My Year In Brasil: First Month

My time in Brazil has been great so far. I've been here almost two months now and the time has flown by. I started my year in the country, landing in Sao Paulo, Sao Paulo. It's the biggest city in Brazil, people consider it their New York, and is the 7th largest metropolitan area in the world. After a 5-hour layover, I flew to Uberlandia, Minas Gerais. Meeting my host family was amazing. They were holding a massive welcome banner for me and said I was their new son. That weekend my mom, Thelma said she now had a coffee son (Luiz Otavio) and a milk son. We spent a few days at their apartment in Uberlandia then headed to my city, Iturama.
The first night here was crazy. I went with my host sister (who's now living near Portland, Oregon) to 'rodeo'. It was like a normal fair at first, a bit bigger than the GNE, then we went to a stadium where there was bull riding going on. The stadium was about half full then the bull riding stopped and a country (sertaneja) show started. Thousands of people piled into the stadium and we stayed there until around 12. Then, everyone migrated over to a club called Cabana. It was unreal- we stayed until almost 8am.
I had two weeks before school started and spent that time playing soccer, basketball, swimming and hanging out with friends I met at the rodeo. Then school started, at 7:30 am. It was rough. First few weeks at school consisted mostly of sleep. I started bringing my ipod to school and that helped keep my head of the desk. For awhile I could hardly understand any portuguese and there were few people who spoke English. School was good though overall and I met a lot more people. On the weekends, my family has taken me to see their other properties. Along with their house in Iturama and their apartment in Uberlandia, they have a cottage and three farms. I could go on forever about my time here but instead here's a few photos.