The beginning

Two weeks into the adventure, and a lack of wi-fi has equaled a lack of blogging. Good excuse anyway J

February 4 we took a flight from SLC to Florida, then Florida to Belo Horizontes, and Belo Horizontes to Viracopos. I had a bit of a heart attack when we first arrived at Brazil, they looked at my Swiss passport for what felt like an eternity before they let us in. It worked though!

It is incredibly warm and humid here, and my hair is doing very Samwise-like things by having a curly heyday. We’ve eaten all sorts of fun food and provided entertainment for every Portuguese speaker we meet (which is everyone) as well as successfully PCRed 7 of our 14 samples! I’d call it a success! Here are some pictures to prove it.

Sunrise over Brazil as we first arrived.

We had a five hour bus ride to Assis - with views like this the whole way I didn't mind ;)

Ricardo's wonderful mother who has taken us in... she's become a second mom :)

Becca and I wandered around the city for a couple hours one afternoon and found this gorgeous cathedral!

Beautiful flowers are everywhere. 

Another thing to remember about Brazil is that the weather is very unpredictable.... on that long walk I mentioned Becs and I got caught in the rain. Streets turn to rivers pretty quick here! 

There are DOZENS of cats on the Unesp campus. Weird. Locos gatos....

An action shot of our collecting trip.

Ricardo's house has this incredible roof, we would sit and play the Ukulele while looking over Assis. 

Iara took us to the market and we tried on traditional Brazilian hats. Also ate Crepe de Suis - but they are definitely not Swiss! They are on a stick, I got the Romeo and Juliet flavor (cheese and jam) super super good.

Cucumbers! Crazy!

Lots of super cool plants :)

We learned how to wash clothes the Brazilian way!

The people here are amazing. I don’t know if they are this friendly, giving and patient to everyone they meet, or if there is something helpless in Becca and I’s lack of Portuguese, or if we are really good at smiling, but we have had so many people here help us to learn the language, feed us, give us rides, introduce us to the city, train us in lab protocol… today for example, we were walking home when the professor of the lab we work at drove by, saw us and offered us a ride. I don’t know how I can ever pay them back for the experience they are giving me.

I have only one complaint so far. Running. I’m having withdrawals. I’m also scared of dogs biting me though, so I don’t see anything changing any time soon.

Also, bananas, mangos, oranges, guava, jabuticaba, passion fruit... all much, much better here. And their juice, it's to die for! I think my favorite food so far is Mangaca, a little like a potato but so, so good. And last night I tried tangerine juice, it was incredible. 

Things are great, adventure is going swell, and I still don't have zika, yellow fever, malaria, or dengue. Tchau!