Atravessando a fronteira!

It's been a minute since I updated my blog (sorry fam). So life has continued outside of the blog. About a month ago our dona da casa (landlady), drove us to Uruguay. She's a pretty cool lady. She talks a lot and used to have a restaurant, which means she cooks delicious food for us all the time. We live in the house behind hers and her natural inside voice is yelling so she'll be like:

MENINAS! EU FIZ UM BOLINHO PRA VOCÊS!!

She comes from Caxias do Sul, a city northwest of Porto Alegre and she has a different kind of accent. Instead of the "ch" sound that most Brazilians make for the "t" (quente becomes quenche) she has the kind of accent a Spanish-speaker would have. And she sometimes rolls her double r's instead of making an h-sound.

So we went to Chuí, a town that's half in Brazil and half in Uruguay. There's no big fence or anything - just an avenue and one side is Brazil and the other, Uruguay. Here's a pic of me standing in two countries at once! Woohoooo!

We did some serious duty-free shopping in Uruguay. People say things are much cheaper in Uruguay but I have yet to be convinced. I think it's just tax free. So I got some new pants in Chuí cause I had miraculously ripped two pairs of pants. I'm going to pretend that that was a coincidence and not a result of any weight fluctuation. I think Brazilian pants are engineered to make you look great! Everything you put on does magic for your bunda! 

People in Chuí speak Spanish or Portuguese or Portanhol (Português + Espanhol). I couldn't tell if people were speaking Spanish to me or Portuguese with a heavy Spanish accent; I think sometimes they weren't sure which language they were speaking either. Everything got all jumbled and I just came away with my brain hurting.

Rylee and I went with our friends Iarema and Thiago. 

Here are some pictures of the paisagem to Uruguay. There're just wetlands and cows for miles. How pretty!