Worst 30 hours of travelling!

(Written at the airport when it happened July 27th 11:30pm)

The WORST 16 hours of my life!

Surprisingly, leaving Brasil was really smooth. Everything was on time and Jonas was super nice and drove me to the airport at 3:30am. We met an old AIESEC member who actually finished her internship in March on my flight. So the flight from Brasilia to Sao Paulo was fine even though it was TAM and it was Sao Paulo. Then from Sao Paulo to Atlanta, Georgia was really smooth. When I arrived in Atlanta airport, I knew something bad was going to happen. The place was craziness, just people running around everywhere, lines for the passport check-out that didn’t even go anywhere. I wore my Brasil shirt proudly and a Brasilian thought I was Brasilian and started asking me for help. Yay, another chance to speak Portuguese! So after that I went through security which took forever because there were so many people. I know there was one Brasilian guy I definitely should have followed and I would have gotten to Toronto on time. But no, I got confused because my luggage was being shipped by Delta and my flight was with “United” but apparently it was Air Canada. (Stupid itinerary!!! All the wrong info.) I also realized I still didn’t have a boarding pass to go to Toronto!? WTHeck? How did this happen? So I went back to where I started and waited 30 mins for the Delta people just to tell me that I was in the wrong place and that my luggage was being sent off without a destination tag!! I had to wait and go through security AGAIN!!! My flight was for 8:05pm and now it was 8:15 pm!!! Omgosh, I was stressed. I took the tram to Concourse T where they told me I should go and walked through all 20 something gates and I still didn’t see AIR Canada. “Air Canada” is in Concourse D. By the way, your flight already left!! The next flight is at 6:25am the next day!” Nossa (omgosh), as if I hadn’t already done enough walking in this stupid airport and now I had to wait another 9 hours to go to Toronto!!!! I just want to go home! (I guess I got what I wished for when I kept thinking how much I didn’t want to go home.)

At this point a good idea was probably to go and call my parents. BUT… PROBLEM: my cell phone wouldn’t turn on and I couldn’t remember anyone’s phone number after not calling anyone in almost 3 months!!! OMGOSH, everything was a dead end. I searched through my purse, maybe I wrote some numbers somewhere? I couldn’t even remember my grandparent’s number and ended up calling another Chinese person in Windsor (lol). Oh man, life sucks right now. So I find a place to plug in my laptop and maybe somewhere in there, I will find a number. I have no internet connection so I couldn’t search online. Maybe on Skype I’ll find it, but couldn’t log on without internet. L So now what? Somehow I found an old letter I wrote for my dad that I saved and I found his cell phone number in it!! Thank God!!! So called that and no one picked up! So hopefully that was his number I called because the letter was back in November of 2006.

Ok, now onto trying to figure out how to get a boarding pass with AIR CANADA for the next morning. More walking around the airport with useless airport workers directing me all over the airport. I finally found it and OF COURSE there’s not one there anymore because its CLOSED!!! I should have known. Now what to do?! I called AIR Canada and they said all I could do was wait till tomorrow morning. Boy, do I hate airports right now. So I’m sitting at a restaurant right now waiting for the next day to come. I’m super worried about the family because now they have to either find a place to stay or sleep in the airport all night. I hate burdening other people. They already had to take time out of work to get me and now this. I’m so frustrated with the whole day. How is it that nothing like this happened in Brasil but in the US, I go through all this crap!?

(Written July 28, 2007 at 11pm)

So I barely slept all night in the freezing cold airport on the worst bench ever made. I got up at 4:30am to get checked-in. That went smoothly and I got my ticket. I still had no idea what happened with my luggage but the attendant told me to ask the person at the gate and they would be able to help me. Luckily, as I was boarding the plane, the attendant informs me they found my bag!! Yay, so now just to get to Toronto! I get to Toronto and didn’t see my family, tried calling again by using my credit card to pay and again it wouldn’t work. Went to go buy a phone card and when I turned around, I saw my family wandering around looking for meJ Then we drove off and I had my first real Chinese meal in 2.5 months!:) Dim sum!! (Please google if you’re not sure what Dim sum is.) How I missed those egg tarts! Then some shopping at Pacific Mall and a 3.5 hour drive to my city (Windsor).

What I will miss about Brasil

Two days left till I leave for Canada. I can't believe how fast time has gone by. I totally can see myself living here again in the future. Next time with better Portuguese and more money in my pockets hehe. I am going to miss it here SOO SOOO MUCH. I can't even pinpoint what, but here are a list of somethings I will miss. I think I'll be continually updating this as time goes along because there are going to be so many things from big to little that I will miss.

-Having a maid
-Trying to speak Portuguese
-Churrasco and any street food that's super good and CHEAP. IE. Tapica!!!
-Fairs with lots of nice handcrafts for reasonable prices
-Dancing parties on the bridge at the wee hours of the morning
-Laughing at Beeps and Patricia's randomness
-Singing in the car with Beeps, Patty, and Dan
-Skating at the mall in the worst skates ever but with great company
-Travelling with and meeting all the interns in different parts of Brazil
-Travelling
-Tasting new and different things
-Caprivokcsas com morangos
-Agua de coco (fresh coco water)


-The beautiful sunsets
-BEACHES, BEACHES, AND BEACHES!!


-Rio!!
-Acai


-Cheap salgados (pastels, coxinhos..)
-Inexpensive manicures and pedicures
-AIESECers in Brasil
-Old European inspired buildings
-Modern Oscar Niemeyer buildings (Esplanada)
-Running in the parks (Parque do Cidade e Parque Olhos D'Aguas)
-Festa Juninas
-Capoeira
-Dancing Samba, Forro, Salsa

What I miss about Canada

I think this will be 2 parts, one about Canada and one about Brazil.

-My parent's cooking and basically CHINESE FOOD!!!
-Pooky (my car), not just the object but the freedom of being about to drive around everywhere and go when I want
-My bed, I think my back actually touches the frame:(
-My family
-My friends- meeting up to go to Starbucks, going out to eat together, movie nights, talks on the phone
-Good shopping!!! I did go to some good fairs here and found some awesome stuff but everything is way too expensive in my city and it was sad not being able to afford a single thing.
-Grey's Anatomy, American's Next top Model and whatever reality crap that's out there, that I just can't get enough of.
-Making cookies (I definitely wouldn't have spent R$20 on ingredients when I could have bought them for R$2.)
-People being somewhat on time. (Brazilian time is WORSE then Chinese time).
-Grocery shopping and finding everything I need.
-Being able to use the pay phone just with a quarter, instead of having to buy a phone card.

Surprisingly, I can't think of more things I miss about Canada. I really do love it here and I think it will be apparent when I write the things I will miss about Brasil, which will most likely be longer.

Recife: The city that rains too much!

It's my 4th night in Recife and I still haven't gone out yet! I've hardly seen the city. I've been to some places but I'm the type of person that loads up every hour with an activity when I travel. That's what makes things fun, being able to fit a lot into a day and making your trip worthwhile. I'm kinda upset right now with this. My hostess friend tried so hard to convince me to come here because its so nice and so much to do! Well, why the heck have I not done much? I did get to go to the place I wanted to go to the most which was the Porto de Galinhas yesterday which was a lot of fun. BUT I definitely didn't pay $400 CDN to fly here to live at her house and go on the computer all day and night. Frick, thank God we live near the beach! I had to escape this place. I was happy to just lie on the beach and get a tan.

So I arrived at about 3pm on Friday and that was an alright day, I spent 3 hours at this mall that used to be a prison and there was a museum at the top floor that explains the history about Recife. This city is about 400 something years old, started in 1637 or something like that and supposedly this is where Brazil first started! So a lot of the place is really old looking. I really love the historical buildings. It's nice to see the contrast in this country, where I lived in the newest city in Brazil (Brasilia) that's about 50 years old and then now to this almost 500 years old city. I really was in awe with the history behind all the buildings. Then I walked through the whole super expensive mall and then went to the liveria cultura (bookstore) to listen to a ton of CDs while waiting for Carol to return from work. The Linkin Park CD I was listening to was really good. I think its their most recent one.

So on Sunday we went to Porto de Galinhas. We took 1 hour to drive there. It was nice, I got to hear my theme song from my trip in BH. I have no idea of the song's name but I'll figure it out one day soon. "Boys don't cry" by Fergie was the theme song for going there. It wasn't a sunny day afterall so I was kinda sad about that. Its been raining everyday since the day I got here! I don't know why no one warned me, I would have gone to Fortaleza instead! (Fortaleza is a city that EVERYONE has told me is beautiful and so much fun but no, I thought knowing someone in a city and having a place to stay was just as important.) I'm kinda regretting that choice right now. Anyways, we paid R$8 to go on this tiny boat or raft to go to the rocks close to the shore. Then they had pools of water in the rocks so we could swim in them. Every little pool of water had fish in it and we swam in the biggest one with a bunch of fish. We also jumped into the ocean in another area where the raft took us and swam with the fishies there. That was one of the coolest parts of the day. We walked around the place for a while looking at their different shops and finding presents for my grandparents and cousins. My friend was also determined to find a Brazilian style bathing suit. I was kinda annoyed that my host friend is always introducing me as the friend that Canada that doesn't speak Portuguese. Frick, I've been here for 2 months and I've been trying really hard to learn so give me so credit! I like that my friends understand that, and tell people that I can speak a little and I understand more or less what's going on.
Some of the pools of water.



The pool of water that is the map of Brasil!




Swimming with the fishes! There were SO MANY, we all got kinda freaked out.

We ended the day at about 4:30pm and drove with the sunsetting along the road. It was super pretty and I saw the coolest clouds. I was exhausted the sun drains all my energy. While in the car ride home we listened to the radio on how the Brasil game against Argentina was going for the American Cup. Yea, that's how crazy they are about soccer. We were supposed to go out to a pub to watch the game with a group of AIESECers but that didn't work out. Too bad because it would have been cool to see the game with other Brasilians who were going crazy when they scored the goals and won the game.


Road going back home.

Belo Horizonte, the city built on hills.

(Written July 9th)

I'm currently in Belo Horizonte with my friend from AIESEC. His family lives here so he's on vacation for 2 weeks and I decided I wanted to see the city where our Windsor intern is from. It was already off to a rough start. But I finally got the ticket to get here and arrived after a 12 hour busride. Some people should take a shower before they get on a bus! Seriously! I think I couldn't sleep partially because that buss smelled so badly! Partially also because it was so cold! Anyways, I arrive at like 9am, got back to their flat and had breakfast. We watched Babel, which I have to say is a really good movie. It was interesting how his brother decribed the parallels in the movie. I was starving! We didn't have lunch till 4:30pm! Yes LUNCH! Well, at least I saved money by having 2 meals in one because I was surely too full to have lunch at the regular time of 7pm. We went to the mountains to get a nice view of the city but we missed most of the sunset and the park was closing because we ate so late. It was a really nice view of the city which like my friend said "was build on the mountain". Some of the streets here are so steep I dont even know how someone can parallel park without hitting the cars in front and behind them. We had a hard time finding friends to go out with us. My friends did find a group that was watching the soccer game between Chile and Brazil at a pub. So we went. Man, people are so disorganized here. We didn't end up going away where else because it was getting late and it wasn't worth paying R$15 to go somewhere for only 2 hours. So we went home at 2am. Relatively early for the Brazilians.

We had to wake up early to go to Feira Hippe where they have tons of booths with vendors for everything you want, from furniture to clothes and shoes. I'm happy to say I finally found a pair of nice ones I like:). I didn't want to leave because finally I found a place to shop that I could afford. We returned to the house and left for Ouro Preto, a town that was a gold mining city, in the 1800's. It was gorgeous! Really European like with very narrow streets and cute little shops. It was definitely a tourist city because they actually had English in their museums. We went there are a concert they were having at 10pm but all the museums closed at 6pm so we had 4 hours to spare. What is a person to do?! Why not go to a Catholic mass? So we go for the 7pm mass and it was incredible. The church had gold everywhere! The service was special becaues it was Saint Maria's birthday (Jesus's mom). So they had the regular mass and then all of a sudden 10 angels come walking down the aisle and they all climb onto the huge structure in the front and crown the Mary statue. It was really interesting to see. I was in awe, I couldn't believe I was in Brazil at that moment for some reason. Afterwards there was an orchestra outside of the church playing.

The sun over the hilly lansdscape of Ouro Preto

Darn, the church closed 15 mins ago so we didn't get to go inside.

The really narrow streets.

The angels in the "Gold" church for the crowning of Saint Mary.

We went to the concert that was beginning to start but first we went to get our extra jackets we brought. This was the coldest place, I've been to in Brazil. It felt like a cold fall day, which shouldn't be surprising to me since it is winter here. We ate some churrasco, (Brazilian BBQ) and drank some Capri-fruta to warm up. Boy, that drink was strong! We lost the parents so we walked around the place for about an hour before seeing them. Then we went to the concert of Jorge something (he is well known for singing Samba and Pogode music (Brazilian). It was fun, we sat along the edge of a building moving to the music outside just absorbing the atmosphere.

We went home at about 1am. The drive was 1.5 hours long so I was sleeping the whole way back.

Samira, Max and Manry

On Monday (Written July 11th):
-I went to AIESEC Belo Horizonte's office and got to see my trainee friend, Fleur from Holland. It was so nice to see her since Rio, which was a month ago. We went to lunch then I went to work with her (Casazul). A non-profit organization that is located in a favela. I got to see first hand how they are and this was a simple one that was just one street and also located on the steepest street I've EVER walked on.
-We went on the bus back to the office where we listened to some AIESEC songs that we have dances to and sang and dances along in our seats:) Oh I love those simple moments.
(Everything- Michael Buble, Reach for the Stars, Superfreak....)

@BH with Fleur:)

On Tuesday:
-Very fun yet random day
-Went to the university of Max's brother. He goes to the best public administration school in all of Brazil. He gets to work for the government right after he graduates for 2 years. (Guaranteed)
-Drove by their old house, old grade school, and then went to the big lake.
-Took pictures by the famous church that Oscar Niemeyer built beside the lack but was closed:(
-Went to a small amusement park, where we played bumper cars and took pictures on rides like the carrousel and floating ducks that was about to sink since it was holding double the weight it usually does.
-Went to this self-service ice cream place that allowed me to have 12 flavours of goodness in my bowl for R$4.29 which is about $2.25 CDN!!! Oh man, flvours from acai, banana carmelho, pineapple, romeo and juliet, ferreo rocher, graviola, condensed milk and a bunch of other's I can't remember.
- Went to Central Mercado (Central market) and had a mini-heart attack becuase of the number of birds they sell there. The puppies were really cute though. They were selling a Chow Chow for R$500 that's $250 US! I wish I could bring it home!!!!
-Ate dinner with the family, the mom made Canjica and Maracuja (passion fruit) mousse for me, because she heard that I liked it. Then we said our sad farewells and I took a 12.5 hour bus home sitting beside these hippies that probably didn't shower since 2003.

All in all, the trip was better then I expected. Definitely worth the horrible bus rides to get here.

Canada Day Weekend in Goiania

Happy Canada Day!! (note: This was written on the actual day). So after sleeping for 4 hours, I left to go to a town just outside of Goiania (a city 3 hours from Brasilia). I went to visit a small school where a group of 20 kids were awaiting to learn more about me and Canada. I couldn’t think of a better way to represent Canada but to 20 young minds that were willing to absorb and learn about this different culture that they never heard about. The kids all came from very poor families and never really got a chance to go anywhere besides maybe Goiania and some surrounding towns. They had never met an Asian before and said I looked like an actress from the TV hehe. They had a list of 20 questions prepared for me and I explained everything from the food, weather, school systems, clothing, sports and my family to them. Some of the questions were really hard like “Who is someone Canadians admire who’s Canadian and a Canadian that our country doesn’t like?” I thought of Pierre Trudeau, whom I just made up a reason why and I couldn’t think of anyone we don’t like. (Sugguestions?)
It felt really nice to be able to spend time with these kids who were so grateful for my visit and I got to share about my beloved country. They all wanted to take a picture with me individually, I felt like a celebrity hehe. It was so cute. I took a few with smaller groups to make them happy. One little boy, Wulliam, was eating by himself for some reason and we asked him why he was all by himself and he said he’s not alone, God was sitting with him. It was just so adorable. They all lived pretty simple lives with not much but they were all so happy and the kids with siblings took care of their little sisters so well. Its seeing things like these that make you hope that they’ll get a chance to have what you have and how lucky we are to come from good backgrounds. Its hard in Brasil to go from poor to having some money because only the rich get a good education because you have to pay for private schools all the way up to University since only private schools provide the best education so you can pass the test to enter university. So without an education you can’t get a good job and you’re stuck making bare minimum.

The kids

The kids, their teachers and I.

Other things I did this weekend:

-Took a 2 hour Salsa, Samba, Forro, and Zouk class. Wow, so much fun!! I was smiling the whole time!!

-Went to Parque Aeriao and saw about 5 monkeys just running around and climbing the trees. This is a public park!? So cool!!!

-Went to the best store in the world. This place was called "Frutas do Cerrado". It had about 50 different kinds of popsicles made from REAL fruit. I was eatting the mango one and you seriously get all the stuff stuck in your teeth like eatting a real mango! They also had the most amazing ice creams too. Unfortunately I couldn't bring any home so I just bought 6 popsicles and left.

The endline line of freezers filled with delicious goodness!!

7 flavours, from Caju (the plant of a Cashew), Caja-Manga, Murici, Jaga(Jackfruit),Manga (Mango), Coco Queimo...(Burnt coconut), condensed milk and another caju. (Burnt Coconut and mango were my favorite).

-Went to the Feira do Sol, its like a flee market outdoors with tons of stuff. I got to have Churrasco (Brazilian BBQ), including frango com bacon (chicken with bacon) and steak. It was amazing for street food and only R$7!!

-Tried more yummy food at a roadside market

-Met a guy who does make-up for drag queens.

-Saw a gorgeous sunset from my friend's apartment.