Beginning of the End!

Hola todos...estoy en Argentina ahora!!

Sorry for being MIA! The last week in Brazil was crazy...we had to work on our projects that we procrastinated until the end to do...woops! I cant believe its over! Liz and I left Curitiba at 11 pm on wednesday, we took a 7 hour bus ride to Sao Paulo and sat at the airport until 3 pm thursday before finally getting on the flight to Buenos Aires!

Ok, before I talk about BA (which I loooooooove!!!) I will fill you i n on what I did the final days in Brazil. Oh and by the way i wont be able to post any fotos until i get back to los estados unidos...sorry! First of all it was freeeeeezing in Curitiba! I mean it was -1 degrees celsius! And Liz and I did not have heat that worked so being inside wasnt very much difference! We went to a cute German restaurant one night, walked around the pedestrian street, went to the Pinhairo Fair...basically explored Curitiba which was nice. One afternoon Renata, who is our TA on the trip, took us to an archeological dig in the center of the city where they are redeveloping the main square. They are in the process of uncovering the original paths and street networks which was really cool to see. They are going to put glass cases over them so everyone can see when they are done with the construction. I will put up pictures as soon as i can! We went out a couple of nights as well.. to Jon Bull Pub on a Tuesday before Erin left and to some Brazilian country music club on Friday. We had a few bottles of cachaça so it was a pretty good night! Over the weekend we worked on our presentations and on sunday we went to the street fair where I picked up a few souvenirs. The presentations went well. I ended up changing my topic last minute and presented an analysis of the sustainability of the Green Line in Curitiba. On Wednesday everyone left...but at different times so it was very anticlimatic. I was sad but all good things must come to an end! This trip has definately been an amazing experience. I met some really cool people, got to see some AMAZING places and actually learned a lot about planning!

So now we are in Argentina. Liz, Jess, Kevin, Eric and myself are staying at Hostel El Firulete Downtown. Liz didnt run into any problems with the whole entry/exit card issue thank god!! My first experience here, however, wasnt so nice. Liz and I came on a different flight than the other three so we got a cab to meet them at the hostel. Long story short the cab driver stole 100 pesos from me! It was a very clever scam but I was pissed! Jess, Kevin and Eric also had a problem with their cab driver...so be careful with taxis in BA!!! To look at the bright side, the exchange rate is 3 to 1 so in reality he only took about 35 american dollars from me...but still!!!

Besides that minor incident, I love this city! I really wish I could post pictures for you all to see! Plus I love the fact that I can speak spanish!!! Portuguese was the biggest barrier to getting around in Brazil! I tried to learn it but to be honest I am not much better at speaking it than I was 6 weeks ago!

Last night we went to a super cute restaurant and drank wine and ate delicious food! Then we hung out at the hostel after our long day of traveling. We walked around the city this morning..went to a few shops and Jess and I found our way to a bar of course! While we are here we plan to go to Recoletta Cemetary, Casa Rosada, to La Boca and to Bombonera stadium to see the last football game played there before they knock it down to build a new one!! I will keep you all updated on the final stretch of my South American journey. Thanks to everyone for staying tuned!! See you all very very soon!!!

Love,
Maud

The weekend I ate chicken heart and illegaly snuck out of Brazil!

This weekend a bunch of us (Liz, Jess, Lauren, Kevin, Dan, and myself) all took the 10 hour long busride to Foz do Iguazu. And it was definately worth it! We got back on Sunday with some very interesting stories to say the least:

We left Curitiba at 9 pm on Thursday night...got to the hostel in Foz at 6:30 am and slept for a few more hours before heading to the Brazilian side of the falls. They were A-MAZ-ING! Words, pictures, and videos cannot even describe how beautiful and intense they were! There were rainbows everywhere and hundreds of falls. We went whitewater rafting and got to swim around the Iguazu River! After a long day at the falls we went back to the hostel, showered and went out to dinner. We went to an all you can eat churascurria :) And this is where I had my first chicken heart! It sounds gross im sure but I had to try it! They walk around with this huge stake full of these little golf ball sized chicken hearts...so I ate one. To be honest it wasnt that bad..tasted like sausage. Needless to say I probably wont be eating any more of them in the near future!

When we got back to the hostel we had a drink at the bar and talked with some random cool people...A couple from San Francisco and a girl from Ireland. We decided that we were going to the Argentinian side of the falls the next day and went to bed fairly early because we knew we would have a long day of adventure ahead of us...little did we know our next adventure would come sooner than that!

We went back to the room and walked into a GIANT roach scurrying across the floor!! To make a long story short the 6 of us spent 2 hours trying to find him/kill him/get him out of our room so we could sleep. If only we had a video of this as I am sure it was hysterical to watch 6 grad students screaming/throwing shoes/spraying insect repellant for 2 hours! Once we finally found the roach and got rid of it, we went to sleep (with the lights on, haha!)

The next morning we began our long journey to Argentina (which, ironicaly, is only a 15 minute car ride from where we were staying). We were originally going to go to the Argentinian falls with a tour provided by our hostel. However, after talking with some people we were convinced that it was a rip off (50 reias, not including entrance to the park) and decided to travel there by ourselves using the public bus system. So we get on the first bus no problem...until we get to the Brazil border...No one told us we needed our Entry/Exit immigration papers with us!! None of us (except Dan...what a good boy!) had them with us..which means no leaving Brazil for us :( Except we realllly wanted to go see the other side of the falls...so we snuck out of the country! We were told by the Braziliian guards that if we left they didnt want to know about it and if we were lucky enough the Argentinian border wouldmt notice that we didnt have exit stamps in our passports. After about an hour of deliberating what to do and how to get there (it was about 1 km from border to border and when we tried to walk the guards told us it was muy peligroso!) We finally found a bus and hopped on. When we got to the Argentina border we held our breaths as they checked our passports..and....yay! We got through :) Then we probably spent another 30 minutes on 2 different buses before we actually mad it to the falls! And let me tell you they were worth the trouble! The falls were crazy! On the Brazillian side we walked out into the falls and on the Argentinian side we were standing on top of them! We took a train up to the Devils throat and I was in awe! I will post some pictures for you below and a video but I must tell you that you really have no idea how amazing they are until you see them! Sorry!!

I have no idea how we made it back to Curitiba but we did! We left Foz at 8:30 pm and arrived in Curitiba at 6:30 am Sunday morning. I slept in and then walked around the Sunday street market for a bit. This upcoming week is fairly laid back...we have a couple of afternoon activities which include a tour of the city, a favela workshop, and a visit to an archeological dig. The rest of the time we are supposed to be working on our papers because believe it or not we leave Brazil next wednesday/thursday! Hopefully this weekend everyone will be done so we can go to Ilha do Mel...Stay tuned....

You had to be this tall to go white water rafting...I just made it!!

The smallest, most rickety spiral staircase I ever had to climb down...
The gang in their gear...

In front of the Devil's Throat FallsOh, Frederico!Looking at the Argentinian side of the falls...There were random red phones at the hostel we were staying at...but no one was on the other end!?!

We walked out onto this bridge which is the middle of devils throat...Some more pictures of the falls..

Raining in Rio

Hi everyone...I made it back from Rio!!!!

Let me just say that Rio de Janiero is THE most amazing place I have EVER been to.

We (Jess, Liz, and myself) left our apartment in Curitiba at 5 am on Friday morning. We landed in Rio at 9 am and somehow figured out how to get to our hostel using the bus (which took and hour and a half but was only 6 reis as opposed to 70 reis if we took a cab). Unfortunately it was raining - and when i say raining i mean there was a freak monsoon outside! So since there was nothing better to do, we played cards and drank at the bar which was in our hostel (BarCode at Che Legarto Hostel...the best hostel ever!) Mind you we landed at 9 am, made it to our hostel at 10:30 am...so, yup we started drinking at 11 am. Later that night we met the entire NY Rugby team which was really cool and we got to taste orange capirinhas (guess we drank so many that they ran out of limes!!)

Day two was a little better weather so we walked around Ipanema, Copacabana, Leblon, and Gavia. This city was amazing...it was fairly clean, had beautiful vegetation all over the sidewalks and cute little restaurants and cafes everwhere, as well as the beaches which were gorgeous. And this is what I thought of the place during horrible weather! We met some brazilians from Porto Alegre and went to Lapa with them, which is a really cute district with cobblestoned roads and old portuguese architecture. There were bars and restaurants lining the roads...all super cute. We went to a bar called Rio Scenarium. This place was insane! It was 3 floors and was filled with amazing decor: had old cars inside, a wall with about 20 bicycles hanging, manequins, etc. all over the place. There was a live samba band playing downstairs and a room with popular brazilian music (or "funky" music, as they say!) on the second floor. I also got to learn how to samba as well!!!

Day three we scheduled a tour of the city which was to include Sugarloaf and Christ at Corcovado...but it was raining :( We went on the tour anyway and got to see some cool places like the street where the parade is during Carnival, Maracana stadium, the cathedral, etc. Sugarloaf was really cool...we took 2 cable cars up the hills, 1 to Urca hill and a second one to Sugarloaf. It was cloudy so we could only see off of Urca hill, but the experience was still worth it!! After, we went to an all you can eat Churrascaria ...DELISH!! Since it was so cloudy we were informed that we would not be able to see Christ the Redeemer, so we rescheduled for the next morning and hoped for good weather! We went back to the hostel for a little nap and then Jess and I went to Maracana for a little footeyball!! We saw the Flamingos vs Fluminense. We rooted for Flamingo because thats who our cab driver told us was god and also 90% of the stadium was in black and red (their colors). This game only had about 20, 000 people in attendance and was a regular season game, no biggie. But it was crazier than superbowl!!! Ill post a video and some pictures for you to see becasue I can not even describe to you how insane it was! Our team won though...yay!! We took it easy our last night there. We met some people in our hostel room (2 dutch and one french guy) who are studying in Buenos Aires. We went to dinner with them (well, Liz did ...me and jess went to a corner bar and had some tapas because we were full from eating at the game).

Our last day there and it was beautiful!! I mean the sun was shining and everything....so FINALLY we got to see Christ!! The views from the top of Corcovado were BEAUTIFUL! I will post pictures and everyone will think they are amazing, but I must tell you that nothing compares to actually being there...the pictures just do not do these views justice! Oh and cool sidenote - They were filming a telenovela at the Cristo while we were there! Then after seeing Christ we stopped at a beach and Liz and Jess went hanggliding!! pretty crazy and what a way to leave rio!

This sadly brings me to the end of our amazing trip to Rio :( I recommend EVERYONE to go! Believe it or not this place is underrated ;) below are some pics and videos from this weekend...Enjoy and I will update you all soon...we are planning to go to Foz de Iguacu on Friday!!

Tchau

Art in Rio...

Only in Rio can you find Jesus inside KFC!

The cathedral in Rio...

Two guys from the NY Rugby Club (The guy on the left was from Cornell and argued with me the whole night about the seminoles - he was a hurricanes fan...boo! and the guy on the right was from San Sebastian, Puerto Rico which is where Xaviers family is from - small world!)

Our delicious Churrasco in Gavia...Matteus (who taught me how to samba!!), Me, Jess, and Liz at Rio Scenarium...

The samba band at Rio Scenarium...

Looking down from the 3rd floor in Rio Scenarium...

Wall of bikes at Rio Scenarium...

Jess and I at Maracana...

Liz, Jess, and I on Urca hill with Sugarloaf behind us...

Monkeys at Sugarloaf!

On Corcavado overlooking Guanabara Bay and Sugarloaf...

Finally I see Him!!

View from Corcavado...

Cristo el Redentor...

Video of the Flamingo vs Fluminense futbol game...about to see Flamingo score the only goooooollllllll!

Video from on top of Corcovado:

Polish day

Oi!

So today we had 2 boring lectures :( But we did have a loooong lunch and visited the Oscar Niemeyer museum where we saw some really cool exhibits! Then we went to Pope John Paul II park, which is a memorial to Polish immigration in Brazil. I will post some pictures below for your viewing pleasure :) Before heading back to the last lecture we went to a cute little polish restaurant right outside of the park and had delicious perogies! Yummm....

I know this is a short post, but just wanted to update you all on my day :)

The Oscar Niemeyer Museum:

Under some art in the museum:

Myself, Shani, Dan, and Lauren at lunch today:

Interesting menu items...Krak-burger anyone?!

Sand dune boarding in Floripa!

Here are two videos from Floripa when we went sand dune boarding...the first one is of me actually sand dune boarding (well, attempting to at least) and teh second one is me trying to climb up the hell..which was KILLER! It's really hard to tell how far and steep the hill was, but believe me it was!

Ok, the internet is going real slow so I cant upload any more videos...but i have 3 more so stay tuned!

Tchau mis amigos :)

Cucumbers and Nutella sandwiches

We have arrived at our final destination!! Curitiba...land of the infamous Bus Rapid Transit System! We left Floripa on Sunday afternoon and had a 4 hour bus ride to Curitiba...our shortest ride yet! Liz and I are of course sharing an apartment which is actually nice...luckily we are on the first floor so i dont have to treck up 12 flights of stairs like i had to in Sao Paulo!! We have a balcony and the view of the city is really good from our window...we also have a normal sized bathroom (!) and 2 rooms - one with our beds and one with a mini kitchenette (included: stove, sink, and refrigerator), a breakfast table and a couch. We have a pool and a churascurria at the top floor and the views from up there are amazing! The past 2 days have been jam packed with shcool work...it was nice having 4 days off for vacation but back to reality now i guess....or maybe not....Great news!!! Liz, Jess and myself are going to Rio on Friday!!!!!!!
WOOOOO!!
I cannot wait...we found super cheap flights and an even cheaper hostel so we leave friday at 7:30 am and return on Monday night...we will be staying in Ipanema :)

Ok so let me backtrack and fill you in on the past week....
So while in Florianopolis we had an amazing time as you saw from my previous post...the last 2 days there we went sand dune boarding! We walked about a half hour from our place and there were these GIANT sand dunes...like nothing I have ever seen before! They overlooked a good part of the island so you could see the ocean on one side and the lagoon on the other side...the first day we saw the sunset which was gorgeous! and the second day we woke up and went sand dune boarding! Its just like snow boarding but on sand...and its actually much easier although I still fell ALOT! I will post the video of one of my runs down the dune!

On monday I finally did laundry...clean clothes at last!!! I also went food shopping...hence the reason for the blog post title..that is what I have been eating for the past two nights! Im wierd, I know...but I am also running out of money fast! In the afternoon we went to the bus station and had a lecture on the BRT! Ill post some pics below....
Yesterday and today we had lectures and tours the whole day ( 8:30 to ~5:30). Its kind of crunch time with our projects because we only have 3 weeks left believe it or not! Good news is I got my proposal back and everything is good to go....Also the lectures have pertained to my subject which was a plus. We visited the Secretary of Urbanism and IPPUC... For those who may not know..IPPUC is responsible for Curitibas urban planning initiatives...its where it alllllll happens!! Then today we had a lecture on favelas and public housing in Curitiba...we also visited the favelas this afternoon....
Talk about a sobering experience....I have heard all about poverty in developing countries, studied it, done research on it, etc., etc. But to actualy see it is another thing. Its mind blowing... I have some pictures that I will post but they do no justice to the conditions that these Curitibanos (sp?) live in. It is especially harsh because they collect garbage and sort out the recylcing (in and outside their homes) for a living as part of the "Trash that is not trash" recycling for initiative here in Curitiba. I felt a little uncomfortable being there just because there was about 15 of us out there wandering their neighborhood taking pictures like they were a tourist attraction. I really wish I could have talked to some of the residents, especially why we were there and about our research projects, etc. Seeing favelas and poverty like I saw today really made me think about my situation and how lucky I am. It also makes me very happy that I chose to do something with my life that I love.
Never take anything for granted people!

Ok well I must go be a good student and research some literature before I head off to bed...I am gonna post some pictures and videos from the last couple of days...Enjoy!!
See you when I get back from Rio!!!!

Love,
Maud

Pictures and Videos I promised:

One of the bus stop "tubes" in Curitiba:

A rickshaw in one of the favelas in Curitiba, used for transporting the garbage and recyclables:
Homes in one of Curitiba's favelas (not the one of the worst ones...):
Love the recycling options available in Curitiba! (Paper, Plastic, Aluminum, Glass, and Organic!):

Biggest bird I have EVER seen! In one of Curitibas many public parks:Some of the group in Florianopolis at Fortaleza de Sao Jose da ponta crossa:The sand dune boarding crew (Me, Eric, Elly, Kevin, and Jess):

This was halfway through the weekend vacation while in Florianopolis. I count 16 bottles of vino!

Floripa!

I have been MIA, I know...so sorry...but I have been busy!!

So we left Maringa on Sunday and had a 12 hour long busride....ughhhhh...but it actually wasnt that bad because i took a dramamine and passed out! The hotel we stayed at in Florianopolis (Floripa for short) was gorgeous!!! Our room had sliding glass doors that overlook pretty plants and flowers:

We were thee from Sunday until Wednesday and did some workshops with the Federal University of Santa Catarina. The students there go to school for FREE and get a stipend of almost $1000 dollars a month!! It consists of like the top 5% of all Brazils best students. Lucky! Some of us presented projects we had worked on while in the States and the students there did the same. I was one of the ones who made a presentation so I did it on Box City and it went really well! We took a tour of their caampus and they had some really cool labs as well. The one below was a wind flow simulator...so they put blocks and designs representing buildings and turned on a water flow that represented wind which showed how different angles and open or closed windows would affect windflow...

Anyways...So on Tuesday we toured the island and saw some of the most amazing sights I have ever seen! See below for what Heaven on Earth looks like:

After the tour of the island we went to this crazy bar for drinks and oysters :) yummy....and they had notes every where from all the customers that have eaten there, so of course we had to leave our mark...

On Wednesday we were dropped off at the place we are staying for the long holiday weekend (We have Thursday and Friday off!!) We rented a place that one of the professors had..so all 11 of us (minus Erin because her husband is here and they got their own hotel)are staying here. Its right on the lagoon and, of course, is AMAZING! Look at the view from our window:

The first night here we cooked and drank vino tinta :) And during the day we just lay out at the beach or walk around by all the shops. This is the life! All i have to say is its gonna be reallllly hard for me to come back ;)

Believe it or not I am here for school, so I thought I would fill u in on that before I head out...Our big project is to write a research paper and finally I have figured out my topic: How verticalization impacts the public transportation system in Curitiba, Brazil. I am also thinking of doing a comparative study between Curitiba and Maringa, but that depends on how much time I have. I will get back to everyone when I go to Curitiba. We leave sunday afternoon and I promise I will update more often once I am there!

Hope everyone is doing well in los estados unidos! Miss you all!

-Maud