International Travel

So here is my problem. I have never traveled outside the continental US. Outside of the military, neither has my family. I purchased a passport about a year ago so that I could travel if the occasion called for it. I grew up in small town USA and there are a lot of things about traveling that I just don't know about.

I have been invited to Brazil and I really want to go. I can speak some Spanish but I can only read some Portuguese. In theory, I will be meeting my Brazilian coworker at the airport. Am I stupid for even considering this? He was here from November to January and we worked together. I trusted him to perform my lab experiments while I was gone but do I trust him enough to visit him. I want to because quite frankly, I want to go to Brazil, but is this an unwise thing to do? My family says "Yes". Some friends say no. I don't know.

How best to do it?

So here is the problem. I want to post recipes on my blog because I like to share my food. I don't want to post recipes on the blog because I want to put them in the cookbook that I am writing. I have a granola recipe which I would argue makes the best granola ever. Kids love it. Adults love it. When you make it for people they love you so much that they call you at 6am to tell you "Thanks". I love my granola recipe and I want to share it with people. How many recipes do you need to make a cookbook? I don't think that I have quite enough recipes.

Here is another related problem. I want to post my thoughts after some of our department seminars. The thing is that I can't because people in the department have found my blog and posting about seminars would not be well received. I think that the solution to my problem is to have a blog which allows me to make some posts private. What blog services all ow this? Anyone know? I would appreciate the advice because I would post way more frequently if I could control the audience.