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