Dia 30: Another Celestial Day in the Symmetrical City

After consuming Shakespeare and produce this morning, I set off to delve deeper into the sights I had “skimmed” yesterday. Fabricio, my guide for today, was a gem of a guy, and his excitement about Brasilia really rubbed off on me.

We first headed back to Memorial JK, which I had seen only from the outside yesterday. Three things really stood out here. 1) The library. JK had a collection of over 3,000 books, including 8 really old Shakespeare manuscripts which I was dying to pore over. 2) Brasilia was founded on the same day as Rome! 21 April 1960. HOLLA. 3) JK’s tomb. It’s so futuristic and eerie. Modernism to the max.

Next, we checked out the Indigenous Museum, which was a nice appetizer to the experience I will be having over the next couple of days. I am currently at the airport about to embark on an Amazonian Odyssey of big planes, small planes, four-wheel drives, river rafts, and choppers -- with the goal of interacting with a remote indigenous population at the end of it all. (!!!) Naturally, this means no internet.

After the museum, Fabricio took me to the TV Tower, where one really starts to appreciate the planning that went into the design of Brasilia. This bird’s eye view is akin to opening a map -- it shows off the unbelievable symmetry of the city spectacularly.


We then went to the National Museum and National Library. Here, in the process of trying to translate the titles of photographs in an exhibit on 1930s France, I learned that Fabricio is fluent in French, Italian, and Spanish in addition to Portuguese and English. And I thought I was a language scholar! What an amazing person.
Once the refined part of our tour was over, we headed to a supermarket. Random? This was the suggestion of former Brasilia resident Laura Kambourian, whom I would be judging pretty harshly right now, if I didn’t have a bit of a supermarket fetish myself. :) Walking through Carrefour was a very real way of “observing the locals,” and I’m really glad I went.

In the afternoon, Fabricio dropped me at the World Bank office, where I ordered a delicious+nutritious lunch, which I actually managed to finish! (I usually don’t eat much.) Even more exciting than this achievement, however, was the subsequent orientation we received on the WB project we will be observing in Acre over the next few days. We heard from Adriana Moreira, who proudly and passionately oversees a remarkable sustainable development project in a remote part of Acre. If I could be any more excited for our journey, Adriana’s briefing certainly made me so.

Following this presentation, I showed my 2 favorite sights, TV Tower and the Metropolitan Cathedral, to Cyprian Uncle and Papa. After this, I went for a quick run at the gym and shoved all my stuff in my bag just in time to leave for the airport.


Bye-bye, Brasilia!

Comments

  1. KateOctober 1, 2011 at 8:19 AM

    I love your zeugma in sentence #1, and I love going to groceries abroad!

    ReplyDelete
  2. Ratna GillOctober 2, 2011 at 11:56 PM

    YOU NOTICED!! Thanks. =) I love grocery stores at home, too!

    ReplyDelete
  3. FabrícioOctober 5, 2011 at 11:59 AM

    I'm glad you liked to Brasilia, I wish you happiness and you get everything you want. Kisses.

    ReplyDelete

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