Ladies Night!

Yesterday while Camila and I were at the gym she asked me if I wanted to go out for Japanese food with her and few other girls. I told her I'd never had Japanese food but I'd love to go! It was an opportunity for me to try something new and pick up some new vocab.

There only ended up being three of us, but we had a great time. We each ordered "batidas" which are supposed to be shots but are more like very small mixed drinks. They come in what looks like a taller version of a shot glass and they're made with fresh Brazilian fruit juices. Basically, if it's ladies night they're the perfect thing to order.

So colorful!

Since I had never ordered Japanese food before I decided to split something with Camila. We ordered a cone shaped piece of sushi that had salmon and rice in it, wrapped in seaweed and was fried. It was served split in 2 pieces topped with fried kale. I loved it.

You can see in the background one of the girls ordered a more typical sushi, but also fried. Warning: not to be eaten on first date, kale gets ALL UP IN YOUR TEETH.

After a lesson on what the difference was between a bouncy castle and a trampoline we headed to pick up Yuri and go back to Camila's for a churrasco. It was up on their terrace and there was a great view. It was a little rainy and pretty dark so I didn't get the greatest picture.

We watched soccer, had a few beers and ate amazing food. It was a great night, with even better company!

:)

Double Date!

On Sunday night Yuri's sister Larissa invited us to go out to dinner. Considering how lazy we'd been all weekend we definitely wanted to go. Her and her boyfriend Bruno picked us up around 8:30 and we drove over to Vitoria to have a look and see what was open.

The area we went to is really nice section of town, but recently shut down a lot of bars and restaurants. The residents had wanted a little more peace and quiet and that meant closing down a few places. That being said, there was still a ton open for that hour on a Sunday night.

We first stopped at a place called Emporio Da Empada. It was a small and busy place to grab empadinhas. You might remember us eating some on the beach in Ubu last time I was here, I posted them on the blog Right here.

They're like little individual servings of savory pie. They're DELICIOUS. This particular place had a Mexican version, and Italian version, and quite a few other varieties. They even had some sweet ones!

After we each had a bite there, and Yuri had a beer because all the empadinhas had cheese in them, we headed over to Habib's to see what they had to snack on.

Habib's is famous for these little almost pizzas. I don't know how else to call them. I didn't happen to take any pictures while we were there, most likely because the food didn't come out looking as good as it showed in the menu. I found a picture online though:

They had lots of little appetizer type foods for cheap, or combo platters for sharing, which was nice because I got to try a little bit of a few different things.

As if we hadn't eaten enough, we then went on an adventure to find the local Domino's Pizza. That's right. There aren't very many in the area, but Yuri and I are pretty big Domino's fans so we had to see it for ourselves. We were given directions at the empadinha place, and they turned out to be really good directions, because we found it!

I was clearly amazed.

Under 'Sobremesas" which is desserts, they have a mini banana pizza and a mini chocolate pizza! Might I add this is the only time I've ever seen pepperoni in Brazil.

Double Domino's Date.

This is apparently what Brazilians look like when they eat Domino's.

We ordered a medium pepperoni and an order of Cinnastix (That came with Dulce De Leche instead of that thin, white, powdered sugar gluey gook!) to go and managed to eat the entire order before bed. I must say, it was remarkably similar to American Domino's. Directly after I laid awake in bed wondering whether or not I would explode from fullness.

Lazy Days.

This weekend was a holiday weekend. Which meant nothing more than we were fairly lazy for about 4 days. Thursday night we went to Postinho for some food and drinks. We had some laughs, Yuri dropped some of our food the second it was delivered to the table, and people earned some new nicknames, it was a great time.

On Friday we went over to Tia Sandra's house to hang out with Caio and Luana. We watched Back To The Future in Portuguese, which was rather entertaining for me considering that Biff become "Biffee". As if his name wasn't bad enough. After we watched a soccer game and made plans to hit the movies. We didn't end up making it to the movies. We discovered that because it was a holiday they had jacked up the prices to the equivalent of $12 per person and no one wanted to pay that much. Eventually we ventured out of the house to get all the necessary things to make hot dogs, which was an adventure in itself considering everything was closed because of the holiday. Not long after dinner Caio and Luana left for Luana's house and we stuck around to hang out with Tio Lucio and Tia Sandra. It was a late, but fun and entertaining night.

Tia Sandra runs a catering business from home, this is one of her cakes.

Yesterday was the laziest day of all. We played video games, cruised the internet, I painted my nails, and topped it off with a 1/2 How I Met Your Mother 1/2 Green Mile movie/show marathon.

Played around with my camera around sunset.

Today is gorgeous, we don't have plans yet but they're in the works. I'll be sure to post pictures if I get anything good :)

Hit The Gym.

Today I joined a gym. A Brazilian gym. And it was awesome.

Camila asked me if I wanted to work out with her a few days ago. The gym is right around the corner and it's a healthy way for me to spend some free time here, so I said yes! She called this afternoon saying she'd be over around 4:30 and we would walk to the gym together. All day I was worried. I've read so many blog posts and articles about what Brazilian women wear to the gym. Considering that I'm not in Rio or Sao Paulo I was less concerned about what the women here might be wearing, but still concerned.

When I got there they took down all my information and snapped a quick picture of me. Then they did something I really wasn't expecting, they finger-printed me. Some gyms in the US give you a member number, some give you a key chain with a barcode, but I've never been finger-printed before! As if you could find a way around the finger printing to sneak in they also have a turn style that you have to go through.

The gym is fairly small but is well equipped. There are maybe 8 treadmills, a full set of free weights, and all sorts of machines. But the best part about Brazilian gyms is that there are staff working in the gym area that are basically there to semi personal train you. They show you how to use the machines, and help you find a good weight, and correct you if your form is off. This is especially helpful for me, at times I can feel my body struggling with an exercise and appreciate someone correcting my form.

Everyone has a card. A card with their name on it and various exercises listed on it. You mark down the date and the weight on each exercise. There is a session A and a session B, you alternate every other day.

As far as the gym attire?

Yeah. These pictures are only half accurate. These are great examples of the pants I saw at the gym today, but for the most part all the women wore regular tank tops and shirts. Also, I am yet to see a one piece. Hey, if it makes you want to go the the gym, why not? If I decide to buy into the trend I'll be sure to post again!

A Brazilian Wedding

We left for Guarapari a little after noon and the drive was beautiful. We took the bridge that's in my pictures from flying in. They actually close this bridge when it's windy because it sways. Scary!

We made a quick stop at Ponta Da Fruta to take a picture or two:

Yuri tried to sneak in a yawn before the picture.

 When we got there we headed down to walk near the beach a look for a salon for Tia Andrea to get her hair done at for the wedding.

Stopped for a REAL coconut water, opened with a machete, of course.

Tio Patauta and I drinking our coconut waters

After a good walk we headed back to the hotel we were staying at and popped in a quick nap before we needed to get ready. Brazilian weddings are always at night, this one didn't start until 8:30 at night! I didn't get too many pictures of the wedding itself. We didn't have the best view. It was really nice. The church was at the top of a hill and was covered with sea shells on the outside. The close friends and family of the bride and groom walked into the church first down a red carpet. There weren't really bridesmaids or groomsmen, and they actually signed their wedding papers in the church during the ceremony.

After it was over we packed into the truck and headed straight for the reception. I can't even imagine how much this wedding must have cost. The reception was very upscale, there were servers walking around all night with fancy appetizers, I tried so many things, and they were all delicious! There were also servers walking around with beer, champagne, wine, water, and Johnny Walker Black Label, talk about fancy. I took almost 300 pictures, I'll do my best to narrow it down for you.

Yuri's sister Larissa, Tia Nem, yours truly, and Tia Sandra all drinking champagne.

I didn't really get too many pictures of the where the reception was held, but here's one. You can see the band playing all the way in the back.

There were obviously awesome fireworks during the reception.

Yuri's cousin Pedro, Yuri and Tia Nem who is Pedro's Mom. Look at that pout!!

Gustavo (Camila's boyfriend), Joao (Yuri's cousin), Camila (Yuri's cousin) and Larissa. Joao is normally a good looking guy...

See? Even Camila can't resist kissing him!

There was a room that was entirely dedicated to beautiful chocolates. I could've eaten about 30 of them.

Yuri and I having a laugh and snapping a pic on the beach at night

Joao, Tio Patauta, another friend, Tio Fernando and the server who got dragged into the picture.

Yuri looking like a rock star.

Tia Sandra and I

Keeping an eye on Pedro.

After an ample amount of champagne and some serious dancing we headed home. A great time was had by all, it was absolutely one of the nicest weddings I've been to!

Well That's Just Beachy.

In a few hours we're headed to spend the day on the beach. Good ol' Ubu and I meet again. Turns out the wedding is in GUARAPARI, not JABAQUARA. I'm really good at hearing. The distance is roughly the same. The plan is to spend the day lounging on the beach and then when the sun heads to bed we go get ready to get our wedding on. We plan to spend the night in Ubu after the wedding is over since the 2 are close by.

Not very many of the cousins will be there, only Camila and Gustavo are tagging along. Those two could not be more fun, so I'm pretty excited. Here's hoping I can still find something to wear, I avoid all samba lessons (Carmen, why didn't we learn?!) and I don't get burnt to a crisp on the beach!

Tons of pictures to follow! Have a great Saturday everyone!

It's September! Want Some Mangonade?

We kicked off September with a heck of a Friday night. Okay, we didn't even leave the house, but we had a great time! After about 3 days of pestering Yuri, and a looming fear of rotting fruit had developed we decided to make a Friday night project out of Mango Lemonade. There was a lot of hastily cutting fruit and crappy measuring going on and very little photographing, you'll have to excuse the pictures...

Here's the Recipe:
Mango -1(1 small mango)
Lemon juice-1/4 cup
Sugar-1/4cup/to taste(add according to the sweetness required)
Water-2 cups

Method of Preparation:
1. Heat 1 glass water and dissolve sugar in it.Let cool.
2. Blend mango, lemon juice and 1/2 cup water to smooth liquid. Strain and mix it with the sugar mixture.Add more water if needed. Chill and serve.

Like idiots we forgot to take pictures of the fruit before cutting into it. I sure wish we had. We paid a total of 1 US dollars for all the fruit, and might I add the mango is not in season right now and was almost the size of head. Amazing.

So we doubled the recipe considering the size of our Mango, and the fact that we bought 5 limes. Why limes you ask? We asked someone working in produce if they sold lemons and he informed us that they do not. I know, seemed a little odd to me too.

We made our simple syrup and Yuri went to work cutting into that gorgeous mango. I battled 5 limes and managed about a 1/2 a cup of lime juice. Then came the blending and things were looking good. The straining was very time consuming, but well worth it... and I ate the pulp on a cookie afterwords and it was delicious.

After about a 20 minute dispute about whether it needed more water or not, we adjusted the sugar to our tastes and put it in the fridge to cool off. What to do while your Mangonade is cooling?

Do this! And laugh endlessly. Also, eat pizza!

That's a Brazilian pizza for you folks. Corn, ham, green olives, white onions, and no tomato sauce. Speaking of Brazilian pizza.... Yuri and I threw on our Upper Crust uniforms for old times sake.

And then it was time.

When I think of Brazil, I think vibrant, and this project sure was. We decided to drink our Mangonade in these cool glasses I found made from recycled corona bottles, with a dash of Malibu as well.

 What a beaut.