iracambi

ok my battery is low, and iracambi is much more remote than i thought it would be. the internet has been broken since we arrived and i had to hike an hour to get to a place where it will work. needless to say, i will be catching up on my reading and not on the blogging. i'll try to post something substantial in a few days. i'm missing home too. i think i'm ready for NC humidity in the summer.

wow....ummm...about that

ok. somewhere between two papers being due, mixed in with an exam, an impossibly slow internet connection, and life happening far too fast for me to even blink without thinking that i would miss something magical, the blog updates fell to the wayside. I'm sorry. if it means anything, i do have a couple posts on my computer, i just haven't posted them because i am a perfectionist and i'm not happy with them yet.

i'll update on the past few days now, then fill in on the last two weeks *eek!* in another 3 days or so....

our conservation biology class finished up on wedesday the 22 and we had two free days around Curtiba to just hang out and enjoy ourselves. this was also Alex's birthday so some of us got together for a nice dinner downtown. $15 US paid for a large meal, appetizers, a beer and a coke. most things cost about the same in the US as they do in Brazil, but the food is great and so cheap. also....the beer is cheaper than water and soda, i'm trying to do my best to be as economical as possible. after dinner we went to a bar that had a band playing 1960s rock. everyone knew all the beatles songs but then they played "won't get fooled again" by the who and i think i was the only one *in our group too* who knew the words. what were these UNC parents thinking?!...thanks dad for giving me good taste in music.

the next day, thursday, was cloudy, cold and rainy, which pretty much describes how curitiba generally is in the winter...BUT...it was a perfect day to spend indoors. i met up with a Brazilian friend and we had an embarrassingly american day. Mcdonalds for luch, my first of the entire trip. I lasted from the 19th of june until Thursday, which is damn good if i do say so myself. not all aspects of globalism are that bad. the cheeseburger and fries tasted exactly the same as they do in NC. i dont even like it that much, but that day it could have been homemade chicken pot pie and i don't think i would have been able to tell the difference.
THEN....
I saw Harry Potter. three words to describe it: Epic. Fantastic. Heartbreaking. i don't want to give anything else away for the hermits who havent read the book yet or seen the movie.

Friday morning i did laundry and packed and by afternoon it was warm (enough) outside. i met up with a friend and we went to the Oscar Niemeyer museum. the artwork inside was interesting enough but the design of the building is the best part. www.greatbuildings.com/buildings/Museo_Niemeyer.html
here's a link for a website with good pictures of it, my computer freezes every time i try to upload any online and my patience isn't good enough for that tonight.

after the museum we went to Baragui Park, one of the largest in the city and walked around looking at ducks and eating french fries. we tried to see the obese fish in the river that are overfed by pedestrians but the water was too muddy.

the night was nice too, stopped by a weekly food market and had Cantau a popular drink in the south and fried things, also popular in the south. speaking of fried things, every ounce of weight i lost in the amazon returned by the end of our stay in curitiba. all the girls and most of the guys left with what we are affectionately calling the "curitba 10." mine happened to show up in my thighs. hooray. it's not our fault. sort of. everything tastes good and it's all cheap and buffett or all-you-can-eat style. you do the math.

saturday was much harder than i thought or wanted it to be. i've really fallen in love with the city and its people and leaving it was difficult. without going into too much sappy detail the three short weeks in curitiba were some of the best of my life and i wouldnt trade them in for anything...alas, more details about the curitiba part coming soon...i forgot to calm myself down before the flight to Foz Do Iguacu and had the smallest of panic attacks during take-off, which was soon calmed down by a free beer and sarah's ipod. p.s. always fly Tam Linhas whenever it is offered. an absolutely fabulous airline as long as you don't mind boarding a half hour late no matter what.

the rest of the day was travelling, we even accientally went into Argentina! the guide got our hotel reservations mixed up and though we were staying at a 5 star in Argentina (Ha!). realized the mistake after a half hour drive, customs, border patrol and about 10 minutes after all of us saw the giant hot tub in the hotel. c'est la vie. returned to Brazil to a nice hotel that nevertheless looks like it could be a south american version of the Shining. glad that movie didn't scare the hell out of me or anything. ha..haha. There is heat here...FabUlous!

annnndddd....today. we saw the most amazing thing i think ive ever seen. the Iguacu falls, from both the Brazilian and Argentinian sides. the power of the water rushing over the falls made it feel like you were going to be swept off the platform and down the river. it was so beautiful, at some points you were almost completely enveloped by more than 20 different waterfalls ranging from giant to extra giant. it terms of sheer size, it was the walmart of waterfalls. i'm not a good enough writer to describe what it looked like, hence why i already compared them to walmart. the "hiking" took about all day long and we got to see several of the falls from several different angles and heights.

tomorrow we fly out at 9:00 am for Rio. followed immediately by a 4 hour van ride straight north to Iracambi.

just proofread the post...this should actually be called meredith's food diary. sorry about that. i should go to bed soon. i can't escape being a gellman i guess.

more updates soon...

Thanks mom, no one in south America will ever be able to pronounce my name.

A few things I’ve noticed since settling in.

There are pretty people on our trip. It kind of hit us the first night when we all had showered and shaved a couple times. Our clothes were clean and we all just kind of looked at each other and went in Borat accents “very nice”

No one in South America can pronounce Meredith. It’s something with the “th” at the end and the second “e” that’s silent, mixed with the “di” that apparently doesn’t mix well with the “th” already mentioned. Encountering similar problems with people who speak Spanish and Italian.
How the conversation usually goes:
-Hi, what’s your name?
--Meredith, nice to meet you.
-blank face. Long awkward pause.
-mary gee tee?
--mer a deth
-smirk in a way that we both understand means that those sounds will never make their way out of that person’s mouth
-maaarrr a geee te?
-one more time please?
--Anne. Thanks parents.

Everyone here is nice. Maybe it’s the fabulous coffee or the weather or the parks or something in the water.

Speaking of the weather. It’s schizophrenic here. Saturday was mid 60s. Sunday was about 40. rained all afternoon. Monday was freezing—I almost bought a pea coat because I was so cold and thought I would get some use out of it. Glad I saved my money because...today it’s in the 70s. I’m sick and I know why. My body is angry with the weather.


Day by Day

We’ve been in Curitiba for just under a week now, and I really do love it here. I’m not sure how to describe the place we are staying. There’s two floors of rooms, usually with 3 people in each with one bathroom per room. Also a large kitchen, laundry, and computer lab. I’m rooming with another Meredith from UNC, who arrived in Curitiba 2 weeks before us. She is sort of doing our program but focusing specifically on sustainable low-income housing in the city. She is also very much like her older sister (who I know from the coral reef trip over spring break) which is a very good thing.

Our first day was Thursday. We had an orientation at the PUC-PR (pronounced Pooki) campus, which was a little overwhelming. We’re only on a small part of the university though and the students here are on their winter break so it feels smaller now than it did a few days ago. Afterwards we went to one of the municipal buildings that in charge of planning growth and development for the city.

In Curitiba, it's cool to recycle! Plastics, metal, paper, food, etc.

A map of one of the bus stops. It stops in front of one of 9 municipal buildings throughout the city. You can get a marriage license, go to the bank, see a lawyer, get important documents, check out a meeting room, eat, and watch sports all in one place, accessible by several buses in your section of town.

Friday night was my first experience at a Brazilian nightclub…once is definitely enough. Brazilian guys really like American girls, and they are very open about expressing their adoration…too open for my taste. The bar was called Woods and is like a country western dance club (apparently all the rage right now in Brazil). They dress in plaid and cowboy hats and have a Brazilian version of US country music.

our first night out....clean!
Sarah, Me, Maria, Natalia, Alex

Saturday was our first full (and much needed) free day in the city. Megan, Lily and I took the bus downtown and walked around for a few hours on the pedestrian only streets—there’s so many! It’s crazy how much of the center city is devoted to people and public transit and not for cars and parking. It feels so alive downtown, lots of small stores and the stone streets filled with people and tables for outdoor restaurant seating. We stopped by the Cathedral, which was beautiful and ran into Nick and Meredith. We walked a couple more blocks and ended up in one of the several public parks Curitiba is known for. Found a restaurant in the middle of the park and had hamburgers, french fries, and beer…in honor of Independence Day.
Word better pronounced in Portuguese: Ketchup…ca-shoo-pe.

Our tourist picture in the park downtown. Meghan, Meredith, Lily, Nick

That night was fun too. We ate at a restaurant and bar that had a small band play Brazilian music later on. People stay out late here. The last of our group left the bar around 3:00 and the bar was still packed.

Sunday we went to a flea market which went on for at least a mile downtown. Got presents for the family. Ate a two hour lunch at a restaurant known for its local and organically grown food (Yay!)

all done for now. i'll add more in a few days.

Pictures...amazonas 1

the last post was being picky. here's a few pictures from the amazonas. more to come later.


"Watering hole" and "cabana" at camp 41. made laundry smell like roses.

flower.

CePO

Don Edwarda

almost the whole group on our last night in the rainforest. our first taste of cachaca (prounounced: co sha za)

close up of a dragonfly near the watering hole at camp 41.

sleeping arrangments.

Fungi growing on a tree one one of our hikes

a STICK BUG!!! ahhhh!!!! always wanted to see one of those. disclaimer: that is not my arm.

Rain. on the clothes desperately trying to dry.

i made it through the amazon!!

right now i am sitting quite comfortably in what might as well be a tempur pedic bed in Curitiba, Brazil in a place where Catholic clergy stay near the college campus where we will study. we got into the city last night after a very full day of travel.

where do i even begin to describe this trip so far...oh my. completely overwhelming, exciting, sensory overload, challenging...fab-U-lous!

long, 13 day summary to follow...

we were out of contact while in the rainforest, no internet and power by generator for only a couple hours per day. we stayed in the BDFFP (Biological Diversity Forest Fragmentation Project) research station, a couple hours north of Manaus. we landed at the airport after an uneventful flight from miami (the best kind). my seat on the plane was next to Alex, who coincidentally was on the Coral reef trip with me back in march. we immediately separated our forest things and got in a small tour bus to drive straight north for an hour or so. we then pulled to the side of the road and switched all our things into somewhat ancient looking 4-wheel drive toyota pickup trucks. the ride from there was 45 minutes of bouncing and what felt like hydroplaning through mud...totally fun though. the camp was pretty basic, a couple shelters, kitchen, bathrooms, and a "classroom." there were hammocks for sleeping, beds would be impossible because of the mildew.

our days consisted of sweating, lots of hiking through different parts of the forest in the morning, sweating, lunch, more hiking, sweating, Siesta!, dinner, which looked just like lunch, and hours of card games, bananagrams (scrabble-like), star gazing, and of course getting to know each other. everyone here is really great and i believe that we have such a wonderful group of people. each person is so different, interesting, smart, funny, and entertaining.

but alas, this is a research trip (honors even, gasp!) so we did work. it was nice though, we were pretty much given free range to study something in the forest that we found interesting. Lily, one of the girls on the trip from Chapel hill, and i decided that vines (from here on out to be referred to as Cepos) were about the coolest things we could find. all the different types were really cool and we even had a very scientific, weight strength test that consisted of us swinging from a few and climbing a few others (pictures to follow). we concentrated on the vines mainly at the first campsite, Camp Collosal, and did a separate project at Camp 41, where we stayed for the last four or five nights in the forest.

we of course were not out in the jungle completely alone. Sandra, a grad student from outside of Sao Paulo and studying at the university in Manaus stayed with us the whole time and i had the greatest time getting to know her. there was also Junior, who pretty much made sure we didn't get lost, kill ourselves, or be stupid. he was amazing and knew so much about the forest, species, trails, etc. our cook for the time in the forest was Don Edwarda, a very sweet lady who spoke not one word of english but could fix a mean chicken casserole.

the second camp was much farther into the forest than the first. one of my favorite parts was the second to last morning. one of the groups did their second project on different bird calls and i wanted to go with them. we got up at 5:00 and were hiking by 5:20. we heard (i'm told by the bird nerds) McCaws, parrots, the captain of the forest, howler monkeys, and a few other things that i can't remember at the moment.

the howler monkeys were about the coolest things in the world to hear. i dont know how to describe it, google them. one thing i will not miss about the forest, however, is the smell of everything i owned, including myself, after, oh i don't know, 2 days. mildew is a very pugnant smell. industrial soap is needed to remove the stench. everything. everything. was. wet. all. the. time. my "quick dry" shirts laughed at me when i washed them and hung them on the clotheslines to dry. towels were perpetually damp, shoes dirty, and i'm pretty sure the smell of the hammock after 5 or 6 nights repelled bugs better than my mosquito net. we had running water in a stream at the second night and washing clothes in that really helped with the dirtiness though, and it was fun to "shower" in a stream-pool.

i'm tired. it's an hour ahead here and we have a tour of the city tomorrow starting at 8:15. hope you enjoy this, i'll update again tomorrow with the rest of the story from the amazonas and the first day or so in Curitiba.

i am having an absolutely wonderful time here in brazil. everyone we meet is hospitable, nice, welcoming, and a complete pleasure to be around. i am really looking forward to some time in the third largest city in the country.

i leave for Manaus in the morning to go to the research station in the Amazon. i'll be out of contact for the next 10 days or so but i'll be sure to upload pictures when we get into Curitiba!

visa not mastercard

the visa gods smiled down on me today and granted my wish.

here's a video from a brazilian band. sounds nice and the members are yummy in an emo jimmy fallon sort of way.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MHUBN74kxdU

citing...

the previous post has a link to some really great pictures of where we will be staying.

they were put together by Freiderike Seeger who was one of the main planners of the trip. the other person in the pictures is Professor Seth Reice. he is a professor of biology at UNC and the architect of the whole trip.

here we go

this will be my first real attempt at keeping up with a journal, so we shall see how it works out. i have a feeling that if i don't commit to it this time, the parents will have me shipped back to the united states in a cardboard box.

disclaimer: i don't like capitalizing things. if you have a problem with that, you should probably get over it now :-)

the first big step in my journey will start tomorrow with the trip down to atlanta to apply for a visa. hopefully everything will work out so that i don't have to go all michael phelps and swim there.

next week i'll fly down to miami and stay with some of my favorite family members (hi Tom and Carlos!) until the 19th when i leave for manaus.

in the link is an overview of where we will go on our trip. the places in the slideshow are pretty much in the opposite order of what we will be doing though.

http://www.kodakgallery.com/ShareLanding.action?c=19sh4h93.c628aqoz&x=0&y=-37ailf&localeid=en_US&cm_mmc=site_email-_-site_share-_-core-_-view_photos_album

Enjoy!