The night before Rio...

It was the night before Rio,

And all through the house,

Not a creature was stirring,

Unless you count the annoying little ants that creep through every house in this city.

Well, it started with the best of intentions.

As I've already indicated, tomorrow I'm flying to Rio de Janeiro (you know, the city where the girl from Ipanema is from) for the weekend. And I'm kind of excited. Instead of visions of sugar plums, I'm betting I'll be dreaming of the Cristo Redentor tonight. Or maybe peanut butter. Still craving it.

I have to be at the airport at six da manha. In other words, bright and early.

I think I walked into something of a job this week when a man overheard a friend and I conversing in English and stopped us to chat. Turns out he was looking for native English speakers to work as teachers for his students. I attended a couple of his classes this week and hope to begin teaching a few of his clients in the near future. As I found out, teaching English in this particular style actually helps improve my Portuguese, which I need desperately right now. Many of the lessons are entirely verbal and consist of a lot of translation and pronunciation - two things I need to improve on. Oh, and I'll get paid.

Last Saturday was St. Patrick's Day in case you didn't realize. I didn't until I happened upon an Irish Pub called All Black near Avenida Paulista. And since I've never been in an Irish pub before and it being St. Paddy's Day and all I took a look around. (Luckily, I was wearing green.) The place was packed at four in the afternoon and everyone had a Guinness or choppe verde (green beer) of course. Brazil doesn't celebrate St. Patrick's Day, so for the few Americans and Europeans in São Paulo it's like our little secret.

Back with the scoop on Rio next week.