Prismatic Blog

Hi everyone! Again, I have failed to post every month, but there’s a good reason behind it. I spent the last two weeks in Brazil with my family.

The last post I wrote about my hometown had a pessimistic tone, but as a tourist, I can’t say anything bad about it. The main reason, as you may have probably guessed, is $money$. It’s one of the most expensive cities in Brazil; locals struggle a lot to make a living there. As a Brasiliense living in Europe, I had the bittersweet taste of buying everything I wanted but couldn’t afford with my BRL salary. I always see foreigners making comments about how Brazil is a “cheap travel destination”, which is a completely insensitive thing to say.

Similar to Japan and its cherry blossoms, Brazil has a native tree named Ipê (or Handroanthus if you prefer). Ipês can come in four different gorgeous shades: purple, pink, yellow, and white. We were lucky enough to arrive during Ipê Rosa season. As you can imagine, pink is my favourite one, but the white one also grants us gorgeous scenery.

As a planned city, most buildings in the city centre have similar structures. It’s important to note, however, that Brasilia’s city centre (named Plano Piloto as a reference to Lucio Costa’s original draft) has become insanely overpriced and most residents actually live in nearby neighbourhoods called cidades satélites. Despite the translation being literally “satellite cities”, these do not function as independent cities. Still, the satellite part does accurately suggest how they function, since they “orbit” around Plano Piloto, where most people go to work or study.

These three buildings are our city’s main highlights: the National Congress, the Cathedral, and the National Museum. They were all designed by Oscar Niemeyer, an architect who surprisingly lived 104 years. He is one of the biggest names in Brazilian modernism and has signed many projects across the country (and around the world as well!), but Brasilia (yes, the city as a whole) truly is his greatest masterpiece. It’s like the city is a big open museum, and Niemeyer is the main artist showcased.

We went to our favourite sushi restaurant in Brasilia, New Koto. It’s quite pricey, but totally worth it! Before the main course, we had their shimeji with scallops, which is to die for.

Funnily enough, I truly missed Irish cafés, and I knew Ernesto Café had “toasties and crips” like the ones we get in Ireland. I got a focaccia sandwich with pastrami and a matcha latte. The crisps weren’t Tayto, but they were tasty as well!

Of course, I couldn’t go to Brazil with my husband without having breakfast the way we did when we met: pão de queijo and cafezinho. Many Brazilians pour immense amounts of sugar in their coffee, but not us: we take it black.

Thanks to global warming (yikes), Brasilia’s winter was nowhere to be found. Despite being used to the Irish weather, I still had several days last year when I could wear cardigans. This year, spending one or two minutes in the sun was truly painful. Gosh, I could never live in a tropical country ever again. LOL Now I’m back in Dublin, in the middle of a heat crisis, and the weather is milder!

Again, thanks for reading my blog. See you in the near future (: