Bahia!

Bahia is such an interesting place.

I love street food. Anthony Bordain is my idol.

I've been writing notes on paper while wandering around the city. I wrote this after our first night, though my opinions and observations have since been remolded a bit and become more complex:

First Thoughts on Bahia

It's a beautiful city with happy, beautiful (albeit sometimes strangely dressed) people. There have been quite a few instances of strikingly beautiful women with atrociously tacky dresses.QUITE A FEW.

The terrain and the history of this city really lend itself to art. I'd write a lot more if I had enough time to breathe here. I'll try to get in some breathing time this week, but...

...It looks like most of our time this week is going to be spent not on the beach drinking cocktails, but exploring the city with Alexandre's cousins. But that's A-Okay. These cousins are way cooler (and by cooler, I mean less closed off and snooty and instead open and friendly and inclusive) than the southern side of the extended family. They've already filled me in on a ton of family gossip, and they have bookshelves in their rooms and they draw and play instruments for fun and when we're watching movies and or listening to music, they ask me what I think instead of just asking me, "Are you understanding?" and then going back to whispering amongst themselves. Like, literally whispering and making the room so awkward that I just leave. No, none of these comparisons are from experience....

The ocean is clear and sparkly here, even at night, but the boardwalk smells like pee. But that's cool, I don't plan to spend much time on the boardwalk.

We're gonna take a boat to some islands sometime this week. It'll probably as cool as the train ride.

More later!

Read Part II of our Bahia trip here.