6 year old beer vendors= completely normal???

So the rest of my time at Brazil was not nearly as exciting as it could have been. I didn't get lucky enough to go to the Amazon or Rio, but I got to really absorb myself into the culture of Salvador, which is a pretty immense city itself. By the end, I didn’t feel intimidated by the streets anymore and could tell you where everything was. I even got to go to the other side of the city, by the lighthouse. There is a big shopping mall in Barra that had McDonalds- 8 real or 4 US Dollars for a Big Mac hamburger, 16 real or 8 DOLLARS for a meal. Pretty interesting, huh? I myself had my final Subway, which was interesting to order in Non-Portuegese. Now I thought knowing Spanish would have helped me out. No. Wrong, wrong, and wrong again. Some find it insulting, and don’t understand a word of it. It definitely makes you feel inferior and your main way of speaking is through childlike hand gestures. Hand gesture for peach ice tea anyone? The irony of this expensive shopping mall is that directly across the streets are the favellas. A group of shoeless/shirtless kids were running around only an intersection away. See ‘Carnaval: Putting Mardi Gras to Shame’ for that lovely explanation. Nearby the lighthouse are several beaches. One morning we spent the day at the beach. They have vendors walking around with cheese, which they fry in front of you and put Oregano on, sugar cane, and ice cream. You have to buy a chair. One kid even helped someone pick up the umbrella and expected money. The one we went to though was relatively friendly. There were these adorable little girls in front of us, smiling and looking at us. Someone actually came up to my 6’1 blond friend Ali and told her she looked like a Brazilian singer. Clearly, as you can imagine though, we looked far from Brazilian. We were the only white people on the beach, even as tan as we are. The highlight of my entire trip by far, BY FAR, was a futbol game. We drove an hour into the more rural areas and went to a decent sized soccer game. There were about 300 of us from SAS who piled into this coliseum style stadium. Instead of the usual hot dogs and pop you’d expect, little kids are running around with beer, tee shirts, coconut popcorn (yum!), sugar cane, coconut ice cream and other various items of food. Of course everyone ran to the SKOL stand (beer). The kicker? Being with the locals. I talked with some locals and they taught me some phrases to say to the other team. Now you know I wouldn’t go to a sports game without getting all competitive! It was so much fun! Brazil might have had its ups and downs, but it made a lasting impression. It was hit or miss. Some of those locals might have been dirt poor, threatening, and scary. The streets might have been infested with poverty and seemed of urine. However, there were the little kids who smiled at you and got excited to see you. Not to mention the locals who were so much fun to be around at the game. There is definitely a spirit here. Bon Jia Brasilia!