I just arrived back in São Paulo after spending this past Friday thru Wednesday back in Caraguatatuba. This trip was a bit different than my last trip. On Friday I actually took a bus to the international airport to meet the American missionaries from Caraguá, AJ and Barbara, as well as a group of 10 adults from Virginia Beach who were coming to visit for a week. These adults were from another church in Virginia Beach who were coming to see what Brazil is all about and decide if they want to take their youth group here next year. Among the [View Full Entry]

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Today is my last day at work. I have to admit, I am not entirely sad that today is my last day of work for my internship (but please do not misinterpret, I have loved my experience here in Brazil, just the project was a bit of a headache). This project, although I knew it would a lot of tedious work, there were many more speed bumps that I ran into than I expected. For those of you who do not know what my project is, I will explain briefly. For the past year there has been a collaboration between three [View Full Entry]

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This past week I made an amazing discovery. On Wednesday, while in the car on the way to visit a hospital, my coworker and I drove by a Starbucks! This may seem insignificant to you guys in the U.S. who pass 4 or 5 Starbucks on your way to work in the morning…but here in São Paulo, I had only heard rumors of their existence, but have never met anyone who actually had seen one. If you are wondering why I was so happy to see a Starbucks when I am living in a country known for their great coffee beans…from [View Full Entry]

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This past weekend I took my first excursion and traveled to a sleepy little beach town called Caragutatuba. I went because we have family friends that are American missionaries there who I wanted to visit. So Friday after work I hopped on a bus and headed out to Caraguá, about a 3 hour bus ride from São Paulo. At the bus station waiting were our missionary friends, AJ and Barb as well as another guy who my mom knows well from her trips to Caraguá, my Brazilian brother, Felipe. AJ and Barbara live in a beautiful home just blocks from the [View Full Entry]

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I know this is a bit of a random entry but I just thought it was funny. I have already introduced you all to João Pedro (Petrusco), the 3 year old son of the family I am staying with. Well he had started the habit of yelling my name any time he feels like it. Whether it be when I am in my room reading, or he will just blurt out when we are all at the table eating dinner. We all think it is very funny and the rest of the family has started to do it to also when [View Full Entry]

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This past Wednesday was a holiday in São Paulo and I asked about a half dozen different people what the holiday was for and no one could tell me for sure. All I could gather is about 7 years ago the government in São Paulo decided to make July 9th a holiday for something honoring when the state was founded. Anyways, because everyone had a day off, my coworker Ricardo told me he would take me around São Paulo that day so I could see a bit more of the city. I meet Ricardo and his girlfriend in the morning where [View Full Entry]

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Happy 4th of July everyone! I hope that all of y’all had a great holiday and were able to spend it outside watching fireworks. 4th of July just isn’t quite the same when you are in a foreign country. My day started out getting on my bus in the morning and having it break down half way to my work. Everyone on the bus had to get off and get on another bus which we rode for about 10 minutes, then that one stopped and we all got off and got on a second bus. The new bus dropped us off [View Full Entry]

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So I can officially say I have experienced “25 de Março” in São Paulo. 25 de Março is a street in downtown São Paulo that is filled with vendors selling cheap Prada knock offs, illegally copied DVDs, and about every useless electronic you can ever want. We got there early, about 9:00am and I had heard it is a crowded place, but at 9am it was actually quite enjoyable with only a few people in the stores. By about 10am the streets and stores became just packed with people where it was difficult to even move. Basically like NYC’s Chinatown at [View Full Entry]

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Today I was able to get off of work early because we (the family and myself) wanted to spend the afternoon at a nearby orphanage. Neil is good friends with the man that runs the orphanage so we drove about an hour outside Sao Paulo to just spend the afternoon playing with the kids and allow let me have “English” time with some American who also live there. It was a nice afternoon and the property that the orphanage is on is beautiful. Here are some pictures. On our way back from the orphanage we turned onto a random road into [View Full Entry]

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So it was Petrusco’s 3rd birthday on Monday so a family from the church wanted to take everyone out on Sunday to celebrate. We all went to the Brazilian equivalent of Chuckie Cheese except instead of Chuckie Cheese it was called Habib’s, instead of cheese pizza there was falafel and humus and instead of a mouse, there was a genie with a mustache. The best part was that the menu did not only consist of Mediterranean-ish fast food, but of course there were also the staple hamburgers and french fries. It was interesting. One a side note about Habib’s, last night [View Full Entry]

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