Where to? Next stop Viçosa (MG, Brazil)

Past week it was like a rollercoaster of experiences. Once I stept in the rollercoaster I rolled from one experience into the next. I will try my best to take you on this journey, vamos! As I mentioned in one of my previous blog posts, I had an assignment of Portuguese with Brazilian language students. Now I finally had this assignment, which was a good practice for my Portuguese. Unfortunately, we didn't talk in Portuguese anymore. But I understand why not, they wouldn't understand a thing. Although I learned them a few words of Dutch. We talked for a hour or 2 in Portuguese and a little bit in English.  The day after, I planned to work both on my internship and Portuguese. It turned out to be only Portuguese, Portuguese and Portuguese.  I started with my homework for Portuguese class for that day and the homework that needed to be finished 1 or 2 weeks ago. I got some help from Ana, and soon it was time for my Portuguese practice with Samanda. We worked on Portugues...

The 8th weekend of my stay in Brazil we went to Ouro Preto. The whole trip was organized by the ambassadors. It was a really nice trip, with a bus at 7 o'clock we drove for 3 hours to Ouro Preto! We stopped right in the center of Ouro Preto at a big square. After everybody went to the toilet 😌, we took some group pictures. Together with the exchange students 4 ambassadors joined us.  I say it again, you all where fantastic. The group made it the more memorable! Tiradentes & Museu da Inconfidencia We decided to hire a guide, unfortunately for the Dutch he only spoke Portuguese. But thanks to the good rendition of the ambassadors (👉Saulo & Mateus👈) we understood the story of Ouro Preto. So it appears, Ouro Preto used to be the capital of Brazil but when the gold depleted it stopped. As I remember correctly, Ouro Preto has around 400 gold mines. Nowadays only a few are still open for gold digging, but only very small amounts are collected. We ...

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...