B as in British

London 8:00am - rays of sunshine are waking me up … what a beautiful start into the day!

My train ride leads me through the lovely green landscape straight to Bath. Oh wow – I totally forgot how beautiful this town is!! This must for sure be the quaintest old little town in England. Three of my colleagues are still in Funky Backpackers Hostel Bath and this is where I gonna be for one month now. The stuff crowd is a sympathetic team of Aussies, Finnish, Spanish, Polish, Brazilian and German. 

 

On my first day I arrange some things and am just overwhelmed by the amazing service culture of the British!! Yes, now I can feel the (positive) culture shock: people actually give answers, know what they’re talking about and even give some super-helpful extra information *overwhelmed*

The free National Health Care Center is clean, quiet and fast – when I leave I should evaluate them … *incredible*

Another highlight of my day is spotting Ronnie Wood from the Rolling Stones in Bath!!
 

Guess what: we’re out for drinks from 3:30pm … doesn’t matter I told 'em I’m there to write my Master dissertation *hahaha* Can’t withstand the seduction of cider, cheesy chips and raspberry sambucca shots ;-)

We enter the first location of our pub crawl – I truly feel like back in time: this is sooo british here!!

*loving it*

Think you've done everything? Come to experience Bahia!

Yes, come to experience Bahia.

Indulge fully in this amazing culture and just "let it live" ... don't think to much, just let it happen!

After the big São João festivities when my friend Dani left, I had the pleasure to spend two more weeks with Andres, an utmost creative person with who i enjoyed some great reflection-talks ...

... Andres, I'm very grateful I have a new word in my vocabulary CLUSTERF*** ;-))

July was pretty busy - I finished my projects in São Félix, said good bye to my friends in Salvador, visited beautiful Chapada Diamantina Nationalpark a last time and got ready for surprising my sweetheart in Southern Brazil :)

After travelling the country for four weeks, I went back in the Recôncavo and there I did field research to write my MA-dissertation.

my housemaids - muito obrigada por cozinhar e fazer a fachina Isabel + Sinia

everybody going crazy in light of the municipal elections in October *gosh*

Pau made delicious MOCOFATO com PIRÃO for me in my last night w/ my colleagues!

Looking forward to go back to good old Europe, I am - at the same time - sad to leave back my magic Bahia: the warm-hearted people, the delicious food, fresh fruits and lovely summer climate all year round. I will miss riding my bike through the lush green landsacpe, sipping Caipirinha while watching the sunset at the beaches of the Atlantic ocean and swimming in the green water of my favourite lagoon and its white sand dunes.

Seven months full of new, eye-opening experiences lay behind me, colourful days, crazy nights ... thank you all, for being part of it!!

Right now I'm somewhere in the sky, flying via France directly over Paris ... yessss, I did see Arc de Triomphe and Champs Elysee from above ... and Luxembourg into Frankfurt. Everybody who has resided on another continent for seven months, probably knows what I mean: the weirdest thing right now is to look down on the old continent and its geography...

Good Morning Europe - I'm back @ home :-))

Sunshine, over 20°C and Notting Hill Street Carneval in London ...

... the culture shock is not that big, after all !!

Out & Around in SÃO PAULO

São Paulo is a huge city but also a state in Brazil ...

So, we visited some nice places and of course couldn't leave before assisting a FOOTBALL match in Morumbi stadium, eating delicious RODIZIO till we burst and spending a night in Brazilian couple's most popular type of location ... all day - all night ... ;))

Rodízio ... eat till you burst - best meat eeeever!

supporting the team "São Paulo" @ soccer match in Morumbi stadium

Good Bye São Paulo ... I'll be back one day!

PANTANAL in Mato Grosso do Sul

After travelling by car some12 hours, we finally arrive in tiny Douradina. 5.000 people live there and on the first day, everybody knows we're here. This region's main industry is soy and sugar cane production ... a totally different world compared to Bahia.

My biggst adventure there was for sure when five dogs were chasing me and thought they would like to try Mika's feet for breakfast!!
Well, Mika continued jogging and straight to a doctor who gave her two anti-rabies inoculation = injections against raiva humana or Tollwut in German!


Apart from that, no big events … oh, except the family reunion *hihihi*. I’ve met some 50 people or more all somehow related to each other: aunts and uncles, cousins, nephews, brothers and sisters in law and in blood ;) – chit-chatted, assured seven times that my blond hair is natural and ate granny’s delicious “pirão” that she prepared with lotsa love for a whole day :-)

granny's pirão

We visited Dourados, did some hitch-hiking and discovered Campo Grande …

... sometime in between, we went to the PANTANAL's grasslands for a few days

*that was the most relaxing part of our whole vacation*

~ relaxing on our fazenda ~

TUYUYU ... Brazil's biggest flying bird!

Capivari Safari :))

Piranha Fishing