Arrival

After over 32 hours of travel, I arrived in Jaragua du Sol with 9 other Obies. We were all exhausted and disgusting when we arrived, but relief wasn't instant. The check-in desk reluctantly reopened for us, but the computer was broken, so we have to check in tomorrow. Also, our original hotel was "closed" (later we found out that it actually is not closed, but they probably didn't make arrangements in time and the hotel was instead full of soccer players) according to the festival workers, so they got us another hotel, which is further away. No one speaks very good english, so we're not sure if buses are possible or if we are far enough to even need buses.
Rachel and I couldn't open the door to our room because it was somehow blocked by the TV table. Once we got past that obstacle we discovered a bug infestation and quickly switched rooms with the help of my phrase book ("insecto!") since the hotel staff do not speak much english either. Now everything is settled for the night and we will figure everything out tomorrow. I still have no idea what is happening at the festival tomorrow...or at all.

Home for the Holidays

To start this journal off, I wanted to begin at the beginning of my favorite winter break ever.

You know it's going to be a good break when you arrive home and the first meal on the table looks like this:


Steak with blue cheese on top, kale, rice - if you couldn't tell.

Tree decorating, family gatherings, old friend gatherings, new friends, recording, treat eating, sledding, skiing - it was a busy, but relaxing break. And perfect. I spent most of the time in some stage of the recording process with my good trumpet friend, Nick. (he's both good at trumpet and a good friend) The recording process was somehow transformed from a horrible, stressful experience to a fun, 3 week long adventure. I'm not quite sure how that happened, but I know it involved a lot of cookies and OnDemand TV. Well, at any rate, our tapes were in on time (postmarked Jan 12) and nobody knows any results until April!

I'd have to say one of my favorite moments of break was being out-skied by my Dad on so many slopes. It's like he's been there his whole life.

After a very late night of desperate packing paired with goodbyes to family and a few friends, I woke up for an early morning trip to the airport to begin travelling to Brasil.