Thursday, August 17, 2006

Brasília-- Government Stuff

Bandeira do Brasil

Brasília is the capitol of Brazil, and it´s actually an interesting story. The city was designed in the 50s and 60s by civil engineers for the purpose of being a very modern, organized, capitol city for Brasil. The original shape of the city was a cross, but as it´s grown it´s become more of an airplane. And the city is much different from any other Brazilian city I´ve been to-- so organized!

So we did some sightseeing and took the opportunity to see some government stuff. Honestly, this didn´t interest me much because I don´t know that much about these buildings and monuments and such. But it was cool and we did have some fun. :)

My favorite place was the Congressional Palace, which I guess is like our senate place thing. I am really ignorant about this stuff. :) I liked it because it was inside and air conditioned. Ha, no it was very cool, no pun intended.

Congressional Palace

Congressional Palace

As you can see it´s a very modern building, with the cereal bowl and upside down bowl things. I´m sure it´s all very symbolic, I just don´t know what it means. And then behind it is the building with the towers. Very beautiful!

I won´t bore you with a civics lesson, so here is some of the fun we had there. We were, ahem, a little irreverent at times I think. :)

Aníbal wrestling the statue

This is Aníbal arm wrestling a statue.

Ann playing in the art

Me sticking my head through a piece of national art.

Ivan pretending to be a senator

Ivan pretending to be a senator

Nice man and me

This was an interesting man. He saw me reading the famous quotes from the inaguration of Brasília inscribed on the wall, and came up to me and said, "I´ve been reading this for 50 years, and it is more beautiful every time." I´m not exactly sure what his political connection is, but he was apparently at the inagural mass for the city of Brasília. (yes, the inagural mass-- Catholic countries can do that!) Very nice guy, 78 years old.

This night we also took a late night tour of Brasília with one of our friends (the same ones who took us to the airport in the earlier post).

Jandira and Ann with Lula´s house

This is Jandira and I in front of Lula´s house. He´s the president.
JK Bridge

And this it the JK Bridge. Very beautiful. JK stands for Juscelino Kubitschek, the President of Brazil who directed the building of Brasília. Pretty much half the city is monuments to this guy. :)

That´s all the photos I´ll put here, but you can see more at my webshots page.

1 comment:

Mark and Kelly said...

Parabens on the visa extension. And good pictures! I remember going to those places many times with my family...I think any time people from the States visited us, we'd give them a tour. Did you go to the National Cathedral that's shaped like a crown of thorns (?), with a chalice-shaped bell tower and a bread-shaped baptizing room? That was always my favorite. But the other places are cool too--it's all so funky!