curitiba is supposedly known for it's cleanliness and environmental-consciousness, but i haven't seen any proof yet... today, i went with sarah to her class of brazilian geography (9:30-12), and i was surprised to understand most of the "lecture." by "lecture" i mean that the entire classroom experience felt like high school. maybe that's because the students were fresh out of high school.
brazil's educational system is completely different than that of the US: students chose a major in high school, take a big test (the vestibular) at the end of high school in their major, and enter the university (depending on if they can afford to take the test, on the grade they make on it, and on where they place in the ranks of the major). generally, once they enter uni, their curriculum is set for them, and they remain with the same group of students thoroughout their uni career... makes me appreciate our educational system that much more.
anyway, after class we came home for lunch (the main meal of the day), and we went into centro. yesterday, we came into centro but only to change money and cruz the town a bit. today, we went to the Passeo Publico, which is a type of urban zoo and public park. there were birds from all over brazil and even some from africa. there were also some monkeys, snakes, rodents, turtles, and iguanas. after that we walked through the historic district (european-esque with cobble stone-streets), browsed the venders, found a buy-sell-trade CD-book-vinyl shop (which was pretty cool), and finally headed back to her house.
tomorrow, we'll probably take the "tourist bus" around to all the other sites of curitiba, and then we might go out to a birthday party of one of sarah's classmate tomorrow night. who knows? saturday morning, i'm off to florianopolis to see my old stomping grounds, and my old host families and friends! i can't wait!
No comments:
Post a Comment