Slept on an actual bed last night, it was much better than the couch we are sharing. Our room has 2 beds and 1 couch, 3 guys. We are rotating who gets beds. Breakfast was ok, but they were out of eggs by the time I got there.
Started class at 9am, Rita Cliff (director of Bahia Street) came to the hotel and taught us the Portuguese Alfabeto and numeros 1-20. I enjoy learning new languages. Then at 10:30am we learned about the history of Pelorihno, the settlement of Brazil.
Around 12 we grabbed a bus (onibus) to Pelorihno and Rita and Richard explained the history and colonial architecture of the neightborhood. We went into a really fancy, ancient church that had tiles from Portugal, pre-1800 earthquake. The earthquake in Portgual destroyed a lot of the churches there, and the church we were is one of the few places those beautiful tiles still exist in the whole world. For lunch we ate comida-a-kilo (buffet where you pay by weight). It was cheap and delicious! Under 5R$, my favorite was the sausage.
We met back in Pelorihno around 2pm for a lecture from Tania Tevares (a professora of analytical environmental chemistry at
UFBA) on how Brazil is contributing to global climate change. Very informative. Then we watched a documentary on what Brazil has to lose from global warming….a lot. Then we went back to Barra Flats and I got in a quick beach run and workout.
It was Jeff’s 21st birthday, so a bunch of us (almost everyone) went out. It was fun. We bought some cachaca and made capirihnas. Drank a bit too much, swam in the ocean around midnight. Came back, showered, and crashed.