Brazil - Part 06: Let's play a bit with salt and colours!

Ooohh yeah, finally another post about Brazil, even though it feels like it is ages ago! I just don't have so much time to post about it every day.
So from time to time there will be another post from my time in Rio de Janeiro this summer as I volunteered for the Confederations Cup and adventured so many other stuff :)

So that day I went to a house of a friend from the family I stayed with, I was persuaded because her daughter is learning English, so we could practice^^ On the way there I thought, that this is quite the picture of Brazil you normally have about the rural areas from TV:

Dogs on roofs...just seen in Brazil so far ;)

So that day I was invited to a traditional religious event of Brazil which is called "Tapetes de Corpus Christi" boooya!^^ Which is a tradition from the Catholic Church in Portugal and Brazil.
This is basically a carpet made out of different materials, mixed with colours to make awesome pictures on the street in a row, mainly - of course - religious, like a picture of Jesus Christ or other symbols.

So there are groups of people, for example from the same church, thinking about a picture they put on a paper to make the tarpete onto. So here my friend is drawing the lines, which is already an adventure itself^^

So later that day, I think about 11pm probably, we went to the center of Sao Goncalo, where I stayed with my friends (see a map in this post). I don't know why so late, but normally it is that way and they make the "Tarpete" all night long until 2 or 3 am, depends on how long you need....

So there are loads of different groups, each making one of those carpets. Here everybody took salt, because there is a salt mine close and it is just the cheapest thing you get basically, obviously cheaper than sand... and easier to colour it ;)

At first I was a bit reluctant to take part... don't know why^^ Maybe I was a bit scared to do something wrong (you know my Portuguese is not the best, so is the English of most of them). But then it was really good fun! Especially when we were almost finished and you saw the result!

Stupid me I didn't took a picture of our finished master-piece of art, but as we walked around the street to look at the other ones, I found one particular awesome:

Who ever did this, has a total understanding of art and perspective and shadow and so on!!! Just gorgeous!!

So what is the reason behind that?? Didn't really get that point, but the next morning, about 9am I think??? The "main guy of the church" (you see, I am not so into that religion thing^^) is basically just walking OVER it and destroys it... awesome!
But we were just way too tired to get up so early to see that :/ Maybe next year, when I'll maybe come back^^

So this was a really interesting experience with really good fun! We should do something similar around London, but maybe without a religious sense behind it.... just for fun^^

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Brazil - Part 05: my first contact with brazilian food

Even when you travel you need to eat of course! And of course if you go to a country like Brazil with complete different culture and so on, your are not going to eat in McDonalds, right?

Ok, I think I did it once in the seven weeks... maybe^^

First of all, Brazilian food is totally different to German or English food... some things are really tasty, other just too strange that I couldn't get used to it...

.

During my first 2 weeks I already experienced some typical meals and sweets:

arroz com feijões + macarrão + salsicha

1.) Ok folks, here is something shocking! (At least it was for me)....Brazilian people eat rice with beans EVERY DAY... OMG^^ I actually quite liked it (never ate such beans in Europe!) But after 2 weeks I seriously had enough and I tried to avoid it as good as I could :/
But yes! I bought a package of those beans to cook it for my family... we'll see how they like it :)

Another thing they love (at least my friend's family and his friends I stayed with) are sausages... ok another interesting thing: they have two different kinds of sausages.... salsicha and linguiça and it is really important to them that you make the difference...
They were quite confused when I said, that everything in England or Germany is sausage (haha XD) ok, there might be different kinds as well and you can call them different names... but always with sausage.
Here a little German example to understand it a bit better.... in German sausage is 'Wurst' so you basically put all the specification in front of this word...like Bockwurst, Bratwurst... some even have completely different words like 'Knacker' or 'Wiener' but those are still 'Wurst'....
Do you see what I mean?? So my Brazilian friends where quite a bit petty about the difference in Brazil^^

brigadeiro

2.) One sweet I totally fell in love with (I love sweets anyway too much...) is brigadeiro. It's basically a 'chocolate bonbon' but the choco taste is a bit different, since it is made of sweetened condensed milk, butter and cocoa powder on a stove and then you let it cool down in the fridge (or freezer if you can't wait). It's a bit sticky like caramel and very sweet, normally one spoon was enough for a (little) while^^ But still addictive...

And of course I took one of those condense milk thing with me (because I wasn't sure if we have this in Europe like that as well o.O) and going to try it at home!! yay!^^

Caldo de Cana

3.) Caldo de Cana is a juice made out of sugarcane. I cannot really say that I fell in love though, but it is definitely different and I am happy that I've tried it, but I don't think that I need to drink it again... there are better brazilian things (I am going to write more in another post^^). You can even just bite the sugarcane as it is, like a snack... but that's just weird to me. I've tried everything they gave me to eat, but I am an honest person and have no problems to say when I don't like some things that much... ;)

4.) Pipoca: which is basically Popcorn, but this one on the picture is a bit different (I am sure it got a specific name I totally forgot^^). I don't know if the word 'stringy' in English is the right one to describe the taste and consistency, but when I look it up on the dictionary that's the word I would use in German, which doesn't necessarily mean that it doesn't taste good, but real popcorn is just better...if it is sweet, BECAUSE! Here in Brazil salty popcorn is very famous and loved! I just don't like it -.-

Once we were at the cinema and I asked for popcorn, I was looking forward to eat lovely sweety popcorn like I used to in German cinemas... but it was salty *argh*

5.) And the last weird brazilian food I had contact with in the first weeks was 'Goiabada'. It is made out of guava and very sweet... It looks like meat, hehe!^^ But people eat that for breakfast, normally with cheese, but for me, it's just too sweet...

Have you ever had an interesting experience with food in another country or do you just love all the food existing or prefer the cuisine from your mum? ;)

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Brazil - Part 04: my first Volunteer training - in Portuguese!!

So now I finally start to talk about the main reason why I was actually in Rio de Janeiro - to volunteer for the Confederations Cup!
My first training was on the first weekend after I arrived in "Maracanãzinho", which is basically an indoor arena next to the Maracana Stadium of Rio and during the Confed Cup used as a center for the Volunteers.

It was pretty amazing to go through the Gates, finding your name on the official Volunteer list (they order after the first names o.O I don't know, but I am used to find yourself with the last name... never mind!) and being in between of hundreds of other Volunteers!

But there I already realised.... doesn't really seem as if there is ANYBODY not speaking Portuguese like me!! >.< It was pretty intimidating! The only few words of Portuguese I knew were more or less "Hello, my name is Sandra, how are you?" But definitely not enough to understand how we have to queue to get access to the volunteering area and so on...

As we were waiting for the training to start, I started to talk to a girl called Juliana next to me in my best 'Brazinglish' and my greatest fear came true... I am the only person in this room NOT speaking Portuguese -.- WHY?!
Everything the people from the organising committee said was in Portuguese! The presentation was in Portuguese (ok, I haven't had so many problems to read it, since it's quite similar to Spanish... BUT the pronunciation is just not!) and the whole first day was just theory... talking talking talking.... in Portuguese.
I was pretty tired after the first 2 hours and was waiting desperately for lunch.

They had a good range of different food (of course with arroz com feijões - rice with beans (like every day), I'll talk about that in detail in another post later!^^) and we had a lot of time to eat.... and talk if I could have spoken Portuguese, hehe...

We met some other really nice people who supported me a lot until the end of my stay in Brazil with understanding everything important :)

At the end of the day 'as a little treat' we went to the Maracana Stadium to get a first overview of this awesome place!

As already expected, the stadium was pretty far from being ready and it was even more interesting for me to see the Brazilians taking pictures of almost EVERYTHING in front of their eyes! A toilet sign, a dirty floor, construction workers, a piece of the wall.... what the heck???
I just knew this stereotype from Japanes people before... have you seen something like that in other cultures as well?! Pretty amazing and funny to observe! ;)

So the Brazilians basically freaked out completely when we went inside... of course there is a lot of magic going on, but I think for them it's even more special than for me, since it was completely renewed and before important games took place... I just went with the flow *scream*^^

Some Brazilians probably took pictures of almost every seat, haha!!! So cute!

Alice (now one of my best friends I would say!! <3 And me (with awful hair -.-) And blimey! I got my jacket on, must have been a bit chilly somehow^^

Who doesn't love to call this 'working place???' :)

The second day of the training took place outside and we walked around the stadium and leanrt about the entrances and transportation access (I barely listened, since I was too occupied with the heat and I thought >> if visitors ask me about transportation, I just tell them to ask a native << )

Still loads to do until the World Cup next year...

And once again inside of Maracana, this time even on the green! :)

Whoho, almost all the Volunteers for Rio! I am there on the right side somewhere...^^ Cannot even find myself...

Those were two very exiting, but as well exhausting days! And I couldn't really wait to get started! Our first game would be the testgame between Brazil and England the following week, but until then I experienced some other interesting brazilian days I am going to tell you about in the next post(s).

Have you ever volunteered for a sports event or something similar??

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Brazil - Part 03: brazilian busrides....not my favourit thing to do!

Before I talk about the buses I firstly want to show you like I promised in my previous post about my arrival in Brazil, the daylight picture from the view out of the window my friend's girlfriend lives, stunning, isn't it?

This day, basically the second day we were more or less relaxing (jetlag!! yippi -.-) and more or less preparing to meet later with my friend in the downtown to go to his home. 

Basically the only thing we did this day was to go down to the beach and I shot some nice photos. It was so beautiful and calm (no wonder, everybody was probably working on a friday morning^^)

Then later that day we took all our stuff (she had 2 bags for a weekend, I just had my backpack^^) and we took a bus to the city center.

This was my first real bus experience (since the one we took from the airport was a van) and it was different! I tell you all the points about buses I realized during my seven weeks about this funny transport possibility^^

1.) Ok you have to enter the bus at the front. Ok you have to pay, but here is already the difference... in some buses you pay the busdriver direcly, in others there is sitting a person behind the driver (with the back to the window) who has a little cash desk...

2.) Then you have to go through a turnstile. WHAT?! yes!! Unfortunately I haven't managed to take a picture of it, but it's really weird!! I know such a thing basically just from the zoo in my hometown in Germany... never saw something like that in a bus!

trainbjjinrio.com

The challenging (and fun >.<) part about thos turnstiles is, that if you have a bag (in my case my super heavy backpack) you have to find a way how to get through it without making a fun of yourself in front of the other passengers.... I really had a problem with that!! Since the nature of those things is actually that just one person at a time can get through it, it's a pretty awesome thing to basically 'throw' your bager over the thing and then you go through it.... hell!!! It was not fun! It was sweaty and embarrassing!

3.) Getting off the bus is another story I'd like to tell you... everywhere were I used to live or used buses (mainly meaning Europe) you have a little (red?) button telling you to 'push' when you want to leave the bus. In Brazil they exist. Point. But normally, they don't work....why??? I think in 90% of the buses I took in Rio, those buttons were more than useless! If you want to get off you have to  drag cord running above the hand rail... just another awesome thing^^

4.) Sometimes you just can get off the bus at the front of it, sometimes they let you take the middle or last door, you'll never know!!

5.) And my favourit point about taking the bus is that there are no sign about where you are right now and what the next stop is called... not sure if I am spoiled with the european bus system, but you stand at the stop, you see which buses are stopping there, in London you can even see a map with all the buses in this area from where they are comming and where they are going, if you are in the bus, you have a sign at the front and a lovley voice telling you that 'the next stop is Oxford Circus' or something and you know you have to push the button if you want to get off there. Not so in Brazil... basically you have to know the place where you want to leave the bus, meaning a building, a tree, a shop...something! Anything!! So for me as a newbie is just horror!! So the first few times I never took the bus on my own...^^

6.) Ok, there is one thing I really do like about brazilian buses: the windows! Because you can open them to the side and you can get a massive breezes of wind right in your face! And I love that... (if I could I would have a fan all day long in front of my head, hehe) This is not possible in London, you can open a quarter on the top of it, but just if you are lucky and the constellation of the direction of the bus, the wind and were your are sitting are perfect, then you get a bit of a breeze...There also exist brazilian buses without windows to open, but they then normally have an air condition, a pretty good one, which sometimes is even a bit too cold, though^^

Not sure if there is something else about buses I can tell you right now, I think by and large that'll be it.
taking buses in Rio has always surprises to offer and is always different... I honestly have to say that I don't like it too much, but you normally don't have another option...

So we took the bus to the boats to the other side of the water, then another bus to go to São Gonçalo, where my friend lives.

airports-guides.com/

That day I haven't taken any pictures from the 'barcas', but in later posts, you will see some! Promise :)

Have you ever had such an interesting experience with transportation in other countries??

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Brazil - Part 02: Arriving in Brazil

I started my journey to Brazil from London (Heathrow with Iberia Airlines) on the 22. May with a 2h stop in Madrid. 

In London you have everywhere in supermarkets like Tesco thos 'Meal Deals', you can by a normally a sandwhich + a drink + a dessert or salad or similar for  £3,50 more or less, but in Heathrow Airport I found the first time Sushi for a meal deal!!! Yumyum! I love Sushi.... and it was quite tasty, too^^

So the first flight to Madrid was nothing special to me anymore, since I did short flights around Europe last year during my Europe Trip quite often...^^ But then the airplane to Rio de Janeiro was a BIG one!! My first time I experienced this kind of airplane from the inside :)

And I was very lucky! I hade a place at the window, sitting alone... that means I could made myself as big as the two seats would allow me to, good to try to sleep a bit more comfortably over the more or less 11h to Rio!

OMG! This airplane is comming closer and closer and closer!! It's probably going to smash us!!!! >.<

So what did I take with me on the long flight? Not much.... Actually I just had my phone with me, where I have some ebooks to read or listen to music, creame (for my nose and lips) and a grammar book for Portuguese and something to write.... yes I am a goof girl trying to learn a bit of the language BEFORE I go to the country^^ And the rest of the time I though I would just sleep anyways and there would be 2 movies shown in the airplane to watch. One of the movies was 'Silver Linings', quite cool! Haven't seen it before, but considered it, since I like both actors quite a lot :)

So the hours ran by very quickly, even though I haven't slept much and was busy trying to move myself as much I can since my buttom started to hurt pretty much^^
Arrived at the airport the girlfriend of my friend picked me up to stay at her home for the first night, since it's a lot closer to the airport. She was pretty amazed that I just had one backpack for the whole 7 weeks!!! Haha!!^^ (she went 2 weeks to the USA with two pieces of luggage o.O).

So the first thing we two realised was the problematic of communication, since I was a bloody beginner (still not very good!^^) and her English is very basic too, but we managed to talk about the most important things somehow with feet and hands^^
We didn't went directly to her home, because she had a college class in the evening...wow! I was so overtired, but I though....'why not!' let's jump into some administration class thought completely in Portuguese^^
And it got pretty tough for me... I was overtired, I didn't understand anything and it was pretty warm... (yes I wore long clothes to have less in my backpack). So as we came home...late! I almost just fell into bed!

I just tried to take a picture from her flat, since she has an amazing few over the houses to the water!! Didn't really work very well, but the next day I took another one (you'll see in the next post :) )

So basically this were my first 'couple of hours' in Rio de Janeiro^^
Wait for the next posts to see more ;)

Tell me if you already have been to Brazil or any other Latin American country and how your journey have been to your destination :)

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Brazil - Part 01: Brazil for 7 weeks? How come?

VOLUNTEERING, baby!!^^
Exactly like this, I worked as a volunteer for the Confederations Cup this year in Brazil. I just simply applied online on a website from FIFA. I come to the idea because of the Paralympics in London last year, I visited the Stadium once and saw so many volunteers, that I thought this must be possible for me to do as well somehow. So I did some 'googleing' and found the chance to volunteer at the World Cup in Brazil in 2014, I took it by immediately registering online!
I have to admit, during the application process at the beginning I wasn't quite sure if I apply for the World Cup, the Confederations Cup or both together.... I am still not sure if, since I took part in the Confed Cup, this is automatically my 'green card' to the World Cup o.O That means I just can wait and hope the best, because I definitely want to go back!!

The application process started by filling in forms about yourself and what you would like to do as a volunteer there (for example working in the media section or more directly with the visitors and in which city you want to stay), then taking an online training with answering questions, and an additional online training (completely in Portuguese, though. I still tried it and quite succeeded with my -more or less - intermediate Spanish knowledge, hehe).
Then we had to wait....and wait....and wait for an answer...
I cannot really remember, but I think I started to do the online application in February and needed to wait almost one month until we had the next notice about a Skype interview! I was a bit scarred, because I thought we are going to talk with a video..... but not, we were just chatting and I basically needed to answer the same questions I already answered in the forms at the beginning (what do I want to do and at which place in Brazil).

Then I need to wait again! Until April... I was already worried, that if they need more time I have to cancel it, because the Confed Cup started the 15. June....and flights are not getting cheaper!! And I needed to talk about this with my work and organise everything -.-

But finally I had the amazing message that I got accepted!! I am going to be a volunteer at the Spectator Service in Rio de Janeiro!! This was exactely what I wanted!! I always wanted to visit Rio and I wanted to work with the visitors!

My next problem was: accommodation in Rio o.O
Since I am a poor student, just had work for one month and no money at all, I was considering to try couchsurfing.org or staydu.com. Luckily I got to know some Brazilian people through language learning website and communites and as I told a friend I got to know through totalingua.com, he directly invited me to stay at his home!

Ok people, you might think this sounds quite risky, to plan to stay at the home of a guy I just got to know about 2 months before and just on the internet....but hey!! I am broke and want to see the world^^ No risk no fun, right? haha!!

So I booked my flights (with Ibera airlines for about 620 Euro, if interested to know....so not too expensive after all I would say!) and packed my stuff not almost one month later for MY ADVENTURE IN BRAZIL!

In my next articles I am going to present you a bit more of Brazil and my part as a Volunteer for the Confederations Cup, of course!! So stay exited^^

Have you already been to Brazil or are you planning to?

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