July 7
We flew to Florianopolis around dinnertime and took a taxi to our hostel. The hostel was really cool. The common area was outside. There was a small pool and a VW hippie van in the driveway. There were three dorm rooms and about 20 people staying at the hostel at any given time. We dropped our stuff out and went to the outdoor common area to meet people as we are dinner that the hostel puts on each night. We mainly hung out with Giulio from Italy, Cesar from Germany, and Brendon from Canada. There were also a few other kids we talked to, two from Scotland and two from Ireland. After dinner, we all drank some beers at the hostel until 11 pm and then we walked to a club with a “Green Go” party. I’m convinced it’s supposed to sound like Gringo because it was all Gringos, people not from Brazil. All the guys were backpackers and all the girls were from Brazil. That part sketched me out at first but it ended up being normal. We drank and danced to a local band. We stayed until about 2 am and then I walked home with Logan and Rick. I like the kids in our hostel a lot. It’s a great group.
July 8
We slept in and all met up in the common area for food. Brendon and Giulio tagged along to go sand boarding with Logan, Rick and I. We took a public bus to sand dunes and rented some sand boards. It was the best sand boarding I have ever done because the dunes were fairly long to board down and the sand was a little wet and faster. You could even turn a little on this sand so that was cool. We boarded for an hour and then walked to the beach nearby. We got some food and then some guy drove us to the bus stop to go back to our hostel. We met up with everyone from our hostel and all went to the club from last night to watch the Germany vs Brazil semifinal match. I got some dinner outside the club with some friends and then we went in to meet up with the rest of the group. The game was a bloodbath 7-1 Germany. In the first 30 minutes, Germany had 5 goals. The club was filled with Brazilians and it was a humiliating loss, so that was weird to see. After the game, we hung out in the club for a little and then went back to the hostel to eat dinner. We hung out there for three hours and then I went to a local club with Logan, Giulio, and Cesar. We met up with some other people there from the hostel. The club was right across from the sand dunes that we sand boarded on earlier in a wooden small building. The club was on the second floor in a small 100 feet by 50 feet room. It was all locals except for us and there was a live band. I had no idea how to dance to this music but I tried to with this one Brazilian girl who was staying at our hostel. I don’t have any moves. When we wanted to leave, we tried to catch a taxi but there weren’t any because all the locals just drove here. After 15 minutes, Guilio spoke Portuguese to these girls and they drove us back to our hostel. That was nice of them. It was a good experience to see a local dance club and how different it is than our grinding clubs in the USA.
July 9
We woke up around 10 am and all met for breakfast. We all decided to go on a hike today to some unimpressive waterfall. The hike was supposed to be nice though. We hiked for about an hour and a half through the forest right next to the edge of a huge lake. It was a lot of up and down so it was pretty tiring. At the end of the hike, we got to a small fisherman town and ate outside at a restaurant on the water. We all split some chicken and rice dishes. We didn’t make it to the waterfall yet because it’s ten minutes further so we decided to check it out. It was ok. It was something to hike to I guess. We then backtracked ten minutes and boarded a taxi-boat back to the town our hostel was in. After the thirty minute ride, we were back. We went back to the hostel to change and then all went to an English Pub called the Black Swan. We got a table to watch the Argentina vs Netherlands semifinal game. It was the slowest game ever. Nothing happened all game and the score after extra time was 0-0 so they went into a shoutout. Argentina won the shoutout and now it will be Argentina vs Germany in the finals. We walked back to the hostel for an Indian food dinner and them hung out for a few hours. Around 11 pm, the bar at the hostel closed and most of us went to bed. Logan, Rick and I had to wake up early for our flight to São Paulo, so we called it an early night as well. I really enjoyed my time here. We met a great group of people and enjoyed just chilling on this island in Brazil.