Geeky Yet Waterproof

Christmas Eve. We woke up to the hottest day so far during my trip. After breakfast we went into town to go Christmas shopping, and we walked down the street where my dad bought his Brazilian guitar 30 years ago.
Later some of Iza’s friends from swimming came over, and we had a huge lunch of turkey, Brazilian rice, and salad. I had three helpings of this because I was advised that we wouldn’t be eating again until after midnight.
In the evening, we went to Iza’s aunt’s house for about half an hour to say hi to everyone and… to eat food. Then, we went to her grandmother’s house for more food and the gift exchange. I also got to meet all of her dad’s family there, which was cool. We all waited in the kitchen until midnight, then blew open the champagne and dug into the food when the hour struck.
After a lot of consumption, we went back to her aunt’s house for — you’ll never guess — MORE FOOD! It was incredible how much I ate that night. I think I’ve never consumed so much food within 24 hours ever in my life… but it sure tasted good!!
When we eventually returned to the apartment, we opened more presents and sat around talking for a while. We also ate some chocolates. It wasn’t until 4am that everybody was finally in bed!

On Christmas Day, I think I need not mention that we all woke up pretty late. We had a relaxing day, and we went out to lunch at a churrascoria (a Brazilian BBQ restaurant) with Clovis’s family. At restaurants like this, you have a little spinner thing on your table, and if you set the spinner to “green”, a constant stream of waiters will be coming by with hunks of meat on a stick, and you cut off however much you want. If, however, you set the spinner to “red”, it means you can’t possibly stuff yourself anymore, and the meat will pass you by.
Afterwards we went to Zi’s family’s house again and had more food, and just hung around for a while. I had a long conversation with one of Iza’s uncles in Portuguese, until he tried to argue politics with me, which I was simply unable to do. It’s hard enough in any language… let alone one I started learning 10 months ago.
When we got home we went around the apartment a little bit to visit some friends, then just relaxed for the rest of the evening so that we could get ready for the next day: the beach.

Me with my Secret Buddy, Iza’s avó

Some of the cousins: Eamon, Iza, The Dude, Cintia, Pamela, Leticia

Iza’s uncle teaching me the polite way to eat farofa

“The bird bites!!”

Viva!!