Summer in Brazil
In the summer of 2000, I spent 7 weeks living, studying and working in Brazil. The program I went on was sponsored by the University of Illinois International Programs in Engineering. Eight other engineering students and I boarded planes in May and headed for Fortaleza, on the nation's northeast coast.
To start our two months of adventure, midwestern tornadoes delayed our flight for almost twenty hours. When we finally arrived in Sao Paulo at 2 in the morning, we had missed our connecting flight and were put up in a luxury hotel by the Brazilian airline for a few short hours before catching an early morning flight to Fortaleza. We made it though customs very quickly because most of us lost all of our luggage somewhere between Chicago and South America. We all realized that luggage loss conversation was not covered in Portuguese 199 and when we finally let the flight attendants know what happened, they assured us with a smile that our bags would catch up with us in 3-4 days. Are you thinking that this would make you turn around and go home? You haven't seen my pictures yet....
If you are an engineering student and you'd like to
know more about summer engineering study abroad programs,
email the IPENG office
or send me email.