I went to Vitoria in Espirito Santo for a conference. There’s not TOO much in Vitoria, EXCEPT they have THE Garoto chocolate factory. Garoto is Brazil’s chocolate brand! And you can go have a tour of the chocolate factory for a mere R$10! You can’t take any photos within the factory, so I only have photos from the outside. But you are allowed to eat unlimited chocolates while on the tour. However, the catch is you can’t drink any water during the tour and you cant take any with you. The chocolates were some of the best I’ve ever tasted since they were fresh that day, but I ended up not trying that many because I wanted water badly. Anyways, the tour was great and almost worth a trip to Vitoria just for that!
In November, Stacey came into town! We spent a little time in Rio, though I was busy with class and work. Then she went up north to Salvador for about two weeks to explore. But, when Stacey came back to Rio we decided to take a weekend trip to Paraty, a small historic town about 4 hours from Rio. Even though the weather had been terrible in Rio prior to our trip, we had FABULOUS weather in Paraty. Paraty is a super cute charming historical town. While there aren’t many beaches in the town, we took a bus one day to Trinidade, a gorgeous beach hideaway near by and then took a schooner cruise the following day. It was a really great, lovely weekend.
A beach in Trinidade
Stacey asleep at the beach
Reading "The Lost City of Z" at the beach
One of the old churches in Paraty
Saturday evening in Paraty
Lovely beaches in Trinidade
On our schooner cruise!
One of the beaches we swam to from our schooner
On the boat at the end of the day
the view of Paraty from the water
Our last night in Paraty
Other than my trip to Paraty, November was mostly filled with classes, work, and dealing with broken appliances and electronics.
It has more or less turned into summer, except the weather is SUPER schizophrenic. Some days its super hot, sunny and humid, and sometimes it’s cloudy and torrentially rainy with flooded streets. So even though it’s “summer” the weather is definitely not consistent.
On Saturday night I went to the lighting of Rio’s big Christmas tree, which floats on the Lagoa. It is said to be the biggest floating xmas tree in world and the lighting of the tree is said to be Rio’s third biggest event after Carnaval and New Years Eve. That means this year I will have attended all three of Rio’s biggest events this year! Woohoo!
There was a big fireworks show during the lighting of the tree, but while I attempted to take some photos of them, none of them really came out, so I'll spare you. But here are some pictures of the tree! We counted 7 different scenes that rotated through the tree, some were xmas related and some were more holiday/ secularly oriented. One of the scene was a full blue tree, so maybe it was for Hannukah?! that's what I think! 
Kaylena and I at the lighting. My hair looks wet because even though I had showered hours before, the air was so humid that it never dried the whole night.
And the last bit of news is that OMG I am leaving Rio to come back to the States on January 31! So, I’ve got a little bit less than two months to finish up my research and project, enjoy the beach and summer, travel up North with my parents for the holidays, celebrate New Years in Rio, and hang out with all of my friends before my year in Brazil is up!
Wow! Time flies by! It’s been a great year!!
1 comment:
Thanks for posting a pic of me ASLEEP. jk. The tree pictures were very cooL! <3! :)
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