Just yesterday Helen, Tracy and I arrived to Belem in the state of Para in Brazil. We flew from LAX to Georgia -- where we had to run in order to catch our plane. From Georgia we flew to Manaus. We arrived at 6 a.m. to Manaus and had about 10 hours to do absolutely nothing before our plane took off at 3 p.m. to Belem. We ate twice at Bob's Burgers in the airport however, their burgers are tiny and the meat looked and tasted like sausage patties, not very appealing.
Finally 1 p.m. hit the clock and we checked in, which was horrible because there was only one person helping all of us out. Finally, we got through and were directed to gate C3. Then, it was boarding time but our gate was not opened so we had to hunt down some man who did no speak english. After many attempts to point at things and look up words in our dictionary we were directed to the correct gate.
Finally at 6:10 p.m we arrived to Belem and were greeted by our journalism professor Raul Reis.
Raul then told us that the other three students that are taking the course missed their flight and were coming in until tomorrow at 4 p.m. So he decided to drop us off at Hotel Formule 1. The first thing Tracy and I did when we got to our room was shower. It felt so great because we had 20 hours of plane flight on us. After we showered and got comfortable, Helene came over to our room and we decided to go downstairs to the help desk to order food. The concierge ordered a pizza for us. It was very difficult telling her what we wanted on our pizza and understanding what troco meant, which we later found out it meant change. The concierge wanted to tell us if the pizza delivery guy had to bring change with him.
While we ate our pizza, which is very different from american pizza but tastes pretty good, we laid in bed and watched "Turista" a movie about tourists in Brazil who are kidnapped and get their organs stolen from them.
Finally around 1 a.m. we fell asleep.
Today we woke up at 8 a.m. and got ready for our first official day in Belem. We had breakfast in the hotel. I had suco de laranja, which is orange juice and little bagels with ham and cheese. The orange juice tasted very different from our orange juice. I decided to also grab a cup of milk and a banana. The banana was good but the milk was not. It was a bit warm and tasted extremely different from our milk back in the US. After breakfast, Raul took me and the girls to the University of Para, where we met two people who I believe worked in administration at the university. After that we took a tour of the university, which was small but very nice.
After we went to have lunch at Estação das Docas in a buffet. We ate delicious food for 16 reias, which is pronounced hias. One reias is equivalent to about .50 cents in America We also took a look around the shops where people sell crafts, fish and fruits.
Then at around 3 p.m. Raul dropped us off at the shopping mall. At the mall we shopped around and had a very funny experience with this lady that was selling ice cream, McDonald's ice cream that is. Apparently, McDonald's over here only sells ice cream. We couldn't understand her and she couldn't understand us, but after pointing and laughing it out we finally all got some delicous ice cream. Finally, we took a cab back to the hotel. At the hotel to our surprise we bumped into the other three students: Stephanie, Patrick and Carrisa. We were very excited that we were all finally together. We then decided to walk to the supermarket Yamada, which is kind of like a Wal-mart. There we bought lots of water and they gave us wine to taste so we bought some wine as well. Then since Patrick's luggage got lost in LAX we all went to the second floor of the store where they sell clothes. Since we couldn't t take our shopping cart up the escalators, Carissa and I took this elevator which i had to drive. It was very funny and people were staring.
We all tried to buy Brazil Soccer jerseys since we thought they were on sale but to our surprise they weren't. Then out of nowhere there was a small fashion show in the middle of the store. Men and women modeled swimsuits and lingerie, which is the ultimate brazilian experience ahahhahaha.
After, we went back to the hotel and grabbed a taxi and had our first dinner together at this cute little restaurant.
We were suppose to go to another restaurant but as we arrived it was closed so the taxi driver took us around the street. In the restaurant we ordered meat and chicken plates for all of us to share. The waiter was french and was very friendly. The food was great and there was plenty to eat. Finally, as we ate and mingled a sudden downpour occurred. It was very nice to see the rain fall as we ate in the restaurant. At last, we headed back to the hotel in a taxi and called it a night.
The weather has been very overwhelming because it is very hot and its also very humid. But i think that i'm getting use to the humid and to the language.
Boa noite.
I laugh that you said: 'Their burgers are tiny and the meat Looked and tasted like sausage patties, not very appealing'.hahaha.
ReplyDeleteI too love orange juice. The orange juice tasted very different because is very tasty.
you said: 'The banana was good but the milk was not. It was a bit warm and tasted extremely different from our milk back in the US'.My friend traveled to the U.S. 'and too disliked the milk or coffee,because the flavor is very different. I did not like the movie tourists, brings an image through bad for the country, this movie was very reviewed, because it was produced by Americans. I laugh at the meaning: troco hahaha. I hope you're having fun. Congratulations for the comments, I really enjoyed it. Congratulations once again!