so now, since people have been nagging mum about the fact that i havnt blogged in a while... you can have a day by day account of my trip (an edited version from my trip diary! *edited meaning that it will be a lot less messy, with less spelling mistakes, and less random crap really lol)
yay! i bet that got everyone super dooper excited! lol you will be reading a novel!
teheheehe
so if you dont have much time, go away now, and save it for a rainy day, when you have enough time on your hands to sit down in your favourite chair with a cup of coffee, and read my blog.
Okay, soooooo... where to begin... at the beginning i supose!
Dia 1- 2 de Abril- Belo Horizonte- Araçatuba!
(tehehehe theres a exclaimation mark there coz i just worked out how to do the accented 'ç' which makes a 's' sound by the way)
anyway, back to my very intersting story.
okay so today, had to be at the terra brasil offices by 7:30am, so picked up joanna then headed there. bummed round a bit chatting, and getting all excited, trying to ward off the sleep, then finally left around 8am.oh what a fun day of sleeping and watching movies, and although that may have sounded sarcastic, it really wasnt. i really think that i will have trouble leaving this trip and these people :) everyone is soo nice! i love it!
the bus is really cool, absolute monster mind you, really huge, with even a kitchenette in the back! love it! at least we wont be cramped, there is plenty of room!
toodles!
Dia 2- 3 de Abril- Araçatuba- Corbeliaokay, woke up 5:30am, stuff on the bus and breakfast @ 6am, left by 7am. this is how our mornings here work. another day on the bus watching movies and sleeping, as well as getting to know everyone. (god my handwriting is terrible! i can hardly read it!)
collected badges and cards off people tonight, going to have soo much on my blazer!
i have made a note here in my diary to tell a story that sally* told us (the name has been changed for this persons safety hahahaha) it is long but very funny :)
okay, so when sally was 18, she was told of a job oportunity in america, of working as a maid at a big hotel.
she was told that it would be a great experience for her and that she would learn english and get to experience a different culture and way of life, so of course sally packed up her things and headed off to america.
of course she got there, discovered that the hotel had also employed about 300 other people from her country, that there was no chance of learning english, because they would be working and living together with only the people who spoke her language, and that they got living quarters, with nothing but a bed and empty cupboards in them, that they would have to buy any cutlery and anything they needed themselves. not really the fantasy that they all envisioned.
okay, so sally worked at this hotel for quite a while, and sally decided that she wanted to make a pyramid of the little shampoo bottles from the hotel, just coz thats the crazy type of person sally is, so everyday she took home one or two little bottles of the shampoo from the hotel.
now, sally was a bit of a party animal, so all the parties were always in here appartment. she used to get told off my the security people to quieten down soo often that they all knew her name.
one day, sally finally finished her pyramid of shampoo in her lounge room, and that night had a big party.
of course, at around 3am the security guy came around and knocked on her door. sally (a little bit more than sloshed) answered the door, and unfortunatly, the security guy happened to see the pyramid of shampoo in the living area. 'you have been stealing from the hotel... blah blah blah ... im calling the police' and he left.
so then sally started panicking, thinking 'oh no, what am i going to do with all this, they are going to come back and see it and i will be sent back to my country!'
so sally collected all the shampoos up in a bag, and put them in the toilet, then closed the lid.
no more than an hour later, the police were knocking on her door again. i think the conversation went something like this:
Police: where is the shampoo that you stole from the hotel
sally: what shampoo
police: the security guard discovered a giant stack of hotel shampoo in your appartment, where is it?
sally: oh that shampoo!
Police: well?
sally: well you see, all of the shampoo is gone.
police: where is it?
sally: well you see, when all of my friends came over for the party they bought a bottle of shampoo with them, and then they took it home when they left
Police: and why would they take shampoo to a party?
sally: well... you see, January 29th in my country is national shampoo day, so all over the country we have shampoo partys, so we had a shampoo party here, to celebrate it! everyone brings a bottle of shampoo, we make a big shampoo tower, then at the end of the party you take your bottle home again! (this is the story that sally pulled off the top of her head, still half drunk. very impressive really)
She somehow miraculously got away with it, as they had no evidence to arrest her with, other than the security guards word. they knew she was lying, but what could they do about it, so they left, being very angry, and left sally marveling at her skills of talking her way out of things.
It also left the people sally was telling the story to in stitches, rolling around on the ground laughing at the hilarity of Sally's story. so now Sally always jokes about the 29th of Jan being national shampoo day with everyone. :)
um, okay so now to continue my travel story, today was Debora (our coordinator's) birthday, so i chipped in 5 reais with a few other people and we got her a big kinder surprise easter egg! she loved it, and it even has a giant suprise thing inside it, i think it was a plush toy of some sort lol.
its easter tomorrow, at about 5pm today, kate, leah, luke and krystal would have been running around our yard, finding eggs that the easter bunny left for them, and right now they are probably filling their faces with chocolate, as all little kids do on easter. its a shame i am missing it, but i will be there next year, so its okay.
we are going to the falls tomorrow! i am so excited :)
must charge my camera!
boa noite!
Dia 3- 4 de Abril- Corbelia- Foz do Iguaçu
Foz do Iguaçu was amazing! i cant find any words that can really describe it, amazing doesn't really cut it either, but its what i have come up with so far. We went to the Argentinian side of the Falls, took about 45 minutes of mucking around to get us across the border but finally we got there, and it was totally worth every minute!
we got something to eat for lunch before we walked to the falls, and i got the best hamburger i have seriously ever had whilst abroad. the Argentinians have it right, and they don't go putting peas and corn in their burgers either unlike the strange Brasilians, so kudos for them.
a little bit of information for you on the falls:
- The waterfall system consists of 275 falls along 2.7 kilometers of the Iguaçu River.
- the biggest fall is the Devils Throat, measuring 82 metres high, 150 metres wide and 700 metres long. it marks the border between Argentina and Brasil.
- two thirds of the falls are within the Argentinian territory.
- there is the opportunity to do many sports at the falls including rockclimbing and abseiling, and boating, underneath the falls (just make sure you take a spare change of clothes)
before coming back across the border we went to a small duty free shopping place, and i got a pair of headphones for my mp3 player because my other ones had just about had it.
oooH! i have to tell you about our dinner still!
well... we went to a pizzaria, and the people just walked around and offered you all the different pizzas and you just picked and chose what you wanted, and just when you thought you'd had enough, they started bringing out the sweet pizzas.
yes, yes you did read that right, sweet pizzas. there was strawberry ice cream pizza, brigadeiro pizza, flocos pizza, banana split pizza, chocolate branco pizza, chocolate negro pizza, and of course, we all found space to just fit a little bit more pizza in. lol
yes, yes you did read that right, sweet pizzas. there was strawberry ice cream pizza, brigadeiro pizza, flocos pizza, banana split pizza, chocolate branco pizza, chocolate negro pizza, and of course, we all found space to just fit a little bit more pizza in. lol
thats it for today!
Dia 4- 5 de Abril- Day trip to PARAGUAY!
okay so today, we were told, take only mobile phones, and money... lots of money!
We went to Paraguay for 5 hours, to go shopping :)
now i will tell you why we went there shopping.
Paraguay was originally one of the richest countries in south america, but Brasil didn't like this, so they declared war on Paraguay, and Argentina, and Chile, and Uruguay joined in, until, soon, there was nothing left in Paraguay except the women, children and elderly people, so now Paraguay is the poorest country in south america. therefore, everything that you buy in Paraguay is ridiculously cheap. of course the Brasilian government is now getting angry because instead of buying locally, heaps of people go to Paraguay to buy things that they need, and people also bulk buy goods in Paraguay for cheap then bring them back and sell them in Brasil. well, it looks like the Brasilian government is never going to be too happy with Paraguay either way.
so anyway, after a day in paraguay, i came home with a big suitcase for R$ 60 and a GUITAR and guitar case for R$ 200 (i had to haggle the price down, he wanted 185 for the guitar and 60 for the case, but i got it all for 200 in the end!) and a whole heap of other crap that i probably didn't really need that much, but meh, its PARAGUAY!
so when we got back to the hotel, we got ready and went out to a Churrascaria, (typical Brasilian eatery) except this one was special because it was a dinner and typical south american dance show! and guess what! ... my camera battery didn't charge properly so it ran out of battery before i could get any great pictures. i got some off other people but they arent that great :( so here is the link to the Rafain's website, where you can have a look at how amazing it would have been :P
ooh and i must mention that one lady with a magnificent voice sang 'Don't cry for me Argentina', in Portuguese! hahaha it was amazing, but a bit strange, because it really has nothing to do with traditional Argentinian music, its out of an Andrew Lloyd Webber musical, true, Evita is set in Argentina, but still. lol. well i thought it was weird anyway! stop looking at me funny!
uh hum... anyway, the show was split into parts, each part, the typical music, costumes and dance from a south american country, those countries being; Brasil, Uraguay, Chile, Argentina, Peru and Mexico (is Mexico classified as South or North America? hmmm.) lol
overall, fantastic night!
Dia 5- 6 de Abril- Foz do Iguaçu
Today was really great. first up, we went to Itaipu, a hydroelectric dam, one of the largest electricity generators on the planet. so here are some facts about Itaipu:
- to make Itaipu, the course of the seventh biggest river in the world was shifted, to create a dry bed in the river, so that construction of the dam could start.
- The iron and steel used would allow for the construction of 380 Eiffel towers.
- The volume of excavation of earth and rock in Itaipu is 8.5 times greater than that of the Channel Tunnel and the volume of concrete is 15 times greater.
- Around forty thousand people worked in the construction.
- construction started in 1971 and was completed in 1984
- the dams height is the equivalent to a 65 story building
it was pretty amazing that they actually diverted the course of the river so that they could build the dam in the actual river bed.
okay, so after we went to itaipu, we headed off the the brasilian side of the falls.
all the way down there there was beautiful views of all the falls. they are just so beautiful!
drenched, we went to a food area in the park, and tried to dry off a bit.
dont really even know why we tried though, because after lunch we went on the macuco safari ride; a boat ride, that takes you directly under some of the1 falls... well... we decided that how wet we were earlier was really nothing, lol it was crazy. we got absolutely soaked!
glad i didn't take my camera on that one anyway.
dont really even know why we tried though, because after lunch we went on the macuco safari ride; a boat ride, that takes you directly under some of the1 falls... well... we decided that how wet we were earlier was really nothing, lol it was crazy. we got absolutely soaked!
glad i didn't take my camera on that one anyway.
tonight at the hotel we had a talent show. hahaha god it was funny :) some very good acts there, that had us all laughing. some of the guys made up a song about exchange to the tune of 'another brick in the wall' and yes, they did spell pink floyd wrong on their torsos in that picture.
kudos if you picked that one up, i was the first one to point it out! deborah demonstrated her violao (guitar) skills that no one knew about, singing and playing linger, and Ra and the crazy germans sung a german song.
the mexicans did a mexican song, which was very cool, and vicente tried to teach me how to play it on guitar. i of course played a song on my NEW GUITAR! hahaha it was a good night.
we had a 1am curfew, so most of us decided to sit out by the pool for a bit, in the dark, just talking and playing guitar and stuff. Of course, i was the one who happened to trip on the rough sandstone tiles of the pool deck, and take a big hunk of skin off the end of my toe. the funniest thing is that because it was dark, i didnt see the damage, and just thought i had scratched it, so sat out there for another 15 minutes, until i decided that it was actually hurting quite a bit, then proceeded inside and into the light to see my foot rather covered in blood, and a big flap of skin hanging off the end of my toe. i showed deborah, who decided that she would hand over the job of cleaning it up to Clarissa as she couldnt handle the amount of blood lol. but it was fine, the part that hurt the most was the fact that i bent and bruised my toenail in the process.
kudos if you picked that one up, i was the first one to point it out! deborah demonstrated her violao (guitar) skills that no one knew about, singing and playing linger, and Ra and the crazy germans sung a german song.
the mexicans did a mexican song, which was very cool, and vicente tried to teach me how to play it on guitar. i of course played a song on my NEW GUITAR! hahaha it was a good night.
we had a 1am curfew, so most of us decided to sit out by the pool for a bit, in the dark, just talking and playing guitar and stuff. Of course, i was the one who happened to trip on the rough sandstone tiles of the pool deck, and take a big hunk of skin off the end of my toe. the funniest thing is that because it was dark, i didnt see the damage, and just thought i had scratched it, so sat out there for another 15 minutes, until i decided that it was actually hurting quite a bit, then proceeded inside and into the light to see my foot rather covered in blood, and a big flap of skin hanging off the end of my toe. i showed deborah, who decided that she would hand over the job of cleaning it up to Clarissa as she couldnt handle the amount of blood lol. but it was fine, the part that hurt the most was the fact that i bent and bruised my toenail in the process.
oh well, it is a lot of peoples last night so we just tried to spend as much time together as possible. its sad that people are leaving.
Dia 6 - 7 de Abril- Foz do Iguaçu - Curitiba
we are in Curitiba now, and seriously, stepping out of the bus was like we had traveled from Brasil to Europe! it is so beautiful and you can definitely see that this part of Brasil was settled by Europeans. the buildings, the streets, hell, even the weather, is not like everyone pictures Brasil. pretty much the opposite of tropical. I love it!
After dinner we were allowed to go for a walk around, as long as we were back by 10:30. it was so nice, and i actually used my scarf for the first time in brasil hahaha. it wasnt as cold as ballarat, but it was definatly colder than i have been used to for the past 2 months or so. urgh, im dreading going back to ballarat and the lovely weather there! lol
Dia 7 - 8 de Abril- Curitiba
Dude, i love Curitiba! it is sooo beautiful! today we went to several places all over town. first was the Oscar Niemeyer museum.
it is very state of the art architecture, and is named after the architect of the building, who completed the project at age 95.
it is very state of the art architecture, and is named after the architect of the building, who completed the project at age 95.
We went to the Bosque Papa João Paulo II, a polish settlement memorial, in the middle of the 'Popes Wood'. It was opened shortly after the visit of the pope John Paul II in 1980.
the memorial in one of the groves in the wood, and has 7 original polish settlers houses, that were moved to the grove, from other places in Curitiba. it is a kind of outdoor museum that educates us on the lifestyles of those immigrants.
the memorial in one of the groves in the wood, and has 7 original polish settlers houses, that were moved to the grove, from other places in Curitiba. it is a kind of outdoor museum that educates us on the lifestyles of those immigrants.
we went to Parque Tangua, a really beautiful park with a beautiful water feature down the centre, and Ópera de Arame, a really big wire and glass theatre. it is amazing! it would be great to see a show in there, or to perform in it.
we then headed off for lunch.
for lunch, we met up with a whole heap of other exchangers from the district who were all traveling together kind of like their district conference. we met them at Mandalosso, one of the biggest restaurants in the world. it was really good to meat heaps of other students, and the location and food didn't disappoint either!
after lunch we all went to the botanical gardens. there was a big glass house with tropical greenery and plants in it, as like the centrepiece of the park.
they were so beautiful, but oh so different to the botalical gardens in melbourne. thats the kind of thing i was expecting, with trees and little paths and acres and acres, but instead it was completley open plan, rather small really, and although it had a lot of garden beds, you could see the whole way across to the other side of the park. it was so different.
they were so beautiful, but oh so different to the botalical gardens in melbourne. thats the kind of thing i was expecting, with trees and little paths and acres and acres, but instead it was completley open plan, rather small really, and although it had a lot of garden beds, you could see the whole way across to the other side of the park. it was so different.
finally, we headed to a part of town which was only traditional buildings, and food, and was really so beautiful. we found a german bar that also sold food, and the germans were excited to find out that there was apple strudel sold there, but were very dissapointed with it, they didnt like it at all, it is apparently supposed to be hot, and it was cold, and it is supposed to have a hot vanilla sauce on it too, so they didnt like it. i guess nothing is as good as the real thing at home.
from that little part of town, we walked back to our hotel, and had free time til 9:30.
i went for a walk, got some tea, and had a look at some of the shops. my favourite purchase of the day was my R$ 40 tartan plaid Converses! they are awesome! i found them at a converse shop, and they are end of the line, and were the last pair there, and best... reduced from R$99 to 40!!! was so excited!
Dia 8- 9 de Abril - Curitiba- Florianopolis (floripa)
okay, so we left curitiba nice and bright and early, so that we could go on a train, to florianopolis... or at least part of the way there.
it was really quite a beautiful trip once we got into the mountains, but it was very tedious. we had a lot of stops, because there was something wrong, and time dragged on forever!
we had lunch in the town that the train stopped with the other exchangers again, then continued on to florianopolis.
at one point we got off the bus to go on a transport ferry across a piece of water. it was really nice :)
it was really quite a beautiful trip once we got into the mountains, but it was very tedious. we had a lot of stops, because there was something wrong, and time dragged on forever!
we had lunch in the town that the train stopped with the other exchangers again, then continued on to florianopolis.
at one point we got off the bus to go on a transport ferry across a piece of water. it was really nice :)
we got to the hotel at 8pm and had free time til 11:30 so sat by the pool playing guitar.
dia 9 - 10 de Abril - floripa
i was kind of dissapointed with floripa. i think it was because so many people had all told me how amazing it was and how great this place and that place was, and then we had crappy weather, and didnt really go to any of the touristy places that everyone was raving about so yeah. what we did was great, but other people had talked it up to be more than it actually was for me.
anyway, i really did have a good day, here is what we did.
so as i said before, it was pretty bad weather. so what did we have planned for the day? a boat ride of course. luckily it was a little passenger barge, and was mostly dry inside.
we spent about an hour on the boat, i even got to steer for a little bit.
we spent about an hour on the boat, i even got to steer for a little bit.
we arrived at one of little coastal villages that are only accessible by boat, and got off at the jetty of a little restaraunt. before lunch, one of the people who worked there took us for a walk to the cachoeira (waterfall).
it was really cool and had a piscina natural (natural swimming pool) that was really nice and refreshing. that hour that we went there was our only hour of sunlight for the day, but i guess we were lucky that it chose that time to be sunny.
we went back to the restaraunt on the water, and had an amazing seafood lunch. it was so cool :) dad would be jealous!
after we had let lunch settle a bit (there were a few people who were a bit concerned about getting back on the boat after a big feed of seafood lol) we headed back to the mainland where we met the bus and headed to one of floripa's surf beachs for a gander.
it wasnt that exciting there, but at least there were some little stalls and things that we could browse. i bought some stickers for my guitar. i have decided that wherever i go in brasil, im going to pick up some car bumper stickers for my guitar, and it is going to be my travel guitar, and it will go all over Brasil :)
after the beach we went down the street, and got something for dinner, and had a little wander for 40 mins.
kyla and i got really good icecream... that was our dinner. hahaaha
that night we had our Trip birthday party.. a party for all the birthdays on the trip, which happened to be only one persons, so they added my name to the list as mine was only a week before hand :)
it was really nice. everyone got all dolled up, and we just had fun dancing and singing and being rather stupid.
it was great fun.
oooh and the cake was great too. :) always a bonus!
Dia 10- 11 de Abril - Floripa - Gramado
okay, so packed up and left Florianopolis today, traveled all day, and arrived in Gramado around 5pm.
before going to the hotel though, we made a quick stop by one of the many chocolate factories in town. oh my god. i love this place already, i think im going to leave Gramado 10 kgs heavier!
hahaha there was a giant bunny made entirely of chocolate. i think there was something like 260kgs of chocolate in it. was crazy! and yes, that is a crown sculpted entirely out of chocolate!
purchased a few bars of the handmade chocolate, and a gift box with a few chocolates in it for my host family.
oh and if i thought curitiba was beautiful from the european influence, it becomes out weighed by the beauty of gramado. gramado has a lot of german influence, so there is lots of chocolate, and beautiful homes, and different food, and not just some, but all of the town looks like a piece of europe. Gramado is muito linda!
we went to another buffet type thing for dinner. they have them everywhere in brasil! and thats about it for today!
Dia 11- 12 de Abril - Gramado e Canela
today was one of my favourite days of the trip. first up in the morning we headed to parque do caracol, which was quite beautiful, with a waterfall, and a beautiful walking trail around the park.
next we went to castelinho caracol , a beautiful old house that was built by german settlers in 1913.
you could look around the house, with all the original furniture and everything, as well a photos of the original family and the generations to follow. it was really nice.
also you can sit down and have home made ( and when i mean home made i mean cooked in a traditional wood fire stove) apple tea and apple strudel.
the germans were slightly more hopeful about this, and thought it was nice, but still not as good as home. well, i tell you what, the one from germany must be pretty damn good, because this was delicious!
after that, we went to a local winery, to buy cheap wines if we wanted them for our families.
i really was considering it, but decided against it in the end, because i didnt want to send them home, and unlike the other students who only have 2 months til they go home.
i still have 9, so i dont really want to cart wine around for all this time. im sure i will find other opportunities to buy brasilian wine a bit closer to when i go home.
after the winery, we went to a leather clothing store called black bull. (yes it is in english, not portuguese; english names for shops here are like french names for shops in aus. makes them look very chic lol. )
anyway, this leather shop... well you could tell it was real leather as soon as you walked in the door just by the smell. it was amazing... if you like that sort of thing. i know dad would have appreciated it as he appreciates a good bit of real leather. everything was really beautiful, the jackets and gloves and things were so soft and nice... one hitch... VERY expensive. i think only 3 people bought something there.
the fun part at black bull though was that about 15 people got the opportunity to get out on the cat walk and strut their stuff, whilst modeling the leather goods. just for fun of course, and it sure was that. the guys can be real dags thats for sure.
after the leather shop, we had one more stop before lunch. we went to mundo a Vapor (Steam world).
it was really quite cool ( another place dad would love) with a real steam engine sticking out of the front of the building to replicate the 1895 train wreck at the Montparnasse train station in Paris. the whistle blows every hour and every minute or so it lets out a burst of steam. :)
it is really cool, and the inside has like the history of steam engineering, with all diferent types of original steam powered engines and machines on display.
there was also the opportunity to dress up in period style costume and get your photograph taken, (like at sovereign hill) so a group of us got together and did that.
by this time we were all starving, so we went into the centre of Canela and got ourselves some lunch.
the town is really beautiful, the buildings are really amazing!
there was this beautiful big church, which looked more like a cathedral! it was really beautiful.
after lunch we headed home to the hotel and had free time until 6.
this is a picture of our hotel... pretty cute aye :)
I went into my room, lay down on my bed with my book and got 2 pages into it before falling asleep. i slept all the way through til 5:45pm, then daz thought it would probably be a good idea to wake me up so i had a bit of time to get ready. lol i was so tired. i think everyone was at that point where whenever you get a period of an hour or so to yourself, you just crash. we were all so tired.
we all met down in the lobby at 6, and before dinner, visited Aldeia do Papai Noel.
i am just going to post the link to the site here and you can see for yourself how cool it is, but i will put up a few of my pictures here too :) http://www.papainoel.com/
there is one part of the park where you can write your christmas well wishes on a piece of bolsa wood if you purchase it, or on a piece of paper or whatever you ahve, and to hang it in the wishing area.
i wrote mine on a bit of paper as i didnt know they were selling the wood at thefront, but god, there were probably milions of pieces of wood, in the trees, and on the posts and everywhere.
around the trees there were fences and the fences were filled probably a metre high with wishes. it was a magical place. that i think is the true meaning of christmas. people spreading their love with the world, sharing their wishes with others.
i saw one that had 3 words written on it. Paz, Saude, and Amor. peace, health and love. that for some reason touched me.
after visiting Aldeia do Papai Noel we went ot a colonial cafe, where we ate no brasilian food what so ever, only cakes, sausages, cheeses, breads, spreads, and so on that were completely NOT BRASILIAN!
it was great to have a meal and not see rice anywhere on the table at all. hahaha
dia 12 - 13 de abril - gramado - porto alegre.
okay so today was my last full day on the trip :( not happy jan. i want to stay!
instead of leaving Gramado first thing, we spent all the morning visiting other attractions.
first up we visited Parque do Lago Negro. (black lake park) it was really beautiful, and you could hire paddle boats and go out on the lake of you wanted. joanna and i went out in one, and a few other people went out in some too.
it was just so beautiful and relaxing, i got some great photos :)
next we went to another chocolate factory (getting fatter by the minute here) and it was cheaper than the first so of course i bought some stuff, as did everyone else lol.
they had spiderman chocolates! i could just see a little Luke Martin going crazy if he saw them hahaha.
oooh not to mention the chocolate shoes i saw. perfect for laura, could see here buying 2 to make a pair!
after that, we went to the Hollywood Dream Cars place. hahaha it was really awesome.
beautiful old Cadillacs, mustangs, some nice fords, umm... oooh Bentleys, BMWs and so on.
was really nice. and there were over 10 Harley Davidson moterbikes of different eras and styles. was really cool! it was a kind of a Elvis museum too. was really cool!
we had 2 hours in the main part of town to grab some lunch, do some shopping or whatever which was nice, then we got back on the bus and headed off to porto alegre.
we got to porto alegre about 5 so had a couple of hours to chill before dinner. kayla and i just colapsed on our beds and enjoyed the cable tv hahaha.
that night, the other students that were doing the argentinian leg of the trip, arived ath the hotel, so there was much screaming, yelling, jumping, and crying, as students were reunited with old friends.
for dinner, we went to another dinner and show churrascaria, and although not as good as the one in foz, it was still very good.
i have to get up at 4:40am, and leave for the airport at 5:15 with the other students who are leaving. unfortunatly except for tim and i, everyone else has 7am flights, so we get the pleasure of sitting round for another 4 hours, and me another hour after tim gets his flight. oh fun. lol
Dia 13- 14 de Abril
urgh so as i was saying before, got up really early, got to the airport with the others at 6am, to find that tim and i couldnt check in our luggage til 8am, so we had to cart it round with us for ages.
got maccas for brekky, watched some flights go out, got really bored, finally checked in our bags, played guitar and dosed, then tim left, and i went and sat at my gate for an hour. fun fun fun. slept the whole way home, caught a shuttle bus from the airport to the city, and my aunty picked me up and took me back home. so ends my adventure, wish it could have gone forever :(
im now at district conference, and will report back on that in a weeks time! tchau for now!
Em!
it was really cool and had a piscina natural (natural swimming pool) that was really nice and refreshing. that hour that we went there was our only hour of sunlight for the day, but i guess we were lucky that it chose that time to be sunny.
we went back to the restaraunt on the water, and had an amazing seafood lunch. it was so cool :) dad would be jealous!
after we had let lunch settle a bit (there were a few people who were a bit concerned about getting back on the boat after a big feed of seafood lol) we headed back to the mainland where we met the bus and headed to one of floripa's surf beachs for a gander.
it wasnt that exciting there, but at least there were some little stalls and things that we could browse. i bought some stickers for my guitar. i have decided that wherever i go in brasil, im going to pick up some car bumper stickers for my guitar, and it is going to be my travel guitar, and it will go all over Brasil :)
after the beach we went down the street, and got something for dinner, and had a little wander for 40 mins.
kyla and i got really good icecream... that was our dinner. hahaaha
that night we had our Trip birthday party.. a party for all the birthdays on the trip, which happened to be only one persons, so they added my name to the list as mine was only a week before hand :)
it was really nice. everyone got all dolled up, and we just had fun dancing and singing and being rather stupid.
it was great fun.
oooh and the cake was great too. :) always a bonus!
Dia 10- 11 de Abril - Floripa - Gramado
okay, so packed up and left Florianopolis today, traveled all day, and arrived in Gramado around 5pm.
before going to the hotel though, we made a quick stop by one of the many chocolate factories in town. oh my god. i love this place already, i think im going to leave Gramado 10 kgs heavier!
hahaha there was a giant bunny made entirely of chocolate. i think there was something like 260kgs of chocolate in it. was crazy! and yes, that is a crown sculpted entirely out of chocolate!
purchased a few bars of the handmade chocolate, and a gift box with a few chocolates in it for my host family.
oh and if i thought curitiba was beautiful from the european influence, it becomes out weighed by the beauty of gramado. gramado has a lot of german influence, so there is lots of chocolate, and beautiful homes, and different food, and not just some, but all of the town looks like a piece of europe. Gramado is muito linda!
we went to another buffet type thing for dinner. they have them everywhere in brasil! and thats about it for today!
Dia 11- 12 de Abril - Gramado e Canela
today was one of my favourite days of the trip. first up in the morning we headed to parque do caracol, which was quite beautiful, with a waterfall, and a beautiful walking trail around the park.
next we went to castelinho caracol , a beautiful old house that was built by german settlers in 1913.
you could look around the house, with all the original furniture and everything, as well a photos of the original family and the generations to follow. it was really nice.
also you can sit down and have home made ( and when i mean home made i mean cooked in a traditional wood fire stove) apple tea and apple strudel.
the germans were slightly more hopeful about this, and thought it was nice, but still not as good as home. well, i tell you what, the one from germany must be pretty damn good, because this was delicious!
after that, we went to a local winery, to buy cheap wines if we wanted them for our families.
i really was considering it, but decided against it in the end, because i didnt want to send them home, and unlike the other students who only have 2 months til they go home.
i still have 9, so i dont really want to cart wine around for all this time. im sure i will find other opportunities to buy brasilian wine a bit closer to when i go home.
after the winery, we went to a leather clothing store called black bull. (yes it is in english, not portuguese; english names for shops here are like french names for shops in aus. makes them look very chic lol. )
anyway, this leather shop... well you could tell it was real leather as soon as you walked in the door just by the smell. it was amazing... if you like that sort of thing. i know dad would have appreciated it as he appreciates a good bit of real leather. everything was really beautiful, the jackets and gloves and things were so soft and nice... one hitch... VERY expensive. i think only 3 people bought something there.
the fun part at black bull though was that about 15 people got the opportunity to get out on the cat walk and strut their stuff, whilst modeling the leather goods. just for fun of course, and it sure was that. the guys can be real dags thats for sure.
after the leather shop, we had one more stop before lunch. we went to mundo a Vapor (Steam world).
it was really quite cool ( another place dad would love) with a real steam engine sticking out of the front of the building to replicate the 1895 train wreck at the Montparnasse train station in Paris. the whistle blows every hour and every minute or so it lets out a burst of steam. :)
it is really cool, and the inside has like the history of steam engineering, with all diferent types of original steam powered engines and machines on display.
there was also the opportunity to dress up in period style costume and get your photograph taken, (like at sovereign hill) so a group of us got together and did that.
by this time we were all starving, so we went into the centre of Canela and got ourselves some lunch.
the town is really beautiful, the buildings are really amazing!
there was this beautiful big church, which looked more like a cathedral! it was really beautiful.
after lunch we headed home to the hotel and had free time until 6.
this is a picture of our hotel... pretty cute aye :)
I went into my room, lay down on my bed with my book and got 2 pages into it before falling asleep. i slept all the way through til 5:45pm, then daz thought it would probably be a good idea to wake me up so i had a bit of time to get ready. lol i was so tired. i think everyone was at that point where whenever you get a period of an hour or so to yourself, you just crash. we were all so tired.
we all met down in the lobby at 6, and before dinner, visited Aldeia do Papai Noel.
i am just going to post the link to the site here and you can see for yourself how cool it is, but i will put up a few of my pictures here too :) http://www.papainoel.com/
there is one part of the park where you can write your christmas well wishes on a piece of bolsa wood if you purchase it, or on a piece of paper or whatever you ahve, and to hang it in the wishing area.
i wrote mine on a bit of paper as i didnt know they were selling the wood at thefront, but god, there were probably milions of pieces of wood, in the trees, and on the posts and everywhere.
around the trees there were fences and the fences were filled probably a metre high with wishes. it was a magical place. that i think is the true meaning of christmas. people spreading their love with the world, sharing their wishes with others.
i saw one that had 3 words written on it. Paz, Saude, and Amor. peace, health and love. that for some reason touched me.
it was great to have a meal and not see rice anywhere on the table at all. hahaha
dia 12 - 13 de abril - gramado - porto alegre.
okay so today was my last full day on the trip :( not happy jan. i want to stay!
instead of leaving Gramado first thing, we spent all the morning visiting other attractions.
first up we visited Parque do Lago Negro. (black lake park) it was really beautiful, and you could hire paddle boats and go out on the lake of you wanted. joanna and i went out in one, and a few other people went out in some too.
it was just so beautiful and relaxing, i got some great photos :)
next we went to another chocolate factory (getting fatter by the minute here) and it was cheaper than the first so of course i bought some stuff, as did everyone else lol.
they had spiderman chocolates! i could just see a little Luke Martin going crazy if he saw them hahaha.
oooh not to mention the chocolate shoes i saw. perfect for laura, could see here buying 2 to make a pair!
after that, we went to the Hollywood Dream Cars place. hahaha it was really awesome.
beautiful old Cadillacs, mustangs, some nice fords, umm... oooh Bentleys, BMWs and so on.
was really nice. and there were over 10 Harley Davidson moterbikes of different eras and styles. was really cool! it was a kind of a Elvis museum too. was really cool!
we got to porto alegre about 5 so had a couple of hours to chill before dinner. kayla and i just colapsed on our beds and enjoyed the cable tv hahaha.
that night, the other students that were doing the argentinian leg of the trip, arived ath the hotel, so there was much screaming, yelling, jumping, and crying, as students were reunited with old friends.
for dinner, we went to another dinner and show churrascaria, and although not as good as the one in foz, it was still very good.
i have to get up at 4:40am, and leave for the airport at 5:15 with the other students who are leaving. unfortunatly except for tim and i, everyone else has 7am flights, so we get the pleasure of sitting round for another 4 hours, and me another hour after tim gets his flight. oh fun. lol
Dia 13- 14 de Abril
urgh so as i was saying before, got up really early, got to the airport with the others at 6am, to find that tim and i couldnt check in our luggage til 8am, so we had to cart it round with us for ages.
got maccas for brekky, watched some flights go out, got really bored, finally checked in our bags, played guitar and dosed, then tim left, and i went and sat at my gate for an hour. fun fun fun. slept the whole way home, caught a shuttle bus from the airport to the city, and my aunty picked me up and took me back home. so ends my adventure, wish it could have gone forever :(
im now at district conference, and will report back on that in a weeks time! tchau for now!
Em!
0 comments:
Post a Comment