Week in Review...

Ola Amigos!
This has been a pretty good week... For one the weather has been beautiful!  Secondly, I conducted my first interviews on the Brazilian side for my thesis!! ...See Mom I am doing school work :)  I had a phone interview Tuesday that went really well. Once the gentleman I interviewed comes back from holidays I will be able to go to his site to do some more research and interviews.  Friday, I did a half interview with a very important person... I was really nervous, almost sweating while waiting out in the lobby.  It was only half because we just spent ten minutes together, introducing ourselves.  I was told this was customary to get to know each other first, build a relationship, over a few weeks and then I would be able to ask my questions but the phone interview went completely different.  I was able to ask anything after just calling. I thought maybe this interview would be similar.  All in all I think we hit it off well, and one day soon I will be able to ask the questions I need for my research.


To finish off the week, we had an Italian TV crew come into the lab to do a show about us! About our work in the laboratory and the research we are conducting.  For three hours we 'pretended' to do science experiments and we worked with all the equipment in the lab.  It was pretty fun and interesting with all of the different languages shouting different instructions.  The crew is going to send us the link and I will pas it onto you so you can see what we do!


Hope you are all having a wonderful long weekend! I need to figure out how to have a Canada Day party in Brazil...  

My Aussie Friend.

Ola Amigos,
This weekend was a nice and quiet weekend at home with the roomies cooking Brazilian desserts and watching movies but it was a little sad as I had to put my Australian friend on a bus to Argentina on Saturday.  I met my Aussie friend on my first full day in Brazil at the Festa Junina party.  His Brazilian friends and my Brazilian friends were friends and when I was introduced to them, they knew right away that I could not speak Portuguese by the wide eyed smile hello look I had on my face as I was told.  They immediately brought over the Australian, named Dylan, saying "he doesn't speak Portuguese either!" and instantly we became friends.
Dylan is backpacking through most of North and South America, starting in Brazil.

He had been in town a few weeks before me so it was really great to have him to show me around the places he had discovered, introduce me to a new group of people who are really great, and it was just nice to talk to someone who understood this awkward adjusting period.  I think he made the transition a lot easier for me.. A slow adjustment to full out Brazil but now I am ready to dive right in!


While it was sad to see him go, he will be finishing his trip in Canada and hoping to work in Canada for awhile, I am sure I will speak to him again one day.


PS it stopped raining!!!

Little Day Trip to Bauru.

Well it is raining... And it has been raining since Monday and the weather network says it is not going to stop for awhile.  Adding school work on top of this day would have been tremendously gloomy so we decided to travel to Bauru, a town an hour further inland to Brazil, so that I can register with the Federal Police.  I had to deliver some paperwork, pay a tax, and they took my fingerprints ... I don't even think the Canadian Government has my fingerprints... And it was as simple as that!!

It was a nice, straight drive and I saw my first fields of sugar cane! Not what I was expecting, better! They were so tall and planted very densely.  The next step is to see how sugar cane is harvested!

Side step, as I am writing this blog the home team just scored first in a soccer game playing at this moment and there are big cheers coming from the apartment down the hall and fireworks are going off... My bucket list for the trip is to see a live soccer game, I bet it will be crazy awesome.

Another crazy thing I have to tell you about Brazil, is that in the state of Sao Paulo every 50 km there is a toll booth.  Ethanol is $1 a litre and Gasoline is $2 a litre but it is these toll booths that are so close together that get you if you are travelling from town to town. Sao Paulo state put the connecting roads and the rail system up for sale awhile back.  The same company bought both systems then shut down the rail, forcing all transport to be by road and then set up toll booths.  In Canadian dollars its almost $2.50 to pass through one toll.  Luckily the program was paying for us to travel as we passed through three tolls on our way to Bauru.

This soccer game has turned crazy... The other team scored, no fireworks AND a player from the team we are not cheering for just insulted one of our players from the side lines and our player ran over and shoved him down almost starting a fight!

Off to school tomorrow.

72 Hours in Brazil!

Ola Amigos!

I successfully made it to Botucatu, Brazil!!  Apparently, I missed the rain by just a few hours and the weather has been beautiful thus far! Things are going pretty great so far.  My fellow Brazilian classmates are wonderful and have taken really great care of me and made sure I am having a fun time here in Brazil.  They have already taken me to Festa Junina (June celebration party), a BBQ (I am going to learn how they make their meat taste so good and bring it back to Canada for you), a Graduation party, and I am about to go out to a Rib fest!

In the 72 hours I have been here I have had to learn a few things quite quickly... Stop signs in Brazil are only a suggestion, and it is even encouraged that after 11pm you run the red lights. There is no temperature gage on the water, whatever comes out of the shower is what you get.  I must seek out vegetables very soon or else I will get scurvy.

I am trying to figure out how to upload photos to the blog.. Check back tomorrow and they should be up!

Here I Go!!

Well friends the day is finally here and in ten minutes I am walking out my front door to the airport! I have packed my bag three different ways today and only had to make one emergency trip into town for last minute items... I am only slightly in a state of panic and nervousness... but a wise person told me two martinis and a Gravol will make those feelings go away with a wonderful nights sleep on the plane.  

My one last 'check list' move before I get on that plane is to stop at Tim Horton's for a sesame seed bagel toasted with cream cheese and a medium french vanilla!

My flight leaves tonight at 2350 and I will arrive in Sao Paulo at 1100. Next time we chat I'll be in Brazil!
See you on Skype soon!