We were sitting around at the end of the night telling jokes... Deep in the forest a bear was chasing a rabit and they tripped over a tree root stumbling down together. When they got up and dusted themselves off they turned around and saw a genie floating in the air. "Thank you, thank you" said the genie, "you freed me from an eternal life in my lantern by rubbing it when you both stumbled from that tree root. For this I must grant each of you 3 wishes." "ok," says the bear licking his lips, "I wish that all the bears in the forest are female!" and POOF, all the bears in the forest are female. Now it was the rabbits turn, "I wish for a motorcycle," he says. The bear cuts in, "you idiot, ... read more

If you don´t know already, when Brasil plays in the world cup the whole country completely shuts down. Everyone goes home or to a party from work and finds a good television to watch the game. I was told the sale of tv´s before the world cup increases 300%. One electronic store had this sale on that if you buy a plazma tv (a $10 000 tv) before the world cup and brasil goes on to win the cup, they will sell you a second plazma tv for only $1 real. So on thursday, we took most of the afternoon off to watch the game against Japan. Cool right. Little did I know that you have to come in on saturday to make up for lost time at work. Life can´t be all good I guess. ... read more

The family I´m staying with consists of... Silvestre - Father Regina - Mother Carolina - Daughter Gustavo - Son Sophie - Dalmation dog Egor - German sheppard/Rotweiler dog (I like to call him Cujo) I´ll get pictures of everyone soon... read more

I really lucked out with my arrangements here in Brasil. I had no idea what to expect and I think I landed a gold mine. This family picked me up from the airport. There are two kids my age (25 and 22) and they are introducing me to all their friends, taking me to parties etc. Whenever Brasil plays in the world cup the whole country shuts down. Nobody works, and nobody goes to school. Afterwards everyone goes to the streets just like you see on whyte ave after the oiler games. Some truck pulls up with a HUGE stereo system and everyone is dancing in the street. There is beer flowing and beautiful brasillian bombshells everywhere. In general, f@#king awesome! You have to be careful of pickpockets though. My "host brother" was on holidays in ... read more

It was early to rise for me on friday morning. Only having arrived the night before, I had my first day of work on friday. Silvestre and Carolina (the father and daughter of the family who I am staying with) and I drove to work only 15 minutes away. Silvestre is one of the owners of TECTRAN and his daughter Carolina (Caro) works in the HR department. I was introduced to probably 20 people but I can only remember a few names. Louis is a civil engineer who works in the consulting department. He reminds me a lot of my friend Bruno from I-House... just a layed back happy-go-lucky guy who likes to joke a little and have a good time. Next to him sits Andre. Andre has a little trouble speaking english but is trying ... read more