Lages

06-Apr - 07-Apr

During our last morning in Joacaba, Chris and I visited a monument honoring Frei (Father) Bruno.  The statue is only one meter shorter than the famous Christ the Redeemer statue in Rio de Janeiro.

Elisa, Andre, and their niece who showed me how well she can read from her English workbook.

After our visit, we started on our drive to the next host town called Lages.  Lages has a population of 150,000 people and is about 2.5 hours east of Joacaba.  By comparison, Joacaba has a population of approximately 25,000 people.
Upon arrival to Lages we met members of the local Rotary club in the center of the city at a landmark church.  Here we also met our second member of the GSE team, Betina, that will travel to Charlotte at the end of the month.  We had the pleasure of meeting Fernanda in Joacaba - she and her family hosted Chris.
We checked into a hotel where we will stay until Tuesday.  Members from the local Rotary club took us to a restaurant for dinner that had cute knick-knacks on the walls.  The owner's specialty is fish dishes.  One dish pictured below included pinhoas, a pine nut unique to southern Brazil.

After dinner Chris, Emilee, Karen, and I met up with Betina and friends to go to a "disco".  We danced to electronic music and had an absolute blast!  The songs all had lyrics in English, which didn't matter to those who couldn't speak it - we all danced to the same beat.  We were a bit shocked to learn that the club stays open until 6am.  Brazilians know how to party!

Sunday (07-Apr) is our free day, and I'm using it to catch up on the blog.  We had a very low key day which included a stop to Bob's burgers for some in the group (the first American cuisine encountered).  Us ladies are going to watch a movie and tuck in early.  Emilee will be posting to the blog next week :)