5. THE CITY There's no doubt in my mind whatsoever that Fortaleza is just a fantastic and beautiful city. Waaaay bigger than I thought it would be, it has the second most important port in Brazil (after Recife to the south) and is also one of the great tourist centres. I live in the district of Carlito Pamplona, a maze of typically South American little streets, enclosed by main roads with buses to the centre. Carlito is basically a close knit and quite religious community: kids are in the streets day and night, everyone knows eachother by name, and churches seem to be on every corner. Theres no getting away from the fact that the people are pretty poor, and I've come to realise more and more that this is why religion is such a central component of society here. Where social and economic problems are tearing people and families apart, to these people God is always around to glue it all back together, and on sundays in the baptist church you really do get a sense that people are thankful for what theyve got. The city centre itself is pretty typical - massive and crammed with shops and people. I'm just about to go into town with Belle to buy some lesson stuff (and poss some new trainers), and it will be a chooooore because of the heat, but its gotta be done. The real reason why someone like me goes to the centre is to reach the beaches and Dragao do Mar. 6. BEACHES ...are predictably really pretty and nice to just chill out on for the day. The city has loads of "Praias", all with different names and varying amounts of people. So far we've been to Nautico and Iracema (I think), but we've yet to go to apparently the nicest city beach, Praia do Futuro. Theres also a thousand and one beaches to the north and south of Fortaleza, and these, according to the guys around here, are what its all about. We're going with some of the church guys and gals to Jericoacoara, supposedly the best of these, in October - cant wait!!! Although....if I dont sort out this tan situation then I might as well pack it in! Dragao do Mar is where its at in terms of the nightlife, with looooooads of clubs and places for young uns like us to hang out. We've only really been barring so far, but I've asked Vera, one of the gals who helps us with the English course admin, to take us to a club this Saturday, and turns out she had tonnes in mind. The only difficult thing is drinking, which people tend not to do so much here (Anderson and Arlison hardly have it at all), but all it takes is a little explaining about English culture and all that, and its cooooool!! Bring on the caiparinhas!! 7. ENGLISH CLASSES As I've said, theres been a lot of enrollment for the English classes over the last week (which has been fun in itself - messing around with Vera and meeting the students and all), and things only really got started today (September 12th). Twice a week Belle and I teach the same class, 4 guys and gals who have been given the opportunity to represent Fortaleza at some sort of global congress in Belgium in October. All these guys need is conversational English so the classes can be pretty laid back and fun, without the hassle of grammar and stuff. There are 2 guys (David and Giovanni) and 2 girls (Nana and Savia), and theyre all around twenty and really cool and friendly. Think we're goin out with them this Thurs. Giovanni has asked for some music in the lessons (turns out hes a whiz kid with the viola, a Brazilian form of the acoustic guitar) so i've busied myself with songs that are both good and in which the English pronuniciation is pretty decent. So far I've come up with Chasing Cars by Snow Patrol, Collide by Howie Day (Robbbbbbb!!!!), Hello, Goodbye by the Beatles and Wonderwall. I'm sure we'll eventually get on to Jus' a Rascal and The Avenue...just give it time!!! P.S. To all you boys and girls starting uni soon, have an amazing time and don't forget to let me know how its going!!! Just spoke to Talib at Penn State on webcam and loved it!! HES LIVIN THE DREAAAAAM!!!!