive had!), and i cooked for her on thursday whilst she packed. Yesterday we went to the castle, on the tram route 28 which is quite famous, and to Belem where we tried a pastries shop and went to the marina museum where there where lots of exploration history and models of ships they used to discover africa and brazil on. it was pretty cool. I had a lot of fun with ailsa and she was in the room opposite, so it was like we had our own little flat, as there was not many people around. Today Adam arrives so i'll not be alone, hurrah!
hope you're all well! xxxx
- Mood: tired
Also, Ailsa and Adam are going to be in Lisbon with me. The day Ailsa leaves, Adam arrives. Very well timed, i'd say. :)
- Mood:
suprisingly calm
Anyway, my news is that i've sorted most of the stuff for Brazil out, and my visa is now in my paws. i've my case in my room and its just got all this stuff thrown into it, that i'll need. Just gotta pack properly. Got so much to do still....
Ordered new glasses with the sun reaction lenses, so should be quite funky, i'm picking them up mid-week.
i'm applying for summer placements in film and tv but its quite competitive, so i'm not sure how easy it'll be to get one.
Lastly i just hope its easier for me to access the internet than last time, and that people will actually write to me this time. only ailsa and my mum wrote regularly. it sucked big time. Thanks ailsa, i hope you got my postcard i sent you last week, and that it made you smile :)
- Mood: stressed
i got a present of home-made jam from 3a today after i gave a presentation on christmas in england, and Stephanie in 3b gave me a present too. its my last full day in the school as i am only in for 1/2 an hour tomorrow, we (Claudia and I) are going on a cinema trip with 4B. I badly burnt my finger in hot oil today and have never had a burn this bad, that even when bandaged still hurts like hell. i guess around the nail is sensitive, eugh.
I have my landlord round at 1pm tomorrow to give back my deposit and i'm going to the opera tonight! i also want to go to Hofburg royal apartments as i still havent been, and the central graveyard where mozart is buried! but if i have time tomorrow after my landlord is gone. I've a bad cough and felt really rough yesterday so i only managed to go to the christmas market at the townhall and get Glühwien. What else? Oh yeah felicia messed me around yesterday after spent the afternoon sorting out loads of things i dont need to give to her and i was about to go round at 4pm as we agreed and she had totally forgotten and said she thought it was in the evening that we were meeting, so i went to meet her and we went to christmas markets and we were going to go back to mine so she could pick up the stuff but then she just said, i'm going to go home first and then come over. All i could say was "oh um ok" before she got off the train, and of course i stayed in the whole night expecting her to come over and then she didnt. fuck. Well i guess she doesnt deserve if she cant spare half an hour to come to say goodbye and pick up a few items!!! I was so angry....
Well i guess this is my last entry. I have my last lesson in 15 mins, so i'll probably be upset to leave :( SEE YOU ALL SOON!
- Location:Vienna
- Mood:
hurt
I love it here. I feel settled now and i'm being torn away from here. it's sad. i will come back though, and i do have a lot of good memories. I wrote in my scrapbook everyday and i took almost every opportunity. There are very few things i regret here and i think i had the best time i could have :) Just sad to have to go back now. I'm making the most of my last day here, that's for sure before i return on Saturday. see you guys soon!
- Location:Vienna
- Mood: tired
I'm feeling a lot better now. For several reasons...
1. I've bought and watched the whole of the first season of Scrubs. ;D
2. I've applied for accomodation in Brazil - with a family and after 2 weeks i get to decide if i want to stay or if i want to look for accomodation elsewhere. It's really cheap 30 pounds a week, and that includes my own room, breakfast and laundry.
3. I'm really making the most of my time here visiting lots of sights and trying to make the most of my time at the school. I'm often tired on thurs and fri afternoons so i need my DVDs to chill out to, as i'm far too tired to do touristy things. However, i've kept a written scrapbook diary and looking through it, i feel i've used my time well.
4. I hope to go to Salzburg next friday for a long weekend, as i have seen a lot in Vienna and want to come away from Austria, having seen more than just one city. Aparently Salzburg is do-able in 3 days so thats good.
5. I'm really sad i am leaving in 2 weeks but i have loved living here, despite it being lonely sometimes and feeling like a lot of people back home dont care or understand what its like. My mum said she posted me a letter so i should get that today or monday and ailsa sent me one too which i replied to the minute i'd finished reading it!!! I love getting mail and i just hope that i do get more in Brazil than i have done here, because i'm guessing it's going to be even more lonely there...
6. It's Christmas time and everything's so pretty here :) I'm looking forward to Christmas now :D
7. I've finally got used to getting up at 6.30 in the morning that 9am seems so middayish!!!! It's weird and you get more out of the day.
God how can i be this cheery so early in the day....?
- Location:Vienna
- Mood: cheerful
The pupils produced some amazing work on Friday and the teacher i worked with showed me. I presented Tea by Carol Ann Duffy from the collection Rapture, a very beautiful collection (i have also presented Text from it) Then they had to write a poem on the theme Winter. Some of the poems are amazing. It just shows how rewarding this job is.
It snowed on Monday. Lucky i bought some extremely warm and funky boots to keep my legs warm :)
- Location:Vienna
- Mood: hungry
Yesterday i kept myself busy by going to the Liechtenstein museum, which to be honest, i assumed would be about Liechtenstein and its royal family. But it was reneissance art. And far more boring than expected. For an hour of reneissance art is surely enough, but no. I was there 5 hours. So it was a little disappointing. Especially for €10.
I've realised it's actually quite lonely here, and i never see my housemates, which basically means i have the place to myself. On sunday i was feeling very down and emotional and i was very lonely and realised why. It's not only very difficult not having the internet at home to talk to people whenever i want, but its the fact that i have written so many letters and almost no one has replied. Mum, Grandma and Ailsa have all sent me a letter each, and Angie gave one to Adam, which he gave me when he visited. But i have sent 19 postcards and letters. 19. i have got 3 sent to my flat. I'm not sure i can be bothered anymore. It's disheartening - i dont know if i will be doing this in Brazil. Why should i when no one ever replies? Only mum and Adam have called me. And even then most of the time i call them. I called Angie and we talked for so long it cost me 11 pounds. She has never phoned me.
So yeah i am pretty pissed off at most of my friends and family right now. I just dont think they realise that although i am having fun here, i have one friend, and whenever i am at home i am alone, as i barely see my housemates. So the only interaction i get is with Felicia and when i go to the school...
Going back to Notts was a bad move, as i got used to being around so many people, all of the time and it was lovely seeing Adam and all my Nottingham friends. But then suddenly i am back here and alone. I shouldnt have gone back, as now i miss Adam more than ever, and feel lonelier than ever. Before it was easy to ignore the fact that no-one has responded to my letters but now its hard to get out of my mind.
I didnt sleep last night. Chang came back at 3.30am and her and her friend made noise all night. When i got up at 6.30, they were just off to bed... i am so tired....
- Location:Vienna
- Mood: tired
i am really enjoying myself here in vienna but i go back in four weeks and i dont want to go back in some ways because it's so amazing here and i finally feel like i've am settled here and now i have to leave. I am really enjoying the school, working with 10-14 year olds and teaching music, art, german and english to them is fun. Especially music. We've sung Let it Be by the Beatles and Do they know it's Christmas? which is fucking awesome. However i have realised teaching isnt for me and (as will be explained later) have decided to go for the film industry.
What else? Oh yes, more catholic holidays... The last one i didnt end up going to Italy as i wasnt feeling great so i just chilled out. However, i went back to Notts last week (Wed to Mon) to see Adam and people and i had a really nice time, i do feel i appreciate the time with him a lot more. I'm glad however, that i will be back for the whole of Jan to spend time with him. During this time i will also be working a hell of a lot on Iced Dice Productions, as after i graduate i have decided i want to make a real go of it and after speaking to my two business partners, Dave and Alex, we have decided to go for it. We have 4 films in different stages -
So that's that. I have re-designed the website and will uploaded on my return, to the UK, when my computer finally has internet access. It will have a shop to sell the films on, at a resonable price (just enough to cover the cost of disks, dvd cases and a small profit for fundraising for our other films) So watch this space.
Went to the christmas markets today, which was enjoyable and i hope to visit some more museums this week. Will update as soon as i can, hopefully before i leave here.
- Location:Vienna
- Mood: thirsty
On monday and wednesday i am going to the vienese film fest and then might be going to Rome for a few days as i have some days off work!
i like the school a lot and am enjoying myself, and have been going out clubbing etc quite a bit, to stop the impending doom of lonliness... and i do take a bellydancing course too. I'm not actually that good but i enjoy it. I was fairly happy here apart from being quite homesick and a bit lonely, until yesterday when i found out something dreadful...
Angie is quitting her course and that means i have to go to Brazil alone, which i really dont want to do, and i'm really upset about it....and i was going over to lisbon to spend a week with her at her flat and celebrate my birthday during this week and stay at Angie's flat, but now i'll be alone in a youth hostel in the red light district (aparently according to Angie thats where they all are!) on my birthday. i dont want that. at all. And it's getting me down....
- Location:Vienna
- Mood:
crappy - Music:The sound of the Students in the music room
- Location:London
- Mood: tired
I was feeling a little sad last night to not see Adam for such a long time but i have booked a flight back on 22nd September to Heathrow and he's going to meet me then. So it won't be too long til i see him next, but it's already been two weeks....
Still on the other hand i'm VERY excited and a little nervous. Will write in a few days when i arrive. Until then don't be suprised if i am not in contact much. I'm not taking my computer out until 27th September and i won't be calling much as it costs too much. I also ask that you PLEASE DO NOT CALL OR TEXT ME for the first week, as it will also cost me a bomb, I'll be getting an Austrian SIM card, as soon as i can to make calls cheaper. Thanks.
- Location:London
- Mood: mixed feelings
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