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.