Last Days

Well, today is my last full day in Brazil. I fly out tomorrow night, back home to Canada. Even as I write that it doesn't yet seem real.

I've been meaning to write in here for the past week but I have been crazy busy.

Last weekend we went on an AIESEC trip to the beach, in a city called Peruibe. It was a lot of fun, even though not a lot of people could go. There were seven of us: Me, Fernando, Super, Judy, Koba, Victor and Carol (another alumni). On Saturday Fernando taught me how to surf! Well at least he tried :P I wasn't very good at it and I ended up swallowing buckets of sea water. But it was really cool. I have never seen waves so big, it was cool to just let yourself be swept away by them :) We also had churrasco and went for pizza and icecream. mmmm. On Sunday we lounged around and just relaxed. The guys threw me in the pool! Haha. It was nice to escape for a while after a stressful week.

This week was again stressful and busy. We decided this weekend to come to Ribeirão Preto (where I am right now) to give the extention there some training. So that meant that all the trainings had to be devided and then developed. So I ended up with 4 sessions to prepare. Plus, it was also the week on the Palestras, so I did eight presentations about AIESEC to the potential new members. The results were great! We got 122 people wanting to join AIESEC USP!! But it was a long and tiring process.

On friday night I packed up all my things, in the process finding some things I forgot I had... like granola bars from Canada (which I ate). Haha. Friday night I was officially done working (well except for the sessions).

Saturday was AWESOME!! I got up early and went to the subway to meet up with Renato, Fernando and Maira. We went to Mr. Fred, Fernando's restaurant, which was really good! Then Maira and I went SHOPPING!! Haha. I needed to buy a few more souvenirs and some things to bring back with be, so we headed to the mall and looked around. I didn't find exactly what I wanted... but I DID find a jockpot! A cookbook with 1000 brazillian recipes!!! Haha, so I bought it of course! (Chris, Emily and Bonnie, be warned). Then we went outside the mall and there were some street vendor who had more what I was looking for. Things that were very Brazil :P So I bought some and then Maira took me to get my nails done one last time! Aeeeee!!! Then we went to the supermarket and I loaded up on food to bring back with me.... goiabada, goiabinha, pão de qeijou mix (I can't spell...), sonho de valsa... and other things. Then... we met up with Fernando again and went to Buffalo Branco Churrascaria! A Churrascaria is an all you can eat place with meat, where they bring it around to your table and cut a slice. It was soooo good. But the best part was the people there. It was my goodbye dinner, so a lot of people came! Maira, Fernando, Rubinho, Koba, Flavia, Victor, Daniel, Talita, Super, Jorge.... I loved having so many of the @ers together because that's one thing that @USP struggles with. We joked and laughed and I admit I got a litte emotional. There were many many hugs. I didn't want to have to say goodbye to anyone. I kept telling myself, I'll see them on Tuesday, I'll see them on Tuesday....

On Sunday, Super and I met up with Rubão, Renata and Patrick to come to Ribeirão Preto for the trainings. It's a 4 hour trip and we were supposed to arrive at 12:00. We arrived at 4:30. How did that happen exactly? Haha. We left late.... stopped for a snack.... stopped in Piracicaba for lunch for 2 hours.... and then finally arrived in RP at 4:30. Needless to say the training has been a little behind schedule, haha. But they are a good eagar group and it's nice to work with them. Last night we went to Pinguim, which is a bar here that RP is famous for all across brazil (or so they say ;) ) Today we have been doing more sesisons. Right now they are doing selling training in portuguese so they let me escape to the computer for a little while. I have one session left to lead and then I am official done my CEED work!!!! Tonight we head back to São Paulo and I will finish all my packing.

Tomorrow will be really hard. I'm going to the office, but not to work, to say goodbye. I'm hoping everyone will come. I already had to say a few goodbyes, to Renata and Rubinho. At around 7:00 pm I'll leave São Paulo and head to the airport for my 9:30 flight. I get to Victoria just after noon on Wednesday, the 6th.

This will be my last post from Brazil. Next message from Victoria, Canada.