Day 7 - January 8th
After a long yet another plane ride we had finally arrived to Curitiba. Some students were excited more than others to be here. Once we got out of the airport Ana R. was upset crying over a severe eye infection she had. At this point Tait decided to post-pone our activities and take Ana R. to the hospital. We arrived to Hotel Lancaster and was told by Tait to enjoy the rest of the day until 7pm that we had presentations. The only bad thing was that it was Sunday and everything was closed early. Nicole, Ana T. and I went a few business doors down and found an Asian buffet to have lunch. It was an okay dinner but not all that great. After dinner I headed to my room and took a nap. I woke up to rehearse a little then I was off to do my presentation on Tijuca National Park.
Day 8 - January 9th
Today we had a busy agenda, first thing on the list was to drop off laundry. The gentlemen weighed our clothes and gave us a receipt to hold on to for pick up. The group got separated into different taxis to meet at IPPUC, the Institute for Research and Urban Planning of Curitiba. We were greeted by Danielle Moraes who gave the best presentation by far on urban planning of Curitiba. Our second presentation was by Carlos who works for SIMMA, the environmental agency of the city. I was really disappointed by the lack of preparedness of Carlos. I felt that the place had potential to learn about more instructional topics. After his tour of the place we ventured for a long walk were I saw capybaras for the first time. I really wanted to get close but the area was so swampy. We came across a shop were I decide to buy my first açai bowel. OMG! This was so delicious that some group members couldn’t resist to buy one.