January 6-7
We made it! Class 21 arrived safely in São Paulo, Brazil today, Tuesday January 7th, after a long day of flights. We took off from Columbus on Monday afternoon and departed to Dallas, TX, where we had a short layover before departing for São Paulo, a 10 hour flight! Arriving in São Paulo on Tuesday morning was a relief, though, as we stepped off the plane and into the warm, 80 degree weather, which was quite a change from the Columbus weather. After going through Brazilian customs and retrieving our bags, we were headed out of the airport! Waiting to meet us at the doors was Professor Heloisa along with our student mentors, Joao, Jenifer, and Leticia. We will be spending a lot of time with these people during these next few weeks as they are a significant part of our time at ESALQ (Escola Superior de Agricultura “Luiz de Queiroz”), the university where we will be attending classes at during the first three weeks of our study abroad.
Once we left the airport, we took a two hour bus ride to Piracicaba where our hotel is located. The bus ride was very scenic as we saw both the city and countryside of São Paulo. Before arriving at the hotel, we stopped for a much needed lunch and had a delicious first meal in Brazil! Our lunch consisted of salad, french fries, rice, beans, and fish. Once we were finished with lunch, we were off to the hotel to unpack our items and relax at the pool for a few hours before we went to Dinner at Cladinhos. Cladinhos was a sit-down restaurant where we got to try out a variety of Brazilian dishes including Parmeggiana & Picanha as the main dishes and rice, salad, fried bananas, sausage, palm heart, little eggs & potatoes as side dishes and appetizers. After dinner, we went back to the hotel to rest up for our first day of class the next day!
Our first couple days of our trip were already so educational and fun, and we cannot wait to see what the rest of the trip holds!
Tessa Pinkerton
