Natal

So I left Fortaleza and got on a bus for the 8 hr trip down south the city of Natal, the capital of the state of Rio Grande de Norte. I heard a lot of good things about this city. People said it was more beautiful then Fortaleza and much smaller. So, I was somewhat looking forward to this new adventure. I hoped that my teaching experience would be better. Deep down however, I was beginning to feel homesick. Being in the Northeast by the beach reminded me a lot of Jamaica. I am really beginning to miss my family.

~ View of Natal from the beach~

I arrived in Natal 8pm and immediately went to my new home . I found out I would be sharing an apartment or better yet a studio with one of the female workers at the Missão Nordeste. This experience was a little different for me. I was used to having my own space and here in this apartment, I obviously would not have my own space. I guess I was now going to have the real missionary experience. Even though I spent most of the bus ride sleeping, I was tried so I just took a shower and went to bed.

The next morning I woke up early to go for a walk and to see the area around the apartment. The apartment was located in one of the most commercial areas of the city. As a result, besides being very noisy during the day, it was also very dirty. Let just say I was not really liking the city too much when I first got there. As much as I am a city girl, I prefer the country.

So, Natal is much smaller than Fortaleza but it is similar to Fortaleza in the sense that it is a beach city. Many tourists visit there primarily to go to the beach. However, unlike Fortaleza and many other cities in the Northeast, Natal lack other forms of attraction. I was not too happy with that because I am not really a beach person so I didn´t have any other thing to do as a form of entertainment.

~Ponta Negra Beach in Natal~

One cool thing about Natal is it´s name. Natal is Christmas in Portuguese so it's funny to have a city named Christmas. The story behind the name is that the city was founded on Christmas Day. The first fort of the city is called the Three Wise Men Fort because of the story of Christmas too. I visited the fort and it is pretty cool. It has a little church for statues of the three wise men. It also has a lot of history about Natal, it was a pretty cool expedition.

~The Three Wise men Fort (it's actually the shape of a star) ~


~old time canon within the fort walls~


~courtyard window within the fort~


~Small church within the fort for the wise men"

A couple of day before leaving Natal several of my co-workers and I went to a famous Northeast restaurant for lunch. This restaurant served typical Northeastern Brazilian cuisine. Since I lived on my own, I didn't have much exposure to Northeast Brazilian food so this was actually a good little treat. It was even better than I didn't have to pay because the restaurant is really expensive. The restaurant also have old time northeast Brazilian clothes which I had the opportunity to try them on.

~ female war apparel... I think~



~leather jacket and hat~