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.