Goodbye Rio

Sadly, my time in Brazil has come to an end. I'm back in the US, and though it's not in the foreseeable future, I'm sure I'll return to Rio again at some point. I had an absolutely amazing semester, and Rio's pretty much my favorite place on Earth.

A few things that struck me upon returning to small-town American life:

*My room here is so incredibly quiet. In Rio I could always hear traffic rushing by outside my window or sounds from nearby apartments, but here, there is often no sound at all. It's deafening, and it took quite awhile for my ears to stop ringing because of it.
*I have hot water in sinks! I've become so accustomed to only having cold water (even when there's a supposedly-hot-water knob) that at times it's hard to remember to actually USE the hot water that's now readily available.
*Because everything is air conditioned here, there's a drastic difference between indoor and outdoor temperatures. Some places in Brazil are air conditioned, but for the most part, I could wear the same outfit both indoors and outdoors without being uncomfortable. Not so in the United States. I keep forgetting my jacket.
*I can leave food or opened wrappers out without ants invading the area within ten minutes. It's wonderful to be so bug-free!
*I'd forgotten how soft clothes can be when washed with softener and dried in a dryer instead of on a clothesline. Everything's so incredibly comfy now!
*Then there's the whole idea that I can have a dirty article of clothing clean and ready to wear within only a couple hours. It blew my mind at first. Clothes in Brazil took a day to dry at best, and often even longer when it was especially humid. That meant I always had to be planning ahead with what I wanted to wear, but now I'm free to procrastinate to the last two-hour time block (the amount of time it takes to wash and dry something) all I want.
*American coins now seem so foreign to me. They're different shapes and weights from Brazilian coins, and dimes especially seem so small, light, and thin that I can hardly believe they're real.
*Styles here for girls my age now seem so casual. In Brazil I wore a skirt or dress probably at least five days a week and didn't stand out at all. Here, most girls I see are in athletic shorts and t-shirts, and skirts are all but nonexistent. I went a semester hardly seeing any girls in t-shirts, and now I can hardly find one who's not.
*Everything around here is just so open and green. Rural Wisconsin is certainly a far cry from the high rises of Rio's Zona Sul.
*I can get to everything so quickly here! In Rio, having to ride a bus for an hour or more to get somewhere was not at all uncommon. That didn't bother me, but being in a place where I can cross from one side of town to the other in only ten minutes certainly amazes me. I could hardly cross a single neighborhood in Rio in that amount of time.

It's been interesting being able to look at the US from a sort of "foreign" point of view. Being out of the country for so long has definitely made me see everyday things in a new light.

I already miss Rio and my Brazilian life. I know I'll be back eventually!