Preparations

In the third year of my study of environmental science it is required to do an internship within Holland and abroad. This blog will tell you my adventures and experiences of my internship abroad. I have never been traveld outside the European Union, for my internship abroad I go to the Universidade Federal de Viçosa (UFV) wich is in Brazil. Viçosa, MG is according to Brazilian standards a small town counting approximately 75.000 inhabitants (wikipedia).

This internship (or exchange-program as some would call it) was offered me by a lecturer of my school (HAS Hogeschool). First I had my doubts, but as I gathered more information I became more convinced. Still it is a big step for me, I have never lived on my own, it is a new culture with a different language.

Before I can start my internship, there had to be done a lot of paperwork. So now some more practical information for those who will follow me in my footsteps. First you need a letter of the UFV, in order to get this letter the UFV needs some information from you. The following documents where requested: 
  • Grade list,
  • Birth certificate,
  • Passport,
  • and a letter of your school.
When you have the UFV letter can start gathering the required documents for the visa procedure. See documents below:
  • Certificate of good conduct,
  • Proof of sufficient money for your period of stay,
  • Letter of the UFV,
  • Legalized letter of your school, because the consulate does not recognize the letter on its own it has to be legalized by DUO but the consulate also does not recognize the DUO legalization. So the DUO legalization has to be legalized by the Dutch court. Yeah a legalization of a legalization... that is what I thought too...
  • Passport,
  • Proof of a good insurance,
  • Flight dates.
Basically I just followed the requested document list on the site of Consulado Geral do Brasil em Roterdã --> VITEM I for exchange students.

Currently I am looking for a place to stay in Viçosa. I have been offered two rooms for approximately R$300 wich is €87,90. Also I have been assigned to 
a Brazilian ambassador, he has found an apartment for R$650 (€190,45). Still I haven't anything solid yet.

I will fly on February 20th, and stay in Brazil for 24 weeks. 20 of those weeks is planned for my research project. The other 4 are lets say holiday weeks, I'm back on August 8th. Unfortunately, the topic of my project is still unkown. The only thing know is that it will be something to do with the coffee plantations. So pour in some coffee ;)

Meanwhile, I'm busy practicing Portuguese. 















To be continued...
Location: 5708 Stiphout, Nederland

Comments

  1. duijsensfamilyJanuary 8, 2017 at 9:19 AM

    Zo, nu eindelijk gelezen!
    Echt spannend Bart! Ben heel benieuwd hoe het gaat bevallen!
    Succes met de laatste loodjes van voorbereidingen!

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Brazilian Culture

Image
The weekend started well with an invitation from Micael to go to the Saturday's market. While I walked to the meeting point which was near Lucas' home, I noticed that some buildings really look like the time of colonization. Even it is not my first time that I walked there, I just now noticed there were some nice buildings. What do you think? Together with Micael and Paula (a Colombian exchange student) we walked to the market. There we went straight to a place were the sell Pastel's, it is a typical Brazilian fast-food. It is a crispy, brownish fried pie of filo dough (I think) and is filled with a variety of food options (meat, cheese or vegetables). If I knew this I wouldn't have eaten so much during breakfast. I tasted some of the sugarcane juice, it is sweet (as you can expect) but not that sweet to. It didn't taste wrong, but its not my taste 🙈. From this place you had a good look over the market, which is how I actually imagine a market. There where you o
Read more

First week in Brazil

Image
After a really difficult goodbye to family and friends the journey starts. Me and my mom spent the night before departure at Van Der Valk Hotel near Schiphol airport. This way we didn't risk to get stuck in traffic jam. At D-Day (Departure Day 😉) we had breakfast at the airport and again after a difficult goodbye we went to the customs. But time was short and the queue was really long, really... long... and we were the last in line. I figured we wouldn't make it in time to pass through the customs and board on time, short story we will miss our flight this way. (By "we" I mean Katinka and I, Katinka is a fellow student from the HAS who is also going to Brazil by Living Lab Biobased Brazil).  Sooo I asked an airport employee what to do, because our flight was already boarding and we have 30 minutes left. It was genius, we could skip the whole row and were directly at the customs turn. After the customs we hurried to the boarding gate and we were one of the last to b
Read more

The Creation of your Lovely Cup Coffee

Image
As I promised before, I would tell you about the production of coffee. Now I will tell you. Please note that most pictures are from an internet source,  and only are used as a visual support. So pour some coffee, then we can start talking about how your hot cup of coffee was created. Ready! The Creation of your Lovely Cup  Coffee Producing the coffee bean Ripe coffee cherries Green coffee cherries not yet ready to harvest. The beans aren't fully developed yet. In order to get a coffee bean in the first place, you need to plant the coffee plants. There are special coffee farms who produce coffee seeds (unprocessed coffee "beans"). The beans used to make coffee are actually coffee seeds. The farm I went to was one of those coffee seed producing farms. Seedlings are nursed in large shaded beds and will be watered frequently and protected form bright sunlight till the are strong enough to plant. Planting happens mostly during the w
Read more