Hi all. We are currently sailing down the Amazon river. We’ve been here since Thursday, and we arrive in Manaus at 8am tomorrow morning. We had U.S. embassy representatives join us on Thursday, and I had the opportunity to meet two of them. The US Ambassador’s wife, Gisela Shannon, met with Matt, Catherine, and me after a Foreign Service presentation. She was very nice, and it was so cool for us to get to talk to all these important people. Mrs. Shannon and another woman from the Embassy came to my Sociology class as well, to talk about family violence in Brazil, and it was really interesting. We also had a personal video message from Archbishop Desmond Tutu, telling us to take advantage of every opportunity we are given on this ship. He was on the Fall 2010 voyage, and is a huge supporter of Semester at Sea. Brazil is our first multiple night stop, and we are very excited. Tomorrow we’re just going to hang around the city, and do some shopping and sight seeing. We’re also going to try and find a good Brazilian Barbeque. They’re supposed to be fun, with really good food. We leave on Tuesday for our Amazon adventure…We’re a little terrified of the animals that will be out while we’re sleeping in a hammock in the middle of nowhere. Catherine and I were laughing about the fact that we tried to sleep outside on the second deck of a cabin in Northern California last December, and ran inside when we thought we heard a deer below. I hope our guide has a big machete that can take down any anacondas that try to swallow me. My dad says I’m being a little dramatic, but I’m just trying to make it out the Amazon alive. I saw a moth the size of my palm today; it was kind of cool to watch from a distance. No pictures….I ran away when it started to fly.