Today, I learned about:
For the first time ever, a Brazilian wins a World Cup event in alpine skiing. It was Lucas Braathen who made the feat in the season’s first competition in Levi, Finland. Here are two images from the exciting turnout:
More about Lucas can be found in my blog post 2024-03-31
That’s what I learned in school today!
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Today, I learned about:
My ongoing relation with CBDN, the Brazilian Confederation for Snowsports, has added another, impressive chapter. Earlier posts about CBDN can be found on 240’2022 (2022-08-28), 304’2022 (2022-10-31) , 334’2022 (2022-11-30) , 31’2023 (2023-01-31) , 272’2023 (2023-09-29), and 91’2024 (2024-03-31) .
On 146’2025 (2025-05-26), I was invited to a ceremony to mark the conclusion of the 2024/25 winter sport season. It was held in São Paulo at MIS, the museum for image and sound. The whole event was very well organized, with both an initial cocktail with delicious salty and sweet snacks and a bigger buffet during the half-time break.
It was really interesting to see the enthuiasm of so many talented athletes, both those with normal body conditions and those who participate in the para athletic disciplines. And the ceremony, which meant to reward the best of those, was also very well planned and executed, with a ceremony master, Beth Romero, who is a well-known sports journalist. A video from the ceremony can be found in reference #1 below, and here are also some photos:
Another highlight this month is related to my student of the Swedish language, Gabriel Bertho. I teach him Swedish so he can communicate well with his fellow colleagues at Linköping University of Technology. Gabriel, who is a technology student at UFSCar, the Federal University of São Carlos, spent four months in Sweden in 2024 on a robotics project. The result of that project was presented by him at the 1st Brazilian Conference on Robotics in Belo Horizonte, MG, Brazil during the last three days of April, 2025. Here are two pictures of Gabriel and his presentation at the conference:
Finally, this month’s header photo was taken by another of my Swedish language students, Laura Ponce, who currently lives in Greifswald, Germany, where she took this springlike photo on 121’2025 (2025-05-01).
Thank you, Laura! More about Greifswald can be found in reference #2 below.
That’s what I learned in school today!
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1: Cerimônia de encerramento da temporada 2024/2025
2: Greifswald
*: What did you learn in school today?
Today, I learned about:
I recently moved 650 km (400 miles) from the state of Paraná to the state of São Paulo, making this the first post from my new location in São Carlos. And it also means that I am now sufficiently close to the city of São Paulo to go there, meet old friends and experience exciting things on a regular basis.
And since there is no time to get wasted, I just came back home from such a trip to São Paulo over the last, extended weekend, and do I have interesting things to report:
Brazilian winter sports
With its warm, mostly tropical climate, Brazil is of course not the most natural place to practice what many people call winter sports, which typically use snow or ice as the setting. But that does not mean that Brazilians are abstaining themselves from winter sports. Between Saturday 246’2022 (2022-09-03) and Saturday 253’2022 (2022-09-10) the Brazilian Open will be held in alpine skiing and snowboard. But the lack of sufficient amount of snow in Brazil makes it necessary to organize it in Corralco, Chile. The responsibility for the event lies with CBDN (Confederação Brasileira de Desportos na Neve), i.e. the Brazilian Confederation for Sports on Snow. More about CBDN and their activities can be found in reference #1 below.
Furthermore, there is also CBDG (Confederação Brasileira de Desportos no Gelo), i.e. the Brazilian Confederation for Sports on Ice, reference #2 below. Last Thursday, on 237’22 (2022-08-25), I had the pleasure of meeting with the Presidents of CBDG, Matheus Figueiredo, and CBDN, Anders Pettersson, in the CBDG headquarters in Brazil, the so called Arena Ice. Besides an iceskating rink for figure skating and 3×3 ice hockey, the arena hosts three official sized ice sheets for curling, sometimes thought of as chess on ice. If you do not know what curling is, then I suggest you take a look at my earlier posts in the matter, such as 83’2018 (2018-03-24), 124’2018 (2018-05-24), and 91’2019 (2019-04-01) .
The following photo gives you a view of the curling ice sheets, and furthermore, below are also two more photos taken during my visit to Arena Ice:
Swedcham Friday Fika
Then on Friday, 238’22 (2022-08-26), I went to the Swedish-Brazilian Chamber of Commerce (Swedcham) to assist an interview in the series that they call Friday Fika, in which the executive director of Swedcham, Jonas Lindström, has held many interesting interviews with people of various trades. It used to be exclusively online, but since the Covid pandemic is showing strong signs to decay, before this event they had already experienced the first interview IRL, combined with online transmisson for those who for some reason could not go there in person. Reference #3 gives all the details, with links to the various events, hosted on Youtube.
The interviewee this time was Christopher Podgorski, CEO of Scania Latin America, a business leader known for his way of leading and incentivating people to work together in order to reach the business goals. In reference #4 is a direct link to the interview.
Below are some photos I took of the event:
In my next post I hope to be able to show you the pictures taken in Ouro Preto during my visit there in May 2022.
That’s what I learned in school today!
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1: CBDN
2: CBDG
3: Friday Fika
What did you learn in School today? 