Palácio do Congresso Nacional

On Saturday afternoon, because my private student canceled class, Roberta and I decided to go visit the Palácio do Congresso Nacional, in Brasilia. On weekends, it is possible to go on a tour of the buildings that make up the seat of government in Brasil. My students had told me a few times that there isn’t anything to see when you are there, but in reality, there are many things to see. Some parts of the building they don’t permit people to enter, even when I tried sneaking off to take some photos or pretending I didn’t understand what they were saying, I was calmly shepherded back to join the rest of the group hahaha!! You actually get to see quite a lot of the facility, although the two main towers don’t have anything to see. They are mainly office space. You can get a bus straight from the bus terminal to the Congresso National, but we decided to walk down so we could snap a few photos on the way. It’s quite a distance and sunblock is definitely needed as there is very little shelter from the hot sun. You get to pass the Biblioteca National de Brasilia, museum and the Catedral de Brasilia on your way down the Esplanada Dos Ministerios. Near to the Congresso National, there were a large group of indians that were camped and protesting the way they and the Amazon rainforest are being treated. We were told they had been there over five months and that the government still hadn’t manged to solve any of their problems. The wheels turn very slowly here sometimes. On weekdays, tourists and visitors aren’t permitted to enter the building itself, weekends requires that you allow your bags to be inspected and you pass through a metal detector. There are sometimes exhibitions in the main lobby and guided tours happen very frequently. You get to see all of the main areas that are generally shown on TV from balconies high above, the guides shepherd the groups around pointing everything out as you go, they allow plenty of time for photo opportunities too. The exhibitions didn’t allow the use of a flash but in the main building there was no problem. You get to have your photo taken with the flag of your state, I don’t have a state being a foreigner so I took a photo with the District Federal flag hahaha!! I’m not sure exactly how long the tour takes, long enough that our feet were aching by the end of it. The tour guides spoke only in Portuguese but when I asked questions in English they seemed to understand and just replied to the questions in Portuguese hahaha!! I asked where Lula was and if we could visit his office for a photo opportunity but they don’t allow people to go there, although only of the security guards told me that sometimes when Lula is there, he walks around and chats to people. That would have been something definitely worth having happen You can post a free postcard to someone you know from inside at either the beginning or end of the tour, they can only be posted in a box inside the building itself for it to be free. If you take home and want to post you have to pay. From here we went for a walk around the Praca dos Tres Poderes. Its a couple of minutes walk from the Congresso National and has statues and a huge flag pole with the Brasilian flag flying high above the square. Its the largest continuously flying flag in the world and has to be changed every month because it rips so often. I never find the film to go see the changing of the flag, I’ll have to try to find time when we have the next vacation period

Cambridge ESOL event, Brasilia

This afternoon a group of people from our Wizard school are going to Brasilia to take part in an event that Cambridge Uni have organized. The event is for TKT and will last the whole afternoon. I love the Cambridge events, they are always in English and a lot of fun We have to make our way over to Lago Sul to go to Colégio Presbiteriano Mackenzie, I have no idea where this is,well, apart from it is somewhere near the embassy sector of the city. There is bound to be a bus that passes near it.  Although Brasilia is the capital of Brasil, they don’t really have many seminars there for ESL, so I like to try to get to them when they have them if it is possible. I’ll drag the camera with me to take some photos of the event and post here or in Facebook. I don’t think anyone from Roberta’s school are going to go, but she can join in with me and the rest of the gang

Event name – TKT – Preparing for TKT Modules 1, 2 and 3

Description – TKT is a test from Cambridge ESOL about teaching English to speakers of other languages. It aims to increase teachers’ confidence and enhance job prospects by focusing on the core teaching knowledge needed by teachers of primary, secondary or adult learners, anywhere in the world.

Brasilia book fair

Roberta and I went to the book fair at Patio Brasil in Brasilia yesterday. I like going to the fair, it only happens once a year and normally its very good. This time they didn’t seem to have so much stuff, there seemed to be a few empty spaces where no stands were too. We will go again at the end of the week, maybe it’ll have more people selling by then. We managed to get a copy of the newest Dan Brown book, it’s been selling like hot cakes and we had problems getting a hold of a copy. They are only selling hard back versions of the book in English though, not really sure why this is. Every person we asked yesterday said they were only importing the hardback copies. Maybe it is cheaper to import? Usually we bring home three or four bags full of books but this time it was just a couple of books. There were quite a few bible selling stalls, for me this was a complete waste of space, they could have put some more book sellers in these spaces – someone like Cambridge or Oxford publications. A lot of the grammars books we already have copies of, I didn’t see any conversation material either, but then this didn’t matter so much as I already have a bookshelf full of this material. I think Roberta would have liked to see more stalls selling fiction books, we both love to read and usually load up on books at the fair. Next weekend, we will see if there are more things to look at and hopefully more deals as they start to wind the fair down.

Brasilia book fair

The anual book fair started at Patio Brasil, in Brasilia last Friday afternoon. Roberta went on friday but nothing was open until after 3pm and she didn’t manage to get the books that she needed for her uni course. We went again last Sunday so that I could go too and also to see if she could find a copy of the book she needed. Her uni course uses the same Portugues grammar book all of the time so it’s well worth getting a copy for her. Unfortunately books of any kind here in Brasil are very expensive so we try hard to get to any book fairs they have in the capital to take advantages of the cheaper prices. All the best promotions are usually at these kinds of fairs. We managed to get four bags chock full with books including two grammar books for Roberta due to the fact that all teachers got an extra 10% discount on top of the already lower prices   We ended up with a lot of second hand books too, both Roberta and I love to read and it was great that we found a stall full of books in English with authors like Dean Kroonze and Michael Crichton. I picked up a bag full for R$30 which was a real bargain considering that a single book here can cost R$45-60. Also I picked up a nice crammar exercises book on promotion too, it is mainly for beginners and I’m sure that Roberta will find some use for some of the exercises in it. A lot of my students didn’t seem to even know the fair was there and they were telling me they’ll try to go there this week if they can find the time or get money from their parents   The stall we got the second hand books from has a store in Brasilia and I’ll definately go there because they told me they have a lot of English books in stock and I love books by authors like Clive Cussler, David Eddings, Arthur Conan Doyle, etc. I’ll have a good dig around in their store to see what’s burried in the bottoms of their shelves hahaha!!

Hospital 2

This week I had to go twice to the hospital in Brasilia to have blood tests and get hooked up to the electrocardiogram as part of my treatment for the study of deep vein thrombosis. It was a little boring and having a long bus journey to the capital twice in three days was a little tiring. I have been treated for six months more or less now and the treatment is working but very slowly. The doc told us that this happens in some people and in others its really fast and for some people they have to take meds for the rest of their lives. I now am part of the next phase, taking meds for another 15 months to study how well it works. Its more or less the same routine as before, a four-weekly checkup to make sure that I’m taking the right amounts of pills and to alter if its needed. I have to have some more blood tests but the place that will do them requires more info from my main doctors and here in Brasil this usually means piles of paperwork, my doc said it’ll take a week or so to get everything they asked for ready. Theres so much bureaucracy here in Brasil, documents are required – sometimes in triplicate – for everything and anything. Hopefully it won’t take too long to get it all organized.