🇬🇧 How to overcome shyness

I was asked how to overcome shyness. I am not a psychologist, but I will share my experience with this. Unfortunately, I was born at a time that apparently it was super normal for parents to be authoritarian and to force children to be obedient and meet their parents' expectations. And for some reason I was not supposed to live up to my expectations and I lived most of my life with my maternal grandmother. I don't know where I lived when I was 8, but an incident happened at school that made me carry trauma for thirty years and from then on I stopped answering roll calls at school. So I considered myself a shy person, although if I go to analyze it in depth, maybe I was an extrovert with problems of self-esteem. After that incident, I changed schools and two years later I changed again. And in this school where I studied from the age of 11, the slow transformation began. In the first year I didn't even leave the room during the break. And a gentleman, “Seu Cecílio”, came to lock the doors of the rooms. He told me over and over that if something went missing in the room it would be my fault, trying to get me out. I just said that nothing was going to disappear. And it never disappeared. And I didn't leave the room. In the second year I went out and sat on a small wall in front of the room. At some point there I started to make friends. In seventh grade, my third year at school, I already had a class of friends. But I continued without answering roll calls and without presenting papers until the end of high school.

I say that maybe I was an extrovert with self-esteem problems because I work since I was five years old. Initially I helped my grandmother organize the products at my aunts' store. When I finished what I was told to do and saw someone at the counter unattended, I would go there and try to help. I already knew how to read to inform prices and I knew where each product was, so it was very simple.  Not everyone accepted my help, but it was something I usually did on my own.

When I decided to enter college I also decided that I was going to be a normal student, answering the roll calls and making presentations. And then a new change began. At first I sat in the back and answered quietly, but answered. And I presented works without looking at colleagues or teachers, but I did. In advertising college, my second degree, I started to become more loose and confident.

When I finished the advertising course I started attending Buddhist meetings at Soka Gakkai International, which I met at the end of the seventh semester of the eight of the course. I was converted just over a year later and right away I was invited to present a story to... leaders! I, recently converted, explaining something to leaders, some of whom were born in Buddhist families! But, curiously, this idea didn't even cross my mind and I accepted. But in the day it was very hot and the fans were turned on, so it was difficult to hear my voice. I had to speak with a microphone. And I had some stupid problem with microphones, but I ended up being able to do the presentation with it and it was great because it helped to destroy the blockage I had. At Gakkai I had many other opportunities to improve myself and overcome limitations. In Porto Alegre I became part of the youth choir, with a group that was much younger than me. I felt a little out of place. More recently, living in Curitiba, I was part of the Arco-Íris group, where I faced again the problem of being in a group with people much younger than me. And I won. At the inauguration of the BSGI Cultural Center in Curitiba, I was very comfortable and a member even scolded me for talking too much with the youngest girl in the group during the event, where we should both take pictures (and we did it! With several good photos, by the way).  The age difference between us was more than twenty years.

I cannot guarantee that this will work for everyone, but willpower usually does well, and coupled with a hard work of self-knowledge, which few people face to do in depth, brings surprising results.

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Nycka, the Nomad

🇬🇧 I don’t go backpacking

I don't go backpacking. Sometimes people ask me for tips on this type of travel and cheap trips, but it's not my thing. I have a travel experience that led me to prefer comfort and privacy above all when I travel.

When I was studying business administration, I took a vacation trip to Porto Seguro, a beautiful city on the Brazilian coast, in the region where the country was discovered by the Portuguese. I had already been there on another occasion. This time, I went with my family on an excursion. And I regretted it a few hours after we left home. I lived at the time in Montes Claros, about 850km from Porto Seguro. We went by bus. And before the bus reached Salinas, 280km from the origin, it broke 3 times! The third was night, and we were there on the road, in the middle of nowhere. I cried. I asked to be dropped off in the first city so I could take a bus back home. We hadn't made a quarter of the trip and there were so many problems that it seemed impossible to reach the destination. That was the last time the bus broke down.  But the accommodation proved to be as bad as the route. We stayed in an inn where many people shared the same room and had no private bathroom. This is totally unacceptable to me.

The trip had fun times, but staying in a hostel or anywhere I have to sleep with strangers and sharing a bathroom with a lot of people is something I prefer to avoid.

At that time, I even went to concerts on the beach at night, which I had not gone from the previous trip. But ... traveling is only worth it with some comfort and a lot of privacy.

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Nycka, the Nomad

🇧🇷 Eu NÃO faço mochilão

Eu não faço mochilão. Às vezes as pessoas me pedem dicas desse tipo de viagem e viagens baratas, mas não é minha praia. Tenho uma experiência de viagem que me levou a preferir o conforto e a privacidade acima de tudo quando viajo.

Quando eu estudava administração, fiz uma viagem de férias para Porto Seguro, uma cidade muito bonita no litoral brasileiro, na região onde o país foi descoberto pelos portugueses. Eu já tinha ido lá em outra ocasião. Desta vez, fui com familiares numa excursão. E me arrependi disso poucas horas depois de partirmos. Eu vivia na época em Montes Claros, a cerca de 850km de Porto Seguro. Fomos de ônibus. E antes do ônibus chegar a Salinas, a 280km da origem, ele quebrou 3 vezes! Na terceira era noite, e ficamos ali na estrada, no meio do nada. Chorei. Pedi pra me deixarem na primeira cidade pra eu pegar um ônibus de volta pra casa. Não tínhamos feito um quarto da viagem e já eram tantos problemas que parecia impossível chegar ao destino. Aquela foi a última vez que o ônibus quebrou. Mas a hospedagem se mostrou tão ruim quanto o trajeto. Ficamos numa pousada onde muitas pessoas compartilhavam o mesmo quarto e não tinha banheiro privativo. Isso pra mim é totalmente inaceitável.

A viagem teve momentos divertidos, mas ficar em hostel ou qualquer lugar onde eu tenha de dormir com estranhos e dividir banheiro com um monte de gente é algo que prefiro evitar.

Naquela ocasião eu cheguei a ir em shows na praia de noite, que da viagem anterior não tinha ido. Mas... viajar só vale a pena com algum conforto e muita privacidade.

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Nycka, the Nomad

🇬🇧 Bad experiences travelling

To travel by myself has some risks. When I plan my trips I have some standards in mind and sometimes to keep them I try some hotels from some group I had experienced before. But this is not a guarantee of quality, unfortunately. That’s why I am risking a bit more in small hotels sometimes. Curiously most of my bad experiences are linked to the experience in the hotel. All the rest usually is good enough.

For me, hotels must offer privacy (no thin walls, please!); a well trained team (once I was sleeping completely naked and someone tried to enter the room, maybe to clean it. Fortunately the door had a lock that I used before to sleep); comfort (a queen size bed and an excellent shower are the minimum. Something to keep a nice temperature inside the room is also necessary); security (a place to keep precious things like jewels and the laptop without the risk to be seen by the staff); and currently be pet friendly with nylon webs on the windows for my cat don’t escape, and a staff trained not to enter the room if signed the cat is inside (my cat hates humans), obviously offering the door signs for this. Free, quick and safe internet is obligatory! And TV with many different channels available are good although I usually don’t spend a lot of time in front of the TV (once I was in a hotel where the TV had options, but the only channel everyone could watch was the one played on the reception room. Don’t do this, please!). Activities inside the hotel are welcome. A great restaurant, swimming pool, a bar with excellent cocktails, are good things even in trips for businesses. More than that is highly recommended if the goal is leisure or if the city doesn’t have interesting attractions. Yes, the poorest the options in the city are, the better must be a hotel to create a nice experience for the traveler. 

My worst travel experiences wasn’t planned by me. They were simply horrible because they were much bellow my standards. All the trips paid by myself were done according to my budget, sometimes very limited. Lately, much more comfortable.

In one of these experiences I went to Porto Seguro, a marvellous brazilian beach, although the structure is poor for a famous destination, and I traveled with a group, including some family members (who have standards inferior to mine). The trip started in Montes Claros and we went by bus. The bus broke twice in the road before to cross the frontier between Minas Gerais and Bahia, and this was the beginning of a horrible experience. My will was to stop in the first city and take another bus back home, but I was an adolescent and my family didn’t allow that. When we arrived, we had a lot of people in the same room at the small hotel we stayed. Everybody from the group, but it was weird anyway. I acquainted with some girls in this group and we went to a show at night at the beach, but although I liked the main band, who played axé music (brazilian regional music from Bahia, usually played during the carnival in Salvador), the other band who opened the gig played.., U2 songs! Ok, I like U2, but both musical styles are too different. Outside the time on the beach during the day, when I could have some time alone, and the seafood, the trip was terrible.

Among the times I traveled with my mother, only one was good because I chose the hotel. She normally goes to the cheapest options and that time I found through the internet one that was much better and just a bit more expensive. She felt as if she was in a five stars hotel, and compared to those she used to stay it was really marvellous, although it was a very simple hotel.

But twice I had bad experiences planned by myself. In one of them, I went to Belo Horizonte for businesses. I chose a hotel close to the places I wanted to go, although my aunt invited me to stay with my cousin, her daughter, who is a medical doctor in the city and lives in a very beautiful house. The aunt would travel and the cousin lived too far from where I needed to go, so, I spent some money to stay in a hotel instead of spending with cabs. The hotel was too simple. There was one from the same group of the one I mentioned in the previous paragraph, where my mother felt as if a five stars hotel, close to that point and I don’t know why I didn’t discovered it before, because chances are it would be better. But although the one I unfortunately chose was weird, I survived, as I only needed a place to sleep and take a shower and spent all day outside solving business questions, and part of the night I enjoyed restaurants and malls in the neighbourhood.

The other bad experience was once I went to Sao Paulo to the Fashion Week, and went to a hotel close to the place. This is a case of hotel I experienced the same brand before and this time was disappointing. The room seemed an apartment. A nice hall with a TV, a place to work with the laptop, a comfortable couch. Then the bedroom with a big double bed, the wardrobe, and an enormous wall of transparent glass besides the bed! At night the room was charmingly lighted by the moon. There was no big buildings close to the hotel from that side, so I could have a nice view from my bed. But when I entered the bathroom, the first deception. It was too small. Specially the place under the shower. I am thin and I couldn’t move in that small space that had no more than 80cm from a side to the other. The other deception was when I noticed I could hear the other guests from my room! The walls were too thin!

Ah, twice I noticed the hotels were less clean than I deserved. Once I was with my mother, it was her choice and the worst nightmare I could have. The TV was dirty and the bathroom was even worse. Fortunately it was just to sleep that night and travel in the morning, but it was horrible anyway. The other I was in Sao Paulo, and I chose a charming hotel close to Oscar Freire street, but I noticed long hair under the pillows. The trip wasn’t bad, but I never returned to this hotel, nor to any other I had bad experiences.

I had some good experiences I didn’t return, but these cases for not having the opportunity. Two of them in Sao Paulo, because I go there often but I prefer hotels close to the places I want to go. So, these two are much better than the one I stay more often but they are not good considering the distance between them and my interests in the city.

Nycka, the nomad 

🇬🇧 Brazil - what to eat and drink in the northeast

Brazil is a big country and the variety of typical food travellers and nomads can find here is enormous. Brazil is much more than feijoada and caipirinha. This post is to talk about the food in the northeast region, which includes the states of Rio Grande do Norte, Ceará, Pernambuco, Piauí, Maranhão, Bahia, Alagoas, Paraíba and Sergipe. This region offer typical food mainly with seafood and fishes, as most of the touristic attention is on the beaches, but the other cities have also interesting options to try, considering culture, art and gastronomy. Some of these foods are found in restaurants in other regions too, but the originals are always more interesting.
One of my favourite desserts, which is often found for breakfast in hotels in Pernambuco, is "bolo de rolo". Pernambuco have one of my favourite gastronomies in Brazil. Bahia is other state I love from this point of view (the culture, art and natural beauties, too, for both of them and Minas Gerais).
In the northeast "cocada" is other typical dessert. From white to dark cocada, I recommend you to try all.
Acarajé is a delicious typical food from Bahia. A dough made with beans, fried and fulfilled with shrimps and vatapá. Ask with no pepper (or just a little), because if you ask it "hot", you'll feel like a dragon. "Hot" for acarajé means with a lot of pepper. Don't lose an opportunity to eat it!
Also from Bahia there are "bobó de camarão", a delicious dish made with shrimps and coconut milk, and many other food with fish or seafood.
The "tapioca" and various sweet dishes made with corn, like "canjica" and "mugunzá" are also interesting.
If you have no problems with pepper and love seafood, northeast is a feast.
The cocoa juice is an excellent choice to drink during any meal. Juices of cashew or pineapple with coconut are also good choices. Coconut water is amazing anytime to keep the body hidratated.
To know more on specific cities or states, follow this blog and my social media channels.

Nycka, the nomad