Bem tarde!

I have never been happier to be Catholic than I was today. After a day of feeling disconnected from the people here because I don't speak Portuguese going to mass and being able to understand what was going on and feel in community with the people regardless of the language barrier was an amazing feeling. It was a children's mass too which was beautiful and they did a puppet show for the homily. AN interesting observation I made was that most of the people at the mass were women.
We went to the hippie market at Ipanema and saw the beautiful beach at Ipanema, too which is a wealthier area than Copacabana. I got my first glimpse of the favella today as we passed the entrance to one on our way home. The police guard the bottom of the hill as they forbid residents of the favella from coming down into the city after a certain hour because of the crime they are known to cause...more on that later.)
We are visiting a school in the favella for the first time tomorrow. I am really looking forward to this and I can't wait to tell you all about it.
THe food here is absolutely amazing and I was so happy to get to go to the market today and buy fruit and juices and so much fresh stuff that is much more hard to come by in the US. I am slowly learning some street smarts and I am practicing the language as much as possible. Mass this morning was actually a great chance to practice pronunciation. I cooked everyone dinner when we got back tonight..and even with the limited spices I had to work with the vegetable pasta was a hit....perhaps the caipirinhas helped my kitchen cred ;)
We went to a museum today and one of the "exhibits" was a projector screen with the World Cup playing. Welcome to Rio. All of you soccer players/fans....this is absolute heaven.
Tomorrow's goals: purchase Brazilian swimwear and a Brazil soccer jersey. Run along Copacabana beach.
That's all for now...