Wow, after four days of non-stop rain (my pool was close to overflowing) the sun finally came out today. If I had wanted rain, I would have stayed in San Francisco. Luckily, today was absolutely perfect. Typically, I wake up and walk to beach for some acai and to check the waves. This morning I knew the waves would be good because of the swell so I woke up early, grabbed my board, and headed down to the beach. It was seriously incredible. The waves were perfect, the water was warm, and the sun was beating down. After spending too much time in my house watching old TV shows (Brazil is a little behind on its TV to say the least), I was very anxious for a nice day so I ended surfing for three hours. The whole time I was thinking about how lucky I am to be able to do something like this. I try to stay up on the news (especially the markets) back home and I can't imagine a better time for me to be away. That may seem like a selfish perspective but at least it's honest. I compare it to the weekends we used to go to Tahoe. The weekends were always better when we knew it was raining or whatever back in SF. If it was a sunny weekend in the city, we were always a little bummed to be missing the sunshine. That's not to say that I wish the turmoil was occurring. That's the last thing in the world I want (especially thinking about all those I care about in the business and knowing what they are dealing with each day). But it's interesting to see what is going on back home and to be living in a country that is on the opposite end of the spectrum. Everyone is so bullish on everything that is happening in Brazil. It sort of feels like the Old West when things were just getting started and anyone with an idea and some energy could be successful. Of course, those people have to be willing to deal with the incredible bureaucracy here but that's another story for another time. I have a lot of fun just looking around and thinking about different ideas. There is certainly a great deal of opportunity here and although this would be a great place to be at any point, it definitely is great to be here RIGHT NOW.
Anyway, after the surf session, I spent a few hours on the beach just reading and hanging out. There is a lot to look at on the beach ;) so it's easy to kill a few hours there. I couldn't resist the temptation to head back out in the water so I grabbed my board and surfed for another few hours. I surfed until the sunset came and went and realized that this is exactly why I came here. Paradise has returned, and I couldn't be any happier....
One of the interesting aspects of my life is meeting the new crew of Americans (or mostly Americans) that arrive each week for the Nexus surf camp (or whatever you want to call it). My friend runs Nexus and we spend some time with the groups each week whether that be at dinners, night clubs, etc. First of all, it's just fun to meet new people and they are all very interested to hear my story, which I've told 1,000 times already. But secondly, I love to watch the progression of their time here. Every single one of them falls in love with this place during the week and can't stop talking about it. I know how I feel about Floripa, but it is very exciting to get confirmation from others. The large majority of the visitors are males for obvious reasons, but this week their are two separate groups of girls. We all went out to dinner on Monday and they are having a BBQ tonight. I'm very interested to see how they all feel about Floripa when their time here is over. I will let you know....
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