Rio Grande Scenery 2

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Hello everyone!

I hope you are all having a wonderful time in your respective placements!

I have been in Rio Grande, a coastal city in southernmost Brazil for the past 3 weeks and a bit. I arrived on May 3 or so after a couple of adventurous days - and nights- in Montevideo, Uruguay, which is where my flight arrived from Toronto.

OMG I had just written about three pages full of insightful and funny remarks about my stay here when all of a sudden my connection CRASHED- meaning I lost all I had written!! I just let out a yelp that freaked the hell out my host family! This is terrible.... I will simply summarize what I had written. This is not a way to get out of writing this assignment, but my neck hurts from typing and I just wanna go to bed.

- I arrived to Rio Grande without much trouble, was picked up by a student from my Host organization and dropped off at the house I am currently staying at.

- The family is really nice, their food is great and they have an old blind dog that breaks my heart. They have been very open and have been excellent company.

- I live approx 12 blocks away from the bus stop, and then the bus to the university I am working at takes about 15 mins.

-Rio Grande is an industrial city with the biggest port in Latin America and a population of around 300,000. The weather is humid and rainy; most of the paint on houses facades is about to fall off because of the humidity.

- The town is not too pretty but it is a lot of fun. Parties are great and people are friendly. Many of the girls here are quite beautiful.

- Language has been a bit of barrier for me, especially when people talk to me on the streets. I have begun taking lessons.

- Compared to Toronto, the city is obviously much smaller and thus less varied and colourful. Living here is, I am guessing, not too different from what it must be like to live in a town like Hamilton or Sarnia.

-Food is great. It is full of flavour.

- Most people here dream of the first world as if it were disneyland. There are many English language academies and evangelical churches where people faint, much like in Arkansas.


I will write a more comprehensive description of Brazil once I travel to nearby Portoalegre or to Iguazu falls, which I am planning to do in a couple of weeks.


Best of luck to everyone.

Cheers,

Lorenzo

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