Right away me and my group started learning everything we could about Brazilian infrastructure and culture. On the first day, we toured one of the largest cities in Brazil, Porto Alegre. Just a half hour drive from our hotel in São Leopoldo, this city hosted beautiful pieces of architecture including the Catedral Madre De Deus. My favorite part of this building was the stained glass art, which I had never seen in person before
After seeing the church, me and a few friends spent some time in the hotel lobby where we met two employees that worked there: Tiago and Carol. We talked to them about their lives in Brazil and thye spoke to us about the U.S. I learned that Tiago is getting his pilots license and loves the way that many U.S cities are planned. One day he hopes to see them from the air while he is the pilot. Carol likes American music, especially Taylor Swift. She was very excited to learn that one of us went to one of her concerts.
Another highlight in Porto Alegre was the Julio Castilhos monument right outside of the church. This monument hosted many different depictions of the same person, all representing different aspects of both him and the newly founded republic. Something i found interesting about the monument was all of the graffiti on it, which i thought was at odds with many of the monuments that we have in the U.S.
Another highlight of São Leopoldo and it’s surrounding area was when we did a day of capoeira. This martial art style combines combat and dancing in a rhythmic and acrobatic style. What I found to be most difficult about this was the constant spinning and jumping I had to do. I am used to exercise and dancing, but not cartwheels and flips. My dizziness made me respect our teachers’ ability to perform the moves so cleanly and effortlessly even more.
And finally, on our last day in São Leopoldo, we attended a soccer game. This ended up being a very in depth process. Typically, Brazilian citizens must enter certain identification numbers and photos of their faces in order to attend, but since none of us were citizens we had some issues with the pre-approval process. This meant that we had to work with a third party agency to help us get our tickets, and after some effort, we were eventually able to go. While the team we were rooting for lost, it was still fun watching them.
Overall, I found São Leopoldo and Porto Alegre to be amazing cities, with dense culture, industry, and history.
Swanson School of Engineering 