My bucket list was born after watching "Before I Leave". I started with big dreams and included restaurants, exhibitions and about 20 destinations. A lot has changed, but Curitiba has always remained. And now, after getting to know it, I understand why.

Curitiba is one of those cities that seems to have been designed to work. With its tree-lined streets, wide sidewalks, electric buses and well-kept gardens, it seems like an urban utopia in the middle of Brazil. But it's real. And it's beautiful.

There, I learned that sustainability isn't marketing: it's part of our identity. I saw it in the care taken with public spaces, in the Athletico Paranaense stadium with its retractable roof and renewable energy, in the clean sidewalks, in the electric cars in the apps, in the naturalness with which green occupies the city.

But Curitiba is also memory. It's pine and araucaria, it's the history of the indigenous peoples before the arrival of the colonizers, it's the urbanism planned by Jaime Lerner, it's the Botanical Garden, MON, Barigui Park. It's the pride of being good to live in - and therefore also excellent to visit.

And it was much more than I imagined. I watched Brazilian music at the Ópera de Arame, saw the sunset in the park, went on an Afrocentric tour and saw my daughter having fun exploring textures in the Garden of Sensations.

Curitiba welcomed me with generosity and kindness. I was told that Curitibanos are cold, but all I found were smiles and patient answers to all my questions.

I came back wanting to stay. And I reaffirmed what I learned back in my TCC: a city is only good to visit if it's good to live in first.

And Curitiba... it's a good one.