cataratas, festas e futebol...

It is so hard to believe that in less than three weeks I will be home...this time has gone so quickly in some ways yet it does feel like home here and it is become very difficult to say goodbye. I have one week left here in Cascavel so have been doing a Danny Wallace and saying YES to just about everything.

Since I last posted I have started attending Tango classes at New York School....these are a lot of fun and reminded how much I missed dancing. Also been helping Teacher Angelica and joining in some of her dance rehearsals for the New York School Festival in September. I wish I could be here to see it! I think I will definately have to come back. Teaching there was also great the last few weeks though I officially finished on Saturday :( Did some debating lessons and created a (rather amazing) quiz on Britain complete with music round, picture round and general knowledge. Definately going to miss some of the students I have befriended :( Thank goodness for the internet and being able to stay in touch!

Eledoro classes also ended last week, but had fun class parties with games, puzzles, chats, watching movies. One class had baked me a cake and another bought me some flowers and a card. Felt very loved! Some of them will still be studying there when I (hopefully) return in 4 years so I might be able to teach them again yay. Was impressed by how much they learnt in a relatively short period of time and felt very happy when some of them said I was the best teacher they had ever had.

In my free time I have had probably my most exciting weekends EVER!!!! Last saturday I visited Argentina, Paraguay and saw the Iguacu Falls...all in one day! Yes. Was incredible. The waterfalls were more stunning than anything I have seen in my life, I was literally blown away. Gabi and her sister said I was acting like an excited toddler, "ooooh look here", "oh my god look that that" and snapping photos the entire time! I had no idea just how huge they would be. Over 3km worth of waterfalls that we walked along for about 45minutes. My stupid clown grin didn't leave my face all weekend! Paraguay was also interesting....crazy...but interesting. There were literally thousands of Brazilians walking across this bridge into Paraguay at 8am just to go shopping (the taxes there are MUCH lower so everything is dirt cheap). I didn't end up buying anything, but was happy to be there to soak up the atmosphere. People throwing socks in my face asking me to buy them as well as one man selling musical condoms (how does that even work??)....was an experience I will never forget although I am glad for the Eden Centre now!

This weekend was my goodbye party at New York School...and what an emotional night it was :( Started with Immersion (this is something they do every year where students come for two hours and play games and chat in english)....Gabi and I set up our room like an English Summer Fete with country dancing, hoopla, guess the number of sweets in the jar and competitive team games. We had a lot of fun and most of the students seemed to too. After was a huge dinner with so much pizza for students AND staff. I got to chat to loads of people and was so proud of myself for holding myself together despite hundreds of "we'll miss you" and "we love you"s. But (typical lottie!) couldn't hold in the tears for long and when Denise presented me with a Brazilian flag embroided with a message from all my colleagues I cracked. The tears only getting worse when a few students took the microphone to also say some things about me. Really made me feel a part of the school and that I had been truly appreiciated there. I had THE most amazing time teaching and I cannot believe that I have to leave already.

Yesterday was also incredible. I went with Gabi's family to watch their football team (GREMIO!!!!) at the clubhouse for the fans in this city. Was so cool! The whole room was decorated in the team colours of blue and white and tonnes of people had come to watch the game on the big screens dotted around the room. I have never been that interested in football...but it is so hard not to be passionate when surrounded by fans like this so I got VERY into it!! At halftime I was presented with a team shirt and a clubhouse shirt as well! Am now an official member of their club...YAY. Their only request was that I sent them a picture of me wearing it by Big Ben!

Got tonnes of plans for this week. Saying goodbye to different groups of people, PACKING, planning my trip to Rio :) Then the next part of my adventure begins......

email me lottiebarker@btinternet.com

love as always xxxx

Home Life :)

After my last post about all the exciting places I have travelled to this one will merely document my last few weeks of home life. I say "merely"...every day is still exciting to me! Even if it is one of the days I have off, I still manage to find something to make it an amazing day or in some way different from home.

Teaching is still going fantastically! Seem to have done a lot of superhero based lessons recently which means I have been dressed up in various costumes of characters we created including "WolfGirl", "SuperMonkey" and "FavelaMan"! Was a lot of fun in my New York School classes. Also had a great lesson on London and Edinburgh with Gersone last week where he is now visiting. Very jealous of him right now! But I will be back there soon enough and then missing Cascavel just as much. Also at New York School witnessed their version of Mother's Day where all the kids under 12 sang "Let it Be" for their mums...so cute! Despite Denise totally embarssing me in front of over a hundred people (!) everyone was lovely to me and some of the smaller kids were SO excited that I was from London....I even had photos taken with some of them! Yes I am that much of a celebrity haha. Made me realise how much I am going to miss working in such an amazing community with such incredible people. I love all my colleagues and students.

At Eleodoro I have picked up the pace in lessons as I know I only have a short time left with them and want to leave the kids with as good a basic english as I can. This means that the brightest kids are now doing fantastically and the ones who want to learn are picking up the more difficult concepts of tenses and grammar easily. However it does also mean that a few of the slower kids or ones who arent that bothered about learning are struggling. But each class we play a game or sing a song and revise the previous work and they keep coming back so obviously not TOO boring for them!

Had to say goodbye to Monica this week :( We had a great few days together though. A "party" with her students at her house...oh no wait they didnt turn up! haha. So just me Monica and Carlos in the garden drinking lime juice and listening to sertaneja...cant get much better really.


Also had a girly evening with Monica and Gabi...cooked cake, sung disney songs and watched movies...great sleepover! Almost as good as my Harry Potter night this week with Ale, Dani and Julia....SO MUCH FUN! I don't think I have ever eaten as much in one night....ever. Plus was pretty much an english class right?? For them to practice speaking and listening to British English, haha.

This weekend I also cooked a "British Feast" for my host family...unfortunately many of the ingredients I wanted I couldn't find at the supermarket :( But I made fish and chips with what I had.....and actually tasted pretty darn good! Not exactly the healthiest of meals but great fun to cook and for everyone to try....and an amazingly great apple pie with cream for dessert...mmmmmm.

It is getting a little colder here so on my days off I can no longer sunbathe but have to go to the gym or walk to keep warm. Am still loving every second though.

OOOOH also exciting news from my wonderful amazing fantastically beautiful mother this week...SHE BOOKED MY FLIGHTS TO AUSTRALIA! I will be there in 85 days! This is literally the most exciting year of my life...first Paris, then Brazil, then Australia and then start at St Andrews! Really could not be any happier.

Missing you all but not long now!

Email me as always lottiebarker@btinternet.com

x

EU ADORO VIAJAR!

So lots has happened since my last blog where I said that week was my favourite and I can officially say that life here keeps getting better! Although I of course miss my family and my beautiful house and my wonderful friends I am having the most amazing months here and wouldn’t change this experience for the world.

It was Easter last week so I taught very few classes…instead having a staff party and travelling to Sao Paulo for four days. I absolutely love this city! Definitely not somewhere I could see myself living forever, it is very busy (and I saw it on a bank holiday weekend when over a million cars had left the city!) dirty and smoggy BUT has the most incredible parks, architecture and general vibe! After an 11 hour drive through the state of Parana we arrived at Gabi’s brother Arthur’s flat right in the centre of this huge maze of a cidade. The next three days were spent shopping, exploring and trying to take in all the cultural sites. I am glad I will be revisiting here with Roger next month as I definitely didn’t manage to see everything I wanted to, but my host family certainly tried to take me everything I wanted to see which made me very happy. My favourite two places were the MASP museum where there was a beautiful exhibition called “six billion others” that you guys should google if you have a chance….just my cup of tea! About different cultures, different peoples stories and the idea of worldwide identity.. Beautiful. Ibirapuera Park was another of my favourite places to while away the beautiful Easter weekend weather we were having (38 degrees!). A stunning park, perfect for people watching.

A photo to show the perfect sunset I watched over Sao Paulo....

Unfortunately towards the end of the trip I became ill, but nothing serious and I was able to (sort of!) talk to a doctor in Portuguese so everything was quickly sorted out and now I feel a MILLION times better!

This week I was feeling very British for the Royal Wedding and it was all anybody here could talk about to me, including a random man in the pharmacy who was like WHY ARENT YOU AT THE WEDDING!!! Woke up early at 5am with Monica and Carlos to watch the ceremony…so beautiful! Used some of the footage and a certain photo of a certain Miss Humphries in my lesson later that day to explain how patriotic the British can be!!! First time I have missed Britain as a place rather than specific people, was odd and I am excited to be back there this summer and especially to go up to St Andrews in September….which is now a FAR easier place to describe to Brazilians who all seem to think I should marry Harry…oh go on then! Haha.

This weekend I also travelled (spent a LOT of time of buses recently!) to the city of Porto Alegre in the southernmost state of Brazil, Rio Grande de Sol. Here I stayed with Gabi at one of her friend’s houses. Was an absolutely AMAZING weekend and definitely one of my favourites I have had here. We arrived late Friday night and Murilo took us out for some delicious caipirinhas at a cool little bar in the city and we stayed up almost all night talking J After just a few hours sleep we were off to Uruguay (another county I can tick off my list!) to do some shopping and generally hang out, although the drive was long Murilo and his flatmate Felipe were really cool people and it felt like we had all been friends for years!! Great day and managed to pick up some cheap wine and vodka so we were set for an amazing night in that night with pizza and a viewing of The Godfather as well. Another early start awaited us on Sunday when we travelled to the town of Gramado. It was a really strange town and one different to everything else I had seen so far in Brazil. Because the settlers there were mostly German it has been designed as a German village with houses out of wood and even the landscape seemed European in so many ways (I think it was the reason the rich German immigrants chose the area). Was a beautiful city and had the best hot chocolate I think I have ever tasted….so this place gets a huge thumbs up from me! As well as that the company was incredible, I don’t think I have laughed so much for a VERY VERY long time!

Well done for reading this far! You have almost reached the end! Just want to talk about some of the other amazing people I have met...Like on the bus back from Porto Alegre met an American guy (rather embarrassingly Gabi and I assumed no-one could understand us prattling on about nothing in English when he got out his American passport…whoops!). He had been travelling South America for over a year and was going on to Colombia to work with a human rights organization there…made me realize how much more travelling there is to do and how much I want to come back to this continent after University.

Anyways like I said at the beginning totally LOVING life right now. Only 4 weeks left teaching, has gone far too fast for my liking, but making the most of every second here :D unfortunately is starting to get pretty cold…like I wore a coat today…craziness I know!!! So my tan will probably have faded by the time I get back damn it! OMG also this week received a package from Murray which was probably the most perfect thing ever, big thumbs up from me…I am a very lucky girl.

Big love to everyone. Missing you as always.

x