this summer, i am going to brazil.  my trip is broken up into two parts:

1.  fortaleza, the state capital of ceará, located in northeastern brazil (arrival – june 19, 2009):
i am going to be taking classes in 400-level advanced portuguese classes (eek) at universidade federal do ceará!
i am staying at a hotel for a couple of days for orientation before being picked up by our host families!
i will be there for four weeks!
there will be side trips on the weekends to nearby points of interest!
and that is literally all i know about that.

2.  são paulo & rio de janeiro (arrival – august 19, 2009)
ryan is meeting me at the são paulo airport!  we’re staying for four nights before taking a bus to rio, where we will spend seven nights!  then we’re heading back to são paulo for a night or two before leaving for home!  i am so frickin’ excited!  i was nervous for a while because i really wanted to travel after the program ended and to actually see more of brazil, but i didn’t have a travel buddy and was hesitant about booking the tickets – people’s comments of “oh, i’m sure you’ll meet someone there” did little to calm my nerves.  but then i asked ryan (after 1.5 weeks of trying to figure out a way that wouldn’t sound at all like, “hey, have a spare $1,000?”) and he said yes!  i put off buying my plane tickets to brazil for weeks, so he actually ended up buying his tickets first!  more trip details to come!