After our stay in Conceição de Macabu the team headed to Macaé and were met at Petrobras by Various Rotarians and a german girl, Sabrina who was living locally. The tour of the Petrobras site was very good, we saw their admin building, heard about the scale of their operations, and saw their control room.

We started Monday with a trip to the Escola Cecilia Meireles where they use the Waldorf or Steiner method to teach children from 3 to 12. We had a very interesting visit and were guided by Manu and the Director of the school - many thanks to them both for their time and making us welcome.

We then visited Arte Heraldica where we were all able to see famous coats of arms and look for our own - I never knew there were so many!

After lunch we went to the Triumph lingerie factory here in Friburgo - lingerie is one of the citys main industries.

For my vocational afternoon I visited 3 hospitals here in Friburgo - one public and two private. The private hospitals were similar to in the UK but smaller than our DGH's. The public hospital was very different with less equipment, poorer facilities and environments. All hospitals had very dedicated and enthusiastic staff. The public hospital here relies on a purely paper based system whereas the private hospitals had greater use of computers, partly to ensure they collect the information required by the many insurance companies.

On Tuesday morning the team had some rest time and so our hosts very kindly took us to see one of the best oceanic beaches in Niteroi. We ran on the beach, swam and sampled the coconut water that everyone has been telling us to try - it was very refreshing.

We went back to Sandra's for a delicious fish lunch before heading to the Grael project which is supported by Rotary.

Sunday afternoon we went to the Statue of Christ - the Corcovado in Rio. Our driver, Mauro dropped us off at the bottom and we bought tickets to go up in the tram. We spotted a sign offering a 20% discount for Rotarians and their families - we didn´t have our real badges but showed them our trip badges and they accepted that so it was an added bonus.

The tram goes around the mountain winding its way up slowly and stops at a couple of points so that the trams coming down can pass safely. The final section of the climb is very steep.

This was our second presentation and was at another House of Friendship. My host family, Renato and his wife and Grandson came to the presentation with us. The rest of the team were already there when i arrived but we were still early enough to set up ready.

We met many members of the Cabo Frio club, and some members came from the Buzios club who we had been with earlier in the week which was lovely.

There are now less than 2 weeks before the team departs for District 4750!

Time to start getting organised!

We all had a fantastic time at the Conference in Jersey. Pictures and more details will be online soon.