Post 14: Capybaras and Corinthians

Today was such a good day.

We had an energy lecture on the morning about solar panels and how they work. We also watched a video that introduced is to Curitiba, the city we will be traveling to on Monday.

After class, we worked on our projects for awhile, and then I was treated to lunch by Professor Pfluger with Phil, Ethan, and Jen. We went to an all-you-can-eat sushi place, and having never been to an actual sushi restaurant before, I thoroughly enjoyed myself. It was also nice to hang out with people I haven't really talked to as much yet, and it was nice to sit down with Professor Pfluger and just chat for awhile.

After this, we traveled to the University of Sao Paulo's campus where we visited their engineering research lab. They discussed a few biofuel and biomass projects they are working on. They also showed us their solar farm on campus witch was super cool.

We also encountered several capybara while we were on their campus. These fun creatures are the largest rodents on earth. They kind of look like giant rats, and I honestly could not tell if it was the ugliest animal I had ever seen or if it was so ugly that it was cute. Either way, it was so crazy seeing a species I had never seen anything like before. It was kind of like seeing an alien.

For dinner, we went to this market/ outdoor shopping center with a bunch of food trucks. I had some amazing chicken shawarma. And for dessert, I had the most amazing churro I've ever had in my entire life. It was covered in Nutella and sprinkles.

From here, we headed straight to the Corinthians stadium on the other side of Sao Paulo for a futbol game!! It was incredible. Even though they lost, it was still so cool to hear everyone chanting and to be there for the experience of it.