My Portuguese class has been going great. Yesterday, we spent the whole day touring the city. While conversing only in Portuguese, we visited the National Theater (a very beautiful building in the heart of the city center), a marina museum containing a battle ship and a submarine, a street fair selling many native arts, crafts and foods. The end of the class and day found us on a peninsula jutting out into the ocean between the two most famous beaches Ipanema and Copacabana. This granite outcrop is the host of a fort containing a museum, and a large cannon pointing towards the ocean built into the rock. We arrived here about an hour before sunset as we were able to watch the changing colors of the sky as the sun dissappeared behind the tall buildings adjacent to Copacabana. All these tourist locations were paid for by the school as the syllabus initially states. The syllabus has us in class Monday through Friday with cultural activities on three Saturdays of the four weeks of class. I love this class as it's not just sitting in the class with our nose in the books doing repititous memorizing.
The first class on Wednesday, we learned of Brazils history and culture. After eating lunch, we had an hour and a half until class resumed. My other class mates layed down on the concrete benches in the outside common area adjacent to the cafeteria. After trying this for 10 minutes, I began to play my harmonica for the next hour. About 15 local students approached me saying they liked the music with several telling me there was a poetry reading at the same location on Friday. As at least one person would be playing their guitar at the peotry reading as they mentioned they would love to have me play the harmonica there as well.
Today's class was half lecture. The second half of the day we went on another tour to the Botanical Garden (Jardim Botanico). In the morning, we had a history lesson of Brazil and Rio de Janeiro. With all spoken in Portuguese, my understanding was that France invaded and took control of Portugal then Brazil. The king of France built this Botanical Garden with many different tropical plants and trees from equatorial locations throughout the world. This 540 square meter area became inhabited by France in 1808. In 1822, Brazil gained their independence when later this area became a park. In addition to all the greenery within the park's rain forest, there were also several varities of monkeys. Instead of taking public transportation to all these places, the school had provided a passanger van with a driver to escort us around the city.
We left for the botanical garden before the peotry reading took place. Not knowing we were going until just before lunch today, I was able to see the group who invited me to play the harmonica in the lunch room. I appologized to them for committing to play and then through inforseen circumstances, I was unable to. They told me there would be other times events like this would occur.
Chewy
The first class on Wednesday, we learned of Brazils history and culture. After eating lunch, we had an hour and a half until class resumed. My other class mates layed down on the concrete benches in the outside common area adjacent to the cafeteria. After trying this for 10 minutes, I began to play my harmonica for the next hour. About 15 local students approached me saying they liked the music with several telling me there was a poetry reading at the same location on Friday. As at least one person would be playing their guitar at the peotry reading as they mentioned they would love to have me play the harmonica there as well.
Today's class was half lecture. The second half of the day we went on another tour to the Botanical Garden (Jardim Botanico). In the morning, we had a history lesson of Brazil and Rio de Janeiro. With all spoken in Portuguese, my understanding was that France invaded and took control of Portugal then Brazil. The king of France built this Botanical Garden with many different tropical plants and trees from equatorial locations throughout the world. This 540 square meter area became inhabited by France in 1808. In 1822, Brazil gained their independence when later this area became a park. In addition to all the greenery within the park's rain forest, there were also several varities of monkeys. Instead of taking public transportation to all these places, the school had provided a passanger van with a driver to escort us around the city.
We left for the botanical garden before the peotry reading took place. Not knowing we were going until just before lunch today, I was able to see the group who invited me to play the harmonica in the lunch room. I appologized to them for committing to play and then through inforseen circumstances, I was unable to. They told me there would be other times events like this would occur.
Chewy
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