Sunday, February 23, 2014

Gaúcha

Rio Grande, our host city, is 4-5 hours from a major airport so I spent a night in Porto Alegre. I forced myself to be social and hangout with people at the hostel. The first week of moving to a foreign country I find especially exhausting. I usually get cold feet and spend the first week regretting my move. This happens every time I travel, I think, because I'm secretly a homebody. I made some friends while I waited for Rylee to arrive. They educated me on the important futebol (pronounced fu-chee-bawl) rivalry in my new state of Rio Grande do Sul: Grêmio v. International.

The following day our host professor, Rossana, picked us up in Porto Alegre and we headed South to our host institution, FURG. Our driver maybe set a new world record for pulling the riskiest shit I have ever seen. The road to Rio Grande from Porto Alegre is two lanes all the way and our driver was weaving between semis traveling in both directions and driving God-knows how many km/h.

Upon arriving in Rio Grande, Rossana turns to us, kind of giggles and says 'ha you came to a village!’ This is perhaps the best way to describe Rio Grande. It’s a lot more rural than I had imagined. It’s not uncommon to see horse-drawn carts alongside the road with Peugeots & Citroens (French cars are big here). It’s both a beach town from the months of November to March and one of the largest ports in the country. It’s the oldest city in the state, Rio Grande do Sul, and an old Portuguese trading post. The population is 200,000 though it feels more like 20,000. I haven’t been here a week and I’ve already run into people downtown. The placement is perfect for me though as I’ve never been crazy about big cities.
Here's some of the scenery - check out this tree!

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