"When in Rome, do as the Romans" there's a saying that goes. At home when the sun is shining, we always tend to try to absorb as many rays of sunshine as we can, because they are few and far between. Here, however, there is rarely a lack of sunshine, and because of the intensity of mid-day sunshine, the sunshine drives us into the shade. When you walk along the street, any bit of shade is where the people walk. Sitting on the bus; the "side with shade" is always filled up first. Now, as freshly arrived Norwegian, starved of sunshine, I used to seek out the sunny bits, and was often the odd one out as I walked along with Brazilian friends. Now I have become "one of them". It's become almost something automatic to scout out the shade and walk towards it. I have even been known to ask on the bus which side is the one with shade. I suppose I could say: "when in Fortaleza, do as the locals do"...
Life is a strange thing. Last week went…not much happened, and then it was over. The weekend was quite calm without too many wild and exciting things happening. Except, of course, a wee outing to watch the National Championship for Veteran Ploughing. Now, like me, you might be sadly lacking an understanding of what this actually means. So I am delighted to be able to enlighten you in this respect. It’s basically (for the “farm-language-illiterate” like myself) a competition where you use old (hence the name “veteran”) tractors and ploughs, and plough up a stretch of field which is then evaluated and the one scoring the highest sum (accuracy, depth, how well the soil is turned is all given points) wins. I must admit that this information I got by eavesdropping on a conversation next to me where a man was explaining to some of my friends how it all works. So that was a fun adventure….although we only stayed for a bit. What is sort of occupying my mind at present is my upcoming travel abr...