Home, Sweet Porto Alegre

March 5-10

What a week!  In the last six days we have managed to eat three churrascos, become professional gaucho dancers, attend an exclusive grand opening party, ride horses through the countryside, and shop at nearly every single major mall that Porto Alegre has to offer.

Whew!

Ana Isabel and Josh

Monday we were finally able to meet up with Josh’s Portugese teacher from his first stay in Porto Alegre, Ana Isabel.  We surprised her at her new school that is now her very own building and we talked for a long time about what has been going on in all of our lives the last seven years since Josh was last here.  Ana Isabel was solely responsible for setting Josh up with a host family and helped him through the very difficult parts of his initial culture shock and language learning.  She is extremely gifted with connecting people to each other and connecting WITH people and we were so glad to finally see her.   Beijos, Ana!

Steak in the mall food court

After meeting with Ana Isabel, we went to Moinhos Shopping, a nearby mall, for lunch at the food court.  Ok, so I had no idea what awaited me – I was thinking food court like our malls with fast food and maybe one nice sit down restaurant.  But what we actually had was steak, rice, beans, and salad with Guarana and Coke right in the middle of the mall.  It was one of the best meals we had eaten out for lunch and it felt so funny to be eating a gourmet lunch in between the “Bobstore” and other various fashion boutiques!

Anyone need a Bob?

New friends Simone, Fabio
And Lucas

Monday night we were invited for a lovely churrasco at Marcelo and Jackie’s apartment.  We met our new friends, Simone, Fabio, and their adorable baby, Lucas.

Should I have another
slice?

Tuesday we ran (we have a fabulous loop we run down to Moinhos Park, beside the shopping center, that has tons of greenery and a lake with our favorite turtles who we give voices to and they have conversations in broken Portugese), and then, as was Josh’s tradition on his previous Brazil stay, we called Marcio and Marcelo.  They picked us up and, after an excellent pizza buffet, we shopped as long and hard as we could until dinner.  Their pizzas have no limits like the ones in the States.  My favorites were the stroganoff and the salami pizzas.  At the mall, Jackie and I made quick work of the C&A store (kind of like H&M, only different letters), and it was on to dinner with the family and Ana Isabel and her husband.

Dinner at Schula's

Schula’s, a FANTASTIC authentic German restaurant, impressed us with every course.  It was a night of fulfilling fellowship, incredible food, and ONE. LIFECHANGING. DESSERT.  Torta de Sorvete, cake with ice cream, is a dessert with a story as amazing as its flavor.  Ana Isabel has a language student whose grandmother is German and made this recipe.  It was so good that when people tasted it, they wanted to be able to purchase this dessert.  Eventually, there was enough business that they opened a store, and now they deliver their desserts to all of the fine dining restaurants in the area. 

I found out why.  I have never tasted anything like this.  It appears to be regular ice cream with a hard marshmallow-like layer (related to their dessert called suspiro), but for some reason when you pour on the liquid chocolate from the pitcher they bring you…oh my goodness.  I hope there is a version of this in heaven, sem calorias!  What a great dinner we had with the family and Ana Isabel and Garson!

Elyssa, Carys, Benay, Kevin, Giovanni
Josh, and Garrett

Wednesday we spent time with the Blumes for lunch a fabulous meal – thanks Benay and Kevin!  We talked about the church in Brasil, their house church, and ours – and how God is moving across the world.  I’m now inspired to read a book Benay recommended, “Jesus Calling” by Sarah Young.  In between inspiring conversations, we played for hours with Giovanni, the cutest three year old this side of the equator. 

I highly recommend the Blumes’ blogs for tales of life in Brazil: BlumesinBrazil.blogspot.com and BenayBlume.blogspot.com.

I didn't have a swirly dress but I made
the best of it!

Elyssa and Ana at CTG

CTG was the name of the Gaucho club that night where Ana and Pedro took Josh and me for our second churrasco of the week.  There was a really cool dancing demonstration complete with Gaucho poetry and lots of music.  There is a song where all the Gaucho couples (decked out in full gaucho attire – beautiful!) ask people in the audience to dance and I got to go up with the group and learn it!  So fun.

Finally, Coke in a glass
bottle!

Another amazing meal

We tried out another new restaurant Thursday – a small and beautiful destination in the middle of the neighborhood that separates ours from the Blumes.  We had walked past a few times on the way to their house, and this time we decided to stop in and take a chance to see if it was good.  Boy, were we in for a treat!  We had Brazilian stroganoff with beans and rice (of course) and a fantastic flan for dessert.  Josh had been looking forward to having Coke out of a glass bottle the whole trip but we had only seen Coke in a can.  However, at this small colorful restaurant, sitting on the second floor overlooking the downstairs, the waitress brought our drinks in glass bottles – for me a Guarana, for Josh a Coke.  Victorious!

Sunset over Porto Alegre

Roberta, Owner of Sul Esportes
Magazine, Ana Isabel, Josh

Ana Isabel invited us that evening to the exclusive grand opening of the biggest sports store in Rio Grande do Sul, called Paqueta.  She is friends with the owners of the sports magazine who sponsors events with the store, called Sul Esportes.  We got an inside look at the store design and got to hear the story of how the magazine started from Roberta, one of the owners.  We felt so special with all the beautiful people there – sort of like we were undercover and no one knew we didn’t really belong there…so we walked around and pretended to be famous for most of the evening. J  They even gave us presents – Thursday was the international Day of Women (Dia de mulheres) and I got a pretty Gerbera Daisy along with our small futbols.

I love presents!

Carys on the left, Benay
in the middle cutting the
cookies

Giovanni having lunch

Carys, one of the Blume’s daughters had a birthday party Friday.  This was our first introduction to Brazilian kids and it was quite an awakening!  First of all, there were a ton of them in the gorgeous park by the Blumes’ house where the party was.  All was going well until they got hungry and swarmed the churrasceira where Kevin and Benay were cooking the burgers.  They were like vultures!  A bunch of  energetic kids in the heat after playing wildly…yeah, they were hungry.  After their mad rush to stuff as many hamburgers and hot dogs into their mouths as they could handle, a water fight broke out.  The kids were filling their cups with water and chasing each other all around the park.  It was all fine until they started disobeying the guards of the park who were asking them to behave and not break the rules.  So, then the big people got called into it and things had to calm down a bit.  All in all, it was a crazy and fun time – and we got to taste Benay and Kevin’s specialty American cookies – we SO want them to go into business to sell this amazingness!  They made four huge cookies for the party and Josh and I couldn’t get enough.  Happy Birthday, Carys!

Just LOOK at those cookies! Scrumptious.

Saturday was the day I have been waiting for this whole vacation….Saturday we visited the farm of Mauricio, the oldest Narchi son.  

The baby is only a week old

Nona on the left, all eating churrasco
And homemade bread

I had asked a couple weeks ago if we could ride his horses sometime, so he met us at the farm with his five new sheep.  We ate a big churrasco (#3 for the week) under the shade of the fruit trees with Nona, Pedro’s Italian/Argentine/Brazilian mother.  She is 88 and beautiful, straight out of an Italian movie.  She is the sweetest grandma and sat with us all day in the heat, watching the horses and all the activities.

Mauricio rounded up the whole herd of horses along with the cows and herded them up to the farmhouse so we could see all of them – including a one-week-old colt!  They were beautiful and wild, of every color.  I could not get enough of them.

Mauricio saddled up two horses (the ones that he and his friend use to work the farm) for us to ride. The one I ended up riding had been bucking and didn’t want the saddle, so I was mustering up all my former horse knowledge to manage her.

We mounted the horses and I was feeling pretty comfortable when all of the sudden, Josh was gone.

He was off at full speed in the wrong direction!  I saw his back rounding the corner of the house and I had no idea if he could stop the horse or not…Thirty seconds later, here comes Josh, still on the horse (miracle #1), and he was making it walk (miracle #2).  The horse had spooked and went into a straight up gallop with Josh at his mercy.

The rest of the ride was not so eventful, so I got up the courage to let my horse run a bit out in the field.  Mauricio and his friend just let us loose to go wherever we wanted on the farm and it was really fun.  Memories of the horse my family had for a year washed over me and I was just exquisitely happy.  After we had explored the fields that were open for us, I let my horse run all the way back to the house. Exhilarating!  

They had said Josh’s saddle might fit me better, so once we were both off the horses, I decided to take another ride on Josh’s horse to see if I could manage him.  He and I bonded on the way out to the field – I think it helps if the rider has not just been traumatized by an unexpected full speed gallop.  And then I let him run all the way back.  My heart was in my throat and I felt like I was flying!  I could have ridden all day had we had more trails and fields to roam.  I think I was meant for this.    

                       

                                

What an amazing week in Porto Alegre.

This morning we will go to church with the Blumes and then head to Ipanema here in POA.  It’s not the place from the song, but I’m going to pretend. J  Ate mais!