Olinda

We woke up this morning to Xica telling us that a plane had crashed here in Recife, and more specifically here in our neighborhood of Boa Viagem. The plane had left from the Recife airport, and was only in the air for about five minutes before it crashed in an open field, exploded, and killed all 16 people that were inside. It was sad to hear about it, and kind of scary as well considering that it crashed so close to where we live. Our class today was cancelled because of the plane crash.

This is a picture from Google earth of where the crash happened, we live just down the street on the street next to the beach.

After the crash and boom!

Nick and I went to the beach that morning to work out, and then our study abroad group went to the city Olinda to site-see. It is a city close to here, and it was absolutely beautiful. We had a tour guide that took us around to a few of the old historical Catholic churches which were interesting to learn about. We also visited the site Alto do Se, which was the highest point of the city overlooking Olinda as well as Recife in the distance. It was a long and steep hike to get up there, but the breath-taking view was worth it.

The whole group in front of an old church in Olinda.

Another old church.

This is a cool picture because Olinda is in the foreground, and in the background you can see the city of Recife with its skyscrapers and what not.

An altar inside of one of the churches.

This is the most interesting tree I have ever seen, it is growing out of this building!

This is a huge doll that they dress up in for Carnival.

Behind me is the huge, steep hill that we had to hike up. I raced to the top of it with one of Vanessa's (our professor) sons. It reminded me of the good days in Teofilo Otoni with Elder Barker racing up the hills there.

The view from up top.

With Douglas at the top.

This guy was absolutely hilarious, one of my favorite parts of the trip so far. He was a freestyler on the guitar, and sang about each of us as he played the guitar.