seekingmygreaterperhaps

I wanted to take a quick blog post to give Brasilia a shout out. While this is a travel blog and I usually only write a post when I have been somewhere, I live in a pretty incredible place, and this year has been full of some of it’s own adventures too. I love living in Brasilia. While it’s not exactly a tourist capital of Brazil, it is incredibly safe and an overall easy place to live. I walk almost everywhere (while I just bought a car for next year, it isn’t necessary) and people are nice, and the food here is pretty good. I picked out some photos as highlights of the year. Let’s get to it.

This is Robin and Priya and I at a mini Festa Junina when we all got back from the summer last year. This takes place on the basketball court in our quadra (neighborhood?) and is right in front of our apartment buildings. The beer is cheap and the churrasquinhos are tasty.

This is Priya, Beto, and I at the Agua Mineral. It is located in the national park and is a natural (re: cold) swimming pool. There are some wild monkeys that steal people’s bags to look for food, so picnic at your own risk.

Possibly one of my favorite photos of the year- this is Kya and I at Itiquira on a Canicross weekend adventure. This is a giant waterfall and it was quite a hike to get to it. We had to cross a pool of water, Kya had to swim, and then we were baking under the hot sun to arrive at the destination. But this hike and waterfall is only about an hour from Brasilia- maybe I’ll go again this year!

Brunch in Jardim Botanico. This was a picnic style brunch with my friends James and Helio. I honestly love going out to brunch, and Brasilia mostly gets it right (except we are missing maple syrup). This was a special brunch in Jardim Botanico under very tall trees.

A view from the commercial I live on at sunset. Brasilia was set up so that you can have pretty much everything you would need in the same commercial- a grocery store, pharmacy, gym, bar, restaurant, etc. I love how easy it is to live here, because I truly can get anything on my block. The sunset on this day was great too.

I’ve been to see a couple professional football games (also known as soccer). My friend Matheus is a Vasco fan, and he organized a big group of people to go see them. I think football games are really fun live, and I like how the clock keeps going, unlike in American football where it feels like most of the time there is no action. Go futebol!

This was at a “Night Lab” at the SESI science center. They close the museum, and open it up to adults, serve wine, have live music, and food trucks. It sells out super quick, so I was happy when I was finally able to go! Science museums are super fun, especially when there aren’t screaming children around. 🙂

I’ve gone swimming with an open water swim group my friend Grazy introduced me to in the big lake in Brasilia, Lago Paranoa. They meet at 7 am on Saturdays- so not every week is viable for me. I’m hoping with my car this next year it’ll be much easier to commit to. On this day after the swim, there was a large herd of capybara chilling by the lake. I’m glad I saw them only after I was done, otherwise I would have freaked out during the swim. Open water swimming is a different beast, especially in terms of fear. In the picture, you can see some baby capybara too! The bridge behind it is the JK bridge.

Another waterfall! I went with a group of friends one Sunday morning and loved splashing around in the freezing cold water.

Almost full circle, this was taken at Festa Junina at my school. These are my friends Miriam and Paulo. My school has many events on the weekends, but Festa Junina is the biggest and honestly the best. It is a harvest festival and a lot of the food items feature corn. The students all perform traditional dances too.

My work bestie, Brody, and I getting ready for Field Day with our students. I’m with 10th grade, and they were the ShrekMores this year, and Brody is with 11th, who were the Junior Jokers. Field Day is complete chaos and super fun towards the end of the year.

This year for my birthday, we went to the go-kart track! I am a big fan of activities, and instead of doing a dinner, I rallied a team and we hit the track. It was a lot of fun and only slightly dangerous. Alessandro won (the Italian of the group- go figure), and at one point he ran me off the track, through the tire wall and everything. It probably didn’t help that I was too tall for the go-kart and was duck squatting getting the pedals, but overall it was a wild time. Also, look at all those people who came out to help me celebrate!

And finally, we have biking with Kya on the Eixao. I exercise in some capacity on the Eixao every Sunday that I am in Brasilia. It is the main highway through the city, and it is closed every Sunday from 6a-6p. You might notice that Kya hates biking with me- but I don’t care. She is going to like it someday, gosh darn it.

I am slowly building a life here in Brasilia, and what a joy this life is! Here’s to another year of more adventures and deeper friendships.