France

The past couple of weekends, I was in France. One of the projects I am involved with at work required a weeklong visit to a client's site in Grenoble, France. Travel is one of the perks I have in my job, but the chance to travel internationally has been unfortunately rare as of late. So, I jumped at this chance, even taking my wife along for some vacation time. We wound up spending about 11 days total in France - starting with three days in Paris, about a week in Grenoble, then a weekend in Lyon. The trip was great - we saw the famous sites of Paris, ate a lot of fantastic food, and had the chance to explore a bit on our own. Our vacation style can be best described as "active self-guided exploration". Prior to the trip, we scoped out the places we wanted to see on the internets, and then found our way once we got there.

What surprised us the most about travelling across France might surprise you too. Rude French people? No. Actually, we felt like we busted that myth. We found the folks there to be downright pleasant and helpful. The shocking thing was that there is graffiti everywhere. Finding it in the cities was not shocking, but looking out the train window for three hours en route from Paris to Grenoble, it seemed every brick wall, overpass, and stationary object was decorated with some type of "street art". Somehow, now I don't feel as bad about the tagging I see in Jersey.

Here's a travel tip: When driving lost in a city, for instance Lyon, find yourself a bus-stop and check out the little kiosk. You will often find a map of the city with a "you are here" (vous êtes ici) indicator which you can use to adjust your route. Worked for us. Perhaps it was fortunate we found our way safely to our hotel. As you can tell from this photo I snapped, it appears that Lyon has some fairly liberal gun laws.

Out of the Office, Part Deux

Just to clarify my general whereabouts last week:

Out of the Office

Guess where I was today...

Alemeda dos Acarás, 23

I miss our house in Brazil. As you can see in the pictures, it was a good looking place, and the perfect size for the three of us. Actually, it was spacious for us - it had 4 bedrooms, 4-1/2 baths with a jacuzzi in the master bath, large den, huge kitchen, maid's quarters, pool, sauna, deck, attached patio BBQ area (my favorite spot in the house), and was easily 3x as large as our house here. The details were top of the line too - exotic hardwood floors and tons of closet space. The living room had slider doors to the deck, and with the doors open, it had a great "bringing the outdoors in" feeling.


Like all the other houses in the development, it was walled off on three sides, the only open side was to the street. This gave the backyard a more private feel, but considering the house next door had bedroom windows that directly overlooked our pool area, and the incessant barking of their pack of dogs, you couldn't completely block out the rest of the world. We were lucky though to have no neighbors behind us - behind us was the common park, tennis courts, BBQ area, and playground - so I believe it was one of the best locations in the development.

The pool and sauna were great. My wife took care of the pool cleaning and chlorinating duties; she liked the challenge. There were plenty of palm trees and other exotic flora around to make the backyard a great place to hang out. In the mornings, hummingbirds were usually drinking from the birds-of-paradise plants. Little lizards were everywhere.





Other houses in the neighborhood were just as nice. Our friends lived across the street in this house. We spent a lot of time over there, enjoying some of Brazil, Chile, and Austria's finest beverages.


Having a comfortable house to live in made the Brazilian expat experience all the more enjoyable for us.

Finally

Well, I finally made the update I said was on it's way. There's still some tweaking to be done around the edges, but it'll be ok like this for a while. What started all this was that I liked the 3-column layout better than the two, but it quickly became a game of "well, if I'm going to change this, I might as well change that too", and so the project grew. There are a ton of resources out there on the net for this kind of a conversion, and it was a good chance to dust-off my old coding skills.

It's not recommended to be viewed at resolutions less than 1024 x 768, and best at higher rates.

I have a few more ideas up my sleave, but I am not going to promise any timetables.

Update

Just a quick note that I'm still here. I've clearly fallen off the wagon in terms of my weekly posting schedule for FLFB. I have a pretty big change coming for the look of the blog, but I haven't been able to work on it lately. I'm still interested in sharing my Brazilian experiences, and I've been going through a ton a photos and videos I made during our time in South America, so there is enough fodder to keep the site going. I just need to get to it.

Below are a few pictures (not mine) of places I'll eventually be discussing.

Here's a shot from Sao Jose dos Campos, near the mall, about 2km from where our house was:


Here's a scenic shot from Iguazu Falls. About 1 year ago today, we took a 14 hour road trip across Brazil to visit these falls. They were spectacular beyond words, and beyond all concept of what you probably think of when you think of waterfalls. (You're probably picturing Niagara Falls). The place puts Niagara Falls to shame. For some perspective, in the middle of the left edge of the picture, you can see a footbridge. This footbridge was about 1km long, and the picture is probably showing about a third of it. The picture shows only a few of the 275 falls that are in this area.

Almost there...

Ok. So, I didn't quite hit my self-described deadline of getting the new and improved FLFB up and running over the Holidays. Sure, I had time off, but I was running around quite a bit to family affairs and the like. And, it takes time to redesign the site, and a lot of research on how to program in Blogger script. I'm getting there. Be patient if you can.

Also, I'm still having some nagging issues even logging into Blogger. It seems since they went from Blogger Beta to Blogger 2.0, I somehow lost my ability to login directly. So, even logging in to make the changes takes a little longer.

While you wait, here are some happy scenarios to ponder. Happy Thoughts.

Feliz Natal!

The weather has been unusually warm the past few weeks - yesterday it was near 60°F (about 16°C). 16°C is considered cool, borderline cold there. I used to keep my office at about 20°C, and my staff would literally bring jackets with them for meetings. For easy conversions of °C to °F, here's the trick I found: double then add 30°. It's approximate, of course, but close enough to know if you need to wear short or long sleeves. Converting weights and measures took some getting used to, and the English system sure is challenging compared to metric. It's no wonder that 99% of the world uses metric.

Here's hoping everyone has a Merry Christmas and a safe New Year. I'm off next week, and plan to make an overhaul to the blog, so stay tuned...

Someone caught Santa chillin' in Rio:

Still here...

I've been a little slow posting the past few weeks, what with the upcoming Holidays and all. I've been having some rather frustrating log-on issues with Blogger which has kept me off pace. In the meantime, I've been organizing our various pictures and videos from the past few years, and working on a few upgrades for FLFB, which you should be seeing in a few weeks. Stay tuned...

37000

I flew over the Amazon many, many times over the last few years, and never realized there was air-traffic control no coverage zone there. Apparently, it’s widely known within the air controller circles, and probably the kind of thing they talk about when they get together for picanha and Brahma on the weekends. You’ve all no doubt heard about the mid-air collision that occurred over the Amazon a few months ago involving a passenger jet and a corporate jet. The collision occurred at 37,000 feet. Here’s a link to a blog of one of the passenger’s on board the corporate jet who is writing to clear the names of the pilots. Reading through the stories of alleged corruption, cover-ups, worker strikes, and death threats for the two pilots, I can’t help but be reminded of “A Death in Brazil” (the book I told you about in a previous post). The situation is different, but the web of intrigue and drama seems straight out of a novela.

Following the continuing story here:
http://joesharkeyat.blogspot.com/

Cultural Learnings

Here's another funny Skol beer commercial. The last few seconds are the funniest.



It might seem odd that this commercial would be shown in Brazil - it could be misinterpreted that Brazil couldn't win any other way than cheating. Clearly, if that was the true message, the commercial writers and producers would not be able to show themselves on the streets anywhere in Brazil for fear of reprisals. So, I believe this is an example of a cultural perception bias. Here in the US, we tend to follow rules more strictly than in Brazil, for instance, so we would view this commercials as an outrageous act. But, I believe in Brazil this is probably perceived as a creative way to humiliate the Argentinians (their arch-rivals in soccer - think Yankees/Red Sox times 100).

Believe it or not, this concept of cultural differences towards following rules was a lesson we learned from our Cross-Cultural Trainer before we left for Brazil (more about this in another post). In anthropological terms, it's known as Trompenaars' laws of Universalism vs. Particularism. According to the class, Germans and the Scandinavians tend to be the strictest rule followers; The Chinese, Russians, and certain Latin American cultures tend to be less driven by the means, and more focused on the results. I really enjoyed our CC training class - I find these kinds of differences fascinating, which is probably one reason I enjoyed my time in Brazil so much. I looked forward to discovering these cultural differences or linguistic differences. (Overview article here, more in-depth cultural differences discussion here).

Generalizing here a bit... My perception was that the people in Brazil tended to find creative and unique solutions to problems; solutions which may somewhat push the boundaries of "the rules"; the kind of solutions that once the result was achieved - the rule that was overcome was re-written to match the newly developed solution. The solutions were often based on superior negotiation skills, interpersonal relationships, or just overwhelming personal commitment to finding a way.

In Brazil, they have a word for this: "jeito" (or "jeitinho" diminutive form). Basically, it means finding a way around your problem. Here's an article explaining a little more, although the author tends to focus on illegal activities - this is not what I'm implying about my experience. In my case, I saw this spirit in action at work overcoming challenges or, at times, when my boss's executive assistant would find ways to make things happen for us - like getting certain government paperwork rushed through or dealing with disputes with our cell-phone service provider.

This is an aspect of the culture that really left an impression on me. It's a filter for me now when I'm watching the news, dealing with the crisis of the week at work, or just life in general. I think I'm more apt to try to view a situation from the otherside as a means to finding a win-win solution.

This could also explain why Borat was probably one of the funniest movies I have seen in a long time. See it if you haven't, and you will appreciate cultural differences, even if they are made up.

Happy Seniors

A loyal FLFB reader sent me the following link.

"They're much happier"

The article speaks for itself.

Turkey

Here in the US, it's Thanksgiving. This is our first Thanksgiving in the States since 2003. One year ago today we were exploring Macchu Picchu, Peru. Perhaps ironically, "peru" in Portuguese means turkey.

Two years ago, we celebrated Thanksgiving at our home in Sao Jose dos Campos. For probably the first time in my career, I was working on Thanksgiving day. I followed the Brazilian holiday schedule while working there of course, which turns out to me more lucrative in terms of days out of the office compared to the US schedule. My Brazilian co-workers often refered to Thanksgiving as "the most important holiday for the US". It's hard to say if it's the most important, but certainly does signify a time where familes and friends get together, eat copious amounts of food, and generally enjoy a few days off from work.

We were able to have a mostly authentic Thanksgiving day dinner in Brazil - the only table standard we were not able to find was cranberry sauce. There are no cranberries in Brazil as far as I was able to ascertain. (Blueberries were equally hard to come by, although someone did once tell me they spotted them in Sao Paulo) Beyond this realitively minor setback, we had just about everything else you probably had, or are going to have, today.

As for the turkey, we cooked what is known in Brazil as a "chester", which is either the same as turkey or some subspecies of turkey, I could never quite figure that out. But, it tastes like turkey nonetheless. Regular turkey is called "peru", but this bird they called "chester". Either way, it was tasty, and when cooked just right, comes out looking like this.
We had all the other standards: mashed potatoes, corn and other assorted veggies; I made some bread in our "Breadman" bread maker; salad; and a good bottle of Chilean wine.


Happy Thanksgiving.

Rio 22 - Restaurant Review

It's time for a new feature of Formerly Live from Brazil: Restaurant Reviews. In particular, you guessed it, Brazilian-themed restaurants. This past weekend, we found out about a Brazilian BBQ-style restaurant that recently opened up in Union NJ, off of Route 22. It's called Rio 22. Having been to quite a few authentic Brazilian BBQ restaurants (I've been meaning to post about these churrascaria restaurants as a topic here on FLFB, but haven't had the chance yet), my review will be based on comparing this restaurant to the real thing.

Atmosphere: Rio 22 has an upscale setting, very comfortable, clearly the kind of place to which you can bring a bunch friends, family, or co-workers and not have to worry about being too loud. This is similar to the ones I remember from Brazil. In some ways, it reminded me of "Porcão" from Rio de Janeiro, so I guess their name fits. Rio22 even had the red/green coasters on the tables to alert your waiter about your receptiveness to more meat.

Salad Bar: Conceptually, very similar. In fact, the layout of the salad bar was nearly identical, with various salads and plates of side-dishes arrayed around the circumference of a large table. The majority of the dishes were not the same as in Brazil, they were more reflective of local favorites. They did have a few fish-dishes (cod fish salad, and something with little octopuses), rice and beans, and chicken strogonoff which can be found in every Brazilian BBQ. I missed the sushi rolls, although Rio 22 has an entire Sushi bar to choose from - just not included with the salad bar (at least that I saw).

Appetizers: Every Brazilian BBQ lays out some appetizers on the table to go with the meal, typically fried bananas, Pão de queijo , french fries, bread, yams, small salgados stuffed with meat, and rice. Rio 22 had similar - french fries, onion rings, fried bananas, and I was happy to see pão de queijo . Very authentic pao de qeuijo, I might add. I hadn't had one of these in a while. Yum.

Drinks: They had imported Brahma. (See "Cervejas" below). I had a couple, but not a bucket. We didn't get any caipirinhas, but I imagine you could get a good one here.

Meat: Mmmmm. Meat. That about says it all. The never-ending, table-served meat included: top sirloin, filet mignon wrapped in bacon, roast beef, flank steak, chicken, lamb, and picanha. A real Atkins lover's dream, and your cardiologist's nightmare. I have been craving picanha ever since my BBQ post. I even stopped in at a local butchershop to ask for it, and they looked at me like I was from Mars. I just saw on Wikipedia that it's called "rump cover" in the US, so maybe I'll try that next time, although, if that's not what it's called, I'll get strange looks asking for that too. Rio 22's was a real treat, and it was excellent. It was really, really good to have this again. Another authentic touch was having farofa and vinaigrette salsa at the table for dipping or topping the meat, respectively.

Coffee: I had a good expresso after the meal, which tasted authentic.

Price. This is the most noteable difference. In Brazil, dinner for two at the local Rodizio always wound up costing about R$100 - including drinks and dessert. (roughly US$35 - US$50, depending on the exchange rate at the time). Here, it was about that much for 1 person. So, roughly 2x-3x the price. It's a bit of an unfair comparison though since meat, fish, and the going rate for cooks and waiters is less expensive in Brazil. For the price, the value you get is more than comparable to a night out at a good restaurant, if not more so given that it's all you can eat.

Recommendation: If you are curious about Brazilian BBQ, definately check Rio 22 out. If you know me, and would like to go, let me know and we'll plan a night. We went on a Sunday afternoon, so I didn't experience the nightlife. I have the feeling Friday or Saturday night would be a fun time to go, judging at least by the size and layout of the bar, and the drink specials.

If you go, let me know if you agree with my recommendation.

Asner: "...how'd you get so smart?"

<-- Click on TV for classic commercial with the answer. Does anyone else (besides my brother) remember this commercial, circa 1979?

One airplane ritual I forgot to mention in the "Spiderwebs" post was that I usually took along a book to read. I tend to read historical non-fiction - if I am going to spend the time to read something, I want to at least take away some interesting tidbits that I can talk about at cocktail parties. I have read a number of books on the US Civil War, inspired by what I consider to be the greatest documentary of all time, "The Civil War" by Ken Burns, and the opportunities I had to visit various Civil War battlefields. My "library" is heavily weighted with books on this topic.

One of these plane books was related to the topic of, you guessed it, Brazil. I believe I read this sometime during my first few months as an ex-pat; so, I already had some perspective on the country, and the book really came alive for me. The book is "A Death in Brazil" by Peter Robb. Do not be frightened by the title. The book it autobiographical in nature, telling Robbs' story as he meandered his way through Brazil's small towns and big cities, poor villages and fancy resorts. He intermixes Brazilian history, religion, culture, politics, and local foods into an vibrant picture of Brazil through a foreigner's eyes. I learned a lot about the country, and it helped me to adjust and learn to appreciate some of the cultural differences I myself was experiencing. The history of the founding of Brazil is fascinating - the legend has it that Pedro Álvares Cabral found Brazil by "accident" in 1500, however there is more intrigue to the story involving the Pope and secret agreements. The explorer's accounts of first seeing the native women "in all their unashamed nakedness" apparently goes on for pages and pages and pages in his official reports to the King of Portugal; this no doubt contributed to further Portuguese exploration of South America. Robb gets a great deal into the politics of Brazil, and equates it to the beloved Brazilian "novelas&quot; (soap operas). His writing style keeps the narrative moving forward while weaving a good sense of the culture and national identity into the mix. An excellent read. If you have ever visited Brazil, this would be a good book for reminiscing or putting your experience into perspective. If you have never been to Brazil or if you have somehow been inspired by my humble blog to learn more about Brazil - I recommend this book to give you a well-rounded perspective on this fascinating country.

I did manage to read a few more books then my usual pace while spending all that time in the air over the last few years. A couple other books that I remember and can recommend are:

"Between a Rock and a Hard Place", by Aron Ralston. This is an autobiography by Aron Ralston. You may remember his story from TV a few years ago - he was out one day hiking, when a boulder fell on his arm, and after a week or so of being stuck between "a rock and a hard place", he eventually used his trusty pocket knife to perform a self-amputation of his right arm. The story is not just one of "man vs. nature". It's really the story of Aron's passion for hiking, slot-canyoning, propensity for face-to-face encounters with bears, tales of avalanche survival, and assorted tales of outdoor adventure. The lead up to the inevitable dismemberment is well told and tension-filled, and is as much a psychological thriller as the story of the actual amputation. Would you have the guts to do it? I suggest this book for all the "outdoorsy" types. One moral of the story: if you are going to be out alone, doing something somewhat risky, always tell someone where you are going. Had at least one person known of Aron's general whereabouts, he could have been found earlier - not to say he wouldn't have lost the arm, but at least wouldn't have had to drink his own bodily fluids to survive.

"Freakonomics&quot;, by Levitt and Dubner. This is a fascinating book if you are into analyzing data and statistics, which I am. The author is an econmist, who pulls together seemingly dis-connected data to develop some interesting theories. For instance, he contends the drop in crime rates in the early-90's correlates to Roe v. Wade.

If you are interested in US Civil War history, I recommend "The Civil War, A Narrative" by Shelby Foote - if Ken Burns' piece is the definitve documentary, Foote's 3-volume set is the definitve narrative. Maybe someday I'll post some pictures from my visits to various Civil War battlefields, but I'll have to think of a good Brazil tie-in.

Interesting History Break

I'll take "Interesting Brazilian History for 200 please, Jack".

A short break from my musings on Brazil to hear from a few others. I came across two interesting articles today I thought I'd share.

1) Apparently, in the 1930's, Henry Ford started a rubber plantation in the Amazon in an effort to offset rising rubber costs. Due to a combination of rubber tree blight and cultural ineptitude, it was a miserable failure, to the tune of $200 million (in today's dollars).

Henry Ford in the Amazon

2) After the closing battles of the US Civil War, the then Emperor of Brazil sent recruiters to the Confederate states to seek out skilled cotton farmers. Some 10,000 confederates took him up on the offer, and emigrated to Brazil to seek what they considered they had lost at Appomattox. They settled in the town of "Americana", and managed to bring prosperity to the region. Although most of the heritage has now been lost, there are still celebrations reminiscent of the Old South.

Americana

We had talked many times about visiting Americana while we were in Brazil; I believe it was only about 3 hours from our house. I guess we probably should have made more of an effort. It would have been interesting to meet a Stonewall Santos or Paulo Longstreet.

Spiderwebs on a Plane

This week, while returning from yet another business trip, I realized it was the first night flight I had been on since Brazil. And, as I browsed through my mp3 player's directories, I realized I still have No Doubt's "Tragic Kingdom" onboard - and inspiration for my next post hit me.

Before actually living in Brazil, I spent a good amount of time flying back and forth - roughly 2 weeks here, 2 weeks there, repeat, over and over, for 9 months. I estimate at least 12 trips in 2004 x 10 hours each x 2 (round-trip) = 240 hours = 10 days in the air. As you can imagine, I racked up some serious frequent flier miles - by 2005, I reached "Executive Platinum" status on American, their highest rewards level.

There are a few flight options from NJ to Sao Paulo. Flying direct, overnight, there was a Continental flight out of Newark and a American flight out of JFK. The flights out of Newark were usually 767s, and the rest were 777s. Takeoff time was around 11pm, and arrival at around 6-8am, depending on the time of year. If you wanted to travel during the day, the best bet was early morning on American out of Newark, stopover in Miami, then onto Brazil. This put you on the ground in Sao Paulo by about 10pm. There is also a direct American flight out of Dallas I took a few times during business trips to the West coast. I even once took a Japan Airlines flight out of JFK. This was a direct flight to Sao Paulo, but the plane was just stopping over - most of the passengers already on the plane were Japanese who had just flown the 12+ hours from Tokyo - so the air onboard was a bit stale, to be kind. The fish-jelly-rolls for breakfast didn't help matters either.

The flight from NJ to Sao Paulo is about 9-10 hours and luckily my company has a policy allowing business class for any flight over 6 hours. I preferred the 777's over the 767 for seat comfort and roominess, but the 767 had the advantage in terms of entertainment. On the 767s, each BC seat would receive its own portable DVD player with an album of about 20 DVDs - which included a well-rounded selection of just-out-of-the-theater first runs, old classics, and even TV series like the Sopranos or Cheers. I remember watching "Animal House" one night and laughing hysterically. I watched The Godfather I, II, and most of III on one flight. On the 767, you could watch movies all night, but on the 777 you were limited to just one-time through on whichever movie you picked from the in-flight selection.

The in-flight routine brought comfort to me, and I got very comfortable with it. Knowing what to expect, nearly minute by minute, took a little of the anxiety of the long flight away.

Here's how a typically flight might go, either to or from Brazil:

10:30 - Pre-Board, Flight attendants hand out choice of orange juice, champagne, or water (usually got the water), choice of newspapers (never got 'em - too hard to fold), menu
11:00pm - Take off
11:20pm - Plane leveling off at 35,000ft.
11:25pm - Flight attendants take dinner order - I would usually get the steak, but sometimes the pasta if I was in the mood.
11:40pm - Flight attendants hand out Bose Noise Cancelling Headphones. (These were great).
11:45pm - Warm nuts and wine. (I never thought about warming nuts before serving, but a few seconds in the microwave makes a difference).
12:00am - Hot towels, followed by linens for the tray table
12:00am - Around this time, the in-flight movies would start. I saw more movies in these 9 months than I have in the past 5 years. "Lost in Translation", "City of God" (not the Val Kilmer one), and this Japanese movie with subtitles that I can't remember the name of stand out as a few good ones.
12:10am - Fresh seafood course - cold crab, salmon meat
12:20am - Salad course
12:30am - Dinner
12:45am - Dessert - my favorite was the sundaes with whipped cream and butterscotch or caramel topping. I felt bad for the people in the first few rows of coach who had to smell all of this and had to be satisfied with the "Famous Amos" cookies or whatever they had.
1:00am - Clearing away the dinner plates and linens, and giving out bottles of water.

That was the last service from the Flight Attendants until breakfast. At that point, I'd just finish watching the movie. After the movie, I'd usually surf the in-flight music options. I listened to a lot of jazz and classical music - I even bought a few CDs of some jazz artists I heard onboard.

Or, I would fire up my mp3 player. Then, like now, my mp3 player carried my standard travelling albums:
- Pink Floyd, "Wish You Were Here" and/or "Dark Side of the Moon"
- a few _Opie_and_Anthony shows
- Shades Apart, "Save It"
- No Doubt, "Tragic Kingdom"
- Other random albums or songs


The album that got the most play was "Tragic Kingdom". I played it so much, it has become forever ingrained in my memory as the soundtrack of my flights to and from Brazil. Hearing the opening drum break and horn line of "Spiderwebs" (first song on the album) places me right back into the over sized seat of business class on an American Airlines jumbo. I became a bit superstitious about this album being on my mp3 player and the supernatural effects it has upon the safe passage of my flight. So, now it has become a standard on my mp3 player - even if I don't listen to it at all during the flight, just having it there brings good luck.

Between about 1am and around 5am, I generally would try to sleep, but I never got much "Quality" sleeptime. Mostly, I channel-surfed the inflight audio selections until it repeated (about a 2 hour frequency), then I might drift into a light nap. I can still hear that hollow whirring kind-of sound of the world rushing by at 500mph. The flight attendants would usually be reading or just chatting.

By 5:00am or so, they'd wake us up for breakfast. I usually just got a bagel and some fruit.
6:30 - begin decent
7:00am - landing and onto the whole customs routine (I'll save that for another post).

Flying business class internationally meant free use of the airline "lounges". My vote for best American Airlines club is Miami, followed by Sao Paulo. All the lounges offer unlimited booze and snacks. The Miami one has a tropical theme, and the one in Sao Paulo became my respite from the chaos after going through customs and the last of Brazil for another trip. The one in JFK is just standard, and it was there I usually felt a little depressed thinking about the long trip ahead and about being away from home for the next few weeks, so I have mixed emotions about that place.

The flight was indeed long (like this post), but the routine made it more bearable. Actually, I miss the adventure of the flights. Each flight meant I was heading to another few weeks of discovering Brazil, and discovering a bit about myself too.

Sao Paulo from window of 777:

Cervejas

While in Brazil, I was fortunate enough to sample some of the local brews. Well, "sample" might be understating it. Brazilian beer is good. Really good, in fact. The beer is always served at the perfect beer temperature - just to the point when little ice-crystals start floating around in the glass. Refreshing, crisp, and delicious.

My favorite local bar was "Dekave", just around the corner from our house. I would say about once a month or so, when we had had just about enough of work for the week, a good friend and his wife, and Sweetie and I would head over to Dekave for a few "baldes de cerveja" (Buckets or beer). Picture this...a shiny aluminum bucket, filled with ice; and nestled snugglely in the middle of their ice blanket are 4 or 5 cold, cold beers. The waiter pours the beer into your glass with skill to leave the perfect head on top. Drink. Repeat. The waiters have this style there of instinctively knowing when your glass is about 1/3 empty, and as if on autopilot, come over to top of your glass. By the time this has happened a half a dozen times, you have no idea how many bottles of beer you have consumed. Oh, well. When the bill comes, you'll have some idea, if you can still perform long division at that point. We all had a lot of fun at Dekave, and although I don't remember every night, some of my fondest memories from Brazil are of those good times, just letting the hours drift by with just the right mix of friends, conversation, and beer. Sadly, Dekave closed her doors a few months before we left Brazil, but given our friends had left Brazil as well, it wasn't the same anyways.

The beer we drank was mostly Bohemia. It's one of the most popular beers in Brazil. Brazil doesn't seem to have the limitless variety of micro beers you can find here, but you won't be disappointed by their mass produced varieties. All are much better in my opinion than beers like Budweiser, Miller, or Coors. I would say the lowest on my Brazil list would be akin to an Amstel Light in quality. I'm not a beer classifying expert, but I believe they were all lagers. Also, there is no such thing as a "light" beer in Brazil. "Light" and "Dark" only refer to the color, not calorie count.

My list of favorites:
1. Bohemia - best taste, generally slightly more pricey than the rest, but worth it.
2. Antartica - great taste, seemed to have more of a "kick" than the others.
3. Brahma
4. Skol - at first I didn't like this one, but it grew on me. It's one of the cheaper beers too.
5. Honorable mention: Xingu. Xingu ("Shin-goo") is a dark beer, almost sweet in flavor, it's not one to drink if you plan on drink more than a few in a night, but once in a while it hit the spot.

"Imports" in Brazil are not as popular. You could find imported Budweiser at Wal*Mart, but since I won't touch the stuff here, I couldn't imagine drinking it there. Heineken could also be found, and actually for cheaper than you can in the US (there's apparently a Heineken brewery somewhere in Brazil). There was a German beer, Erdinger , that could be found somewhat widespread in town. It was quite expensive compared to the others, but it was really the only imported beer we drank while there. (Side note, I found this beer today at the local liquor store and bought a 6-pack. Funny that a German beer would be the catalyst for this post about Brazil).

Here are some beer commercials from Brazil. TV in general is quite a bit more revealing than the US (see post on Boa Noite, Brazil), but these are tame and should not offend my more sensitive readers.

These are in Portuguese, so if you don't speak it, you may have some trouble getting the jokes. But, the visuals should be enough to give you the idea. The first two are my favorites.

Basic premise of the first one: This guy goes to eye doctor because everything he sees is square (square used as a metaphor for routine, ordinary, plain). After drinking a Skol beer, he begins to see circles everywhere - it's a miracle! The lovely eye doctor's assistant says "no...not again...he's cured".

In the second one, another guy, hearing about the good fortune of his buddy, tries his luck at the eye doctor's, pretending not to see circles. However, the lovely assistant is on vacation, so a different assistant is on duty. Hilarity ensues. At the end, he says to the lovely model, "Dona Carminha, come back from vacation, for the good of science!" Well, maybe it looses something in translation...

Enjoy.

Discovery Atlas: Brazil

Tonight, the Discovery Channel will be featuring Brazil in their Discovery Atlas series. I'm anxious to see what they cover. From the looks of the website, it appears to focus a on the Amazon, Carnaval, and Rio - the iconic "Brazil". I hope they delve a little deeper..

Here's a link about the series: http://dsc.discovery.com/convergence/atlas/brazil/brazil.html?clik=visit_site

Bem-vindo

According to my Statcounter account, it would appear I’ve had my first visitor from Brazil. This person was searching search.blogger.com (the Portuguese version) for “desfile lingerie”, and came across the 11th listing, which was my post on Boa Noite, Brasil. I’m willing to bet my site wasn’t exactly the kind of “information” he was seeking regarding lingerie parades, but he landed here nonetheless. I wonder if he stayed around long enough to read any of my other posts? I’ve had no other hits from Brazil since then, so I guess he didn’t bookmark it.

Meu novo amigo brasileiro, se você retorna aqui, escreva uma nota em “comments” com sua opinião sobre meu blog.

Interestingly, I've been getting about 100 hits per week. Ok, so I'm not exactly waiting around to be bought out by Google, and most of the hits seem to come from me or people looking for lingerie or "Chile presidental parade"; but, still, I'm surprised.