Friday:
I had my first manicure and pedicure of my life lol. I'm not really high maintenance, so I never really took the time to do this. It was fun being pampered. I was surprised at the number of people at the salons! I guess most normal people don't wash and straighten their hair themselves. They pay $10 reais or so once and week and get the people to do it for them.
Saturday:
I kinda melted a part of my dress a little while ironing it and I just kept thinking I wish my mom was here because she would know what to do. I was a little upset also because I missed the first hour of the wedding because my friend was late coming back from the salon from her haircut. Then she takes and shower and washes out her straightened hair?! I was so confused. A little frustrated. So when we arrived it was SO confusing. There was a live jazz band right by the lake and it was just jazz music and lots of hugging going on with the family and bride and groom. I didn't know if we were seeing the beginning (due to Brasilian time) or the end. It was definitely the end because the FIREWORKS, started going off. FIREWORKS! I totally didn't expect it! I felt like I went to a celebrity's wedding! It was so beautiful. Catered of course, with people running around serving appetizers and the best champagne I've ever had. They had a station for making your own piece of wedding cake! They had all the fruit and like 15 toppings and even 6 types of cake. I had pistachio and some other mixed cake flavour. Oh it was heaven hehe. 2 crepes centres, one for salty crepes (shrimp or meat) and the other for sweet ones. The food was AMAZING. I was full before the dinner started. Here the wedding didn't have any speeches or anything that required people speaking too much. The bride and groom said thanks for coming and that everyone enjoyed the party and that was it. They had a slide show of a lot of pictures on a screen and the dancing started, even BEFORE dinner! There was dancing for 5 hours! It was so so much fun. All the moms, aunts and uncles were on the dance floor. They were good dancers too!! My host dad has 15 siblings so there were a lot of relatives for me to meet and mingle with. The bride loves hip hop so they played a lot of music I knew and enjoyed. I was in my element.:) We had so much fun. I felt like I was with the cool family of the party, where everyone danced like crazy and enjoyed themselves. We stayed till they stopped the music.
Sunday:
I started off my day going to church. Its been a few weeks so it was so nice of my friend, Roberta to have found this place. The service was all in English and they sang, "As the Deer", "Did you feel the mountains tremble" and also "Worthy is the Lamb." They had other ones but those reminded me of home. It was a really good service, I felt at home. They have a friday night program here too but I don't know if I wanna go. I'm still contemplating it.
Afterwards, I went to the bride's condo for lunch and it was also amazing! The difference in wealth in Brazil is true, that the rich are really rich and the poor are very poor. This condo had 2 levels, I think we would call this a penthouse in Canada. They had this Spanish dish called Paella. Its rice with all types of seafood and its probably the best thing I've had in Brazil! It was amazing! Super yummy and then they had the best chocolates I've ever tasted. All wrapped as if they were flowers. I ate like 10 pieces of chocolate today! The server came around serving the usually beer, Guarana (a famous pop here), water and coke. I went for a walk with the little cousin Loreana. She hardly speaks any English so a lot of it was hand motions and confused looks. (I have never used the word "CONFUSED" so much in my life, compared to the 2 weeks I've been in Brazil.) In the end, we did understand each other for the most part. CEEDers, its true that your communication is 90% non-verbal!
Here are some visuals:
Sunday, May 27, 2007
Friday, May 25, 2007
Some realizations
So I'm back in Brasilia and I was kinda depressed last night because I realized that in Brazil I am sooooo unhealthy. I eat dinner at 10 pm practically everynight! I hate it. I haven't exercised in about 3 weeks and I just feel really blah. I started my first day of AIESEC work. We're trying to match a bunch of developmental internships for June 1st, 2007. Anyone know someone interested? Its working with social entrepreneurship and facilitate the exportation of goods for a bunch of craftman. I think its similar to Ten Thousand Villages. We're hoping to do something like there here. Its not paid but living and food should be covered.
Anyways, so just talking to people about the fact my camera and nano were possibly dead, I was just really sad, frustrated and annoyed. I don't have the necessary paperwork here to send in my nano and its just so annoying to think of having to deal with it all so far from home. I tested both out today and thank God my camera works but my nano has water damage in it. I can see on the screen. I hope I can send it in. I can't even remember when I bought it. I guess I was little homesick yesterday while going out to eat, they had this chicken and cheese bun which looked just like our Chinese Buns back home and it made me miss home. We laughed a lot during the car ride to go try Açai (an Amazonian fruit) because of me trying to guess what they were saying and I was totally off hehe. Yes, I have brought my randomness to Brazil too.
Anyways, so just talking to people about the fact my camera and nano were possibly dead, I was just really sad, frustrated and annoyed. I don't have the necessary paperwork here to send in my nano and its just so annoying to think of having to deal with it all so far from home. I tested both out today and thank God my camera works but my nano has water damage in it. I can see on the screen. I hope I can send it in. I can't even remember when I bought it. I guess I was little homesick yesterday while going out to eat, they had this chicken and cheese bun which looked just like our Chinese Buns back home and it made me miss home. We laughed a lot during the car ride to go try Açai (an Amazonian fruit) because of me trying to guess what they were saying and I was totally off hehe. Yes, I have brought my randomness to Brazil too.
Thursday, May 24, 2007
Sao Paulo: The world's second largest city
So arranging a place for me to stay in this city was super stressful. I had no idea where I was going to live until hours before the bus was leaving the conference. Luckily AIESECers are awesome and a girl that I've never met before (Patricia) let me stay with her. Her apartment was super nice! Definitely one of the more expensive ones. There was a pool, hot tub and tennis court on the first level and security everywhere.
Her brother became my hostess because she was busy with school and work and got really sick. Actually, all the AIESECers are sick because of the lack of sleep. I know a lot of you can relate. Anyways, he brought me around his university (Universidade de Sao Paulo). It was quite ghetto. Mold everywhere, but some of the areas were nice, like having plants inside the buildings and also a little pond with fish and turtles. (I took pics for you Lil). We toured a lot of the campus and went into the architecture building that was very artsy inside. The whole building was opened concept. Maybe just some 6 feet walls everywhere.
I was supposed to go out that night but the problem with Brasilians is they aren't very dependable on what they say. We eneded up just eatting cheese and ham sandwiches for dinner.
The next morning I went to GV, where they had a bunch of security just to get into the school because some government official's kids went there and so they had to be protected. There was an event AIESEC GV hosted, a forum discussing social responsiblities and sustainabilities and there were like 60 externals there! It was there first event and it was so well done! They had AMAZING food there too. I was not impressed that I didn't know it was a business formal event and I arrived in running shoes and jeans! AHHHHHH. It was bad. I learned a lot about issues we don't talk enough about in Canada but are important.
Afterwards I waited for my friend, a trainee from AIESEC Melbourne, whom I met at the conference was planning to come visit me so we could tour Sao Paulo together. That took a little while and then we had to wait for another guy who said he would be helpful in our process to get to the Body exhibition (the one that was in toronto, with the nicely dissected muscles?). So it took us longer because we had to take the metro to get to his house and then walk to pick up his car and then drive to go to the place. It was an awful idea. Then he bought us the wrong tickets! omgosh. I was trying not to freak out after everything that went wrong that day. So we saw the exhibition and I think Toronto's was certainly better, but it was only 20 $ reais (about $15 Canadian) to see it. Then we took some fun pictures in the dark on the playground.
We looked all over the place to find a restaurant to have sushi. Then we went to the famous Liberdade area (where all the Japanese things are). The sushi here was soooooo expensive (caro). I couldn't believe it. But it was pretty good even though I paid 27 $ reais for it. In the car after sending my friend off, that's when I discovered my water bottle had spilt all over my camera and Ipod nano! I couldn't believe both of my favorite things were ruined in one night! I was in shock. I think the fact my passport was still ok gave me a little bit of comfort but I was not impressed that night. Finally after taking an hour to get to another friend's apartment, I got changed and at first was supposed to go to an Australian bar but it was closed. It seemed like everything was closed actually. We drove around for 30 mins. At least I got to see all the mansions in Sao Paulo. Then we ended up at an Irish pub. I had strawberry Caprinaha (a really strong vodka drink). It was yummy because they actually put fresh strawberries (morangas) in it. Then to end the night my friend (Gustavo) and I danced role calls till 4am in the morning! hehe It was a fun end to a horrible night.
Some embarrassing moments so far:
1. First morning here, I didn't have toothpaste with me so I just took a tube in the washroom and used it. Hmmm.. definitely a lot more bubbly then I was used to and tasted horrible. It was definitely not toothpaste! I think it said Creme de Barbarar. (I think that means shaving creme.)
2. Tripped about 3 times everywhere and almost cut my foot open.
3. We were looking at rings on the streets and I wanted to try one on. The problem was it wouldn't come off!!! Ahhh.. we spent like 5 minutes staying there, trying to pull it off. Darn fat fingers! I finally got it off and not have to buy it.
4. Tripping over my own suitcase in the elevator face first.
5. While my camera and nano were being dreached in water in my purse, the water leaked all over my pants. Great! Another thing to add to my awesome night.
I think there are more but I'll keep this list updated.
Her brother became my hostess because she was busy with school and work and got really sick. Actually, all the AIESECers are sick because of the lack of sleep. I know a lot of you can relate. Anyways, he brought me around his university (Universidade de Sao Paulo). It was quite ghetto. Mold everywhere, but some of the areas were nice, like having plants inside the buildings and also a little pond with fish and turtles. (I took pics for you Lil). We toured a lot of the campus and went into the architecture building that was very artsy inside. The whole building was opened concept. Maybe just some 6 feet walls everywhere.
I was supposed to go out that night but the problem with Brasilians is they aren't very dependable on what they say. We eneded up just eatting cheese and ham sandwiches for dinner.
The next morning I went to GV, where they had a bunch of security just to get into the school because some government official's kids went there and so they had to be protected. There was an event AIESEC GV hosted, a forum discussing social responsiblities and sustainabilities and there were like 60 externals there! It was there first event and it was so well done! They had AMAZING food there too. I was not impressed that I didn't know it was a business formal event and I arrived in running shoes and jeans! AHHHHHH. It was bad. I learned a lot about issues we don't talk enough about in Canada but are important.
Afterwards I waited for my friend, a trainee from AIESEC Melbourne, whom I met at the conference was planning to come visit me so we could tour Sao Paulo together. That took a little while and then we had to wait for another guy who said he would be helpful in our process to get to the Body exhibition (the one that was in toronto, with the nicely dissected muscles?). So it took us longer because we had to take the metro to get to his house and then walk to pick up his car and then drive to go to the place. It was an awful idea. Then he bought us the wrong tickets! omgosh. I was trying not to freak out after everything that went wrong that day. So we saw the exhibition and I think Toronto's was certainly better, but it was only 20 $ reais (about $15 Canadian) to see it. Then we took some fun pictures in the dark on the playground.
We looked all over the place to find a restaurant to have sushi. Then we went to the famous Liberdade area (where all the Japanese things are). The sushi here was soooooo expensive (caro). I couldn't believe it. But it was pretty good even though I paid 27 $ reais for it. In the car after sending my friend off, that's when I discovered my water bottle had spilt all over my camera and Ipod nano! I couldn't believe both of my favorite things were ruined in one night! I was in shock. I think the fact my passport was still ok gave me a little bit of comfort but I was not impressed that night. Finally after taking an hour to get to another friend's apartment, I got changed and at first was supposed to go to an Australian bar but it was closed. It seemed like everything was closed actually. We drove around for 30 mins. At least I got to see all the mansions in Sao Paulo. Then we ended up at an Irish pub. I had strawberry Caprinaha (a really strong vodka drink). It was yummy because they actually put fresh strawberries (morangas) in it. Then to end the night my friend (Gustavo) and I danced role calls till 4am in the morning! hehe It was a fun end to a horrible night.
Some embarrassing moments so far:
1. First morning here, I didn't have toothpaste with me so I just took a tube in the washroom and used it. Hmmm.. definitely a lot more bubbly then I was used to and tasted horrible. It was definitely not toothpaste! I think it said Creme de Barbarar. (I think that means shaving creme.)
2. Tripped about 3 times everywhere and almost cut my foot open.
3. We were looking at rings on the streets and I wanted to try one on. The problem was it wouldn't come off!!! Ahhh.. we spent like 5 minutes staying there, trying to pull it off. Darn fat fingers! I finally got it off and not have to buy it.
4. Tripping over my own suitcase in the elevator face first.
5. While my camera and nano were being dreached in water in my purse, the water leaked all over my pants. Great! Another thing to add to my awesome night.
I think there are more but I'll keep this list updated.
Wednesday, May 23, 2007
CONADE: Brazilian National Conference
MAY 15th to MAY 20TH
So CONADE started off early for me because I had an early afternoon flight the day before the conference started. I spent 3 hours after arriving in Sao Paulo at the airport with another member teaching him English and he taught me some Portuguese. It got a little frustrating when after explaining things 3 times and I still couldn't get my message across. I learned a lot that day though. Many words of which I can still remember now and try to use. At night we stayed at this guy Diago's house(Duncan was there too). All 20 of us from AIESEC Brasilia were there. It was a party. We had 3 air mattresses where 10 of us were sleeping. Diago's mother made us enough food to have left overs even after everyone had eatten. Oh the mango chocolate dessert was one of the most amazing things I had eatten in a long time!!!!
So the conference, we were late for opening plenary by 2 hours. So we didn't get to present. We had this dance that they found by a group here called "Gangus Kong" The whole song basically said "Moscow" a million times. It was hilarious learning it. I have a video that I might post later. So after an hour drive up the cutest mountainous town we arrive at the conference. There were about 600 members there. It was pretty crazy. I missed the feeling of knowing you'll see your friends and that excitement but soon enough I saw Melissa and Eric. I was so excited. I just wanted to be able to speak English and joke around like normal. I didn't have a room at first because I had paid yet, so I was apart of a group that had to get buses to another hotel. OMGOSH, this place was like a prison!!! It was so disgusting! Bars on the windows. 8 bunk beds to a room. A big washroom with 2 toilets and 3 showers, all just in open space. It was fun showering in my bathing suit! I bonded with a lot of the people there because of this though. One of my favorite people at the conference, Diana was a trainee from the US. Without them, I probably would have been crying instead of laughing at the awfulness of the place. The worst thing was here, they have their banquet the first night. So I had to get ready in this tiny room with 10 girls and we had like 30 mins. We decided we didn't deserve to stay at this dump when we paid the same price so we packed all our things and went back to the site of the conference where everyone else was staying. My friend was really nice and I ended up in another room of 8 girls but this time I got my own mattress on a clean floor. So finally we went to the banquet with my wrinkle dress 1.5 hours late. Most of us ate dinner on our laps. Classy. It definitely doesn't compare to our lovely banquets!
PLP day:
The second day was all about leadership development, we had a lot of good discussions on how to be a leader and situations on what leadership traits you need to bring out in situations and how a leaader with deal with some of the situations. I learned a lot from today. I was still kinda annoyed with not being able to understand everything but I met some amazing new friends that were all very willing to translate everything for me and so I was still able to participate. The party tonight was "light out". Everyone dressed in black and we all hand glowing bracelets that were different colours and represented different things. Green=available, Red=Unavail., Yellow= cautious, Purple=grab me, orange= exchange of fluids.
International agenda:
So all the trainees and CEEDers were given a separate agenda where they spoke English (Thank God). We had so much fun together. We did that game that Kelly did with us at the pre-departure weekend. One girl didn't know the rule of the game and threw her cards down when she was supposed to win hehe. We had people from all over, Colombia, Holland, the US, Mexico,Peru, India, Slovenia, Tunisia, Morocco and Canada. We all bonded really well, we did presentations on different cultures to understand their cultural norms more. I think I want to do a traineeship now just from hearing about everyone's experiences.
They had a workshop on matching. I learned SO SO much. I'm so excited to put my knowledge to use! I learned a lot more then I did at NLDC at this conference so it was worth all the trouble getting to this conference. They have this really cool form on Excel that lists all the different people listed on aiesec.net and you can search people according to their specific major of study or experience. I still have to bug people to get it. But it is so useful! Everything's just right there! Does Canada have this. (sorry can't find the questions mark on this laptop.) This night the party was Festa Junia, (June Party). You dress like a country girl and they had corn and sausages and everyone puts their hair in pigtails and freckles on their face. They have a dance called Forro, just for the party. It was super fun! You dance in partners most of the time and lucky me I got a guy who stepped on my feet like 20 times. Thank God they were closed-toe. Eric and I brought out the Faci song to the conference tonight and EVERYONE loved it! Its like their new favorite role call! Everyone keeps asking us to play and dance for them. We made HISTORY:)
The last day we went to Sao Paulo together for a study tour. We went to a catherdral the pope was at last week. We ate lunch at this opened market which had this really yummy sandwich with a huge layer of ham and cheese and also all the fruit you'll ever want to have.
All in all the conference was at par to my first NLDC. I really enjoyed it even with the language barrier. I was really annoyed that things were always like 1 hour late to start or end. One night we ended at 1am!!!! That's why most parties end at 4am here. They sure know how to party.
The last night was the Global Village and I was so in love with representing Canada with my Canadian ware. Thanks to Melissa we had an awesome Canada table. I met a lot of new friends from all over Brazil and have a lot of places I could stay at if I went to visit their cities.
So CONADE started off early for me because I had an early afternoon flight the day before the conference started. I spent 3 hours after arriving in Sao Paulo at the airport with another member teaching him English and he taught me some Portuguese. It got a little frustrating when after explaining things 3 times and I still couldn't get my message across. I learned a lot that day though. Many words of which I can still remember now and try to use. At night we stayed at this guy Diago's house(Duncan was there too). All 20 of us from AIESEC Brasilia were there. It was a party. We had 3 air mattresses where 10 of us were sleeping. Diago's mother made us enough food to have left overs even after everyone had eatten. Oh the mango chocolate dessert was one of the most amazing things I had eatten in a long time!!!!
So the conference, we were late for opening plenary by 2 hours. So we didn't get to present. We had this dance that they found by a group here called "Gangus Kong" The whole song basically said "Moscow" a million times. It was hilarious learning it. I have a video that I might post later. So after an hour drive up the cutest mountainous town we arrive at the conference. There were about 600 members there. It was pretty crazy. I missed the feeling of knowing you'll see your friends and that excitement but soon enough I saw Melissa and Eric. I was so excited. I just wanted to be able to speak English and joke around like normal. I didn't have a room at first because I had paid yet, so I was apart of a group that had to get buses to another hotel. OMGOSH, this place was like a prison!!! It was so disgusting! Bars on the windows. 8 bunk beds to a room. A big washroom with 2 toilets and 3 showers, all just in open space. It was fun showering in my bathing suit! I bonded with a lot of the people there because of this though. One of my favorite people at the conference, Diana was a trainee from the US. Without them, I probably would have been crying instead of laughing at the awfulness of the place. The worst thing was here, they have their banquet the first night. So I had to get ready in this tiny room with 10 girls and we had like 30 mins. We decided we didn't deserve to stay at this dump when we paid the same price so we packed all our things and went back to the site of the conference where everyone else was staying. My friend was really nice and I ended up in another room of 8 girls but this time I got my own mattress on a clean floor. So finally we went to the banquet with my wrinkle dress 1.5 hours late. Most of us ate dinner on our laps. Classy. It definitely doesn't compare to our lovely banquets!
PLP day:
The second day was all about leadership development, we had a lot of good discussions on how to be a leader and situations on what leadership traits you need to bring out in situations and how a leaader with deal with some of the situations. I learned a lot from today. I was still kinda annoyed with not being able to understand everything but I met some amazing new friends that were all very willing to translate everything for me and so I was still able to participate. The party tonight was "light out". Everyone dressed in black and we all hand glowing bracelets that were different colours and represented different things. Green=available, Red=Unavail., Yellow= cautious, Purple=grab me, orange= exchange of fluids.
International agenda:
So all the trainees and CEEDers were given a separate agenda where they spoke English (Thank God). We had so much fun together. We did that game that Kelly did with us at the pre-departure weekend. One girl didn't know the rule of the game and threw her cards down when she was supposed to win hehe. We had people from all over, Colombia, Holland, the US, Mexico,Peru, India, Slovenia, Tunisia, Morocco and Canada. We all bonded really well, we did presentations on different cultures to understand their cultural norms more. I think I want to do a traineeship now just from hearing about everyone's experiences.
They had a workshop on matching. I learned SO SO much. I'm so excited to put my knowledge to use! I learned a lot more then I did at NLDC at this conference so it was worth all the trouble getting to this conference. They have this really cool form on Excel that lists all the different people listed on aiesec.net and you can search people according to their specific major of study or experience. I still have to bug people to get it. But it is so useful! Everything's just right there! Does Canada have this. (sorry can't find the questions mark on this laptop.) This night the party was Festa Junia, (June Party). You dress like a country girl and they had corn and sausages and everyone puts their hair in pigtails and freckles on their face. They have a dance called Forro, just for the party. It was super fun! You dance in partners most of the time and lucky me I got a guy who stepped on my feet like 20 times. Thank God they were closed-toe. Eric and I brought out the Faci song to the conference tonight and EVERYONE loved it! Its like their new favorite role call! Everyone keeps asking us to play and dance for them. We made HISTORY:)
The last day we went to Sao Paulo together for a study tour. We went to a catherdral the pope was at last week. We ate lunch at this opened market which had this really yummy sandwich with a huge layer of ham and cheese and also all the fruit you'll ever want to have.
All in all the conference was at par to my first NLDC. I really enjoyed it even with the language barrier. I was really annoyed that things were always like 1 hour late to start or end. One night we ended at 1am!!!! That's why most parties end at 4am here. They sure know how to party.
The last night was the Global Village and I was so in love with representing Canada with my Canadian ware. Thanks to Melissa we had an awesome Canada table. I met a lot of new friends from all over Brazil and have a lot of places I could stay at if I went to visit their cities.
Monday, May 21, 2007
First day in Brazil
After travelling from Windsor to Toronto, from Toronto I flew to Georgia, Georgia to Rio d Janiero and then Rio to Brasilia. I travelled for a little over 24 hours and was EXHAUSTED. All I wanted to do was sleep. So Jonas and Cecilia are at the airport entrance waiting for me with a huge sign that says HEY @ MANRY!! hehe. It was a very warm welcome. I wasn't allowed to sleep. Cecilia's family was having a BBQ at their country club for Mother's day and there was a huge family gathering. Due to the food restrictions at NLDC I hadn't full meals in a while. So I can honestly say I hadn't eatten so much food in a long, long time. So there I was introduced to Vinegrette, a sauce of chopped up tomatoes and other stuff. I ate tons of meat, tried my first Brazilian wine and Murici, a type of Brazilian liquor. Tipsy already on the first day. Definitely in Brazil.
The host family here is super awesome. The mother is a professor at the university and I don't know what the dad does. My hostess has been in AIESEC for 2 months and loves it! She has a brother, Viktor who's 14 years old and they have a cute little dog called Nina! She's only 3 months old and is super cute.
My initial impressions of Brazil, super strong sun, palm trees everywhere, tiny cars, poor driving and very warm and welcoming people.
The first night I got to meet about 6 of the AIESEC Brasilia people at an outdoor bar called "Lapa Choperia". I had a really yummy lime vodka (caperina com limo). I got to know everyone pretty well and it was nice to have a little welcoming.
The host family here is super awesome. The mother is a professor at the university and I don't know what the dad does. My hostess has been in AIESEC for 2 months and loves it! She has a brother, Viktor who's 14 years old and they have a cute little dog called Nina! She's only 3 months old and is super cute.
My initial impressions of Brazil, super strong sun, palm trees everywhere, tiny cars, poor driving and very warm and welcoming people.
The first night I got to meet about 6 of the AIESEC Brasilia people at an outdoor bar called "Lapa Choperia". I had a really yummy lime vodka (caperina com limo). I got to know everyone pretty well and it was nice to have a little welcoming.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
