Blogs from Belo Horizonte, Minas Gerais, Brazil, South America - page 8

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 stuff my face?? The same thing happened when I was in E.A. where I gained 10 pounds!! For example... yesterday we went out for sushi at lunch time. It was a really cool place actually. ... read more

It certainly has been football, football and more football, but I’m not complaining as the literal translation is party, party and party some more. Australia’s final match of the initial round of the World Cup was against Croatia, not only a great game of football, but also an emblematic example of Brazilian best intentions not quite going to plan. Although this was set to be a fantastic game of football and would ultimately decide which team would qualify for the round of 16 it was to be played at the same time as Brazil vs Japan. That only meant one thing, no bar, restaurant or any other public venue with a television screen was going to be broadcasting the Aussie match. The only saving grace was that one of the cable television stations broadcasts two sports ... read more

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 start work back home in September (ya, right). Everyone goes home to eat, take a nap etc... But now they have to come back and work till 6 o´clock. Since it is winter here in ... read more

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 to another party together. Eduardo in the pictures plays guitar. His friends say that he looks like Tom Cruise. Andre did an exchange to England and travelled all over with his girlfriend there. Two really ... read more

We managed to be in our house for 24 hours before we had our first social gathering, albeit consisting only of only a dozen people. It was held Sunday morning, the morning of the greatly anticipated match (or perhaps party) of Brasil vs Australia. The warm up game beginning at 10am was between the other two teams in our group, Japan and Croatia and the ‘reason’ for our little get-together. On Saturday I had taken receipt of 40 t-shirts I’d had printed with the Australian flag and the text “Go Aussies Go!!!” and in smaller print underneath “FIFA World Cup Germany 2006, Brasil vs Australia, 18th June 2006”. This was a last minute organisational task on my behalf as our initial plans had been somewhat foiled when one of our co-workers who had returned to Australia ... read more