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So.... it has been a while. I am still here and still having a good time. I will try to be good at summing up the last 2/3 weeks. Okay so here we go.
I came back from Floripa right after my birthday and that weekend I hung out with my friend Tatiana and some of her friends. It was really awesome. One of the best nights I have had since I have been here. We ate Brazilian nachos, which are super delicious and involve Doritos. (Side note: Sadly, tortilla chips are not a commodity here. I will need to go a Mexican restaurant very soon and pray that they have them there with salsa. You would not think that I would miss tortilla chips as much as I do... but when you don't have them life is just not the same. ) Also, we did Hookah, which here is called Narguili (this may or may not be correct but it sounds like that), and we played charades in Portuguese! Yes, charades is acting and no speaking, but the words we had to act out were Portuguese words. So, there you go. And it was super awesome because I was able to learn more words such as palito de dentes (toothpick) and transpirar (to sweat profusely). I also was able to try kiwi caipirinha, which is amazing. Because of this amazing night I also learned about how things are communal here. And when I say things I mean drinks. lol So, cocktails or what have you are made, and then given to you, but they are not for just you. You take a sip and pass, and it will come back around, or a different drink will. Quite interesting... my only concern is the whole mono thing and spreading of germs, but besides that its pretty cool. Because you get to try lots of things and you don't get drunk. So, yes amazing Saturday night.
That Sunday Nick (other American exchange student from NC State) and I went with Tati's family to São Luiz do Purunã. It was this small little town about 40 minutes outside the city and it had a bunch of ranches, horses, and little house/cabins you could stay in. But it was sooo open and amazing. So green and just absolutely amazing. My pictures do not even do this place justice and some of those pictures are quite good in my opinion. But yes so we met people from Tati's church and we ate at this family style restaurant and it was really good. The food was wow.
Monday, February 22 was my first day of classes at PUC. I had one class, PPIC which is an ISE class (in major), from 8am to 12pm... The in class lecture was 2 hours, then a small break, and then lab for 2 hours. I understood about 50% of what my teacher said. He is very nice, but speaks really fast. Thankfully, he knows English so if I have concerns or questions I can easily ask him. People in my class talked to me, so that was good. They seemed pretty nice. I made some observations in that class that I wanted to share and they are as follows:
1. Uses projectors and slides to teach class like in the states.
2. Mostly guys in the class similar to the states, but for ISE I think the breakdown is more even.
3. Lots of people come in late and they will say different things. Some say "hi","excuse me", or nothing at all. Some people were 10 to 20 minutes late while other people came in like 40 min to an hour late. The teacher said nothing
4.No clock in the classroom.
5.If you miss more than 25% of the classes, then you have no chance of passing the course.
6.Drinks, food, and cafeteria are in the same building as the classes. This is very convenient.
7.People do not text as much here as in the states, but people do still mess with their phones during class.
8. People will sit and talk during class and some of the teachers just ignore them and keep talking. However, this is super distracting... especially for people who do not know the language the material is being taught in.
So, yes I take notes in my notebooks as well as observations. There are many similarities, but the differences are quite interesting. The other interesting thing I experienced was drinking in the street. This is legal in Brasil. You can be walking downtown and drinking a cold one and its fine. I saw some girl drinking a Smirnoff on the bus. Quite interesting. So yes there are like 4 to 6 bars right across the street from the university and drinking alcohol is not permitted inside the university, but right outside people are going to town. So many people between classes, after class, and even during class are out at these bars just drinking beer and socializing. And what is common is that the beer comes in like a liter bottle and they give you these little plastic cups with it. Then, you share with friends and such. And this liter is like between R$2.50 and R$4. Again I will remind you the conversion rate is about 2 to 1 in our favor. So, pretty inexpensive. And so friends take turns buying the next bottle and such. It is mostly guys here doing this, but there are definitely females present. Also, there are hot dog stands right outside the school main gate. And so you can buy a hot dog for dinner or for a snack, then go to class. This is for night classes by the way. Although the bars open in the late afternoon evening. So, quite an experience.
Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday I had night classes from 8:45pm to 11pm. However, they all got out early because it was the first week and the class scheduled for Thursday was cancelled because my professor was sick. Thursday was awesome because Tatiana's Japanese friend Uko came to visit with her boyfriend. So, we went and did tourist things Thursday and Friday, which was really awesome. We went to Parque Bariguii, Jardim Botanico, really tall Oi tower that looks over the whole city, churrascaria, Democratas Samba bar, Oscar Neimeyer musuem, and had an awesome Brazilian/German lunch at Tatiana's. During these two days, I ate chicken heart and the cousin of a duck. Chicken heart is very popular and is served at churrascarias. I did not want to try this mostly because I heard it was chewy and I can't do certain textures with eating. But I gave in and did not gag or throw up, so that is good. It was not awful, but I will not be eating it again. As for the duck's cousin, I say that because the meat was not duck, but it was like duck. I tried to find this animal's name in English but was unsuccessful. So, I will stick with the duck's cousin. I will admit I was not so sure about eating this, but it was actually pretty good. I would eat this again.The other new thing I tried was strawberry caipirinha with saki. It was AMAZING!!! So very good. I definitely recommend this.
So, the following week I had class again and ran errands such as going to the grocery store, the library, paying my cell phone bill, and then the weekend was AMAZING. But before I get to my amazing weekend, Mar 5-7, I would like to take the time to give some details about my errands. The library on campus has quite an interesting system set up. So, you go inside and have to get your student card swiped plus putting in your password, then you are given a key to a locker. You are not allowed to have your bookbag or purse in the main part of the library, so you have to store these big items in a locker and carry the stuff you will need into the main part of the library. You have to swipe you student card again to get into the main part of the library first. Then, there are like 5 to 7 stories, I am not sure exactly, but its a nice size (however not as big as the one at VT). It does however have this really amazing stained glass in the middle going up around the stairs. It tells cultural stories and is really beautiful. I will make sure to take some pictures. Anyhow, so you may be wondering why bookbags are not allowed in the main part of the library? This is a good question and I will tell you my theory on this. It is super awesome because the university acknowledges the fact that textbooks are ridiculously expensive. Therefore, it provides students the opportunity to borrow these books from the library, but only for 6 days. Therefore, what students do is they borrow the textbooks and figure out the chapters they will be going over for the semester and they make copies of the necessary pages. There is a copy place in each of the main buildings of classes. Its quite cheap and there are people working at these places that make the copies for you. Its really awesome. Another option is that students just save the ppts or notes put up by the professors on Eureka (like Blackboard) and then they bring them to the copy place and they will print them out for the students and even bind them into a nice little book. This saves the students so much money, granted it takes time and effort, but the savings I think are definitely worth these alternative processes. So, back to my theory. Because these textbooks are in the library, maybe they have had problems with people stealing them, so they have implemented the various system components I have previously mentioned.
Now onto paying my cell phone bill. This was quite an experience. So, first off I did not know where I could pay my phone bill, but found out I am able to pay my phone bill at a bank. This is convenient because banks are everywhere. But then I did not know what bank because there are so many here, but I talked to a nice lady at the coffee shop and she read my statement and helped me go to the right place. So I go inside and sit down where I see these other people are sitting. There is not system in place for who is next... no little paper with a number. So, it is legit when the teller says "next" everyone looks around and kind of points saying oh ok you were in front of me, so you go. Or you have the people that do not care and they just rush over to the teller. So, I wait for probably 15-20 minutes. Then I get to the teller and I say ok I want to pay this bill and he says not here you go over to the other area. So, I am like oh ok and go to the other area. Where there is a longer line and I wait in this line for 20 -25 minutes. I get to the teller and say I need to pay this bill. He says ok and I give him my card and he swipes and makes a face and says no you cant pay with this card. So I give him another card and same thing. So, I can only pay with cash which of course I do not have. But he is so kind and says when I come back I do not have to wait in line again, but I can just come to him. So, I go and get cash and return and the lady next to him helps me and there is no more line waiting, thank the Lord. But when I pay for the next months, now I know how it works.
Now for amazing weekend!! Okay so Friday night I went to my French friend Cecile's for dinner. It was nice because we had grilled chicken and veggies. The cooler part of this evening was the fact that her apartment became the United Nations meeting place. There were like 30 or so people in her 5 room apartment and they were from all over the world. It was the most incredible thing because there were like 5 languages or so being spoken in her apartment that night. I was just so in awe. There were people from France, Germany, America, Brasil, Jamaica, Spain, Mexico, Argentina, England, and probably others I did not even realize. It was by far one of the best nights I have had in Brasil. Everyone was just hanging out and talking. I talked in Portuguese as well as English and it was just soooo amazingly cool. Absolutely incredible.
Then, Saturday morning I met up with Keri, Carlos, and Nick and we took a rental car 2 1/2 hours outside the city to this beautiful canyon, called Canyon Guartela. It was amazing. We trekked down to the canyon, about 30 - 40 minute walk, and saw just beautiful landscape. Check out the pictures please and even google it yourself. It was incredible. It was so cool too because we were able to get in the water and there were like nature made mini-pools, where the water was rushing in, so it was like a natural "cold tub". It was soooo cool. And thankfully it was a beautiful day too, no rain only sunshine. After the canyon, we spontaneously decided to go rafting on this river that was about 20 minutes away or so. It was pretty cool, but the most amazing part was the fact that our guide was an Olympic trainer!! He trained/s people in the olympics for white water rafting. It was so cool. He has pictures of the people and him at the office and it was just really cool. Also, he was French and it was entertaining to listen to him speak Portuguese with his French accent. After rafting, we went to this restaurant with food from Holland. It was really good. I legitimately had the best hot chocolate I have ever had in my life. It was so delicious. And for food I had this mashed potatoes mixed with vegetables dish. I thought it was pretty good. It was funny because Nick got lasagna and it was made with chicken. It was still pretty good, just unexpected. So, overall great weekend. And great past couple of weeks.
Ashley
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Tati =D i found for you, i think the name of the duck´s cousin is Garganey (marreco in portuguese). and i dont like chicken heart either...lol... but u had to try it just for the experience.... =p its great havin gu here! =D cya soon!