My City of Ruin

Day 2 in Brasilia has us up and on the bus early to visit the university where many of the Brazilian companies are recruiting new employees. Our focus today is on the government of Brazil and its actors… This is also where classmates began experiencing some health distresses – I am sure none of it was caused by capirinha consumption nor sushi boats… but I digress…

First up a tour of the university mineral collections and a meeting with a Congressional representative who reminded many of us of politicians in the U.S. – saying so many of the “correct” things but without plan to actually implement them… At times, it seemed that he was still campaigning… I can’t believe I was the only one to notice this similarity to our own representatives… His background as a former prosecutor in the financial crimes sector certainly gave him stage presence… It was during this presentation that we experienced the first conflicting views between the Brazilian populace – academia vs. government vs. private sector citizenry…

While people remained upright throughout the morning, things started going downhill at lunch… A restaurant with specialties from Minas Gerais took a lot of folks down hard… A very small, WARM mom-and-pop restaurant that served cachaca from a goat statue – a specific part of the goat figurine which encouraged me NOT to partake… Lots of rice, potatoes, and pork-based dishes including the first feijoada seen on the trip… If you like black beans, you will like this… Dessert made up most of my lunch… and really good café again plus sweetened and spiced steamed milk…

Once we hit the Congress building and the tour, it was obvious that we were losing people… The tour was great but we lost 5 people between the Senate gallery and the meeting with the Ministry of Finance… stomach problemos primarily but 2 folks ended up with the Senate nurse and others went back to the hotel to sleep it off… For those who remained upright and among the living, we took a trip to a local mall and then dinner near the manmade lake…

The odd thing about Brasilia was how clean and organized everything was… Almost a Reston version of Washington DC… But beautiful sunsets, fountains and architecture…

By Friday night, I discovered just how miserable this “stomach bug” was… The flight to Rio meant catching up on sleep… the ENTIRE flight… Thank God for Pepto…