During this week we were able to finalize the police background check required by the Brazilian Embassy at the Federal Police Department here in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. I have to say this process was a little bit painful since their management system is very slow and very unorganized. I took us 3 full days (Friday, Monday and Tuesday), which usually it’s a process that would take 3-4 hour in the United States. I will post here the requirement from the Federal Police Department for the future student that will be coming to Brazil:

-    Original from signed by the Brazilian Embassy (This is provided and stapled in your Passport when you get your Brazilian Visa)
-    Copy of every used page in your Passport (From previous flights, first and last page and most important the page that has your Brazilian Visa, otherwise you’ll have to spend an extra day at the Federal Police Department). After you make these copies you will need to have them notarize.
-    2 (3x4) pictures with white background. (Make sure it’s 3x4 and white background, otherwise you’ll have a bad day)
-    Fill out the form provided at the Federal Police Department. (Make sure the names matches in both forms and passport, the Original Form provided by the embassy, the form that you will be filling out and of course your passport, otherwise you’ll have a really bad day going to the embassy here is Brazil just to get your documents recheck; this will take you almost a day since you have to take a taxi/bus to a far location in Rio de Janeiro plus the endless lines that you’ll have to make).
-     Pay two Tax tickets fees for the Niteroi Fedral Police Department, which you could find here (www.dpf.gov.br). After you fill out these two forms online and have them print out, you need to pay them at any local bank and have them stamped.

             1) Code: 140082 = $R 64,58 > Registration fee.
             2) Code: 140120 = $R 124,23 > C.I.E.

-     After you present all these prerequisites, you will need to get your fingerprints done at the Federal Police Department.

After we were done with this painful process, we headed out to Catholic University, also known as PUC Rio. Here Prof. Esteban Clua had a meeting/speech. During his meeting, we had the opportunity to walk around the facility and get to know a different university. This university is very well known and also ranked as one of the best universities in Brazil, also very expensive. Here are some pictures of the facility:

After Prof. Clua's meeting, we headed out to Petrobras, short for Petróleo Brasileiro S.A., which is a semi-public Brazilian multinational energy company headquartered in Rio de Janeiro. I will provide a little history about this company:

Petrobras is the largest company in Latin America by market cap and revenue, and the largest company headquartered in the Southern Hemisphere. The company was founded in 1953, mainly due to the efforts of Brazilian President Getúlio Vargas. While the company ceased to be Brazil's legal monopolist in the oil industry in 1997, it remains a significant oil producer, with output of more than 2 million barrels of oil equivalent per day, as well as a major distributor of oil products. The company also owns oil refineries and oil tankers. Petrobras is a world leader in development of advanced technology from deep-water and ultra-deep water oil production.

Petrobras controls significant oil and energy assets in 18 countries in Africa, North America, South America, Europe and Asia. These holdings as well as properties in Brazil give it total assets of $133.5 billion. Petrobras is Latin America's largest company, thanks to 2008 sales of $118.3 billion, according to a ranking from Latin Business Chronicle over Latin America's Top 500 Companies.

Since they didn’t let me take pictures for obvious reasons, I won’t be able to show you the inside of Petrobras, but I did take a picture with one of the employees outside the facilities:

And to finalize this week, Professor Esteban Clua who invited us to Buzios & Cabo Frio. To get to this wonderful place you have to take a 3-4 hours trip on a bus and from here we had to take a 45 min boat ride to get to the virgin islands. There you can find the best beaches in Brazil. Unfortunately you can’t appreciate it from the pictures and also because the weather was cloudy, but that didn’t stop us from enjoying the virgin islands and the beautiful town of Buzios. Here are some pictures of the trip: