Being Famous, Beach, Black Gold and cobbled streets...

OK, yes, strange title but hey, it´s almost like a summary! I realise I do write A LOT all the time and I´m sorry about that! I tell you what, in a country of 170 million people, I would think it would be hard to ever get on TV here, but I've managed to get on the News channel twice and photographed for a local news paper too....how? I just seem to be in these places at the "right time". Didn't manage to get a copy of the local newspaper though...a real shame. Yesterday, there was this big brass band congregation...lovely...and of course the necessary media that goes with it...got photographed again...still looking for my picture, though I may have been cut off. For the last week I've been seeing just a little more of Brazil. I went to Florianopolis - or "Floripa" as it´s known to Brazilians - which is a large city on an island just off the mainland of Brazil. It´s famous for it´s beaches...I was there for 3 days, but only went to the beach the first day because as luck would have it, it rained most of the time I was there. But in spite of the bad weather, I still had fun because I met these lovely people in the hostel where we just ended up hanging out, watching TV and playing games....

On Friday I went to Rafa´s house again...really had a lovely time learning more Portuguese with his parents, and then caught the bus to Belo Horizonte. When I arrived in Belo Horizonte early on Sunday morning (was on a night bus) I decided to give this big city a miss and go directly to a little mining town about 100km´s away, called Ouro Preto (Black Gold). In the 1600´s people came from all over the world to hunt for gold and at one stage they were producing one third of the world´s gold production! impressive don´t you think?

Ouro Preto: nestled in the mountains, cobbled streets, loads of very old churches, a lot of art work in which gold has been used, quaint little houses with roof tiles, hardly any traffic and the weather is glorious! If i had a digital camera I would have gone trigger mad! Instead I had to be very strict with myself and make a select few pictures. I think I took about 12. It will have to do.

Tonight I'm off to Rio....and I'll stay there till I leave the country on Sunday evening...Then it's off to Florida for a little while and after that: Back to Reality...JOB HUNTING!