June 8th or: game over

Sunday morning, 10am and no bags packed yet – it was about time. We did that and then tried to get some Cachaca to bring home (because the Cachaca in Germany is abysmal compared to the original brazilian one). This actually wasn't too easy, because apparently everybody's favorite activity on a sunday is supermarket shopping. Two bottles should be sufficient though.

We arrived at the airport in time to shoot another video and to check in everything without stress whatsoever. Following this was an absolutely calm overnight flight to Paris.

Now we're sitting in Paris, waiting for the plane to Munich. And then this trip will finally be over. I'm really looking forward to being in Germany again, but it'll also be sad to leave these awesome four weeks behind. 

June 7th or: back to the urban jungle

When we got up, we discovered that there isn't much else to do in Iguazú. There is a mine, which is according to Tripadvisor a ripoff, and a power plant, which is apparently really interesting, but has to be booked in advance. So we decided on a late checkout and just relaxed a little at the hostel. 

For lunch, we had another classical argentinian thing: "empanadas". They are basically puff pastries (ger. Blätterteig) filled with various things: beef, chicken, ham & cheese, corn or vegetables. That's what a great snack looks like. After hustling back through the rain that accompanied us through our whole stay here, we met up with Carlos one last time to go to the airport.

There, things got a little close, because the security and check-in line was really long, but we caught our plane to Sao Paulo CGH just in time. CGH (Congonhas) is an airport located in the city, which enabled us to save lots of taxi money. 

Japanese Rodízio was the last supper for us in Brazil. All you can eat sushi and other japanese food certainly isn't bad, although we weren't quite satisfied. Well, at least we got a discount. The three Germans of us went for another Caipirinha afterwards, in a restaurant with two great live musicians. One of them managed to play the guitar and drums at the same time -- don't ask how. 

And well, that's it. I'm sitting here typing this with our plane to Germany leaving in 5 hours. I will write a wrapup of the stay tomorrow, until now I can just say: I have no regrets. It was an absolutely great decision to come here and I'd do it again anytime!  

June 6th or: just another waterfall

We woke up to rain knocking on our windows. Not the best weather to do some outside sightseeing, but hell, we're only in Iguazú once. Carlos picked us up to go to the argentinian side of the falls, where we booked not only the entry to the park, but also two boat rides. One on the river in the hope of seeing some rare animals, the other to go straight below the waterfall.

First of all, we went to see the "garganta del diablo" though. It is a 150m wide, 700m long canyon with insane amounts of water flowing down. Standing right above it is pretty terrifying and fascinating at the same time. Definitely worth going there, it'll be difficult to see anything comparable again.

Then we took the raft ride down the river. We didn't see any real animals, but learned a couple interesting facts about the falls. The water level varies with each day, and sometimes it goes up so high that the normal walking trails cannot be used anymore (which is impressive because they are 2m above water level and the river already carried more water than normally). Moreover, the water going down the falls used to be crystal clear, but due to deforestation lots of soil erodes, thus coloring the water brown. And of course the myth about the creation of the falls was important aswell: the guarani god Boi demanded the sacrifice of a virgin every year. Once, the virgin fled with her beloved one down the Iguacu river. The god spotted her and smashed her, thus creating the falls of Iguacu. The virgin turned into a stone, her lover into a tree on the other side of the river, and they were separated forever.

Enough with the tales now. We wanted to do some real life business. So we took a speedboat ride right next to the waterfalls. Needless to say, we were soaked completely. And by completely, I mean every single centimeter of the body. The rain had stopped by now, but it wouldn't have mattered anyway. We then took another trail, looked at more stunningly beautiful waterfalls, but it basically was an overload of great panoramic views. They were "just another waterfall". Aaaaand another one, and so on. You get the idea. 

After getting somewhat dry and warm, we wanted to enjoy some more argentinian beef. We ordered a barbecue plate and 600g of finest steak, indulging ourselves into great meat. Oh man, I could eat this every day. Great finish for a great day.

Sadly I don't have any pictures for you today. I didn't bring my camera or phone, because it just would have gotten destroyed. Yesterday should be sufficient to give you a first impression though.

June 5th or: Puerto Iguazú

Since we went to bed at 9, we only got 2 hours of sleep. That was more than sufficient though. Carlos picked us up and took us across the border we had crossed just a couple of hours before, back to Brazil. Today, we wanted to take a look at the brazilian side of the Iguacu Waterfalls. 

What are the Iguacu Waterfalls? 20 large and up to 255 smaller waterfalls, where up to 7000m³ water go down -- every second. Forget everything you have learned about Niagara Falls, this is the real deal. They lie at the border of Argentina and Brazil with one town nearby on each side of the border: Foz do Iguacu in Brazil and Puerto Iguazú in Argentina, where we were accomodated. They are provided with water by the River Iguazú, which is impressively large. 

We entered the park, took a bus to the trail and this is what we saw: 

first view of the falls

I really do not wanna write much about all this, you just have to see for yourself. It is truly amazing, and makes you wonder how nature can create something this phenomenal. The falls are considered one of the new 7 wonders of the world for a reason. The brute force of nature just keeps going, and you know that whenever you come back, the falls will still be there, grinding away rocks and moving insane amounts of water. 

taking a selfie of people taking a selfie (it was a little foggy at times)

finally found the end of the rainbow

We went very close to one of the falls and thoroughly got soaked before going back to dry. Getting dry was quite a challenge, since it was raining and heating doesn't exist here (my shoes are still soaked two days later, can't do nothing about it). We finished the day with great argentinian beef paired with great red wine. Funny thing to note: I was startled when "Walking in a Winter Wonderland" started playing. But then I realized that it's actually winter. That was a weird moment though. 

Even though we were just across the border, you can notice that Puerto Iguazú is in a different country. It is a small town where I feel completely safe. There isn't much to do besides looking at waterfalls, but the food is better (because there are vegetables) and it's easier for us to communicate. Frankly, I understand the south american spanish better than the spanish spanish. 

June 4th or: the best day ever

http://youtu.be/_pGaz_qN0cw

What in the world is this, you ask? Our wakeup song. Quite extraordinary, but it worked well, even at 6am. We had a long day ahead of us, 27 hours to be accurate. 

First of all, we ran down and back the whole Copacabana beach at sunrise. Going back and seeing the sun rise above the sugar loaf (Pao de Acucar) was a breathtaking sight. To all of you who doubt if it's the right time to go running: it always is. We almost didn't go, and we would've missed something I will remember for a long time. Jumping into the waves right after definitely was the right thing to do aswell. We stayed a little too long, so we were behind of our schedule, but screw schedules -- if you can do great things, just do them. You can always worry about other stuff later. 

A shower and an excessive breakfast later, we dropped off our baggage at Tino's, checked out and headed to the metro in order to pay a visit to Jesus. By that, I do not mean going to church. You can always see churches in Europe. By that I mean Cristo at Corcovado, the statue of Christ looking all above Rio de Janeiro. That's him:

Jesus is the guy in the middle .. no, not the one with the camera

We went up there by metro, public bus, private van and another private van. It took a while, but it included a stop at a platform with a view all across Rio before heading up to the Cristo himself, where the view was great too, but it was a little too crowded. Río de Janeiro from above is simply beautiful, seeing landmarks, beaches and favelas. Take a look yourself: 

all of Rio in one picture

Pao de Acucar

a surprisingly large lagoon right in the city

On the way back we accidentally took the wrong bus, but luckily it went by a metro station so we could back in time. Because the sun sets so early, time was limited and we wanted to spend that at the beach. Everything took forever (getting back, getting dressed, getting food), but eventually we set out once more for Ipanema beach, hoping to catch the sunset this time. We did, and it was great. Crashing the waves with the sun going down between the "dois irmaos" (two brothers, they are two mountains next to each other) was beautiful. 

sunset at Ipanema beach

Going back, we grabbed a slice of pizza with catupiry-filled crust. Catupiry is a local "cheese", but to me its looks and consistency are more like mashed potatoes. The taste is cheesy indeed though. Since our flight to Iguazú left at 5am, we still had plenty of time left, so we decided to check out the real Río nightlife. 

First of all, we went to a really small bar, where you could just help yourself at the fridge and then pay to the owner who was playing cards outside. Live music was starting later aswell. That's also where we met Roxi and her two friends, who would spend the rest of the night with us. And no, Roxi wasn't -- contrary to her name -- a stripper, but a really nice girl from Ecuador. 

that's how it's done!

We took the metro to Lapa, which is sort of the Ehrenfeld of Río de Janeiro. It used to be sort of a favela, but became gentrified. To me, it looked sketchy, but it was totally safe. A guy on the street was selling caipirinhas, and for 5R$ we just couldn't say no. He told us that he's been doing this for 10 years now, and that he drinks a couple of them every night as well. Yeah, that's that. They tasted great anyway. Afterwards, we enjoyed some Funk and Samba music at different bars and had an amazing time. 

Normally, you don't want to end amazing nights, but tonight we had to -- we had a plane to catch. Taxi back to Tino's, get luggage, go to the airport. We arrived way too early of course, so we had a decent chat with the employees of the airline who didn't have anything to do either. Pretty cool. Eventually, the plane to Iguazú arrived.

Next thing I can recall is the landing above Iguazú. Trees everywhere, everything looked the same. Oh god, where are we, there is NOTHING here. I started to feel sad to have left Rio, this city still has so much to offer. The airport itself was probably the smallest airport I have seen so far, even smaller than Kigali International Airport in Rwanda. The average train station of a small town in Germany is bigger. 

After getting our passport checked (which took forever, because one of the employees there decided to not wanna work today), we went to the city with Carlos, our taxi driver, who would accompany us on later trips as well. All we wanted was a bed. We had already booked the hostel and were able to get a room right away, so it wasn't a problem. The hostel itself is very basic, but our three bed room is clean, quiet and has an own bathroom. Can't ask for much more.

June 3rd or: Río de Janeiro

6am sharp the alarm went off once again. We got up, jammed some breakfast into our stomachs and set off to the "Rodaviária", the bus station. It took us about two hours to get to downtown Río de Janeiro, where we were able to catch the metro. The metro is considered safe even by the most careful people and meets european standards (mostly because of the impending world cup). Line 1 is supposed to be finished by now and way longer, but of course isn't yet. Maybe for the olympics in 2016. 

could also be in Europe: Cardeal Arcoverde

Our hotel was right at the Copacabana beach, a beach we were told that would be crowded by visitors and junk-salesmen. Well, take a look yourself:

the crowded Copacabana beach

What I also thought was really awesome were the ubiquitous fitness stations, where you can do basically any bodyweight exercise: pullups narrow/medium/wide, dips, tricep dips, core exercises. You could easily find one within 200m from anywhere on that beach. Not just that, but soccer and volleyball pitches everywhere. I know what I'd be doing if I lived there. Generally it was noticeable that people in Rio do more sports and thus look better than in Sao Paulo. But then again, it's easier to disguise a belly below a dress / suit than below bathing clothes. It is said that the "Paulistanos" (inhibitants of Sao Paulo) work hard, whereas the "cariocas" (people of Rio) aren't too much about work, but about hanging out at the beach and relaxing; basically lazy. 

We however weren't. We dropped our bags at the hotel, then got some skewers right at the beach. Not a lot of food, but good. But we still lacked the basic equipment for a good time at the beach: flip flops and a bikini. Buying flip flops in Copacabana is basically like buying beer in Germany -- you can get them anywhere and you have lots of choices aaaand they're cheap. I paid 4€ for a high quality pair. I might get another one. 

Ipanema beach after sunset

Equipped properly, we checked in at the hotel quickly and set off to a walk down the beach of Copacabana. Our goal was to observe the sunset at the neighboring Ipanema beach, but we were a little late -- the sun just goes down so early here since it's winter. Yet it was a nice, almost 7km walk to Leblon, a quarter where the "young and beautiful" people are supposed to be at night. All I can say is: nope, not true. We found a place with customized salads and great passion fruit juice, and it was the best dinner ever. We haven't had real vitamins for 3 weeks straight now, and that really felt good. We even raised our vitamin C consumption with two caipirinhas at a comfortable, classy bar with live music. There, we met Tino, a friend and fellow Enactee from Munich who is spending a semester abroad in Rio. I'm a little jealous. Daniel tried a beer with salt, tabasco, "english sauce" and limes. Sounds good? No. It was absolutely terrible and tasted like freshly thrown-up, chilled puke. But then again, if you always try everything, you will eventually find something that isn't good. That's part of the game.

I'm really starting to like the idea of getting up early. So we set the alarm for 6am sharp again. We can sleep when we are dead (or in Germany).

PS: Whenever something is crowded in Brazil (or anybody talks about something being crowded), they have this gesture where they put their thumb and their four other fingers together pointing upwards. Took me some time to understand that.

June 2nd or: Petrópolis

Today actually started off yesterday. At 11pm at night, we caught a bus to Petrópolis, which wasn't too easy. First, you have to book online, then pick up your ticket, then weigh your luggage at the gate .. it's basically an airport for buses. Considering it has around 75 gates with buses leaving at any time of the day to any target you wish in Brazil or even Argentina/Chile/Paraguay, it probably serves more people than the average airport. Really interesting, but then again very important here in Brazil because there are no trains.

We were told taking the bus would be terribly uncomfortable, but actually it was more comfortable than equivalent buses in Germany. We even were able to catch some sleep.

Once we got to Petrópolis, we were picked up by our charming host Filomena. We caught a first glimpse of the city, which was the summer residence of the portuguese king during colonial times, because Rio de Janeiro simply was too hot. Petrópolis lies a little more inside of the country and inside the mountains, so the climate is more "european". The center of the city is baffling. Beautiful cathedral, lots of colonial houses along a promade that resembles the "champs elysées" in Paris. 

First of all, we wanted to sleep some more though. From our house, you were able to enjoy a breathtaking view out of a panoramic window of the whole Petrópolis area. Absolutely incredible. Subtropical jungle paired with colonial houses, really really pretty. 

breathtaking views

After breakfast, we set out to discover the city. The weather was indeed very european, mainly cloudy, not really warm and with the possibility of rain starting any minute. After we first took a wrong turn, we went to take a look at the king's residence (which was closed), mastered a challenge (finding a bathroom in a public library) and saw the cathedral. We went for a beer in a really pretty bar inside of a colonial house and got locked in there because it started raining heavily. Dinner was supposed to be at the local brewery (arguably the best beer in Brazil, which I agree with; it's called "Bohemia" and of course of german origin), but it was closed. Monday seems to be the sunday of Petrópolis because nothing really is open. 

Petrópolis cathedral at night

We ended up in a nice restaurant eating classic brazilian food: meat, sausage, bacon, rice, fries, sand (yeah, you notice the lack of vitamins). Still good though, I'm not going to complain. Then we got back and planned our trip to Rio, which will start tomorrow early in the morning. The weather is supposed to be great, we have a nice hotel right at Copacabana beach and good plans to do in our two days there. This will be exciting!

June 1st or: lazy day, time to say obrigado

Yesterday, we went to the party.Today, we got up and that's basically about it. Burgers for lunch, nothing too spectacular. We were scheduled to go to the favela again to distribute glasses there, but for a reason unknown to me it didn't work out. Well, this gives me the opportunity to wrap up our stay here in Sao Paulo.

It's impressive to see: we arrived here 23 days ago, but it feels like yesterday. During this time, I've learned quite a lot about myself, met tons of awesome people, learned a lot about the brazilian culture and empowered homeless people to become micro-opticians. It all started off with our arrival in Sao Paulo and the rodizio, then continued with the training. The first weekend was mostly relaxing and an open air festival, then another week of training followed. The second weekend we went to Belém, and I cannot emphasize enough how overwhelming that was. The third week of training was more grinding than the first two, but we also finished that, and now I'm sitting here writing this. 

Sitting where? Right, in Michelle's living room. Without her, everything here would have been way more difficult. For the record: Michelle is not connected to Enactus in any way, but read about the project and offered to accomodate us. This is the perfect example for the incredible brazilian hospitality. At this point, I really want to thank you for sacrificing your living room and basically your whole apartment for two random german dudes. I hope we weren't too much of a burden. 

We also have to keep in mind why we are here. The main reason for that is Ralf, who made this cooperation possible and also accomodated us very well, together with Sylvia. Thank you! Sylvia, obrigado para as comidas incrivels! Eu vou sentir falta delas! 

Part of our project was also training people from Insper. Now, we have Felipe, who became a very good trainer just within three weeks. We really appreciate your persistence and the fact that you were always there. Thanks dude! 

Going around Sao Paulo also would have been a challenge if it wasn't for all the Enactees who drove us around constantly. It may seem a matter of course, but it really isn't. Danke!

Then, the weekend in Belém was a blast, as I may have mentioned before. A huge thanks to the Enactus CESUPA team for that and especially to Luana, who gave us a home far away from home. 

But of course, that's not just about it. There are way more people who positively impacted our stay here. Andrea and Paulinha from the shelter who cooked for us, Ana for making the work there possible, Caio for always being there even though you weren't even involved in the project, Fábio for the incredible amount of time he put into the project instead of going to the gym, Zé for always trying to drag us to a party, Ralf for talking to Dana in Cancún (thus initiating all this), Bruna for pointing out that I'm a hopeless narcissist and Paola for always encouraging the others to speak English when we are around. This may seem like a small gesture, but it meant a lot to me. Thank you!

This stay in Sao Paulo would not have been what it was without every single person we interacted with. Thanks for being there! 
OBRIGADO!

Tonight, we will start a new adventure. We're going to Rio de Janeiro by bus. I don't know about you, but I'm really excited, and I will try to keep you posted!

tomorrow, we're trading this for beach and sunshine!

May 31st or: busca de vida

Finally free! Sleeping in, not working, doesn't that sound great. That's what I thought, and that's when my alarm went off after just six hours of sleep -- I wanted to remember something the day before, but forgot to turn it off. Well, might as well start the day.

sunny day in Sao Paulo

I spent most of the time blogging and catching up on several things going on in Germany. We were scheduled to have lunch at 2 brazilian time, so I left the house at 1.50 and decided to walk there, which would take about half an hour. The weather was great, blasting sun, no clouds, and it really was enjoyable to see Sao Paulo from this perspective as well. I got there just in time for this abonimation of a feijoada: 

hungry?

Normally, feijoada is a bean stew with some meat. This time, it was meat with a little bean stew. It tasted great, as usual (at this point a huge obrigado to Sylvia, who has been cooking magnificient food for us almost every day. We loved it!), and filled us more than up. After seven people had eaten from it more than half of it was still left. We spent the rest of the day there aswell and just had a good time with our brazilian friends. 

One thing still bothered us, though: we had not gone out in Sao Paulo yet. So we decided we need to do exactly that. We bought some beers and some cachaca at the supermarket (actually, Ailton did -- we really appreciated that. Thanks!) before going back to consume these goods. It was a great opportunity to try lots of different stuff. Beer that tastes like cinnamon, beer that tastes like actual bananas (wayyyy better than the rwandese banana beer), different sorts of cachaca and especially one called "busca de vida". It is a cachaca with ginger and lemon, so it is healthy and alcoholic at the same time. Also, it has a quite unique taste, which I loved. On a side note, the fanciest cachaca I've had so far was "cachaca de jambu", which makes your lips and mouth go numb. Interesting stuff. 

busca de vida

Next up: party! There was a huge university party going on, 10k people going on Facebook, 100R$, open bar. Sounded like a plan. The whole street in front of it was really crowded, and we tried to get tickets. Too bad the price for men's tickets had just gone up to 300R$. Yeah, we're not gonna pay that. Getting cheaper tickets was impossible, as one of the blackmarket sellers told us: "I can get you anything, world cup tickets, drugs, a fake passport, but getting 5 men's ticket is impossible." 

no, this isn't the party

Men's tickets, you ask? Here in Brazil, gender does make a difference when it comes to ticket prices. Men's tickets usually are about twice as expensive as women's tickets. Also, when going to clubs, there are different options: either you pay an amount to just get in, or you pay more but can consume all that inside. Either way, it's expensive.

Due to our severe lack of tickets, we hit it off to Rua Augusta, where lots of night life is going on aswell. We quickly found a club there, which was a little alternative and not too sterile, exactly the way I love it. Music was good, beer was cheap, girls were pretty -- can't say I didn't have fun. And well, that's it. Now we made this experience, we could go to bed peacefully. 

May 30th or: the end

Yeah, this was it. The last day of training. It started off with the sun shining right into my face, and I figured it would be a good time to make use of the running shoes I've carried with me all this time. Spoiler: best decision ever. One of the biggest parks in Sao Paulo is 5 minutes away from the place I'm staying at, and it really is great. You could compare it to the "english garden" in Munich, only that there is more to do in this one called "Parque de Ibirapuera". First, I came across a cohort of soldiers/policemen doing their morning workout. It sounded like this: (drill instructor) "Bom día, bom día" .. "BOM DIA BOM DIA". Even better though, I finally discovered what I had been looking for since I've arrived in Brazil -- an outdoor gym! Just some old stuff to do dips, pullups, core exercises and basically everything you need for a true crossfit workout. That felt great. 

futuristic bus stop in Sao Paulo

big city jungle

Delighted by that, I quickly showered and then went straight to the shelter, this time by bus. Arrived to some rice and gnocchi with meat (my first thought: no beans?!?! what happened?), then we taught the trainees the basics of optics. We now have a good group of very well trained trainees, who will hopefully bring lots of glasses to lots of people who need them. You could tell they were really happy to have the job -- after all, they put in three weeks of their time without certainly knowing the outcome. Well, parabéns, vocês sao parte da familia "OneDollarGlasses" agora! I'm very much looking forward to future results. 

not the average lunch (no beans!)

At night, we celebrated together with our trainees at a nearby pizza place with brazilian pizza and some beer. Touching story here: one of our trainees has not gone out a single night since her first son was born. Today, her son is five and she has two other kids. So she hasn't been out for five years! I have never seen anybody so happy with just a couple slices of pizza and beer. These are the small delights that make this work really wonderful. All the problems we have are really just luxury problems. 

Because we were finally done with our work, we wanted to celebrate a little more, so we tried to go to a party. Tickets were ridiculously expensive (R$180 = 90 USD = 60€), so we just stayed in front and talked to lots of people there. I have never done this before, but it was actually really nice. This way, you get in touch with people you probably wouldn't get in touch with if you were at the party. Very interesting. 

Germany is also present on the shelter's wall

And that's it. Now, another weekend in Sao Paulo lies ahead of us. And after that, we will travel to Rio and Iguazu. That will be a great finish for a great time here in Brazil.

May 29th or: the five dollar shake

The daily grind started again. Jakob moved out in the morning, then we went to the shelter to conduct the last day of real training. We taught some more tricks that are nice to know, got our trainees just a little better and well, that's basically it. Lunch was good as usual, rice, beans and "chicken cake". Not sure how to describe that, but it's basically chicken with egg and cream (?) in a dough shell. Comparable to the french "quiche" but not quite the same. It tasted good anyway.

doing some serious training with the "renobabies" and jesus

Speaking of food, that was definitely the highlight of the day. We went to a place called "Kahuna Burger". Does that ring a bell? ... Well, it was a Pulp Fiction themed restaurant, and it was freaking great. The menu went from the "Big Kahuna Burger" and the "Bacon Blast" to the "Bad Motherfucker" and "Ezekiel 25:17". All of these are big burgers, but nothing beats the Ezekiel. 700g of meat, 10 slices of bacon and cheese, along with some sauces and some alibi veggies. Needless to say, I didn't have it because by now I'm fat enough anyways. I went with the Bacon Blast with just 300g of meat and 4 slices of bacon and cheese, sort of a diet version of the Ezekiel. 

absolutely awesome picture of an absolutely awesome place

Along with that, we had the famous Five Dollar Shake. I love american style milkshakes that basically are icecream, but this one took it to a whole another level. White chocolate flavored iceream, cold hot chocolate and ovomaltine crystals (!!!) topped off with whipped cream. For those lost souls among you who have never tried ovomaltine, it's a malt-chocolate thing from Switzerland. And just like Germany, everything from Switzerland is good. 

Did I use the term food coma already? Well, this took it to a whole another level. I was so tired and full I couldn't even sleep. Might have been a good call to not have fries with that ...

May 28th or: do you take credit card?

After a while, everything becomes a routine. That's also the case with the training. By now, everybody knows what to do and just needs the final 10%, which are also the hardest ones to get. We started off producing since we need more good frames to distribute, but that's pretty much about it. The only distraction brought in are the kids of one of our trainees, which are cute and obnoxious at the same time.

Here's some more stuff I observed today:

1) You can pay by credit card literally anywhere. Any restaurant or store, sure. The newspaper shack on the street, rather surprising. But once I realized that you can pay in the favela with credit card, even though these guys don't have running water or actual houses, I was quite shocked. Today, I realized you can even pay the guy who sells roses at traffic lights with credit card .. how weird is that? That's also the reason why once you pay with cash, you're automatically a foreigner. Brazilians just don't do that.

2) "Brazil is so dangerous .." I haven't really realized that, even though we spend lots of time on the street and in parts of the city that are considered dangerous. But we're still just fine. I don't mean to force it, but propaganda is always worse than the reality. After all, no newspaper would ever publish that nobody got robbed today. 

3) I keep learning about protests in Sao Paulo that are all over the city in the German news (http://www.spiegel.de/politik/ausland/fussball-wm-in-brasilien-proteste-in-sao-paulo-gegen-hohe-kosten-a-971227.html). In reality, I would like to see one, but I just can't find them. So if anybody was concerned about my well-being, it's all good. No worries!

Goodnight!

May 27th or: it's all about money

So yeah, I would like to tell you about interesting stuff that happened today. But really, there's not much to tell. Shot wrapup: we started off the day at our local market with some freshly deep-fried pasteís, then hit the shelter for the training, then went to Sylvia's for some great dinner accompanied by caipirinhas. And that's it.

great pasteís here .. even the locals think so

However, I want to share my impressions of Brazil with you. Like everywhere, not everything is gold. 

1) I may have mentioned this before, but I more and more get the feeling that everything here is about money and working towards your own good. If you don't pay attention, you get ripped off anywhere. Status symbols and money are everything. I have no actual examples, but that's the feeling I get, it is way worse than in Munich (!). 

2) Healthy eating isn't something people in Brazil are good at. Everything contains meat and cheese and is usually accompanied with rice. Salad? Fuck salads. Vegetables? Meh, only if there's lots of meat, cheese, rice and sand. But then again, you can see it. Like in the United States, lots of people are on the verge of being obese. I suppose this is a Sao Paulo phenomenon, because I was told in Rio everybody looks good. I'll see about that in a couple of days. 

3) When we went to Insper, I was baffled. This isn't a university, but an enterprise. Everything looks totally neat, there is an own concert room, the restaurant has prizes that no normal student could ever afford to pay on a daily basis, and the 3-story parking garage filled with Audis and BMWs speaks for itself (this becomes even more impressive after reading 4)). Some research quickly revealed that it is the second most expensive university in Brazil. This explains a lot. Very interesting to work closely together with both the upper and the lower part of society at the same time! 

4) There is a tax for everything. 100% on imported goods, 70% on cars in general (Audi/BMW = imported cars, you do the math), 50% on basically everything else that isn't sold on the black market. No doubt everything here is expensive, except Cachaca, which just costs R$4 per bottle (= 2USD = 1.3€). 

That's it for today. Cheers!

May 26th or: the first step to fame

Today was the day TV Globo was supposed to come. TV Globo is the biggest TV channel in Brazil, and they were going to make a short documentary about us to broadcast in the primetime news. Primetime! 40 MILLION PEOPLE watching. That's like half of Germany's population or 27% of the people in the world who need glasses but cannot afford them. That's huge! 

on the verge of being famous

Only problem was: we looked like shit. Barely sleeping for three days was definitely visible, and especially hard to shrug off for our "old" guys. The reporter, who seemed very professional and nothing like the average media guy we had to deal in the past with, got there and right away started asking questions. It was a very interesting and exciting time for us and especially our trainees. One of them has been looking for his brother and his sister for over twenty years, and now tha 20% of Brazilians are watching, the chances of finding them have never been higher. It gives people who are ignored, frowned upon and basically outcasts of society the opportunity to share their stories and struggles. Here, it is not just about our project anymore, but about individual persons, and it is delighting to help them in any way possible. 

Alex telling his story

Of course, this won't hurt the project either. Our brazilian partners are hoping to raise more money through their crowdfunding campaign (http://www.kickante.com.br/campanhas/renovatio-oculos-para-quem-nao-pode-pagar), and for us it is great to raise the awareness of the project. It might help us in the future aswell.

Needless to say, training didn't really take place today. After all, it took quite a while and everybody was rather exhausted. So we spent the evening at Insper University, listening to a classical concert played by kids aged 8-18. It's another project of Enactus Insper, where music is used to give poor children a new perspective in life. Totally exceeded my expectations, their performance was great. It was especially cool to see an 8-year-old kid man up and play a solo in front of 60 people, very impressive.

great Enactus commercial in the men's bathroom of Insper

Afterwards, Jakob and I had a good talk about how basically everything doesn't matter and why Matrix is the best movie ever. Cheers. 

May 25th or: welcome to the jungle

5am in the morning. It's been a while since I've been up this early. Even near the equator it was still dark night. We wanted to get a lot done today, so we set out early to catch a boat to some communities living near Río Guamá. The sun was blasting, sunscreen and nobite-mosquito-lotion on, glasses we prepared the day before in the bag and we were ready to go. 

The way there was quite long. I thought we'd only have to cross the river, but apparently this wasn't the case, but much rather a 90 minute boat ride. It was a great opportunity to get to know the people from Enactus better, spend time in the sun and most of all to enjoy breathtaking views. Some things you can't describe (quoting the president of Enactus Brazil, with whom I had a nice talk aswell: "Describe the difference between sweet and salty .. right, it's not possible, you have to experience it). So have a look: 

yes, this is actually a river

breathtaking views

the community inside ...

.. and outside

Once we got there, everybody was already waiting for us. We set everything up, especially Daniel had lots to do for the filming of the whole procedure. Once everything got going, we served the purpose of this whole trip -- empowering people to see properly again! We distributed glasses to around 40 people, giving 40 individuals the ability to see, learn and work again. Some were delighted by the new perspectives, others were rather confused, which is totally understandable: after all, if you've never had glasses in your life before, everything looks really weird. We had some rice, graviola-cupuacu juice and acai for lunch, which was pretty good. Then we took the boat back to Belém, just in time before another apocalyptical rainstorm. 

Belém under clouds

When the other boat eventually got there, we headed back to pack our stuff, get a quick powernap and shower. We met up with some of the enactees in a bar one more time, had a couple Chopp and some food before heading to the airport. On our way there, we had an absolutely insane cab driver: he shifted gears more than I do with a gear-operated car; only thing was: it was automatic. While going 130km/h isn't much for a german, it appears a lot more when everybody else is just going 60. We even passed by a police car, who just didn't give a damn. Needless to say, we got there in time for our flight, said goodbye to everybody and took a couple more selfies. On a side note, selfies and generally pictures are something very common to brazilians. Everything that goes down deserves a picture, and even if nothing happens, it's good to take one. 

.. and that's how it is done

The rest of the journey wasn't really too exciting. Sleeping on the plane is always a challenge, even when you're exhausted, but it was okay. Then we took the cab from the airport, arrived at our place, and it was locked. We figured we didn't want to wake our host up, so we just texted her and slept in the lobby for a while. Afterwards, we went to bed. I don't think I've ever slept in four different places within one night. 

#planeselfie

May 24th or: the worst place to watch a champions league final

Today wasn't as exciting. A couple of guys including me were really pumped about the Champions League final, but first of all we had to go to the local university in order to observe the measuring process for the glasses. One hour or two would have been sufficient, yet we spent the whole day there not doing much. Sure, it was good to see the measuring process and even more important to talk to the doctor in order to change the prescriptions so they are suitable for our glasses. But all in all, we didn't have too many tasks.

Try watching a champions league final in a waiting room. It's not very exciting. Worst thing was that the university had to be closed down at six, so we missed most of the overtime. Luckily we only missed the completely undeserved victory of one of the most unsympathetic teams in the world (only Chelsea is worse, I'd say), so not much. 

sadly, we didn't bring our typical german hawaii shirts

At night, we went to the "noite havaiana", a fundraiser organized by the Enactus CESUPA team. It was a rather nice atmosphere, especially because most of the team was there. Also, they had some really intriguing musicians there, brazilians know how to make music! 

Tomorrow alarm is on 5am sharp. G'night. 

May 23rd or: the sertanejo

So we were in Belém, which was supposed to be the "hottest city on earth" (courtesy to some dude in Sao Paulo). We woke up freezing. Like in the United States, AC is a given in most houses and usually turned on ridiculously low, basically ensuring you catch a cold sooner or later. Once we left the room, a heat shock was imminent. Humidity of approximately 78919074770%, around 30°C (or 92°F for people with weird measures) led to a sticky, sweaty air that we would learn to enjoy throughout the next days. 

We had an elaborate feast as breakfast. Our host Luana and her family overwhelmed us with a level of hospitality that exceeded anything we had seen before. Very interesting by the way, students in Brazil usually live with their parents .. and their grandparents .. and their aunts .. so basically with their whole family, which rather surprised me. I'm rather used to hygienically questionable student flats whose fridges basically contain beer and maybe some food. I didn't expect a proper home with a fridge filled to the max. 

After having breakfast, we set off to having lunch. In case anybody is wondering -- yes, we're getting fat here. Not doing almost any sports but eating meat and carbs for every meal does have its effect. Hell, I'd kill for a salad by now. Lunch was meat and seafood accompanied with something called "Açaí", which is a thick juice made of the Açaí-Berry. Its taste is rather difficult to describe, but for some reason the taste as well as the consistency were similar to olive oil, only different. To put it with Caio's words: "It's like icecream except it's not icecream". Also very intense purple color. Tasted very healthy, and makes you really tired for some reason. It's noticable that I've been in Brazil for a while now, because one of the Brazilian's favorite topics is food -- something I talk about a lot aswell now.

magnificient cathedral in the middle of the city .. very european

Then we took a tour of Belém. It is so much different than Sao Paulo: the buildings are not as high, most buildings are a little older and a bit dirty, but that makes it even more beautiful. Fitted my imagination of Brazil much more. Being really close to the Equator, the rain was imminent --every day at 3pm, apocalyptical rain starts and drenches the whole area. After an hour, the sun is shining again. 

apocalyptical weather

So far, so good. Afterwards, we got a powernap in before we set out to have dinner and some "Chopp" (= draft beer) from a local brewery. Especially interesting was the Açaí-Stout, which tasted like a combination of Açaí and Guiness. I liked it. After discussing for approximately 9932 decades what we should do next, we decided on a "Sertanejo"-Bar. Sertanejo is basically brazilian country music, although much more enjoyable. We saw a live band in a bar accompanied with a couple Caipirinhas and I have to say, I have no regrets. That was actually really cool. 

something you wouldn't find in Sao Paulo

Considering we had to get up the next morning around 8, we figured we should probably get another 3 hours of sleep, which we would need. 

May 22nd or: why it's better to take the bus

Today was gonna be a long day. Getting up at 7.30am sharp (NOT brazilian time) -- by the way, did I tell you about brazilian time? It works like this: you set a time for whatever (an event starting, meeting up with somebody, waking up, ...), and then you come between 30 minutes and 2 hours late. That can be very exhausting, but we somewhat got used to it.

At the shelter, we received Abioptica once again to show them our production process. Following this was an absolute chaotic discussion the brazilian way: everybody speaking with everybody in high volume and really fast while not really considering that this probably doesn't lead to anything productive. Aside of that, our portuguese wasn't quite sufficient. We managed to get some good talks in eventually though.

Afterwards, we caught up on the feijoada we missed out upon yesterday and waited for TV Globo, the biggest brazilian TV channel. Turns out they didn't show up and rescheduled us to Monday because of the protests going on in Sao Paulo (which I haven't noticed yet, I learned this in the German news). Well, we can live with that. Gave us more time for training, which is good as well. 

We packed up all the material for Belem and had a good talk between us four german trainers, because Deniz left on Sunday. It took of course longer than expected, but we figured we would still be fine. We called a cab to pick up our stuff, and then we encountered real Sao Paulo traffic. Nothing worked, everybody was basically stuck and we probably would have been better off walking. The only thing that slightly works are the buses, because they have separate lanes. So we got out at a bus stop and took the bus. Taking the bus here is gambling, because you cannot figure out where exactly they are going, it's just not possible. But we know two bus stops close to our place, so we figured we might as well give it a shot. It worked, and we got there after one hour (usually, this takes 15mins max by cab). We left the house 2.5h before our flight left. Plenty of time for a domestic flight, right? That's what we thought, too. Turns out we should take more than 1.5h to get to the airport, again because of traffic. Getting through Sao Paulo at rush hour isn't really possible. This city needs a real metro, wayyyyy more than is existing right now. 

We got our flight, ate some papaya we brought with us for dinner in the airport (nasty!) and flew to Belém. 3.5h in the plane, 3000km and still in the same country? On paper, yes. In reality, Belém and Sao Paulo don't have that much in common aside of the country and the language. At the airport, we were welcomed by 8 Enactees from the Enactus CESUPA team in the middle of the night. They even made T-Shirts for the OneDollarGlasses project! You could tell they were really excited to have us here, and that felt absolutely great. We were quite overwhelmed, and that was just the beginning. First of all, we were mostly fine with some water and a bed.