Freindship Force of Southwest Florida

We now know the meaning of FORCE in our Friendship Force name. It stands for FORCE march and FORCE feeding! We did a lot of walking, often on pretty steep hills with cobbled streets and we were served a lot of food! This allowed us to see lots of things and visit many places and gave us a chance to sample the delicious food of Brazil.

Our biggest "take away" from our two weeks with the Sao Paulo and Nova Lima clubs was that Brazil has such warm and vibrant people. We loved all the hugs and kisses. I think that is the ultimate goal of Friendship Force, to introduce us to friendly and open people from around the world.

We learned a lot about Brazilian history and how Sugar Loaf got it's name. We also will never complain about traffic in South West Florida again, or distances we need to take our ambassadors when we are hosting!

We met two wonderful FF members, one from Sarasota, John, and one from Sacramento, CA, Christina, who we wish we could keep in our club.

We enjoyed our extension and especially the Iguazu water falls and the large number and variety of butterflies. Taking extra time to do independent travel is rewarding and recommended for any FF trip.

We came to a better closeness between the members that traveled together. We genuinely like each other and the bonding will serve the club well. Aside from us enjoying each other, we were told by both our host clubs that, as a group, we were well liked and didn't create problems. That is good to know but no real surprise with the people we had!

Talk to Michelle Kemps and Lou Rizk about their 2 more weeks with the FF clubs of Suncoast and The Villages! By completing 4 journeys there, they should be citizens of Brazil by now! The others on our trip were, Rob and Sue Linehan, Richard and Joanne Collins, Ginny Dooley, Mary Howard and Bev Harmon.

Our goal from this trip is to replicate some of the wonderful hospitality that we experienced and facilitate our visiting ambassadors to have their best experience ever!

-Journey Coordinators, Michelle Kemps and Sue Linehan

Photos From Brazil

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Brazil Journey 2018