pei-tien's blog

On Monday the staff and the students at the school were sent home early as there were a bit of panic from the terror which had started in São Paulo last Friday. Outbreak of violence occured throughout the region of Vale do Paraíba, including my city. It was decided that the school would remain closed the next day. The kids were cautioned not to wear their identification tags, which all of us have at the school, as well as their school jackets and not to open the windows on the buses. On the way back, we observed police road-blocks on the highway entering and exiting São José. Later I was told the city had closed off to others travelling into the city. All the stores and shops were closed and the streets were empty except for the few police cars which were slowly patrolling the area. It was a strange and shocking feeling as I remembered one of the student, Kaio, (jokingly) said to me in a low grim voice : "Welcome to Brazil."

The good news was that by Tuesday morning, the city had begun to calm down and resume its usual pace of commercial activities.

For the past 2 weekends I hadn't travelled outside of São José. Instead, I had been indulging (and endangering myself) in all the tasty meats at churrascos. I was invited to 4 churrascos and attended 3 of them. As samba and pagode music is always played at these get-togethers, I've figured out that after stuffing myself with kilos of food, there's always room for more by dancing and moving around a little bit ;)

Mondays to Thursdays I now have dance and capoeira lessons. I'm learning salsa and forró in CTA and it's great because I absolutely love them and the lessons are free! Capoeira is really cool too, but it's not so easy to learn. I actually started the classes because at one of the churrascos I went to (it was the capoeira teacher's wife's birthday), the capoeira teacher (don't know how to pronounce his name) managed to convince me to join capoeira.

Re: Accommodation

I love the place I am staying now... but I will be moving next Thursday to another apartment nearby because it will be cheaper. Here, I'm living with 6 other people, and it's nice to talk with the boys (Big Mac, Tiago and Diego). I know I'll miss here!! At the other place, there will only be the woman, me and her Dachshund Pimenta. Pimenta is really cute but spoiled! We'll see how I get along with her...

Labels: Door #1: The Brazil Experience

Labels: Door #1: The Brazil Experience

Photos from Mantiquera, Minas Gerais

1st pic: Marta (Poland), Caio (Farofa), Macdonald (Nigeria; Big Mac), Marcelo (Tall Guy... cute! ), Me and 4 palharços

2nd pic: Me, Big Mac and Mariana

3rd pic: Tao (China), Alejandro (Mexico) and Marta

4th pic: Davi (Brucey), Marta, Fábio (Santarinha), Me and Big Mac

Another awesome weekend spent outside of São José dos Campos! On Friday we left for Itajubá, a city in the state of Minas Gerais just about 2 hours away from SJC, and spent the weekend in the Mantiqueira Hills at a beautiful country inn called Pousada Fazenda Lageado. There we went hiking to a small waterfall (cachoeira), and the water was really really cold!! Later on during the day I went horse-back riding for about 5 minutes. The second time I tried to go riding, the horse didn't make any attempt to move no matter how I tapped the horse with my heels... and then with a stick... and then I tried making noises, clicking my tongue, as well as sweet-talking the horse... nothing! The horse just stood there, so I gave up the idea of going horse-back riding ;) The rest of the time was just spent swimming in the pool and meeting many cool people from Itajubá, Belo Horizonte, and trainees from China and Mexico. I'll try to post more pics when I finally connect my computer to the Internet :)

Falling more in love with Brasil everyday...

Labels: Door #1: The Brazil Experience