[Disclaimer: this is just copied from my journal, so I hope it makes sense haha. And ignore any weird formatting issues...getting this posted is a big enough deal without anyone expecting me to fix the pictures and font problems ;) ]
So, Sarena and I noticed a while ago that we had almost a whole week between teaching assignments, and decided to take a trip. After discussing lots of options, we decided to go to Belo Horizonte, the capital of the state Minas Gerais. I'd never been to that state, and was excited to go somewhere new! It's the state touching Espirito Santo (borders the west side of our state. aka it's land-locked). It has a very rich history of politics and religion, mostly centered around the city's economic role in the country as a mining center. It also is known for having the best food in Brazil. Needless to say, I was excited :)
Thursday May 14:
- Taxi to the airport and fly to BH*. Short, easy flight. Arrive in BH but can't figure out the bus, so taxi to the hostel. Checked out three museums but basically just call it an early day because we both stayed up too late the night before and were exhausted.
- After our naps at the hostel, we swung by the supermarket for some groceries (bread and fruit, etc), then went out to dinner.
- Dinner was awesome! Overpriced, but yummy and a fun experience! We went to a fancy-schmancy Italian place with a really cool ambiance. The wall behind the bar had rows of bottles that lit up in various neon colors (it looked like a fiber-optic Christmas tree haha). R$75 for pizza was so expensive, but it was a lot of fun. Plus, Fulbright was paying for it ;)
- Also: I ordered pineapple-orange juice that was divine. :D
- The museums in BH were kind of...weird. Some were downright creepy, but I felt like a lot of the exhibits were weird. The setup was weird---not intuitive at all---and the buildings were often too big for the exhibits they held; more than once I walked down a hallway to discover a work or storage room. Lots of weird smells, too. :/
- Also a lot of thought-provoking stuff, though. There were some really heart-wrenching pictures of Africa. Seeing stuff like that makes me want to do so much more for the world!
- There was also a really cool display of Sebastiao Salgado's photography, including his book "Genesis", which has some really incredible photographs (I was most impressed by his nature shots, but he also had some compelling ones of people).
Friday May 15:
- We went to Inhotim! We woke up early and almost went back to sleep...SO TIRED! But we made it! Hostel -> Rodoviaria -> Inhotim. The ride was 1.5 hours (a little more coming home) and I got a great nap :)
- Inhotim is like an art gallery zoo. It's like a giant park (feels like a zoo with lots of pathways, statues, restaurants, lakes, etc) but instead of animals there are art galleris. My favorite was this dark room with gold strings lit up in cool shapes (unfortunately no photography allowed...). Lots of the art was weird/distrubing, but also a lot of creativing and interesting themes and subjects. It made me wonder: who decides what's art? And also: is it necessary to expose ourselves to bad things (eg. the Holocaust) in the pursuit of knowledge? Does it come down to the dichotomy of "good to be informed" vs "I don't want those images/feelings in my mind", and what do we do about it?
Saturday May 16:
- Ouro Preto! Another early morning and long bus ride, but so worth it. I LOVED OURO PRETO. It was such a beautiful little place. It felt very small, but at the same time you could see city rolling out in every direction, so it wasn't really that tiny. It was so beautiful. Vitoria is 100% flat. (I think the biggest elevation gains I hit are walking on the uneven cobblestones haha.) I LOVED being in the mountains. It was a bit chilly, but a nice day overall; it actually was kind of nice to be out in the crisp, fresh mountain air.
- Went to the Praca of Tiradentes (I'm pretty sure that's like their independence day) and saw one museum on the history of Ouro Preto...basically just politics and mining, from what I understood.
- Got some yummy sandwiches for lunch, then delicious brownies and ice cream from a cute bookstore/cafe where we met Deanna, one of the ETAs who's teaching in OP this year.
- Wandered around a lot. The city has a feel of Park City or something. The central area is basically just a few narrow streets crammed with fun little shops that had everything from postcards and trinkets to expensive jewelry and restaurants. You could seriously spend forever just wandering around looking at stuff.
- I also really enjoyed the soapstone market. Apparently they leave it there...all the time. They just have one guard stay out overnight and nothing ever gets stolen. Cool.
- Deanna was super cool; she's applying to med school, and played rugby! Seriously. Of all the sports and all the people...I bumped into a rugby player. Cool beans.
Sunday May 17;
- Went to the Hippie Market! It's a huge market every Sunday in BH. They close off several blocks of this big road, then cram it full of people selling various stuff. I bought a few paintings from one lady, and a CD from this blind musician! He was just sitting holding a CD while a little boom box played his stuff. He was really nice :) I also got some cool stuff from this group of Ecuadorians when we went into the park after we finished in the market! They were all decked out in cool traditional stuff and playing flutes and drums and stuff, and they sounded awesome! They were playing "How Great Thou Art" when we walked up and I loved it so much I bought their CD (and then got a second one too haha). I also bought a really cool dream-catcher bracelet! :)
- Sarena and I walked around the park for a while after that. We got ice cream cones but basically just wandered...didn't really see or do anything particularly exciting. :P
- Went back to the hostel and crashed...again. Then we went out for another overpriced dinner haha. I ordered a great salad and juice and then got a lime pie thing that was super delish. It was really expensive though because they had live music (RIGHT next to us..it was so loud to sit next to a drum set haha). Anyway, it was a good day.
OH! Also, how could I forget to mention...I saw the CUTEST puppies ever. A lady at the market was selling cocker spaniel puppies for only R$400!!! They were so darling I almost bought one on the spot. I decided to be responsible though and check with Evelin, so I didn't. It ended up being good I didn't, because I couldn't have taken a puppy that small on the plane. So..sad I didn't get to keep him :( On the plus side though, my roommates adopted a cat off the street while I was gone, and she's pretty adorable, too .:)
Monday May 18:
- Apparently everything is closed on Mondays. What??? Yes, it's pretty much the lamest thing ever, and it would have been nice to have planned our trip differently, but whatever. Monday we went to the central market (which is like a more stable/less crowded version of the hippie market). I didn't buy anything there; the only thing I was really tempted by was more puppies. They were in such small cages and looked so sad...I wanted to take them all home! :(
- Also...all the miserable animals and raw meat made me very seriously consider being vegetarian again... I'm not sure if I really should; I need more protein than I'm getting as is, I think. But those poor animals made me want to cry. At the very least I haven't eaten meat since then because I've been too sad haha. We'll see what happens. I think i might just going back to being "Ethnofreegetarian" and taking meat only if it comes up in a context where I feel like I should eat it.
Tuesday May 19:
- The ZOO! It was such a crazy trip to the zoo haha. It took us FOREVER to get there. It looked like it would be so easy/close, but it ended up taking an hour and a half on two different buses. Plus, people kept acting like, "why are you going to the zoo??" but we were so excited! Well, the zoo was *not* what I expected.
- First of all, it took us over half an hour to find our first animal haha. After we'd been walking for like 15 minutes, Sarena was like, "I hope we find some animals!" and I laughed so hard. Only in Brazil would you go to a zoo and "hope" to find animals. Actually, I told her it seemed like a pretty Tongan thing, too. Haha. (Dad, I thought you'd particularly appreciate this story ;)
- It was super weird, too, because the zoo was basically deserted. It only cost R$4 to go in, which was awesome! (That's less than $2.) But we got in and basically just saw workers. There was one couple taking engagement pictures in the Japanese gardens, but other than that it was just workers. SO many workers. Like, they were everywhere. It made me kind of sad, actually, that they had so many people working so hard to keep something nice and no one was there to enjoy it... Granted, it was a Tuesday morning (not exactly peak business hours), but still.
- We finally found the animals, and I was so sad... :/ The animals all looked so depressed and lonely. I've had mixed feelings on zoos for a long time, but this was the first time I've actually felt a little anger/indignant for the animals! They looked soo sad. It broke my heart. :(
- Luckily we also passed some very happy-looking capuchins that captured my heart and made me laugh, so the zoo felt like a happy place again. ;)
After exploring the zoo, we bused home. We stopped for lunch at a per-kilo place that was delicious. (And had the *best* juice ever! We actually ate there on Monday, too, and I got yummy juices both times. One had kiwi, apple, mint, and...orange? I think that was the combo. It was really good! The other one was the real surprise though: Orange, carrot, and BEET! Sounds weird, right? Don't be fooled---that was probably the best juice I've had in my life haha.)
After that, we taxied to the airport and flew home! It was raining in Vitoria so we opted for a taxi instead of the bus back (don't judge...I was so ready to be home).
It was SUCH a good trip! :D Belo Horizonte was such a beautiful city, and Ouro Preto captured my heart. It's a city that I could see myself living in for a long time; it was such a perfect combination of culture, history, tourist sites, and just feeling really...livable. It had more character than any other city I've seen this trip, and I loved it! :)
*BH is obviously short for Belo Horizonte. But it's fun to note that they actually call it that, so it sounds like "bay aga" in Portuguese...and sometimes it actually gets written like that! Like they'll call their city Beaga haha.
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