First day in Brazil...

After a two hour flight to New York, an extended 6 hour layover at JFK, another 10 hour flight to Sao Paolo, and dealing with the airlines after losing almost 20 of our suitcases, we finally set off to Piracicaba. We were all extremely excited to meet our advisor from ESALQ- Shirota- outside the airport in a fabulous bus. (Definitely more spacious and comfortable than out flights!)

We made the two hour bus ride, with one pit stop for lunch, and unloaded what luggage we did have at Antonio’s Palace--our home sweet home for the next 6 weeks.

This afternoon we headed out for a walking tour of ESALQ. ESALQ is a branch of the University of Sao Paolo, which is one of the largest universities in the country with over 80,000 students. The official name of the university we will be studying at is—Escola Superior de Agricultura Luiz de Quiroz. The “Luiz de Quiroz” part of the university’s name is for one of the original founders. We also got to visit the main academic building of ESALQ, home to the dean’s office.
We continued to walk around campus, seeing various academic buildings and touring the dairy farm. It was very interesting to learn about some of the graduate students’ research projects regarding the nitrogen content in dairy based feeding plans. We also got to see their milking parlor and nearby grove of rubber trees. To finish up our evening we ate at Monte Sul. Here we tried a variety of different foods, and filled our plates with different meats, salads, and my favorite—desserts.

Great day all-in-all.. as discovered we are 3 hours ahead of Ohio time.. so nearly 11 here already. Will update with more information soon! Pictures are taking forever to upload now.. but I will try to post some tomorrow!