Birthday weekend

I am having a wonderful time here doing all kinds of neat things. this weekend my host sister, her boyfriend, and one of my friends and i all went to this little city called Barra do Jacuipe. It~s this remote beach with all kinds of neat scenery and amazing waves. we stayed there from saturday morning until sunday afternoon. it was beautiful (i got a little burnt, but it was totally worth it). it´s definately my favorite beach so far. you´d be proud of me guys, i tried new things! haha...food i mean. we were waiting for the rain to stop *it´s been raining a lot, cause that´s what winter here means, more rain, but still hot* and it was lunch time, so we stopped at this little bar on the beach and ordered food. they asked me if i liked crab, and i was like...of course! i love crab! i had eaten it at various restaurants in the US...well i didn´t really think about it, but eating crab here means they bring out the entire crab! they just pluck it out of the ocean and throw the whole thing in a boiling pot of water. they brought us like 4 or 5 entire crabs for only R$2.50. which translates to $1.25 US. They taught me how to tear off the legs, pound them with a mallot and get the meat out. then my host sister grabbed one of the head/bodies and said that it was the best part. she showed me how to tear off one part, break off another, separate the top from the bottom and where to find the ´good stuff´. when i saw what the ´good stuff´ was, i wasn´t too excited. it was a greeny-brown gooey paste stuff that was located between the brain(s)-the two hemispheres were separated in the crab...one on either side. anyhow, i was like...ummm no thanks. she insisted so i stuck my finger in it and tasted it.. disguisting. never again. she laughed and then ate the entire thing. gross. anyhow, you probably didnt want to hear all of that, but it was an experience for me. i liked the legs and pinchers though. those were good. the head/body, i´ll leave for someone else. after the crabs, they ordered something else that i didn´t recognize in portuguese. it came out and it was clams! i was not too keen on trying those either, but i thought, well it surely can´t be too much worse than the crab head goo i tried, so i tried it and really liked it (once i got over the fact that i was eating something chewy like that). anyhow, away from the food aspect, the place we were at was where a river met with the ocean, and that meant that the waves were incredible. the river was coming in to the ocean with a pretty strong current and then the ocean had it´s waves heading towards the beach as usual, so once my friend, Michelle, and i got out there, we had a current pushing us one way and the waves pushing us another. it was like we were being pushed left and back at the same time. it was crazy. and when the big waves would collide with the current of the river...wow. big splashes and crazy surf. it was great, but after being in there awhile i looked back towards the beach and realized we were kinda far out, so i got a little nervous and told my friend i wanted to head in. she´s crazy and really adventurous with basically no fear, so she wasn´t nervous, but i´m a little bit more of a weeny than she is, so i told her to come in. we were too far out and i didn´t want the undertow to put us out any further to where we couldn´t get back. it was a lot of fun though, and we´re all safe, so life is good. it was a great birthday weekend.