Brasilia and Minas Gerais!

My host brother, Lauro, is also an exchange student. He’s going to a town in Canada that’s very close to the border between Canada and New York on September 7 ^th, so it seems only practical to get him an American visa as well as a Canadian one. This is why I got to skip two days of school to go to Goiania and then Brasilia, the capital of Brazil. So on Monday morning Lauro, Lenilda, Severino, and I got up at 4 a.m. in Goiania and drove to Brasilia. We arrived around 7:30 in the morning at the American Embassy, where for some strange, ironic reason I don’t fully understand, I was the only one not allowed inside.

I said goodbye to my host mom and brother and headed off to the car with my host dad. He tried to explain to me what we were going to do while we waited for my host brother to get his visa. I picked out a few words and assumed from what I heard that we were going to go check out some tourist attractions in Brasilia. So we hopped into the little white VW and I promptly fell asleep.

About an hour and a half later, a bump in the road woke me up, and I quickly realized that I was definitely not in Brasilia. My assumption was quickly confirmed when my host dad, Severino, pointed to road sign a few meters ahead of the car and says “Minas Gerias!”

Now, I should tell you I have absolutely no idea where the state of Minas Gerias is compared to Brasilia, no idea why I was there, and no idea what my host dad was trying to explain to me. All I knew was that we were driving on a tiny road on top of a mountain and there was LITERALLY not a scrap of humanity, save for a plastic bag stuck in a tree, anywhere in sight.

After another hour of driving, we pulled into a tiny little town. It turns out my host dad needed to get some papers signed for his work, so while he was busy I took the time to grab a can of mango nectar (I love being able to say that) and take some photos of the gas station we were at in Minas Gerais.

The 2.5 hour drive back to Brasilia took me and my host dad through the mountains of the Brazilian country side. It was one of the most daunting things I have ever seen, because unlike the Midwest, this region of Brazil is very newly developed and mostly just empty land. We drove back through giant hills that had uninterrupted wild flowers and tropical trees while wild swallows flew over the road. Never in my life have I been able to see so far without seeing any evidence of humans.

We arrived in Brasilia in the late afternoon, picked up my host mom, Lenilda, and Lauro, then made a quick tour of all the main tourist sights in Brasilia.

In the middle of the 20^th century, the Brazilian government decided to move the capital from Rio de Janeiro to a new city in the middle of Brazil. It was for this purpose that Brasilia was designed and built. It is an extremely modern, well-organized city full of futuristic white buildings, the most famous of which were designed by Oscar Niemeyer strictly to serve as the Brazilian capital. It is an extremely beautiful city, yet extremely daunting because of just how much all the buildings match.

I visited the National Cathedral (pictured) and then rode an elevator halfway up a TV signal tower to the “skydeck” of Brazil and took photos. You can see all my photos of Brasilia and Minas Gerais on my Facebook (and soon, depending on how slow my internet decides to be, my flickr!).