Sunday, July 3, 2011

João Pessoa, Paraíba

This weekend we embarked on our first trip of the study abroad to the city of João Pessoa in the state of Paraíba. We left from Recife on Thursday at about one o’clock in a van that Vanessa rented out for us. Before we arrived at the house we stayed at (it’s the house of the mother of a member in Recife) we stopped at a beautiful place here in Joao Pessoa. It is called Por do Sol (sunset) and it is located at Praia do Jacare (alligator beach). It got its name because of the beautiful sunsets that they have there. We got there right in time to watch the sun go down. While it was going down, there was a man playing the saxophone on a gondola style boat in the ocean, which was really more like a small bay. The sunset was absolutely beautiful, and I got some great pictures as it was going down as well. After it went down we ate some dinner at the restaurant right there on the water which was really cool as well. The food was delicious; I got a meal of grilled shrimp, rice and french fries.


This is a picture about a half hour before the sun went down.


This is another open market located at Por do Sol. I bought a really cool tile with a painting of the sunset on it here.

This is the tile I purchased.



Nick and I as the sun was just about to set over the horizon in the back.


To the right of me you can see the saxophone player on his boat playing his song as the sun went down. 


Me hanging out with the sax player right after the sunset. He plays the same song every night before the sun sets, it is a really rich tradition they have here.

After we left Por do Sol, we started our journey to the home we stayed at. If we had known where we were going, it probably would have taken about fifteen minutes to get here, but of course we used the Brazilian method of finding it. No GPS, no map, and no directions. We asked about ten people for directions to find the street we were looking for, and we basically went in a circle for about an hour. After much frustration, we finally asked a taxi to drive there and we paid him 10 Reais to follow him there. This method finally worked. To be honest it was quite a funny adventure by the end of it. It reminded me a lot of trying to find houses I was looking for on the mission, which often times would take much longer than we wanted to. The house we are staying at is pretty nice; it is big enough to fit our whole group plus our van driver which is about twenty people in total. Though it was nice, it was a little bit primitive as well. We had to go outside to use the bathroom they had out there, which is far from high tech to say the least. The shower and the toilet are side by side, and the floor is usually pretty dirty. The shower drips down at a very slow rate (obviously un-heated) so it takes a good amount of time to clean up, which makes things complicated with so many people in the house.


In João Pessoa we went to a church that was built in the 1500’s! It was in pretty good shape for how old it was, and we were able to learn a lot about its history from our tour guide. After that tour, we hopped in the bus and had the chance to go to the farthest eastern point in the America’s. To be honest it wasn’t too exciting, but I guess it’s cool to be able to say that I could not have gone further east in the American 
continents as I did today.


The huge cross they have outside of the church.


The front of the church. It looks like part of it got burned, but it is actually black because of mold.


Some sort of an altar behind us, it was beautiful.


Behind me you can see some Portuguese influence. Portugal is known for these tiles that they paint beautiful pictures on.


These are some statues that were on display at a museum portion of the church displaying some modern art. These statues are of Joseph and Mary, the three kings, and the baby Jesus in the middle. If you are wondering, yes He is portrayed as a soccer player (only in Brazil!)


If you look up you can see how beautiful the ceiling of the church is. It was painted like the Sistine chapel (though I'm sure the real deal is a little better).


This is the pathway leading up to the church. It is made of the famous parelelipipito (cobblestone).


I am standing on the furthest east point in the Americas in this picture.


I'm not sure what this is, but it is symbolic of the furthest east point in the America's that we were visiting.



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