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Please, correct my preposition phrases and find out more about Brazil 2
Around Rio de Janeiro, there is a village called Paraty that is very cute. It's around 3 hours by car.
You can see a real royal road - or gold way - throughout of Paraty. It's better if you read something about before to go, or hire someone who offers touristic tours.
In general, I prefer to search for informations about the history of the places before going somewhere. Otherwise, I have to pay for these explanations. However, there are many cheap tours in Rio de Janeiro by walking in the city center.
The city of Rio de Janeiro hasn't only beaches, with respect to cultural unmissable attractions, there are the Parisian Theatre (Teatro Municipal) - for example - you can buy a ticket on Sunday morning for less than $1.
Into Cinelândia (Teatro Municipal area), you can visit the first public and historical library in Brazil and the National Museum of Fine Arts, sometimes it's possible to see some restorations in progress.
Since you are at Cinelândia, you should go to two places close to there: Colombo Bakery (Confeitaria Colombo) and a small and one of the most beautiful libraries that I've ever seen - Real Gabinete Português de Leitura. There are lots of gold inside this place beyond books.
In spite of some places in Brazil being unsafe, it's important to know a native to give you some tips, so you can go there. For example, people don't use many jewels in Brazil because we have a large number of poor. It used to be better over 2000s, but with the crisis nowadays I believe the condition became like in the 80-90s again.
In order to really find out a country, instead of being in resorts, look for a good hotel and explore the area. However, it's important to say that we don't have a great public transport system unfortunately. It's really crowd, so don't use it if you don't like to see the daily life of most of Brazilians. Other options concerning to that, it's always possible to walk - in most of neighborhoods -, or take a Uber or taxi.
I know that many people don't think to go to Brazil due to their afraid because they listen to many terrible things about there. I should say with regard to it that it's not so terrible as people believe. I don't see many differences between Rio de Janeiro or São Paulo and San Francisco, Portland, London and Paris (big cities that I've been to) - for example. It's because there are dangerous area everywhere, but I don't know why people like to go to see the "favelas" or the poverty in Brazil, and of course it's dangerous.
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Please, correct my preposition phrases and find out more about Brazil
Despite the publicity about Brazil is very bad, it's a great and cheap place to go.
If you have courage to look below when you are in the "bondinho do Pão de Açúcar", it's possible to see an incredible view.
To go to poor places, like Brazil, it's to see the world off of my comfort zone.
In central area at Rio de Janeiro, toward the National Library, you have many attractions.
You have very warm beach water above Espírito Santo in Brazil.
You can see many colorful fishes in some Northeast beaches in Brasil even not much beneath in the ocean.
It's common to have a shower twice or three times per day for Brazilians, especially in the summer time.
Even though pedestrians have priority to cross the street in Brazil, most of people in cars don't give it to them.
Like in the US, many homeless people live under bridges in Brazil.
It's not possible to find out Brazil across one city in Brazil because we have many differences among various places.
There is a "favela" beside many rich neighborhood in Rio de Janeiro because the riches found out a beautiful view in the mountains, so they "thought" they deserve them.
I'm from Brazil, but I've never been to Amazonia. It's not a common place to visit for most of Brazilians.
The city of Rio de Janeiro doesn't have the best beaches to visit, you have to go onto Búzios, for example.
The cheapest tour that I've ever done was in Rio de Janeiro where you can take a kind of old train to go to Santa Teresa. You pass underneath the famous "Arcos da Lapa" and when you arrive there you have a wonderful view and a street market.
Besides the famous touristic places to find out in Brazil, I strongly recommend some small beaches in Northeast area because of the warm and crystalline water, and a safe place to put your staff and go to the sea.
After going to not common places in Brazil, some of my foreigner friends want to go back there.
If you plan to go to Northeast in Brazil between July and August, it's better to know that it's time for our showers. It's not a big deal because it lasts a few minutes in general.
It's cheaper if you visit places out of high season, although Brazil isn't an expensive place to go.
During the whole month of Carnival you can go to Pernambuco state to see a different kind of Carnival parade in Brazil.
Near to November it's my favorite time to visit beaches in Brazil because it's not crowd, excepting if you go during a holiday (days 2 and 15 are holidays there).
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Is your personality suited to your job?
I have been teaching Portuguese for many years, but I remember my first classes weren't good at all. I always was very shy, that kind of person who freaks out if has to speak out loud. I had already faked that I couldn't do things in order to not be the centre of attention in two competitions during my middle school. Afterwards, I had just given up to be anything close to a outspoken person. These characteristics have persisted with me for as much as I can remember in my live - and even now that I had to live abroad when I have to speak English. As a consequence, when I started to teach that time I thought that I would have had to develop myself another self, more communicative and extroverted.
Of course, it didn't happen. It took a year to me to accustomed to the stage. At least in Brazil, unfortunately, we have big classes and we have to teach from 25 to almost 300 students at the same class, it depends on the grade or course. So, I was adjusting my personality for something that I wasn't used to, but at the same time, it was me!
Those students were looking for the same things I had been searching before I became a teacher - they were scary because it's so hard to get into a great public university in Brazil, and many of them - like me in my time - couldn't go to college if it wasn't free. In other words, I had to become aware that I was there because I had lived the same situation than them, and I was there to help them to achieve their goals. Therefore, it's so magical to be teacher and so hard because teachers in many places have the same problem than Brazil, they usually get a low salary and bad work conditions. Even though I haven't leave my shyness behind, I have won myself and taken my strong analytic way to see things in advanced for my profession, and I have made changes systematically in order to take advantages of my characteristics and personality to get my students.
What does this whole story mean? I strongly believe we can rediscover ourselves if you really want to achieve a goal. Nobody needs to suit personality for this because we are in constant change, and it makes us alive.
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My week
My current week has been busy, even though I didn't work as much as I'd like to.
On Monday morning, I took an English class with a new teacher from Italki and I went to the gym. Before this, I came back to my apartment, organized what needed. Afterwards, I prepared some coffee in the afternoon for Brazilian girls who I knew from work. I made a chocolate cake with "brigadeiro" topping(a Brazilian recipe), Brazilian coffee(stronger than American one), lemon juice, and I bought some croissants. Each person brought a dish as well, and we have talked a lot for hours.
The next day, since I tried to be healthier, I went to the gym in the morning again, and helped some people from Italki. Since I wasn't feeling good, I did home office. In the evening, I decided to start to watch a new series because I've finished those one that I had watched. It's difficult for me to find a good series to watch because I'm afraid of almost everything, I don't like to see blood, so I like to watch series about food, places, nature in general. However, some of this kind of series are boring, it's hard to find a good one.
I wasn't feeling good on Wednesday, but I had to go to the office. However, my plan to go every day from Monday to Friday at the gym failed. I don't like this kind of days that one has to change one's routine in order to not be great. I'm this kind of person who loves to have a weekly routine, and I don't have it so much here, so I'm often stressed due to it. I know that most people think it's boring to have a routine, but I confess that I'm a methodic person, so during the week I like to have an organized week without unexpected events.
Wednesday finished and it came Thursday. I was a little better than Wednesday, although my day was terrible. The previous day, I had a hard time at work - these days when nothing that you have to do works well. Since I had to continue the same project that the day before, I thought I'd have the same problem. Before going to work, I had to pick up the car (usually my husband uses it during the week. Yes, we live in the US and we have only one car, and I like it because public transportation is very good in this city - in Brazil this idea of having only one car was impossible for us) because I needed to go so far away doing things that didn't work! So, I tried to go directly for my job, but there isn't parking available. So, I went back to house, parking my car and took the train. At least the job was good!
Let's see how today'll be.
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I love living in a rip city!
What I most like in living in the US is the city where I live. Before arriving here, I’ve never been to the US, and I’ve never thought in coming here to be very sincere. However, life does some tricks with us, and here I am.
Portland is the biggest city in Oregon, even though it’s not the capital. It’s a little crazy for me because most of capitals in Brazil are the biggest cities in the state. I love living in a green big city, it’s amazing to think that this city is almost the same size than Campinas (SP) where I’ve lived in Brazil. I like the fact of there are many parks where one can walk, hike, spend a day, or swim in summer time! We don’t have this kind of parks in Brazil as much as here.
On the other hand, I was shocked with the amount of homeless people that I can see here, especially when I moved out. In my mind, a first world country doesn’t have this bunch of homeless people. I’ve been to some places in Europe before and I’ve never seen it, so I was really upset about it. Some of them are drug addicted and/or have mental problems, and the politics about it - at least in Oregon - aren’t very good and efficient. I believe part of this social problems comes from the expensive health assistance in the US. Of course, people who have mental problem don’t have money, so they can pay bills and a doctor for treating them, therefore they will live on the streets. Despite this sad situation, I can’t complain because people are open-minded and nice.
Moreover, Portland’s slogan is “this is a rip city”, and I like this incredible weird place where I live. Besides this, people are usually smiling, specially when the Sun comes… It rains a lot here, and the weird thing is people don’t like to use umbrella, so they buy impermeable coats to wear because the rain season is during the winter. How we don’t have four seasons in Brazil (it’s always hot in most part of Brazil), I love to see the difference among the four seasons here. It’s stunning!!! I’ve never experienced it before, and it’s so magical that, in the first time in my life, I look like a tourist, although I’ve been living here more than a year now. When I walk around the city, I still look towards everywhere.
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Little Alice - Part 2
She decided to try as hard as she could. When our tiny ballerina jumped, her glasses fell off. Actually, she couldn’t see almost anything without them, but she was brave, she would never give up! Her mom started to cry wildly. People close to the young mother asked her why she was crying. My daughter is lost at Times Square on New Year’s Eve! - she whispered. Immediately, a huge quantity of people started to look for a lost tiny girl and her Teddy bear.
Maybe they announced about her missing, but it was too loud where she was and she couldn’t hear. A lot of noisy feet prevented our heroin to find her glasses. She looked down, but it made her to feel almost trampled by those giants. When she realized how menacing it could be for her, she decided to look up quickly. Like a miracle, a good guy picked her up as high as she would want, and screamed while he was looking at her mother’s direction - “I found her! Is she, isn’t?”. She could finally see what she wished - Daughter! The sky had never seemed so far. She started to cry.
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Little Alice - Part 1
The tiny girl unconsciously tilted her head up to try to find what everyone on that street was talking about. She pulled her companion’s skirt, but the woman hadn’t even looked at her. So, she tried to use the new ballerina step that she had learned in last ballet class to see what was happening. While she repeatedly did it, that woman who was entertained with the neighbor’s conversation couldn’t see her little girl being pushed away by many strangers in that large street.
What definitely left irritated our small ballerina was that she was too short for her age, but she knew how smart she was. Maybe if she put her Teddy bear on her shoulders he could see something and tell her. Both were still too small for all those giants around her. The young woman who supposedly was her mother didn’t see her little girl when she looked down. Where did my baby hide?
She extended her thin arms as long as she could towards the sky to help her Teddy bear sees why people were exalted with what was happening in the sky. That didn’t work too. Puff… - she snorted. The mother remembered that her little girl used to hide from her sometimes. Then, she pretended not to be scared, even in a special event with thousands and thousands of people in the street. On the other hand, her heart wouldn’t lie to her.
Perhaps if she combined the ballet step with her arms up and Teddy bear’s help, she could have a glimpse of the sky. The sounds were decreasing in intensity. Now! - she thought one more time before starting to jump. Alice! - yelled the mother. Aaaliiiice… She was no match for that crowd and the fireworks. The young woman puffed again because she knew that it wasn’t only a trick.
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One more weekend
The first weekend in March would have been only another common weekend in winter time. However, it was the second one that my husband and I had a chance to go out together. I love spending my time doing something different, and it's been a while that we haven't had this chance. So, last Saturday, I didn't go to the farmer's market as habitual, I wake up late and started to clean up. Ok, for sure, this isn't something interesting to do during the weekend, but it's necessary and - at least - we were listening classical music. I listen this kind of music every single morning from Monday to Friday in order to relax our stressful workday, but I decided to do the same this Saturday. Usually, I put musics more agitated when I have to clean the apartment, but not this time. My husband and I have this Brazilian habit to do a deep clean in our place each 15 days. I've heard it's not common in the US, but it's hard for us to do something different.
Afterwards, we had a concert to go. I was super excited about it because it would be my first time in a live Tchaikovsky concert here, and, for me, his songs are specially emotional, thus I was very happy.
The temperature outside wasn't cold as during the week days, so we walked until the theater - it's around ten blocs from the building where we live. We arrived at the time to see the kids played before the official concert, which was played by youths from 11 to 18. It was amazing! I'm always impressed by the capacity of each generations, what includes the young one. After playing the 4th Symphony, they were applauded standing for minutes. I loved the last movement (more agitated), and my husband the third (more calm); it might be reflex of our personalities. Subsequently, we found a couple of friends to go to a cute kind of victorian deco restaurant cross the river. We stayed there until 1a.m., the time they had to close it.
Next morning, my husband and I finished to clean up, and we studied a little each one our subject. Of course, I was dedicating to brush up my English, while he studied something about his job - that I can't understand almost anything. Later, I prepared our lunch for each day of the week and we went to the supermarket. I had to drive because I've been learning how to drive in the US - it's quite different than Brazil, so I'm a kind of insecure.
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