Pictures from Ilha do Mel

Here are the much anticipated pictures from our weekend at Ilha do Mel (Honey Island). We all had a great time that involved a little bit (or was it about 5 bottles) of cachaça, a ton of Skol and Kaiser, not too much food, intense amounts of heat and sunburn, quite a bit of dancing, não afogando, and lots of salt water and sand. I can only handle the beach for about three days at a time, so I spent plenty of time there for the month. Up next might be Florianòpolis. As most of you reading this should understand, it's not really all that efficient to carry around a digital camera with you at the beach at all times, so I don't have a whole bunch of pictures, but the ones I do have show off why I love my camera and also the best of times we had (minus Friday night) and the dancing on Saturday night. The house in the pictures is actually the girls' house. Because there were a ton of girls and only four guys, us guys got our own big house about a 1/2 mile down the beach. It gave us the opportunity for some quality "man time."
Each picture will have a little description of what's going on unless grouped together.

This is as we leave the pier and begin our journey towards the island.
Mariangèlica doing what she does best... posing for pictures.
She loves the booty.
Pt. 3
People fishing off the shore of the mainland.
I just thought these next few shots looked pretty nice.
Pt. 2
Pt. 3
Mica, Samuel, and Matt enjoying the scenery.
Toria, Caryn, Stacy, Candace, and Tiphane (L-R) enjoying the scenery.
Approaching one of the uninhabited islands off the coast of Ilha do Mel.
Mariangèlica again.
Approaching the shore of the island.
Looking off the porch of our beach house.
The house itself.
Someone who put the sunblock on Mariangèlica doesn't know anything about how to properly apply it. Weirdest sunburn ever.
Pt. 2
Just thought this was a nice picture looking over the water.
Pretty nice looking flower.
Map of the island. We were on Encantadas.
Nice shot overlooking the north end of the island.
The locals.
Stacy (in the dress), Samuel (in the white shirt), professor Gisele (scuba diver shirt), and Crishon in the bikini top.
Crishon (into the ladies :quagmire:) with her "oh snap" face after learning that Gisele has jogged and sang karaoke naked on an island off of the coast of Santa Catarina.
Watching the sunset on the southwest corner of the island (this is the same point off the island shore that we went snorkeling and were supposed to have gone harpooning for fish.)
Matt the Chupacabra eating innocent little Mica.
Mariangèlica again.
And one more time.

Explanation for the next three pictures. Matt, Mica, and I went out one night to this little Italian restaurant nears Mica's house. We sat there for about an hour and all had a beer and some food, then left looking for another place to chill out and relax. We didn't find anywhere, so we came back to this place at about 8:30 and sat there until 11PM just talking, drinking, and chillin' out. We all have since become really close friends and hang out quite a bit. This night led us to form the infamous and much-coveted Kaiser Club, or more grammatically correct in German, Club Kaiser. Basically Club Kaiser is the sweetest thing ever and we only have three members right now. We're always on the lookout for more members, it's just a very select organization.
This is us, at 10PM on the dot Saturday evening Jan 14th, cracking open a few Skols (we didn't get any Kaiser until later) and letting everyone know which group of Americans runs the island.

Mica letting everyone know that even though she's only 5'4" and 105 pounds she can still rock with the best of'em.
Matt, intellectually consuming his alcoholic beverage of choice.
And me. I was throwing up Kaiser Club's preliminary hand signal (the shocker, of course), but it has since then been amended to something a) not so lame and b) more original. Pictures are surely soon to come. I walked around the island like this the entire weekend. I became as red as my red WSSU Rams shirt.

Everyone hanging out at 22 year beach veteran Kiko's house on the island. This guy seemed as if he has had his entire brain fried out because of constant sun. He was awesome though and gave me his email and phone number and told me to call him when I graduate and he will try to help hook me up with a swank job down in Brazil (he works in Curitiba.) BTW - this guy spoke about two words of English.
What the moon looks like before you've had anything to drink.
What it looks like after 3/4 bottle of cachaça, five beers, and when you're lying on the beach face down in your own vomit (last man standing, Matt.)

So that was it basically. Probably too much consumption of alcohol, but when you're on an island when zero food and intense heat, what is there to do other than hang out on the beach and drink? The answer to that is nothing. Although we probably should have all drank a bit more water in substitution for all of that sweet and tasty Brazilian beer.
In another "Cultural Observations" posting, I'll post some stuff about exactly how much, and at what times, Brazilians like and begin to drink. It's pretty incredible, almost as if it's a mandated part of life down here. But hey, who are a bunch of 20-24 year old college students to complain?

I will be posting pictures soon of today's trip to Morretes, Paranaguà, and Antonina. It was a pretty nice trip and we saw some awesome views on the train. Hopefully this satisfies everyone's appetite for pictures.