Salvador, Brazil - Copa 2014

John and I had the enormous privilege of heading to Brazil this past summer to see a world cup game and visit a few cities. It was our "babymoon" of sorts before Bennett arrived. It was a fantastic trip. We were gone for two straight weeks and had so much fun. Brazil is not for the faint of heart - it was an adventure for both of us. We walked, bussed, flew and hiked all over!

We trekked to four different cities in Northern Brazil, including Salvador, Foraleza, Sao Luis and Belem. John served his mission in the last two cities we visited, so it was fun to see areas where he served as a missionary. I was so grateful that John spoke Portuguese. I could understand the language a little bit since I have a pretty good Spanish vocabulary - but having someone who spoke Portuguese was invaluable. I think Brazil would be pretty hard to travel to if you didn't have any familiarity with Portuguese - especially if you ventured out of tourist zones (which was what we did for much of our trip).

We each only took one backpack with us on the trip, which seems crazy for two weeks on the go but made all of our frequent travel super simple. We each had a few pairs of clothes, small toiletries. I only brought one pair of shoes that I wore the whole time (Tevas are the bomb...)

The energy in Brazil while we were there was unreal. There were people from all over the Globe in the country for the World Cup and the festivities in each city did not disappoint. We met and talked with people from all over at dinner, on the bus, at our hotels. Brazil takes their futbol pretty seriously - so even though I was not previously a big fan I found myself sucked in.

Below are some pictures from our first stop - Salvador. Salvador is commonly known as the Afro-Brazilian Cultural Center of Brazil. It was an amazing city to visit and probably my favorite of our trip. We saw a Folk Dance Group perform, enjoyed many street drum performances, saw many beautiful churches and walked up and down the many cobblestone hills every night. We also ate some fantastic food while we were there.

John about to board the plane - we were stoked! About to land in Brazil below.

This part of town is called the Pelhourino. All of the buildings are bold bright colors and those cobblestones were gorgeous but a lot for my 26 week pregnant body to hike up and down each day.

A beautiful Church we toured.

One of my favorite things in Brazil were the colorful streamers hung in each main square and along the streets. Why don't we do this more in the U.S? It is so pretty. All of these decorations were for the Festa de Junia which takes place in the month of June. It felt so vibrant and added to the pulse and beat of each city.