The Brazil trip

To check out our cool trip around Brazil, see Florian's blogg: flolive.blogspot.com

Last day

Today is my last day at the lab. Feels both good and a bit sad.. Yesterday we had a good buy party at a bar with nice food and music. It feels a bit strange to leave all the people I got to know here and never know if I will see any of them again..

But I should not complain.., I have a cool trip to look forward to. Tomorrow I will go to São Paulo (again), but this time only to the airport to meet Florian. From there we take the next flight to Manaus, Amazonia. We will go on a five days long boat trip along Rio negro. We will also go to Chapada de Diamantina in Bahia. This is a beautiful area for hiking. And we will visit Rio de Janeiro again. Unfortunately that's all what we have time for and then we have to go back to Campinas and then We'll go back home to Europe. See you there!!

So long rafikis!

more pics

Festa Junina

This weekend i went on a traditional party that people arrange in Jine. Its called Festa Junino and it's supposed to be like a country party. There's ALOT of food and sweets to eat and you paint your self and then you look as nice as i and Fabiana looks... The idea is that you should look like girl from the country side.. It was really fun party and my stomach was very satisfied after all teh food...

Portuguese festival

On sunday it was time for the singing. There were two men playing guitar, one female singer and one male singer. What voice the woman had. Really powerfull!!

Portuguese festival

This weekend there was like a portuguese festival. That ment that there were cultural events like dancing and singing. Saturday evening I went to see some traditional portuguese dancing. It was really fun. What they do kind of all the time is to spin around and that makes the womens skirt fly up and with the funny underwhear that they use it looks really funny! After the show we went to "Casa de Portugal" The house of portugal. Here we eat some traditional portuguese food and there was also some more dancing.

Paulista avenue

After the exhibition we went to the famous Paulista avenue. Along this avenue, that's more then 3 kilometers long, there are crazy high buildings and on sundays market along the way. I found some nice things to bring home..! Then there was one more night (and one more nice dinner) at Marinas house and then back to Campinas again...

The body exhibition

And on sunday we tried it again, to get to the crazy body exhibition. We were very lucky, it was a bit cold and even some rain, so people stayed indoors, so we didn't have to stand in line more then 30 min or so! And the exhibition was really cool! it's Gunther von Hagens who made most of the work. Google him if you want more pictures..

Consert

In the evening we went for a very nice concert with brazilian music. It was really good!! They played a lot of different styles and the whole atmosphear was just great.

Marinas place

Marinas family has two dogs, I forgott their names but they were very sweet. And next to the house there's a nice park where the birds get some food (feels strange that the birds get this nice table with fruits and just nearby the people in the favela has no food, but who cares about them.....). From the house you get a nice view over the city. Sao Paulo is the fourth biggest town in teh world by the way..

The central market

After this we went to the big market in teh centre. This was also really nice. The building has very pritty glass windows and there's a nice atmosphear at the market. Here I bought some dried froits and some cashew nuts.

The market

Next morning we went to the local market. It was really fun. They had all kinds of fruits that you can imagine and I got to try them all!. They all found it very fun with a foreigner that never tasted all these fruits before.. I bought some crazy pears that came from Japan. Really good!

Sao Paulo

So, this friday I went to Sao Paulo again. First I went to the Botanical department and collected my samples. After this me and Marina went to her house. It's a nice place and her family was very welcomming. It was her moms birthday so we went out for dinner in the evening. Sao Paulo is knowned for their good pizzas!!

Sao Paulo again

Tomorrow I will go to Sao Paulo again. I have some more plants that I have to collect from there. I will go together with Chris and my friend Marinawho has her family in Sao Paulo. Chris will go back to campinas the same day, but I'll stay over the weekend.

I will try once again to enter this exhibition with the real bodies. Marina told me that the chances are maybe not very good since we try on a weekend, but you never know until you've tried.. I really hope it will work. It sounds so cool this exhibition!