Brazil Day 7 (Wednesday)

Day 7 (Wednesday)
Howdy Family and Friends! Another great morning to get up and go! Today was a travel day though as we travelled with Thiago and Gabi’s aunt Amelia over to Buzios a city near Rio where there are lots of beaches and people are used to going there during the summer. We left Rio and passed through the Rio-Niteroi to get there. This is a very long bridge that we crossed over the ocean on.

First stop it was at Geriba Beach where we ate pastel de queijo, comparable to a cheese filled bread that is fried and coke to drink. We swam in the ocean here and the water was a teal color. So pretty! The sand was reddish in color! After that we drove to a beach in the same city called Joao Fernandes beach. The water here was a very pretty teal blue but the sand was much more coarse and full of gravel in some ways.
We had lunch at a restaurant called Cleopatra and ordered Brochette Misto , which is a mixed kabab.

Instead of eating the food off a stick, it was served on a silver platter. Another interesting thing was this: A man was walking around selling wooden jewelry boxes and sugar pots. I really liked how they looked and asked him what he priced them at. He said anywhere from 15-45 Reals. Of course, I bartered with him and got it for 25 Reals. But...to make it better, I also asked him to sign it for me.

He was really shy but he did and I took a picture with him. If very dark Brazilians could blush, I am sure he was! When we were done we went back to the car and we stopped at a café and had a Brazilian dessert called Acai. I loved it! We mixed in bananas and granola.
After that we went to another beach city 40 minutes from Buzios called Cabo Frio where we went shopping on the street called Rua dos Biquinis which stands for Bikini street. That is what it was full of --bikini shops and other swim suit shops. A few T Shirts shops were scattered in there as well. We purchased a few shirts and then made our way back to Rio. Try as we might, we could not keep our eyes open after the sun went down.
After arriving back in Rio, we got a taxi and made our way back to Amelia’s home for a delicious dinner cooked by her husband, Jose. It was hamburger without the grease drained and diced green olives mixed in. You then take this mixture and eat it over mashed potatoes. It was very good and filling. We also had traditional beans and rice! So good!!!!
At the table was probably the second best part of the day! I sat next to what I call the Crazy Uncle Jose!

He thinks I need to learn Portuguese and I say he needs to learn English. We teased back and forth in our native languages for the remainder of the meal and kept the rest of the table in stitches! A fun time had by all!
From our travelling Brazilian picture window to yours, have a great day!

Brazil Day 6 (Tuesday)

Day 6 in Brazil (Tuesday)
Howdy Family and Friends! Another relaxing day here in the city of Rio! Since Thiago has class in the morning, we slept in again feeling refreshed! We had Brazilian doughnuts for breakfast. Mine had a chocolate filling and Dave’s was just a round doughnut that had cherry bites on top. They are solid though. They also put a powdered sugar on them. Different from the American doughnut.
After Thiago got back from school, we went and had lunch with Gabi at a restaurant called Fagulha.

It’s comparable to the USA steak buffet, but instead of gorging yourself, they weigh your plate each time you go through! We still enjoyed some of our new favorite Brazilian foods though!
After lunch we caught the taxi over to Thiago and Gabi’s college where Gabi had afternoon classes. We also saw the American Consulate. The lines for people waiting to get their visas were very long. We snapped a picture in front of the building very quickly before finding out that was not allowed. They say it’s against the American rules to protect the building…interesting information!
From there we toured on foot around the middle of the city. Thiago pointed out the building where his Aunt works as a lawyer, where he is completing his internship, the courthouse, and many other places. We ended up at the ocean and caught the Rio-Niteroi Ferry to the other side. It’s about a 20 minute ride from one side to the other. After arriving in Niteroi, we went to Icarai Beach and went swimming in the ocean. While we were swimming, we found many seashells. Dave was out playing in the waves and stepped on “something” so he kept his foot on it until he could go down and pick it up. When he did, it was a hermit crab! What a find!

Today we tried coconut water for the first time. Straight from the coconut—very different, its like a sour/sweet taste. The first original taste is sour but the aftertaste is sweet. A sip was enough for me! We also saw a man who was building a sand castle on the shore. It was ornate! Thiago said usually there are several of them working on the beach.
As the sun went down, we made our way back to Rio, back to his home but not before stopping at a McDonalds to have supper! Yes we had to try McDonalds. We had stopped by for ice cream earlier in the week, but this time we were going to try a meal. The fries and Big Mac are the same, but that is where the comparison stops. The sandwhiches are different. I had a hamburger with a slice of pepperoni and Dave had a chicken bacon onion sandwich. They were really good! The biggest difference was the size of the buns and the freshness of the bread. We ended the night with ice cream and a walk to our first ride on the subway.
We went down several escalators to the subway and rode to Thiago’s neighborhood. We didn’t realize just how tired we were until we tried to move to the door as the subway was stopping. We looked rather funny waddling around grabbing on to anything we could to stay upright. We exited the Subway and then had several blocks to the house. On the way, we found a cow expo that had the Olympic theme. Reminded us of the Burwell Longhorns!
From our tired but fun Brazilian picture window to yours, have a great day!

Day 5 in Brazil!

Day 5 in Brazil!
Howdy Family and Friends! For the first time since we arrived in Brazil we got more than 4 hours of sleep! We slept in today until 10 a.m.! After waking up, as we were packing up our luggage, I caught my cmarea by accident and knocked it to the floor. Unfortunately this was enough to make it not work anymore so I am stuck with our backup camera and ipod for pictures. It's horrible because the megapixels and quality are very poor!

After we were out of our room, we went shopping around our hotel while waiting for Thiago to get out of class. At 1 p.m. we met up with him at the hotel and hailed a taxi and went shopping. Our first stop was at the mall. We ate at the Botafogo Praia Shopping Center in a restaurant called Spoleto. It’s a pasta restaurant where you choose your pasta, then your sauce, then eight different ingredients! It was delicious! We ate outside where the pigeons joined us! After one customer finished his plate, the pigeons enjoyed the leftover contents of his plate!

We shopped the mall for a while and then at 3 headed to the Botanical Gardens. We saw beautiful flowers of all kinds, monkeys and birds. It was relaxing to walk through there. The best part was watching Dave get a drink from the water fountain...a lady who was spitting out a stream of water. But, when you get a drink, it looks like you are kissing the fountain!

We then hailed another taxi and took a longer ride to the New York City Center where we shopped. It had a lot of American shops and restaurants, but was very expensive! We did find iced coffee though--at McCafe (aka McDonalds!) Not only did they have a lot of shops, they were fully decorated for Christmas! Beautifully decorated trees with lights were already on display! It is so hard to even think about that because outside its 80 degrees!!!
After about 2 hours of this, we went to a Pizza Restaurant called Frontera and had our fill of pizza, but not without lessons on how to eat it first! I thought eating pizza was just like in America, pick it up with your fingers and enjoy, but nooooo! You must use your fork and knife. The first thing you do is cut off the crust and place it on a small plate in the center of the table.

That is considered waste and you don’t eat it because it cuts down the amount of food you can consume! Anyway, this pizza restaurant is like a buffet, but once again they bring the pizza’s to you! They have all kinds of pizza that we don’t have in the USA. All the meats, cheese, garlic…you name it, they have it. But my favorites were the dessert pizzas. The first they brought around was chocolate pizza. It’s like chocolate fondue on pizza crust! So delicious! Then we had, chocolate pizza with m&m’s, chocolate pizza with strawberries,

a fruit pizza—guava with cheese (it sounds bad, but it was very yummy! Not a salty cheese, but a sweet cheese!) So many yummy choices! We left full as pigs but very happy!
After supper we caught the subway back to Thiago’s aunt’s home where we stayed up until the early hours of the morning catching up on facebook and blogging, chatting and enjoying each other’s company!
From my very yummy chocolate pizza Brazilian picture window to yours, have a great day!

Day 4 in Brazil!

Day 4 in Brazil
Howdy family and friends! After just a short nap consisting of about 3 ½ hours we stopped by the Assembly of God Church in Petropolis and took a picture.

We then arrived back in Rio at our hotel and changed clothes to board the tour bus to see the sites of Rio. We were able to meet Antonia—a girl from Brazil who is wanting to be a foreign exchange student. She was a great help throughout the day.
Our first stop was to the Christ statue.

To get up the mountain, we boarded a tram and about 15 minutes later we arrived. We were able to not only see the Christ statue but the city of Rio and the many beaches. While we were also there, several Children were getting baptized by the Catholic priest. In between baptisms, the priests came out and sprinkled holy water on people while blessing them. As I stood back and watched, I was amazed how quickly people flock to them for a sprinkle. I, on the other hand, got a picture with one of the priests!

On the way back down the mountain, we wanted to make sure we boarded the tram that held the Samba school so we could enjoy more music. They were right in front of Dave and I and then one of the drummers handed me the noise shaker! He wanted me to be a part of the band! It was so much fun!

Once down the mountain, we boarded our bus again, but not before getting a picture at the tiniest Hard Rock Café in Rio. The bus drove us around the Carnival site, the Chapel of Santissimo, and the Soccer stadium. We found some street sellers selling hats. Originally they wanted 25 Reals for each one but I love to barter and I talked them down to 10 Reals per hat! SCORE for me! I actually did this twice today! The other reps were jealous of my bartering skills and wanted me to go with them to barter!
Finally we arrived at Cocurtio (Sugarloaf). We ate a delicious lunch here before going all the way to the top of the Sugarloaf. Dave was not too sure of this ride as he doesn’t like heights, but I loved it. He would have been content to sit on the floor! You could see for miles the city of Rio and the ocean. As we were preparing to go back down Dave and I spotted a little trail and took off on it—only to be followed by my boss, Georgina. She yelled, “Wait up you two! Where are you going now?” (She claimed that she had to supervise us but in all actuality, she didn’t want to hear about another of our adventures, she wanted to participate in it!) The trail took us a quite a little way down the mountain. It was beautiful! On the way down though, Dave decided the window wasn’t such a bad place to be and was right there at the front of the car watching everything!

We boarded the bus one last time to make our way back to hotel and decided that we were going back to the ocean to go swimming. For almost two hours we played in the ocean waves before going to the street market to barter for more souvenirs. As we made our way back to our hotel, we stopped by Copacabana Palace to see what it was like inside there…priceless!
Supper tonight was on our own for the first time since we arrived in Rio and we found this quant little restaurant on the corner one block from our hotel. We didn’t understand one bit of the menu but ended up with some great food. I had a roast beef sandwich that had a pepperoni stick bored into the middle of it! Delicious! Dave had steak/ham/egg sandwich on one piece of bread. Very yummy! I couldn’t finish my sandwich because it was so big so I asked for a to go container—they brought out a Tupperware like container—and then charged 1.50 for it! Crazy! I washed the container and am bringing that puppy home! Overall a great day! From my Brazilian bartering picture window to yours, have a great day!

Day 3 in Brazil!

Day 3
What a day! It all started with an early morning—around 7:30 when me met with Thiago and his Aunt Amelia. We piled into the little car and headed off to Petropolis. We struggled to stay awake because there is so much to see and do here! The ride was only around an hour, but it was enough down time to put us to sleep. Petropolis is a beautiful city! There were more houses and ornate buildings than in Rio. It is a very old city that was settled by German immigrants. Brazil was once under Imperial rule. Our first stop was the Christ viewpoint. Our second stop was the hotel casino Quitandinha which is built in German style. It is the second most famous hotel in the country. It was built in 1944 and many famous people have stayed there.
The next stop was to the chocolate store! One word for the store--YUMMY!!!
From there we went down to the historical district and went to a very unique museum. The emperor built a summer house and now is a museum on the Emperors life. The interesting thing is that all the floors are hard wood, so you have to put on these special slippers over your shoes so that you don’t scratch the floor. Then they tell you to “glide” across the floor. I think it’s their way of getting free labor from tourists so they don’t have to clean the floors.

This pace is surrounded by beautiful botanical gardens. From here went walked down what the Brazilian’s call the “most expensive street in Petropolis.” This is street that has the house of the princess and the legislature on it. We also went to the summer home of the President and went on a small tour through the President’s summer house. Nothing like Camp David at all! First of all, they let you tour it and second of all, it only had two guards! Time was getting short so we headed to the car, but not before we saw a goat pulling little kids around and the house that belonged to Brazil’s version of the Wright Brothers.
We went to Thiagos’s uncles home and had a traditional Brazilian meal of beans and rice with BBQ sausage and breaded chicken and beef. It was incredible! Tastes nothing like what we have in the USA. The lunch ws enough to make our eyes very heavy (or it could be the fact that we are averaging 4 hours of sleep or less and we were exhausted. We laid down for 15 minutes and then it was time to get dressed for the wedding.

A Brazilian wedding...Words cannot describe what it was like but we are going to try. It was in a huge cathedral where the Emperor was buried. Usually weddings are dress up occasions, but this was over the top. All the guys were in suits or tuxes and the ladies were in formals. The problem is that the bride was 1 hr 15 minutes late. It is acceptable for the bride to be late, it is expected. But according to Sonia, this was too late. There are a lot of unique things different about a Brazilian ceremony. The bridesmaids all stand to the back instead of going down the stairs and the parents stand next to the children during the ceremony. The Mother of the bride also holds the Bride’s bouquet! After the couple is married, then they take pictures of the couple and family in front of the crowd. When she finally marches down the aisle, it is the Pomp and Circumstance Recessional! That was interesting too!
After the ceremony we had a 40 minute drive to where the reception was. On the way we passed an Assembly of God church that was having service. It would have been great to stop, but we didn’t have time. It looked like fun!
The reception was at Itaipava Castle with valet parking and a guest list to get inside and yes, our names were on it!!!! Once inside there was almost no way to describe what you saw. There were brigadeiro chocolate treats everywhere—of all flavors.

We were seated in a glass reception hall behind the castle with huge red rose arrangements on every table. They continually brought hors d'oeuvres and drinks around to us. There was no getting up to get your food. They would give you a little napkin and as you held the napkin they would place the food on the napkin. Everything from tiny baked potatoes with Cheese inside of them to breaded shrimp, crab cakes, little pasta rolls--it was an incredible combination of food. As we were eating, we heard the Samba school arriving—which also signified the start of the party!—around 11:30 p.m. This is like a drum line but with much more flair and energy. They were the winning Samba school from carnival 2011 and they went to the dance floor and performed a little concert. Everybody was packed in there to see them and then the 2 carnival dancers showed up. Wow is all I can say! During this time the mother of the bride called me out from the crowd and drug me out to the center to meet the bride and all the cameras and video people were there to capture this on tape. It was wild! Something I will NEVER forget!

After I finally got away from the cameras it was time for chocolate! I grabbed one of everything I could find. WOW!! IT was awesome! I love my chocolate and I got my fill!!!!!!! (I did have to take my extras and put them in a napkin to take with me though!)

About 1:30 we left the reception (it was still going strong!) and made our way back to Thiago’s home. When we got there it was 2:30ish and we finally crawled into bed about 3. After a short nap, we got up at 6:30 and headed back to Copacabana and to our hotel. What an amazing day!!!! From my Petropolis/Brazilian wedding/reception picture window to yours, have a great day!