E Aí Macho! It's Been a Busy Week Already...

The dessert spread at the birthday party.

When I last left you, I was still awaiting my luggage, as well as my posse. Well, my luggage arrived Saturday morning, along with a little extra gift... After lunch with Flavio and his family -- it was his avó's (grandma's) birthday -- I headed up to my room to unpack some clothes and throw on my swimsuit (finally!). As I was finishing unpacking, I opened up one of my front exterior suitcase pockets where I had packed my Nalgene, and was surprised when I found a small bag of a smelly, "unknown" substance. Shocked and somewhat frightened at the possible consequences of having this bag in my international suitcase, I quickly disposed of the bag. Anyhow, I threw on my swimsuit and headed down to the pool for the first time. After downing a few cold beers with Flavio and his cousins at the pool, we headed to a nearby club for a few hours, and then on to his grandmother's 70th birthday party at her beautiful home in downtown Fortaleza. The food was incredible (as was the open bar), but I was especially impressed with the dessert spread. Anyhow, at about 2:30 am (Brazilians know how to party hard, even grandma was still up), I got a ride back to the hotel and crashed -- it had been a long and exhausting day.

The next day I woke up late to the arrival of Ben and David -- two Naval Architecture and Marine Engineering students from the U of M who would be sharing the summer with me. I gave them the rundown and showed them around the hotel grounds (Flavio took us on another tour of Fortaleza) and we hung out and prepared for our first day of work on Monday.

Aboard the bow of "Far Far Away".

"Far Far Away" from a distance.

Uncertain of what to expect as I had never set foot in a shipyard, Monday morning rolled around, and we headed over to work -- a five minute walk away. Our first day was mostly just a tour of the shipyard, as well as a Brazilian Navy ship, but it was capped by a tour of the unfinished $11.5 million yacht that INACE has been working on, "Far Far Away" (photos of everything can be found in the slideshow on the blog homepage). Today (Tuesday) was our first "real day" of work. I will be working separately from Ben and David, as they will be doing more Marine Engineering. I am working in the Production Department, overseeing the project developments. (I am extremely grateful that I learned how to use Microsoft Project this last semester, as it is very instrumental in my everyday job here.) The coolest part about this job is that I get to see how all of the different processes in the shipyard flow together, from the very first cut in a sheet of metal to the finishing touches on a ship.

Lastly, I want to give an update on our Portuguese advancements! We are all learning very quickly, and can usually understand what people are saying to us and get our points across, as well. We are even learning some slang terms (E aí macho = What's up man). Portuguese is a very fun and interesting language to learn, and I can't wait to be fully conversational (hopefully within the next couple weeks).

Anyways, Ben and I (and hopefully David, if we can convince him!) have a big soccer game after work tomorrow that I need to be well-rested for. So, until next time, tchau!