Eu quero um McFrango, por favor.

Everything in the big city is still going well! I'm hoping to have many more adventures to come in the following weeks to add to this limited collection of pictures I already have. Here are a few that I'd like to share with you all today.

I'll start here. I already talked about the ups and downs of living in the hostel. Well, this picture shows one of the things I do appreciate about where I live. I enjoy waking up, opening my window and taking in this beautiful view of the city from my room every morning. 

This is a picture from one of the few explorations we have done as a full group in the city. This is in an area of the city called Luz, and we enjoyed many sites at the modern art museum we went to here. Figuring out the metro system on the way here made this a very full day.

Okay, so, I have to admit: I LOVE to party, and this city's night life has been amazing so far. I've enjoyed every night I've gone out to clubs and bars here, and unlike in the United States, it is very common for me to not get back to the hostel until around 6 or 7 in the morning. Crazy, right?!

Yes, we've been eating here. Although the first few weeks I had absolutely no appetite, lately I have been making a bigger effort to try out the local cuisine. In the picture above we are stuffing our faces with a famous sandwich from Mercado Municipal here. This specific sandwich is called a Mortadela. It doesn't look like anything special, I know, but it was very good!

We've met a tone of friendly people at the hostel, and these particular new amigos play their guitars and sing up there pretty much every day. We joined them up on the top level of the hostel for the first time for a mid-day jam session, and it was a really nice experience. They sing a lot of well known American songs, so it was quite easy for us to join in! This is also a very nice view of the city.

 Lastly, my venturing on Paulista with my good Brazilian friend Herrison led me to meet many interesting characters in the street. This meeting was possibly my favorite of them all. I got to meet Brazilian spider-man! What can be cooler than that?!


You may have noticed that my title for this blog post maintains the chicken theme I started with in the first blog post. Well, this one has a much more simple explanation. I decided to do a little test on the Brazilian McDonald's workers by ordering a "McFrango" instead of a "McChicken" to see the reaction it might elicit. Well, the look on the lady's face was indeed a priceless, confused look, and I believe she was so surprised by what I ordered that she did not even interpret what it was that I meant. The look on her face is one thing I very much wish I had a picture of to show you. However, you will instead just have to use your imaginations on this one.

Até logo!

Uma bela viagem

For a time, this has seemed much like a dream. Each morning as I would awaken, I was taken aback by the fact that the sun peaked through palm trees outside my window and that the lagoon rustled a few steps from my dwelling place. Then there was an acceptance of this reality, as each day I encountered Brasilians who, like me, were playing out their daily routines of commuting, studying or working, and always making time for a bit (or more) of fun. I become a piece of their lives as they do in mine. Through shared experiences and fruitful exchanges, I appreciate more and more the nuances that flavor of our distinct native cultures, while realizing the principal ingredients are very much the same.

This cultural exchange is more than an internship or language immersion; its greatest value lies in the opportunity to understand the human experience in a setting apart from your own. In this endeavor, I hope to gain all that I can. To do so, I have enlisted all my senses. I have promised myself not to fall into the trap of complacency and not to be arrested by fear. More than before I hope to give new places and people the chance to teach me, to marvel at the things that may seem inconsequential, to allow myself to be moved, and to influence my world in return. I am breathing in Brasil and imprinting this beautiful journey on my heart.

Mpola, Mpola

"Slowly, slowly" (Mpola, mpola) defines how most things go in Uganda- the pace of life is so different here, and sometimes it seems like there are more than 24 hours in a day! But Alex and I just got back from a retreat at Queen Elizabeth National Park, and I think now that these next four weeks are going to fly by.. though I don't know what the phrase for "quickly, quickly" would be in Runyankole, and I almost doubt they have one! We stayed in the best hotel I have ever been in during my travels (Twin Lake Resort, for all you curious folk), and enjoyed some wonderful food- they even had drip coffee! It was like heaven. We were able to get away from Ishaka (small town life and days in the office can really wear down on me) and relax and enjoy some of the beautiful landscape that Uganda has to offer. On the 4th, we woke up at 5:30 a.m. and went on a guided tour of the park, led by a man who has worked in some of the Ugandan national parks for over twenty years! The reason we started so early, other than to pack as much into the day as we could, was to get into the park and search for lions- they sunbathe until about 9 a.m., and then go into the bush until the sun has gone down in the evening. With such an experienced guide, it took us almost no time to find them laying out in the grass, and we got to watch as they moved into the bush mpola mpola.

After that, we toured more of the park and saw elephants, hippos, water buffalo, warthogs, antelope, and probably about 50 different kinds of birds- QENP has over 600 different species of birds, more than any other national park in Africa! We rode a boat on the Kazinga Channel from Lake George to Lake Albert, which ultimately feeds into the Nile River. And best of all, our hotel overlooked a wide expanse of the park, so we were able to go to sleep and wake up to it each morning! We're back in Ishaka now, and after a few weeks of finishing some work in the office, we can finally get back out into the field and visit more people, villages, and organizations starting this week. As I said- these next few weeks may go by quickly, and I can't wait to soak up as much of Uganda as I can!

I can't believe it is July and that we have been in Sao Paulo for a full month already.  For the first few weeks of being here it just felt like a long vacation.  The past week or so that feeling has worn off and I have began to realize that Sao Paulo is actually our home.  We have become so familiar with the area that I am comfortable walking down the streets and it really feels like Sao Paulo is my city.  My research in the lab is starting to take flight and is beginning to require more of my time and attention.  Because my project deals with baby rats, our research scheduling is based around when the rats are born, which isn't very predictable.

Exploring the city is one of our favorite things to do.  We have seen many different places and landmarks of Sao Paulo.  Tonight, I met a man at our hostel who has lived in the area for his whole life and got a degree in computer science from USP.  We talked for a few hours about the history of Sao Paulo and Brazil.  I love having good, intellectual conversations and talking with this man was one of the most interesting conversations I have ever had.  He started out by telling me about the history of Zona Oeste which is the western part of Sao Paulo where we live.  He said that in the early 2000's the area hadn't even been developed yet, it was just a swamp and favela.  Now there are buildings and roads covering every inch of Zona Oeste, you would never be able to tell that just 15 years ago it was completely undeveloped.  The most interesting information he told me about was the corruption and social problems in Brazil.  He stressed the issue of human exploitation in Brazil and that humans take advantage of other humans frequently.  He gave examples of corrupt politicians, human trafficking rings, and slavery.  There was one story in particular that really caught my attention.  He parks his car in a gated parking lot just down the street from our pousada.  He said it is not safe to park your car on the street because when you wake up in the morning it could be missing and the police cannot and many times will not do anything about it.  At this parking lot there are guards to keep surveillance over the area.  The guards work shifts of 24 hours for 6 days straight and only sleep a few hours at night while their partner is keeping watch.  They make a very small income and he described their job as not being a job at all but a form of slavery.  I asked him why people don't do anything about it and he said if he were to tell the owner of the lot that it wasn't right, then he wouldn't have a safe place to park his car at night because the owner would tell him to leave.  If he were to tell the police, they wouldn't do anything about it so he doesn't have much of a say in anything.

After hearing what Brazil is actually like underneath all the glamor of the World Cup and Olympic games that tower over it's social issues, it makes me really appreciate the United States even more.  I understand why so many people want to come to the US and live the American Dream. We as college students are so lucky to have been born in a country that gives us the opportunity to succeed and follow our dreams.

GeroLab and World Cup

An exceptional team of people work with me in the Physiology of Aging laboratory, also known as GeroLab. What we mostly due in the morning is collect brains, CSF and blood from patients. Once we have the interview and the signed informed consent from family members, we are able to add the brain to the São Paulo Brain Bank from our laboratory. Depending on the research project, they stay in our lab, they are distributed to other labs or affiliated partners  within University of São Paulo, Federal University of Rio de Janeiro, they go all the way to Germany, United States and other parts of the world. 



The collecting team awaiting for the autopsy technicians to arrive



After a long holiday of Corpus Christi, Monday its starting slowly but surely



It is game day!!!!!!! Brazil vs Chile and everyone is on the street in Vila Madalena


After the Brazil game is over, is time to see the Colombia vs Uruguay in the FIFA Fan fest, a truly wonderful experience, as Colombia defeats the cannibals of Uruguay.