Clare Elsewhere

Brazil is huge. 87% the size of the United States. If you had a little less than six months to experience the United States, where would you go? What would you do?  Would you try to see all the famous landmarks- Yellowstone, the Black Hills?  The historical spots- the Liberty Bell, state capitals, Alcatraz? The beautiful, famous architecture or the best beaches?  New York alone has 260 registered landmarks. Would you just spend the six months in the US in one state, really getting to know New York, and through that gain a better understanding of the country as a whole? Or would you try to hit all 50 states and only get a piece of each? That's what I've been trying to figure out. I'll be in Brazil for almost six months, exactly what do I want to see? How much can I experience? I think a lot of that will be determined when I get there, going on day trips with my classmates, taking advantage of cheap flights or jetting off to a special concert or festival. Spea

        It's an interesting line to walk, determining how much of a picture to paint. On the one hand, I'm fairly detail-oriented, and have a tendency to share almost too much, to try to answer questions before they can be asked. On the other.. this is the Internet. I don't really know what people can do with my personal information, and I'd prefer not to find out.  That being said... I think I can still share a bit more.             Brazil will not be my first abroad experience, so it isn't the novelty of it that excites me, or the foreign experience. I'm looking forward to the vibrancy, the different lifestyle, the culture and experience... and all of it for a long stretch of time. It will definitely require me to climb out of my comfort zone, and hopefully in that develop myself a little further. The language aspect is very daunting, but also very exciting.          I lived in Guatemala over this past summer and had hoped to strengthen my Spanish skills, b

  My first time writing a blog, and to be honest I don't really read blogs, so I'm not quite sure where to go with this. From what I can tell, blogs are 'Dear Diary' posts that people intentionally publish, and those two concepts, 'public', and 'diary', seem mutually exclusive to me. Maybe that's just my idea of a diary as a very emotional, private affair, which isn't necessarily true...                Anyways. I leave for Salvador da Bahia, Brazil, in less than a month.  Salvador is in Northern Brazil, on the coast, and is referred to as 'da Bahia' because it is in the state of Bahia, Brazil.  It's full name is '  Salvador da Bahia de Todos os Santos', which means 'City of the Holy Savior of the Bay of all the Saints', which is a headache to English-speakers considering all the prepositions, and a headache to all Portuguese-speakers listening to that botched pronunciation. So Salvador it is.  Salvador is the capit