So I had the BEST TIME EVER IN BRAZIL! One of the best times of my life. I will recap some of my experience for you!
So the flight was very easy. It was 9 hours from Atlanta and I just slept the entire time. Once we got there customs and immigration was a breeze too. Although all the workers had masked on because of the swine flu, so crazy. We had to fill out a form asking if we had a fever or cough within the past 10 days. After that we had a 4 hour bus ride to Paraty, the city we spent our first week in. We were there for 1 week and then head back to Rio for the next 2 weeks. Portuguese is so difficult to understand, and not many people here speak English. I feel terrible that I cannot communicate with anyone. I try spanish sometimes but it is different and it hasn't been too successful. Luckily both my professors and her husband and son speak it so that is very helpful.
Paraty is a 4 hour drive South of Rio, in between Rio and Sao Paolo. It was a really cute small town with awesome architecture. It has a lot of history too. It became famous because it has a port and became the place through which all of the gold and diamonds discovered in the mountains traveled through to get to Rio de Janiero. Millions of slaves carried the gold and diamonds through Paraty to bring it to Rio. We went on a hike through the trail that they took which is called the Gold Road. It was really cool to see.
The city has a beautiful main area called the historical center which has all of the original stone walkways from 300+
years ago. Paraty is called "Little Venice" because when the tide is high it floods and becomes a water city where they have to travel around by boats. I only saw it with about 6 inches of water in parts of it that were close to the water, but we were able to walk around it so i didn't need a boat.
On our hike of the Gold Road we also got to go sliding down natural water slides! It was a massive rock with a waterfall running down it that went into a river. We hiked up the side of it and then slid down the rock into the river.
The water was freezing but it was a really hot day so you didnt stay cold for long. I did it twice! It was so fun, but my bathing suit got so dirty from the rock. It was worth it though.
After 1 week, we took a 4 hour bus ride back to Rio de Janiero, which means the January River. When Rio was discovered the Portuguese thought that it was on a river (which is actually a bay) and it was in the month of Janurary. Clever huh? ha not really
but it sounds pretty to non-portuguese speaking people. We have class every morning from 9-1 and then we either have field trips in the afternoon, or sometimes down time. Our field trips included stuff like going on a city tour, taking a tour through the favelas (ghettos), and visiting Globo stuidos once of the largest media conglomerates in the world! It was so cool, we got to see the set of their current Telenovela being set up for that day's filming.
Our hotel was right across from the beach so after class everyday we would run out to the beach and try and get as much sun in as possible. Because it is in the southern hem
isphere it is currently winter so the sun rays were not too strong but the weather was beautiful. I finally got the courage to go swimming and the water was awesome! We also got to explore different areas of Rio at night and got to go to a Soccer game in Maracana stadium, one of the biggest soccer stadiums in the world! Soccer is so important to Brazilians, they say it comes right after religion! haha We saw two local Rio teams play each other and the team I was rooting for one in the last 5 minutes of the game. Pretty exciting!
It was one of the best experiences of my life. I would highly reccomend this program to anyone who is interested in doing a summer study abroad program. I have since then become so in love with Brazilian culture th
at I bought the Rosetta Stone software to learn Portuguese! I am going to try and go back for a week for New Years if I can because I miss it already!
I now back in New Orleans and just started my Summer Internship through the center for public service. I had my first day on Tuesday and have my second tomorrow so I will fill you in more on that as the time goes on!
Tchau!
Kelly
The city has a beautiful main area called the historical center which has all of the original stone walkways from 300+
years ago. Paraty is called "Little Venice" because when the tide is high it floods and becomes a water city where they have to travel around by boats. I only saw it with about 6 inches of water in parts of it that were close to the water, but we were able to walk around it so i didn't need a boat.On our hike of the Gold Road we also got to go sliding down natural water slides! It was a massive rock with a waterfall running down it that went into a river. We hiked up the side of it and then slid down the rock into the river.
The water was freezing but it was a really hot day so you didnt stay cold for long. I did it twice! It was so fun, but my bathing suit got so dirty from the rock. It was worth it though.
After 1 week, we took a 4 hour bus ride back to Rio de Janiero, which means the January River. When Rio was discovered the Portuguese thought that it was on a river (which is actually a bay) and it was in the month of Janurary. Clever huh? ha not really
but it sounds pretty to non-portuguese speaking people. We have class every morning from 9-1 and then we either have field trips in the afternoon, or sometimes down time. Our field trips included stuff like going on a city tour, taking a tour through the favelas (ghettos), and visiting Globo stuidos once of the largest media conglomerates in the world! It was so cool, we got to see the set of their current Telenovela being set up for that day's filming.Our hotel was right across from the beach so after class everyday we would run out to the beach and try and get as much sun in as possible. Because it is in the southern hem
isphere it is currently winter so the sun rays were not too strong but the weather was beautiful. I finally got the courage to go swimming and the water was awesome! We also got to explore different areas of Rio at night and got to go to a Soccer game in Maracana stadium, one of the biggest soccer stadiums in the world! Soccer is so important to Brazilians, they say it comes right after religion! haha We saw two local Rio teams play each other and the team I was rooting for one in the last 5 minutes of the game. Pretty exciting!It was one of the best experiences of my life. I would highly reccomend this program to anyone who is interested in doing a summer study abroad program. I have since then become so in love with Brazilian culture th
at I bought the Rosetta Stone software to learn Portuguese! I am going to try and go back for a week for New Years if I can because I miss it already!I now back in New Orleans and just started my Summer Internship through the center for public service. I had my first day on Tuesday and have my second tomorrow so I will fill you in more on that as the time goes on!
Tchau!
Kelly
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