Weekend in Piracicaba

i'm back in curitiba after a weekend trip to Piracicaba (home of my advisor's former university). i left friday night, and arrived at 7am saturday morning and talked with my advisor, Stape, about what all i need to do. bascially, i need to decide where i want to collect my soil samples for my doctoral research. (We're going to look at carbon sequestion in soils in pasture vs forests). i'll meet up with him again in two weeks once i've had a chance to make some preliminary plans. of course everything changes once you actually get  to the field and realize there is a swamp, bee hive, or alligator where you wanted to take your samples.

Afterwards I went with the grad student i stayed with (Ana Paula) and a group of finlanders (who were in town for a two week course) to a fish churrascaria next to the river. it was sooooooo good and about 10 USD per person for 4 humungous fish (you can see the guy cooking the fish on the churrasco and the finlander that snuck in the picture with me). , rice, salad, and this amazing sort of mashed potato stuff but with manioc (or corn flour?) and shrimp and vegetables inside. they call it couscous but it's different than ours. yummy. (my name is rachel and i have an obscession with food) and then there was a little art/craft market along the river that we walked down and they all bought little souveniers. always in search of consumables, i found a fruit juice stand and asked the guy to make me his favorite kind (because they all looked good, note the picture of the fruit juice guy), so he whipped up an orange/pineapple/lime/apple juice that was just amazing! and i basically got a whole pitcher for 3 reais (~$1.25). i loved it so much i had everyone in our group try it and then they all had to buy one too. after making about 10 more juices for everyone he said he would hire me to promote his business ;) 

From there ana paula and i went back to her house and she went in search of a bed while i watched tv, then we ordered a pizza and just hung out and chatted for the rest of the night. both her and her roommate were super cool and ana paula even gave me a cd of a superb brazilian musician. but i need to get an mp3 player for the nine and a half hour bus ride home. bah. the bus on the way back takes more stops and is in the afternoon/evening so it's harder to sleep the whole way. but i at least had time to read almost a hundred pages of my new harry potter book (O Prisioneiro de Azkaban). yay!