Sunday 24 May 2015

One week left.


Last day in Granja Viana was Friday, another group of committed teachers who love their students. Left the Ibis hotel and my new hotel for a day is the Bristol by the Guarulhos Airport in Sao Paulo. Its quite impressive, with it 15 story lobby with balconies encircling the structure ion the inside. In other words the big square building is hollow in the middle. Just a 15-story lobby and when you come out of your room you look over the balcony and for me down 13 stories to the downstairs lobby. The dining room is very nice with very good food. This morning at breakfast they had a chef making tapioca pancakes. They sprinkle the powdered tapioca flour in a buttered cast iron pan and as it cooks it ‘glues’ together the flour. When its cooked they put in fillings and fold it over. It’s very good.
Today at 3:00 I catch a shuttle to the airport. My flight is scheduled to leave at 18:35. Two time zones away, I get to Rio Branco at 23:15 with two stops before I reach my destination with school the next day.
Dining room at the Bristol.

On the road to school

By the highway

Gridlock

From the 13 floor balcony of my 15 story hotel. We are looking down at the lobby from my doorway.

Down in the lobby




Looking way down into the lobby

Making Tapioca

Adding the tapioca flour
Cooking it up.

Thursday 21 May 2015

Leaving pacembu post for March 2015 (May 2015 post beneath this)


Leaving another lovely school with great people. Friday Isabella brought her bathroom scale to school and I was able to weigh and arrange my luggage. I bring a surge protector with me since a surge can fry a computer. Problem is surge protectors are the size and weight of a motorcycle battery, quite heavy, about 4 kg. I brought a lighter one from home….but it melted.  Food poisoning can turn you against a place, so I was out of the hotel as soon as I could. Got to the airport 4 hours early Saturday and they put me on an earlier flight to Rio, with my over weight and over sized bags. When I arrived I got a taxi and in about an hour with heavy traffic, I was in Barra De Tijuca. Very nice place, I’d call it surf city, people surfing morning till night, surfboards on cars and kids walking by with surf boards. I was just a short walk from m the beach and walked to work by the beach every day, 1.8 km. Sunday morning I spent at the beach, forgot hat and sunscreen so had a sunburned face. Found a friendly family to watch my bag and did a bit of swimming at the edge of the surf, but I’m not a surfer and those huge waves made me uncomfortable so I walked the beach. Beautiful place.
The school is in two buildings on either side of the road, with classes of toddlers to year 3, beautiful children and great teachers. Rio is a very hot place, was soaked every morning after walking to school.
I brought a luggage scale with me but last I saw of it was in Halifax airport. I’ve been searching for two weeks for one and Thursday I adventured by taxi to the Barra Shopping Mall to find a one. It is a HUGE mall but I did find what I couldn’t get in Sao Paulo, a nice luggage scale. On the road again Saturday morning, taxi to airport and a nice GOL airport check in girl let me by even if my bag was almost 2 kg over weight, and my carry one was about 5 kg over and too big, but I managed to get by all check points. Landed in Campina Grande expecting to be so warm by it is 500 meters elevation so cooler than Rio by far.

Brazil May 2015Brazil Restaurant


Arrived in Brazil on May 2nd, what a long flight, 10.5 hours from Toronto is too long. I was met by a representative of Jardins Maple Bear. He took me to my hotel and then he and his wife, daughter and twins, (not yet born) went for lunch at a great restaurant near Pacaembu. Excellent meal, the start of many wonderful meals. I love Brazilian food, I’ll eat anything but raw fish or meat, that leaves out Sushi which is very popular here.  I got settled in my hotel and next day the same family picked me up and we went to a wonderful Italian restaurant for a big family dinner. It was delicious, I just get them to order for me, its all so good.
Monday I went to the school which was about 1 km away. Both hotel and school are about 2 blocks below Paulista one of the main areas of the city.  Another great school in a very nice area. Every lunch I went with the staff for an awesome meal. Good thing I don’t eat much at night or I would double in size. Teachers and owners are great people, very warm and I feel as I have been here months. Very eager to learn about our Canadian education system. 
Its fall here and getting a bit chilly, a sweater is needed most days. My second weekend in Sao Paulo began with a move to the Mooca school. I always move hotels on Saturday. Moved into a nice hotel a bit of a distance from the school. A nice place with white table cloths, cloth napkins and a super awesome breakfast. My room as the one before, is an apartment style room with a kitchen and living room. This one even has a laundry sink and clothes line. On Sunday I took the hotel shuttle to Paulista and took the subway to a few markets. The weather is chilly in the morning especially if you don’t have a warm sweater so I bought an alpaca sweater, which is nice and warm. I went to the Republica market and bought a huge fried patty with shrimp and other stuff. As I passed by some homeless people one fellow looked so intently at my food and said something, that I knew meant, I’m hungry in any language. I split it with him and he grabbed it before his friends could catch it. 
This school is in the Mooca neighborhood. Lovely place, but the devil for the taxi drivers. First two days I gave them just the address, and both got lost in the Mooca maze. I had two grand tours of Sao Paulo in the morning. Last fellow was so upset he was hyperventilating, he can’t speak ANY English, I can’t speak ANY Portuguese. He didn’t have a GPS and couldn’t understand the map route I was showing him on my cel phone After him asking many, many people directions we got there in 3 times the time needed. He was in distress. After that experience I got smart and had the secretary print, maps for the routes to and from the hotel to school. That made my rides much, much better. This school, as the last one, was another round of wonderful places to eat lunch. Before I arrive at a new school I always wonder, will I be able to answer all their questions and will they be as nice as the last school? But when I arrive all is well, wonderful people to work with. Often schools want a parents’ night talk and some teacher meeting/talks. I’m getting used to it now….. realizing I’m going to have to talk to parents and/or teachers and getting 2 or three days notice to get together what I will say. I usually leave for school about 7:30 and arrive home between 6 or seven, if I don’t have a meeting in the evening. No time for sight seeing. This hotel must have been built on an anthill. I brought some sweet rolls from breakfast to serve as a small supper with cheese. I wrapped them in napkins and stored in a kitchen drawer. Came home that night, the ants had found them, must have been 2000 ants in that drawer. I think they are the same crew that found my Brigaderios (Brazilian candy).  
Moved hotel again on the 16th, this time I went to Granja Viana, which is on the outskirts of Sao Paulo. No subway here but my hotel is connected to a huge mall, very huge. I just walk about 10 meters and there is an elevator leading to the middle of the mall. The hotel is an Ibis and quite nice. The best feature of every Brazil hotel is their breakfast. This one did not disappoint me.
The school grounds are amazing. It is a small hobby farm, with a horse, roosters, hens, ducks, a big turkey who sings along with the kids and wild monkeys in the trees. I must see a monkey before I leave so the teachers are all on monkey alert. They have avocados, oranges, bananas, and another type of fruit that looks like dark grapes and probably other fruit I did not see. The school building is an old Spanish/Portuguese style home, very beautiful. As with the other schools the staff is so friendly and warm.
 
Brazil Restaurant

Fish market


Granja Viana School hobby farm

Mr Granja Viana Turkey

Beautiful huge flowers

Ants smelled my brigadeiros
Coming up the wall


brigadeiro

Ants finding the box

Brazil Restaurant

Lost in Sao Paulo

Brazil Restaurant

Brazil Restaurant

Brazil Restaurant

Brazil Restaurant

Near Paulista

Brazil Restaurant

Brazil Restaurant

Sold me an Alpaca sweater

View from Jardins school

View feom Jardin's school

Paulista street


brigadeiro
Paulista Street


Friday 13 March 2015

End of Third Week in Sao Paulo


Weather is wonderful, warm feet but no AC needed for me. I’m in Sao Paulo and finishing off my third week here. I have moved every week and ready to move again Saturday. The schools are wonderful with so many caring teachers. I really enjoy working with them. Last Thursday I went out with some friends to Bourbon Street a club with the New Orleans’s theme. A great evening but going to bed at 2 and waking up again at 5:30 is rough, then staying alert all the next day takes effort and no sitting for long. That weekend I went on Saturday with another friend to the beach at Riveria De Laurenzo. A beautiful beach, the water was lovely even if it was raining. The drive there was through a mountain with a beautiful rain forest with trees with so many colours of flowers and so many types of foliage. Still didn’t see a monkey!  On Sunday I took the subway and explored Liberdade the Oriental sector and went to the market there.  I also saw a huge, huge cathedral in that area. The metro is a great way to get around.
 I’m in a new area, moved from near Paulista to Pacaembu. Pacembu is a nice area with high buildings but still some lower level homes. The school here is an old Spanish house and is beautiful Wish I could have seen it furnished as a house. My hotel is a residence hotel with flats, it is 24 stories I think. Tuesday I came down with food poisoning. Felt quite yucky for 24 hours but I’m as good as new today (Thursday).
Saturday I fly out to Rio and spend a week there at a school very close to the beach, I’m holing I can walk the beach to school. They say it is an excellent area. Then the next week its off to the North and Campina Grande. 
At beach with Keity

Bourbon Street with the girls

View from Second hotel

Passion fruit on the vine

Stadium view from Pacaembu hotel

Beautiful Cathedral


In back of cathedral

The front I think

My third hotel

Stadium view from hotel

Beautiful cathedral near Liberdade

Sugar cane waiting to be juiced

Juicing sugar cane

One of many orchids just hanging off trees
Sao Paulo at night, Sao Bernardo area

Liberdade