Advice

I have made it back safely to the states!

I really enjoyed this trip. I have to spend lots of money on my classes for this degree, and I'm glad that I was able to spend that money on 3 credits and a 2 week trip to another country. Plus the topic of this class is actually something that interests me versus having to take another class that I would not enjoy.

I would like to leave some advice for next year's students that are going to be taking this class. First and foremost, Brazilians do not flush their toilet paper!! I guess their pipe systems can' t handle it so you will have to throw your used toilet tissues into the trash can that is present in every bathroom stall. 

I would highly suggest that you do not wait until you get to Brazil to get money out of an ATM like our class was repeatedly told. We only had 7 students in our group, and 2 of us were unable to get our cards to work in Brazil which means no money. I was one of the students whose card didn't work. Luckily I did not follow the advice given to us, and I had purchased Brazilian Reals from my local Triple A travel agency before going on the trip. I also used my credit card a lot while in Brazil. Luckily the other person whose card didn't work had brought a credit card that they used in addition to borrowing money from other students in the class that would have to be repaid later. 

Another thing that was difficult for us was the weather. Before our trip we were repeatedly told to expect it to be cold and to pack accordingly. During our trip it was pretty hot, usually around 75 or 80 degrees. It was considered to be a warm winter. You should check the weather before you leave on your trip though, because we were told that there was a year during the trip that the weather reached freezing temperatures. So basically, I'm just warning you that it will probably be difficult to figure out what type of clothes you should actually bring. 

Congrats on deciding to take this opportunity. Your going to have a great time in Brazil. Don't worry too much about the language barrier. There were plenty of people that spoke English and a lot of restraraunts also had menus printed in English that you could ask for. It would be helpful to try to learn a few phrases in Portuguese though. I used two apps to learn a little of the language, duolingo and memrise.