Date Written: Feb. 21, 2002
Current Location: Florianapolis hostel
Subject: Goodbye to Holly and off to Florianapolis, the Banco do Brasil

Wednesday, February, 20, 2002
Well, I made it here and have found a hostel with no problem. I met a pretty cool Swiss guy named Phillippe and we have been hanging out all day. I'm sitting here waiting for a call from the P's and the bro...
So in the mean time I will try to tell the tale of the last few days. Yesterday was a really cool day...a bit sad but really fun. It was sad because I was leaving San Paolo and Holly, who I had began to grow a bit fond of...but fun because it was a relaxing day. After coming home around 6:00 a.m. for the umteenth time, I woke up relatively early, around 10:30. I just chilled around the hostel talking to a few people. One cool girl, Sonia, from Switzerland and this other guy, Andrew, a pretty cool Aussie who actually ended up passing the whole day with Holly and I...that actually gave me mixed feelings but that's another story. So the girl Sonia had an interesting thing to say. She was at the end of a six week vacation and was about to return to Switzerland. Not just back to work though, which she didn't feel happy about, but back to -15 celsius and tons of snow...OUCH! And here I am complaining about going back to h-town to a job I actually like, a city I love, and nice warm weather. Man, I just feel bad...but the thing is, for me, it's more than just going back to the rat race (or I guess the mouse race in my case). For me, there are just so many things I want to do, and it's tough to know that I can't do them all at the same time.
Anyway, I also started finally on sewing my freakin' backpack since I was leaving that night. We went to this great lunch near the hostel and then Holly, Andrew, and I actually took the time to go catch a flick. We saw "A Beautiful Mind" which was good...didn't see Mike though. Then we went to get money...a process that still has not taken less than an hour. DAMN I gotta roll...

Date Written: Feb. 23, 2002 (7:55 p.m.)
Current Location: Bus from Florianapolis to Sao Paulo

Wednesday, Feb. 20, 2002 (con't)
Well, here I am on the bus back to SP. Before I talk about anything else, I want to catch up with the last few days. It has been great and I have met awesome people. For some reason, I am not sad to leave. I had a blast, met some great travelers, and enjoyed the city to the fullest. Now THAT is true AC style. Damn, I could just go on like this forever.
So back to the day that I went to Florianapolis...we FINALLY did get some cash at good old Citibank on Avenida Paulista and then stopped for a couple beers. It was cool but I really wanted that time alone with Holly, just because she and I had become such pals. Seriously though, I still don't feel like I was able to properly thank her for being around for me over the past week. There are a bunch of people I would not have met and things I wouldn't have done if it wasn't for her. Anyway, we went back to the hostel...I packed my stuff, and it was time to roll. Holly walked me to the subway station and we talked a bit but mostly about her doctor friend who was MIA. I still wonder if he ever showed up. I doubt it. Anyway, I told her thanks, and that I would never forget her and said good bye.
So I caught the subway up to Tiete and bought a bus ticket for an overnight bus to Florianapolis with no trouble. I was pretty full of emotion then, thinking about how here I was, once again, off to a destination I had never heard of a few weeks ago with no real plan or place to stay. I thought a lot about the crazy path I had taken and all the people I had met. Let me just take a second here to mention that I still have been thinking about Solange quite a bit and inside me I still have this urge to go back and try to find her. That sounds crazy, I know. That girl really stuck on me. If I do go back to Buenos Aires, I will certainly spend some time trying to find her. Good old Penelope...still makes me smile.

Thursday, Feb. 21, 2002
So the next morning I arrived in Florianapolis at about 8:30 or so. I had seen in the lonely planet book that there was a hostel near the bus station so I had pretty much decided that that was my move, but I would check the info booth at the bus station anyway. There at the booth, I met another key player in the trip, Phillipe, this guy from Switzerland...Now and forever dubbed P-Swissy. He was there with this German married couple, Steffan and Connie, who turned out to be semi-cool...well, he was but she was kinda weak...which I'll get to later. The couple wanted to find a place with doubles, which the hostel didn't have so P-Swissy and I went one way and they went the other. After a slightly tiring, 10 min. uphill walk we found the hostel and checked in. Luckily for us, it was early so they were still serving breakfast. So we went to grub. It was weird for us because after the bus ride it really felt like it was more like noon. Little did we know, by noon we would have accomplished quite a bit. At breakfast I met another really cool guy from Mexico named Luis. He actually has spent quite a bit of time in the US. He goes to college at a private school called Simpson college in Iowa. He is doing his final semester abroad in San Paolo and had come down to Florianapolis for the weekend. Actually, we might hang out tomorrow. Anyway, he P-Swissy, and I all set out in search of an internet place. Florianapolis is a great town. The centro was quite similar to that of Buzios, but much bigger. There were tons of People in the streets and many shops in restaurants. There were hotties out in full force. Oh yeah, another one of our missions on this little outing was to find an ATM for P-Swissy, which, as I cannot state enough is NO easy task in this freakin' country. Let me pause and talk about that for a second because I don't think I have discussed it yet. It turns out that the most common banks here in Brazil are all on this "Unibanco" system or some crap so most tourist are pretty much screwed because these banks only exist in Brazil. So to give you an idea, I would say 90% of the ATMs here are on that system. Well, there is this one bank, Banco do Brasil, that foreigners can use because it takes cirrus. What is funny is that as everyone learns that B do B is the place, it becomes this place that is like an oasis in the middle of the desert. I mean, whenever you pass one, you try to make a mental note of where your good friend, Banco do Brasil, is located. You can count on that place like old faithful. How I learned that B do B is your friend is actually an interesting little story...dammit, some dude just sat next to me....so much for the comfort cruise...wait-sweet, the driver just made him move b/c he was in the wrong seat. Two seats, all to myself again!! So anyway, back to how I learned the B do B was the place to be. Back when I was in Iguazu...remember that it was the first time I had been back in Brazil since the 8 hours in the airport the previous week. Well, back then, if you remember, I changed a $20 for free after talking to the dude at the currency exchange. The point is, I hadn't tried the ATM in Brazil yet. Well, the only thing I had was about 25 reals (about 12 bucks) left over form that, 11 of which I spent on snacks and beer at the Paudimar hostel the day that I got there. The only other money I used that day was US dollars. I still had 14 reals and I figured that was enough to get to the airport and then I can go to one of the billion ATMs I had seen in the Sao Paulo airport. Well, remember I had said that cabbie had ripped me off on that ride to the airport. Well, I'm sure he did but it was 5:00 a.m. and I had to get there and he knew he had the power. That sucks. Well, he chrged me 18 reals (which is ridiculous) but once again, I had no real choice and didn't care at that moment. I told the guy I only had 14 reals and he says he will wait while I get cash. So I went into the Iguazu airport and got cash from the ATM without thinking anything of it...I actually got enough cash to last the next couple days. Now I should mention that that airport was about as big as the one in Bloomington IL. Rest assured, there was ONLY 1 ATM in the whole entire thing. Well, it happened to be my buddy, Banco do Brasil, but I didn't see the significance of that at the moment since I hadn't had any ATM trouble prior to that. Anyway, I pay the bastard and move on with life. When I met up with Tony in SP, he obviously needed to get cash. So he starts trying all these ATMs and none work. Of course, I am puzzled because I had JUST used one a couple hours before in Iguazu. I tried my card and it didn't work either...WTF!!?? So than I say, "We need to use the same one I used in Iguazu..." I find my receipt and BAM, there it is right at the top, Banco do Brasil. So at that point, we knew that Banco do Brasil was our friend soall we needed to do was find a B do B ATM so we could move on. Problem. ONCE AGAIN, here we are in an international airport of a city with 20 MILLION people that is the business center of the CONTINENT, and there is NO Banco do Brasil. No ATM at all that accepts foreign cards!!?? That is ridiculous...especially considering I had just left an airport that is smaller than some houses I've seen, and there was no trouble there. Funny. What's actually even funnier is that a week later when we got back to SP, I mean, after a full week of establishing a relationship with B do B, we learned that it DOES NOT work in Sao Paulo!!! What the hell is up with this country!!
So anyway, before I went off on that HUGE tangent, P-Swissy, Luis, and I were trekking thourgh the city, trying to find a B do B. finally we found one and it came through for us...but the whole process of trying different banks and finding one still took us well over an hour. It was okay in this case because we really got a chance to take in the city. We also did internet and got some grub. The girl where we ate told us some cool places to go in town too. So as I was saying, we had seen the city, gotten cash, done e-mail, and found places to go out to...ALL that BEFORE noon. Very nice start to a hell of a time in Florianapolis. Whew, gotta take a break. More later...

Date written: Feb 25th 6:11 a.m.

...I'll go back to Florianapolis for now...we had just gotten money from the B do B. One thing that sucked was that it was pretty rainy and cloudy that day, so the beach was out of the question. I screwed around in the hostel for awhile, recruited some people to go out that night...oh year, the German couple ended up coming to the hostel after all. I also met another couple from England that were REALLY cool (Richard and Jennifer). After that, I took about a 2.5 hour nap. Then P-Swissy and I got my stupid converter thing working so I would be able to cut my hair. I did, although the lighting was terrible, then took a nice long shower...it was low-flow though:) I was feeling much better and ready to roll. P-Swissy ran to the store and bought us a frozen pizza so we went down to the common area to eat. We talked to a few girls and also met another guy named Philip from Germany...who turned out to be super cool. He is actually studying in Buenos Aires at the moment. There will be more on him in a minute.

Well, I still had some rum and whiskey left over from the last night in Sao Paulo so I brought it down to get the night started. By the way, just before that, I waited in my room for the P's and Duane to call, but it didn't happen. I also wrote in my journal a bit. Anyway, we all had a good time in the hostel getting to know each other. P-Swissy and Luis did a great job recruiting these 2 chics to go out with us, Nicole (Swiss) and Sandra (Argentina). Unfortunately, they turned out being quite lame, but it took about 24 hours for that to show through completely. German Phil had heard about this great club, Cafe Cancun, that was near the hostel so we decided that that was out move. That place was awesome!! There was one huge cafe side where people were eating, drinking, hanging out, and then there was a dance club connected to it that you had to pay to get into. We hung out on the cafe side for about an hour and a half. I talked to these girls for awhile who were pretty nice but turned out to be lesbians. It was a little tough to communicate but one understood a bit of Spanish so that helped. Actually, the girls in that place were not all that friendly (but of course they were all hotties!) which was a bit annoying. Somewhere along the way, Luis and P-Swissy disappeared with those 2 chics...sadly the next day I would find out that they only went to this stupid casino (they were all over down there) b/c the girls wanted to just hang out and smoke pot...a very lame night for those guys. The rest of us hit the club...which by the way had a $R15 cover....I mean a true cover....you didn't get drinks with that. Man, that was the first time I ever saw that in Brazil. It was a cool club and we had a blast. I got bombed and somewhere in the midst of dancing in that place I took my shirt off...that's hilarious. I guess I can't make fun of Mike anymore. What was funny was after I did it, a bunch of other guys did too and I was a bit afraid I had just put out the gay distress signal:) But then chics flocked to us so it ended up okay. About 10 min. Later though, the bouncers came and made us all put them back on. I also just want to say that the reason I did it was becasue it was hotter than hell in there. None of the freakin' clubs in Brazil have AC. I'm sure you can imagine the amount of heat generated in there. All in all, it was a great night...even though I did something so stupid as taking off my shirt in the club. We left the club around 5:15 (by then it was only German Phil and me) and headed back to the hostel. Phil and I sat and talked outside for about an hour...mostly about what the hell I was gonna do next. He basically thought I should finish school and then travel. Also it would give me time to save dough. He was right, atleast my brain thiks so...but let's not get into that again. Anyway, around 6:15 I hit the sack...another great night. Another night of seeing the sun come up.

AC