Bye bye Brazil

We returned to Salvador on Saturday and I had a chance to go to the handicrafts market a bit. There was lots of woodwork, art, cashews, and soccer jerseys. Some people who stayed in Salvador had the opportunity to go to a “football” game, which I am really jealous about. The other big trips that people took were Rio de Janeiro, Lencois, or Iguassu Falls. If I ever return to Brazil, I would love to see Rio because I hear that it is absolutely beautiful.

One of the hardest things to deal with in Brazil was the language. They speak Portuguese, which some people say is like a drunk French person trying to speak Spanish. I will definitely encounter the language barrier in every country so Brazil just eased me into it. I just felt so unaware. On the airplane, they didn’t always translate and we used a lot of hand gestures. They did teach us on the basics on the ship, and some of the words that I use a lot were “hello,” “thank you,” “please,” “sorry,” and “excuse me.” The good thing about Brazil though was that we could survive at least with Spanish. Some of the words were the same or similar.

One of my biggest regrets from Brazil was not going to a steakhouse. Oh my gosh, everyone raves about it. I guess you get a card at your table – you flip it when you want meat and they just mob your table to start shaving meat onto your plate. You flip it back when you don’t want any. It keeps going back and forth until you are utterly stuffed. I had the opportunity to go to one when I got back in Salvador on Saturday, but I wasn’t feeling so hot. I’ll spare you the details. We did have some great food on the riverboat, but for one reason or another, a lot of us got sick. Our cuisine on the riverboat was rice, beans, noodles, some type of meat and fish, salad, fruit (oh, delicious fruit), and their national soda, Guarana. By the way, if you are about to say that I got sick from the salad, I avoided the salad for the most part. Anyways, it was good food, and I am glad I didn’t get sick until the end although the flight wasn’t very fun. The one consolation to not going to the steakhouse in Brazil is that I am going to make myself go to one in New York next year. I will have to get some recommendations from my Brazilian friend, Daniella.

Other things that I learned about Brazil:

• They have direct elections and everyone is required to vote. If someone does not vote (or show up and abstain), they can’t get a passport and other government services.
• The grades that students get in their classes do not matter. The only thing that matters for college is a national examination. If they want to go to school in Brazil, they need to choose a specialty, such as business or engineering, and then they need to go to the specialized school. While in college, most students have seven to eight classes per semester, a lot more than we do in the states. However, we have more reading in the states than Brazil. The students usually stay at home while they are attending college.

To conclude, Brazil was an adventure. South Africa is next, which I am looking forward to the most. If you want to know more about Brazil, add a comment to this blog and I would be happy to add a post. I just have run out of things to write about, and why would I want to study for my exams anyways?