The final day in paradise: CLOSED

My last day in Brazil began perfectly with a morning trip to the Parque Nacional de Brasilia for a dip in the natural mineral water pools before the violent sun emerged:

Agua Mineral, Parque Nacional de Brasilia

 ..and a little back massage in the run off pool:

..with this view while I received my water massage:

Apparently if you venture into the 30 kms of trails contained within the park, which for safety reasons I was repeatedly told not to, you can easily come across armadillos and anteaters. While I saw neither of these, I was treated to a serious wrestling match:

Backbreaker!!!

Yay monkeys!!

Paulo, my taxi driver for the day and my new bestie, picked me up from the park and took me to begin my self-guided walking tour up and down the Eixo Monumental, the “body” of the airplane on the map of Brasilia. This area contains most of the interesting architectural gems including the Metropolitan Cathedral:

Catedral Metropolitana: CLOSED

Congress:

Congress: CLOSED

The Palace of Justice:

Palace of Justice (if you look close, there is a bunch of waterfalls on the front of the building)

Praca dos Tres Poderes with a bunch of weird shapes just put there:

Praca dos Tres Poderes: all buildings CLOSED

 The Ministry Esplanade that was just the same building over and over and over on both sides of the esplanade, each with their purpose displayed on the front (e.g. Ministry of Defense, Ministry for Eliminating Hunger, etc) for about 1 km:

Ministry Esplanade

It felt like a factory line bureaucracy straight outta 1984.

And Mondays suck in Brazil for trying to get into anything so it was really just a couple hours of walking in the searing sun, inhaling dust, and snapping photos of weirdly shaped buildings…. Last day of touristing lame duck syndrome.

But I did find my way to a last day churrasco at a restaurant for a late lunch called Fogo de Chao which I quickly came to feel very inappropriately dressed for the occasion, with my havainas coated in red dust, my sweat soaked sundress, and my book bag. It was a restaurant with valet parking and where it seems all the high up government-types go to eat so I definitely brought the classy bar down…sorry guys!

My last churrasco (note the white tablecloth lump off to the right covering my hideous backpack to hide it from the eyes of the fancy customers ;-) )

 After a two hour meat orgy that is the Churrascaria, I headed over to a hipster café recommended to me by Dais where I could sit and use the internet and my laptop and write and not worry about a restaurant armed robbery:

Sweet hipster cafe, Objeto Encontrado

I had planned to head to the TV tower:

TV tower: Closed

…just before sunset to watch the sky become fiery from a high vantage point that overlooks the center of the city. Paulo and I showed up and, yet again, another edifice closed on a Monday. I gave up and got Paulo to take me home where I kicked off my dusty havaianas and cracked a beer and waited for Dais and Marcie to come home from work. I tried.

After one last late night Brazilian dinner out:

Dais and Marcia, my immensely generous hosts

…we retired home so I could finish my preparations for departure in the morning, with very mixed feelings about returning home to “real life”. However, it is arguable whether doing a PhD in Vancouver is indeed real life.