Week Two

I forgot to mention in my last blog that we toured the UFLA (Universidade Federal de Lavras) campus last week which is HUGE! Their main focuses are biology and agriculture but they have many other disciplines as well. There are so many buildings and trees and flowers...it is quite the spectacle.  

Here is a toucan that we saw on campus, and then we saw 4 others!

This is a very large bunch of bamboo trees

Some pretty flowers

This is how you get a mango from the tree

Mango straight from the tree...can't get much fresher than that!

The girls found some bamboo on the ground during a hike between classes.

Now for this week. On Monday we had class and went shopping around town. In the afternoon on Tuesday and Wednesday, we wrote recipes, went shopping for ingredients, and then had a "cooking show." One group made puppy chow "Brasilian style" - they do not have chex cereal here so corn flakes were used instead. My group made a wonderful salada de frutas (fruit salad) and the boys made s'mores. My teacher filmed us and said that he was going to upload the videos to youtube. I will post the link if he indeed does put the video up.

Yesterday we went to the bus station to see about tickets to a town that has several waterfalls and we are planning on going there on Sunday! I am very excited for the trip! We also stopped at a market and went over the names of fruits and vegetables. We tried some lichia which is a very strange food. It looks similar to a strawberry but does not taste like one at all, you have to peel of the outside and it contains a large seed in the middle. I took a picture but I have not uploaded those pictures yet. I will put them up later so you all can see what I am talking about.

Today we ended class at a churrascaria which is a restaurant where the garcons come around with many different types of meat and cut them off for you if you so desire. It is very tasty! I tried a chicken heart for the first time, and once is enough! I'm not the biggest fan. On the way back one of the other students bought a baby chick at a pet store and some feed for only 4 reais which is equivalent to about $2.28! Oh the things you can do in Brasil!