Day 23: Last Day in Paradise

Unfortunately, today was our last full day in Brazil. It was full of reflecting back on our experiences and spending a relaxing day on the beach. To begin, we checked out of the Fazzenda Park Hotel pretty early so we could have a full day on the beach. We arrived in Florianopolis around 11 a.m., checked into our hotel, and left to explore for places to eat. Many of us opted to go to the convenience store and purchase sandwich materials to have a picnic on the gorgeous Canasvieiras Beach. Many of us explored the many souvenir shops that covered the town and tried to spend the remaining amount of Reais that we had. After a wonderful day of relaxation, we met back at the hotel to have a final processing session. We talked about what we learned from this trip and how we are going to implement what we learned in our lives. We talked about what we liked, disliked and how the trip can overall be improved. I personally fell in love with Brazil on this trip, and I felt loved and cared for by every Brazilian that I met. I think I can speak for all of us when I say that we are going to strive to be more “Brazilian” in our everyday lives. We want to more welcoming and warm and have the ability to form strong interpersonal relationships in short amounts of time.

In true Brazilian fashion, our bus driver and his wife offered to cook us Churrasca (I actually have no idea if I spelled that right, but it is traditional Brazilian barbecue). We ate and talked and gave some gifts to Ana, Rodrigo, Gabi, and our driver. It was a wonderful way to end our trip. Then most of us (the sane ones) headed back to our rooms to grab a few hours of sleep before we met in the lobby at 3:45 in the morning to catch our flight. Some of the other not so sane people decided to pull an all-nighter and sleep on the plane. Although we are sad to leave Brazil, we are excited to get back to the states and share all of our adventures with our friends and families!