There are currently 6 IAESTE students living in ora round Belo Horizonte. Unfortunately, Adjam, from I don’t know where and Mats, from Norway, live about a 4 hour bus ride away in Viçosa. The other two, Stefan, from Germany and Brad, from the US live close to me in Belo Horizonte. I got all their contacts from the IAESTE office in Belo and I thought it would be good for all of us to get together for a beer to get to know one another since we are all in the same situation… being in a foreign country on this exchange [View Full Entry]

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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 [View Full Entry]

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I ended up watching the game at home for the first time. Silvestre has a TV room set up with a projector and a screen that automatically rolls down from a slot in the ceiling. A pretty sweet set-up if you ask me. The game was a bit ealier than the others, at 12:00 noon, so we only worked until 11:00 and then we had the rest of the day off. I ate so much for lunch that day that I was nearly falling asleep during the second half. Why is it that whenever I´m away from home I tend to [View Full Entry]

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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 [View Full Entry]

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Yesterday was my second world cup match in Brasil and Caro and João took me to one of their friends appartments where they were having a party. I go to these social functions not knowing anybody but as soon as the people there find out that I´m canadian or that I speak english they can´t wait to talk with me and tell me where they have travelled and practice some of their english. By the end of the night, I´m friends with everyone there and we´re making plans to get together later, or they want to show me something or go [View Full Entry]

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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 [View Full Entry]

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Friday I was off work. I was origionally supposed to work only 6 hours a day, 5 days a week, but because I like relatively far from work, if I wanted to get off early I´d have to take two busses to get home. So instead I´m working 8 hour days and getting fridays off. The hours at work are strange. We start at 8am (which actually means sometime between 8 and 9) and break for lunch at noon(ish). Then there is a 2 hour lunch break! 2 hours! I´m really looking forward to my half hour lunch break when I [View Full Entry]

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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 [View Full Entry]

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Today Caro, Joao and I went to watch the Brasilian football match at Tobias´home. It was his 27 birthday and he invited everyone over to his place for a BBQ and to watch the game and to drink beer. Caro gave me a shirt with the Brasilian colors so I fit in very well. After the game and eating meat all afternoon we went to the main street in Belo Horizonte where everyone goes after a football match to celebrate and party. Thousands of people were there, much like whyte ave after an oiler playoff game. They are drinking beer in [View Full Entry]

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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 [View Full Entry]

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