Happy Birthday to Me and My Blog

    A few days ago I had my 24th birthday on planet earth. 20 of those birthdays we're celebrated in the United States of America, two we're celebrated in Zimbabwe, and the last two we're celebrated here in Brazil. I'm not going to pretend that one's 24th birthday brings more wisdom, but maybe in a way it does. I definitely am more aware of the age gap between myself and early college age. I guess I've reached the adult stage of life. Many thoughts about this age are still swirling around in my brain. So I won't bother to try and explain them.

     My favorite birthday present was this picture that my good friend David drew for me.

  

    I like candles. So I found a sweet bottle and me and my German friends Patrick got some candles and made this totally awesome candle bottle. We put new candles on top and burn them. 

   This year there are many international students studying here and we've been getting to know them, and they're really cool! So the other day at lunch we we're all sitting together and realized we had a huge international table. We have one Brazilian guy dead center, than to the left, Jon the other American, Hishem a guy from Morroco, Patrick and Joel from Germany, three Paraguian girls, I only remember the names of the last two, Jasmin and Pamela, and then, yours truly, Me.

   I've really calmed down quite a bit in my later age, I do a lot more reading and contemplating on life. I've started to appreciate the finer things in life. No longer do I simply desire to trek across the face of the earth exploring unknown lands. Now I would rather sit inside making cookies and reading a book.

    Just kidding that would be horrible if I turned out like that. Here's a sweet tree we found at a park in São Paulo a few weeks ago. We climbed around in it for a while, till the police came and told us to get down. I guess they don't actually know what trees are for.

  Anyways, I'm going to try to keep my blog a little more updated now. I've realized its a pretty awesome tool and is way better then facebook. So enjoy and please keep reading it!
-Chris

The Big Rock

    I realize it has been quite a while since I have posted anything and I'm pretty sure that most of you are just sitting there waiting anxiously to hear from me. So I thought I should make a new post. This past weekend my roommate Jon and I went hiking with the students at the seminary here. Unlike most normal hikes, we hiked at night starting at midnight and hiking straight through the night. It was an awesome time and I took a lot of pictures so here they are for you to enjoy!

Backing my new pack for its maiden voyage

New french press ready to go

Some flowers on top

A gap between to boulders

The sun starting to clear the clouds

The very top

The top from down below

The beginning of the long way down.

So beautiful

The top from a distance

A picture over one of the steep edes

I laid down at the edge to take this. Its literally a 100+ foot drop.

The trail was really hard sometimes

Jon being a MAN

I was pumped. Except for the huge spiders.

The trail went through some really thick areas.

Crazy washouts.

Roughly 4 feet deep

Nice view

Me at the top. The wind was super strong.

     Well there you have it. An update on my life. One of the cool things I got to do. Otherwise, I'm still working hard here learning my purtugues and learning to fit it. Its getting a lot better! I'm making friends and I'm able to communicate with them a little better then before. If you want to ask me questions or just talk, I'm on facebook and here's my email! thechris16@gmail.com

São Paulo

   I know its been a few weeks since I've updated. I'm sorry about that! Here are some pictures for you to enjoy. This last weekend I was in São Paulo staying with some friends. I'm not a city person but I still enjoyed it. Here are some pictures for you to enjoy.

Breakfast

Somebody had a sweet garden on their roof.

A nice park

A cool street only people could walk on. No cars.

Massive cathedral

                 Now this was interesting. You had to pay to have a candle lit for someone, but it wasn't a real candle. It was an electronic candle thing, and it was like a vending machine. You put some money in and a candle turned on.

View from our apartment.

The very center of the city.

A messy fun time with the kids this week.

    So there's a bunch of pictures from my life. It looks like I'm having tons of fun, and I do have fun a lot. But living here has not been easy, its actually really hard a lot of the time. First, learning the language has been frustrating because I like to talk to people and make new friends. Thats hard to do when you can't speak the language very well. Another thing I'm struggling with is going from being completely independent in the States to being completely dependent here. That is really hard for me. You can be praying for me in those two areas.

The Great Food Post

   So I realized I do a lot of eating down here. Not only do I eat a lot, I have a lot of pictures of food. So i figured I should make a post about it. So enjoy the great food post.

Eating at a little shop in Atibaia

Eating from a street vendor. Don't be deceived by the face, it was amazing.

Brazilian Pizza

Some weird juice. It was good.

Out for breakfast.

Taco night.

Eating mini pizzas with the kids.

Some sort of white-sauce ground beef thing I invented.

The delicious egg, cheeseburger, hotdog, ham, and cheese sandwhich.