To Grandmother's House We Go

(click on the pics to see them full size)

Yesterday we woke up early, picked up Will's mom (who had traveled here from Santa Catarina) and drove a little over an hour from Porto Alegre to Vale Real (translation: Royal Valley). I was a little nervous that Will's mom and I wouldn't be able to communicate (my Portuguese is still pretty limited), but I was relieved when she and I discovered that we both speak enough Spanish to have a decent conversation. The drive was pretty nice, I basically just zoned out in the back seat and watched Brazil go by. I noticed a lot of things during the drive:

1. Gas is pretty much the same price everywhere, whether you're in the middle of the city or way out in the countryside. Right now it's R$2,49/liter ($5.95/gal) and you don't see huge variations like you do in a lot of other places.

2. Most businesses don't have signs attached to their buildings, they're usually just painted right on the building. The colors are also often really bright and garish... It makes me think of Sturbridge, MA and how the city is completely anal about how each business presents itself... the city planners there would probably have a heart attack if they saw how things go down in Rio Grande do Sul.

3. The closer we go to Vale Real, the more German everything got. It made me think of the German village of Leavenworth in the mountains east of Seattle, only way less tacky. I remember seeing one billboard that said João Vogel, a nice juxtaposition of German and Portuguese. Later in the afternoon we went to the store and I told Will that if I didn't know where I was at that moment, I never would have guessed that I was in Brazil. With the green rolling hills out of The Sound of Music and 90% of the people walking by with blonde hair, blue eyes and fair skin, the only clues as to where I was were the language being spoken and the license plates on the cars. Other than that Vale Real may as well have been a Bavarian village outside of Munich.

When we arrived at Will's grandmother's house, she greeted me with this chihuahua:



It was very interesting speaking with Will's grandmother because she speaks mainly Portuguese but also German (which ends up coming out a little more than half Portuguese). I had a pretty interesting conversation with her about DVDs, her late husband, slaughtering pigs and making sausage. She'd slip into Portuguese and the more confused I looked, the more German she used (with some very interesting grammatical choices). Overall she was very sweet and I really enjoyed getting to know her.

I also felt a little guilty because I'm a vegetarian, which is not very common in southern Brazil. Will's mom was nice enough to make me some noodles with a white sauce while everyone else had churrasco (huge chunks of meat on skewers) Here's Will threatening his cousin Victor with some churrasco:



Speaking of Will's cousins, they kept me pretty busy all day... at first they thought I was weird, but then Victor wanted to speak German with me (which he's learning in school) and Will's other cousin Erica wanted me to play ping pong... Since I was American, the kids decided they wanted to play baseball, which they improvised by pitching a whiffle ball at a ping pong paddle... it was pretty fun and I ended up getting a lot of sun and exercise. Later in the day Will's mom had to help me out by shooing the kids away when I collapsed exhausted on the couch. We also enjoyed some Playstation games and Victor wowed us with his skills on the accordion:


Another highlight of the day was a short drive to the lake nearby. Here are a couple of pictures... it's kind of funny how one picture looks totally like Brazil and the second looks like... umm... not Brazil:



We also enjoyed some fresh tangerines from the tree behind Will's grandmother's house:


One of the highlights was hearing the story of how Will's parents met at a German-Italian dance in the area, which is perfect because she's Italian and Will's dad is German... then we saw a billboard indicating that the European tradition is alive and well in Vale Real:



After a long day of eating and playing, we set off around 5 p.m. only to have the power in the car completely and suddenly cease to exist. The speedometer was stuck at 120 km/hr, the radio and clock shut off, and the engine died. We pulled over on the side of the highway and were completely surprised. I said "why don't we pop the hood?" and so we did and found this:



The positive connection on the battery had somehow come loose and detached, causing the car to lose power. Will carefully reattached it and we continued safely back to Porto Alegre.

Trouble in the Sky

As someone who flies often, I found this particular story very interesting:



Every time I get on a plane I'm afraid I'll end up having to sit next to someone loud, obnoxious or squishing me into my seat from the left or right, so my heart goes out to anyone in a 20 seat radius of this disaster...

Granted the kids are handicapped, but after reading comments on this story from parents of children with the same disabilities, I can't help but side with the airline on this one.

I found a great comment here:

"After reading the stories and seeing the various videos of this crew, I've decided that this was NOT a real family, but a "reality show". They picked the "participants" from central casting. We have the obese trash "mother" with four unruly "kids", the meth-teeth "sister", five months pregnant and smoking. We have the "father", meeting the crew in Seattle, complete with mullet and 70's-porn mustache. Then, to top it all off, we have the "grandmother", named BOBBY something, who's obviously just come from the local lesbian-bar with her "significant other"!

The producers of this "show" should be congratulated. Real life could NOT be this real!"

I know that there's going be some sort of cruel karmic joke on me when I fly from Brazil to Boston in a few weeks!

Chicken Attack

"Police said an Ypsilanti man is accused of stabbing his mother with a fork and hitting another woman over the head with a frozen chicken"

Like they say, you just can't make this stuff up... read the article here.

The Kitchen Report

With the extra time I have right now I've been experimenting in the kitchen...

Sure I've burned a few things and some stuff hasn't come out as great as I'd hoped, but it's relaxing and I feel like I'm learning... learning at my own pace even.

I've fallen in love with garlic. I've always loved garlic, but I'm ashamed to say that I've always just bought those big containers of pre-minced garlic at Costco. It just seemed so much easier that way. Recently, however, I've discovered how satisfying it is to peel and mince a clove of garlic, then to sauté it in some olive oil. It makes me happy.

Tonight I decided to make some soup with stuff that I had lying around the kitchen. With the help of Laurie, who always has great culinary advice, I managed to make this:


Okay so it looks kind of awful in the picture, but it was actually pretty good. I started off sautéing some garlic and onions in olive oil, then I added some rice, then water and vegetable bullion cubes. Then I added some potatoes, pepper and oregano, then finally some TVP (texturized vegetable protein, AKA fake meat). With the current temperature in Porto Alegre dipping into the 40s (Fahrenheit), it was a great night for soup.

Another experiment that I came up with last week turned into this:


To prepare this one I drained a block of tofu overnight (wrapped in paper towels and then in a clean dishtowel in the fridge). I sautéed some garlic and the tofu in olive oil, then added onions and a couple of cans of basil tomato sauce. I added some oregano, pepper, salt, and red pepper flakes and then cooked it for a while while I boiled some penne, then I mixed it all together and, to my delight, it was actually good. Of course there was so much that I ended up having to put a lot in the fridge, and something like this is never as good the second time around, but I still enjoyed the leftovers the following afternoon.

So that's the kitchen report. If you have any great ideas for more culinary experiments I'd love to hear them!

Penelopsky Aaryonna Goldberry

That's pretty much the best name ever. Full story here:

Virginia groom passes as bride, could face charges

Bof fri fleu

On one hand this is serious and some good advice delivered in a catchy manner that you're sure to remember... on the other hand... well... bof fri fleu.

Here's the original PSA:



And the extended version:



I think it's from 2005 and it's VERY Boston... does anyone else see that?

Abomination time!

With the backlash of Christian conservatism surrounding the legality of same-sex marriage in California, this blogger reminds pious folks what else they need to watch out for:

A word on the word "abomination"

This is pretty funny

Many Hawaii McDonald's Drive-Throughs Use Workers In Texas

I wonder if Waianae is included... if so I could just sit there all night, listen and laugh at Texans trying to speak/understand in proper moke fashion! =)

Very interesting!

I just found this through Reuters...


"10 Things You Probably Didn’t Know About Cell Phones"


#10 is really interesting...

"10. Half of Japan’s Top Fiction Was Written on Mobile Phones

Absolutely nuts. Turning the publishing industry on its head, this trend’s subscriber models are thriving and making significant money for aspiring writers, in turn fueling the phenomenon. Authors tend to be young women sharing fictionalized aspects of their lives. Five of the top ten works of fiction in 2007 were written on mobile phones. Japan, you never cease to amaze me."

One thing... one thing... leads to anoooooother!

Well with all the blogging about eating and stuffing my face, you knew I had to end up here...

Yes... the gym.

Around May of 2006 I decided that I was fat and that I needed to make a change. Looking at old pictures from 2005, I can verify that I was indeed pretty porky. It started with evening powerwalks around the track at Kalani High School in Aina Haina (Honolulu). Luckily I had a great group of friends who were very supportive and joined me each evening for a 4 mile adventure! Kori and I would "take a trip down memory lane" and reminisce about the olden days while coming up with an evil theme for the track and its surroundings (oh there's Satan's shish-kebab (the basketball hoop), there's a pile of dead bodies under that big mound of dirt, and then... best one... we had to NOT be the last one to yell DOUBLE DEVIL PITCHFORK as we ran past this huge metal thing that looked like two pitchforks). Soon we had lots of other friends joining us on the track. Mike, Deanne, Lauren and many others would make these nights fun and more like hanging out than working out. Some nights it was just me and my ipod, which was fine too.

Before I knew it, it was August and time to go back to school. By then I'd lost a significant amount of weight and was loving the reaction I was getting from everyone at school. It was then that I decided that physical fitness would need to be part of my life forever. I couldn't imagine carrying around all that extra weight anymore.

When I went to visit my parents in Boston over winter break, I joined the gym there for a few weeks, which was scary at first (being my first gym experience since...umm... high school), but I learned how to use the machines and found out that the gym wasn't so scary after all.

In Germany I joined McFit, which was only €16,90 per month, and learned more about machines and how to get the most out of my gym experience. With my faithful workout buddy Michal from Poland (who was more often than not just a pain in the ass), I managed to stay in decent shape another year.

Getting back to Academia Bodybase (academia means gym in Portuguese)...

I joined up in February last time I was in Porto Alegre and enjoyed the more personal approach to fitness. The trainer I'm working doesn't speak any English, so it was great that Will was able to translate for us.

This time around I have to go to the gym alone because of Will's work schedule, but between my infantile Portuguese vocabulary and a lot of hand gestures and embarrassed smiles, the trainer and I can pretty much understand each other. I haven't really messed anything up...yet.

So yeah, I love to stuff my face, but then I just try to build a little muscle and burn a little fat at the gym without overdoing it and I basically break even.

It's also a great way to totally immerse yourself in a new culture and language. Sometimes I feel like I'm a total voyeur, intently observing the social interaction between different kinds of people while trying to understand what they're saying (or not saying) to each other. Gym culture is strange anyway, awkwardly polite but not too friendly, but I guess that's the same everywhere (unless you're at one of those gyms where everyone's wacked out on steroids...)

That's about all I have to say right now... I've recently noticed that each time I go to the gym (I go five times per week at roughly the same time every day) and I'm on the treadmill, this song comes on:



Hey I guess it's not SO bad... it's got a nice little fitness theme to it!

On Friday I was trying really hard not to laugh because I just knew that it was going to come on when I was on the treadmill... Monday will be yet another struggle!

Dois pedaços por favor!

So I have a new obsession: "stuff your face Mondays." It's the only evening during the week that Will doesn't have school, so today, like we did last Monday, we went to the Praia de Belas mall in Porto Alegre for rodízio (all you can eat) at Pizza Hut.

Here's how it works: the waiters/waitresses bring around different kinds of pizza and you them "yes" or "no" (well... sim o não). Usually it's a little aggravating at first because most of the pizza has meat on it (this is the part where Will's stuffing his face and laughing at me and I start the scoreboard: 0 to 1, 0 to 3, 0 to 5... until finally a non-meat pizza comes by and I get in on the gluttonous action.

Tonight I was lucky because suddenly the pizzas coming out were almost all meatless (when they finally come without meat I ask for two slices: dois pedaços por favor!). I ate pizza with corn, pizza with catupiry cheese, mozzarella pizza, pizza Margherita, a bunch of garlic and olive oil pizza, pizza with broccoli, four cheese pizza, and a few other kinds. At that point we decided to stop eating dinner pizza and begin eating dessert pizza. This is the great thing about Brazilian Pizza Hut... dessert pizza! It's sort of a normal pizza crust with lots of great stuff on it. We had pizza with condensed milk and pineapple (tropicana), pizza with doce de leite, pizza with chocolate and chocolate sprinkles, pizza with guava and pizza with chocolate and coconut (prestígio).

Needless to say they just about had to roll us out of there...

The best part? It only cost R$52 for 2 people including a couple of sodas and tip. That's less than US$32 (less than $16 each), which is amazing for the sheer quantity of food we consumed.

Disgusting? Maybe. Satisfying? Unbelievably so!

Finally updated

I finally updated my photos... Check them out here: http://christianhall.shutterfly.com/action/

Best restaurant... ever!

I totally love Prato Verde... it's without a doubt my favorite restaurant in Porto Alegre.

First of all it's really inexpensive... it's an all-you-can-eat buffet for only R$9.50 (US $5.73).

It's also vegetarian... not vegan, but that's not a problem for me. =)

The only thing is that it's kind of a pain to find parking nearby, but luckily it was nice out so a little walk wasn't a bad thing.

Today Will and I enjoyed cheese soufflé, spaghetti with TVP, tempura-ish cauliflower, rice and beans, potatoes in some sort of sauce (I really have no idea but it was great), these long things reminiscent of a vegetable pot pie, pineapple juice, and bananas with whipped cream and this great chocolate mousse-ish pie for dessert... not to mention the extensive array of salad and fruit items that were available.

I definitely recommend this restaurant and plan to eat there as much as possible while I'm in Porto Alegre!

Then and now

I was just looking back on this blog and I had to laugh when I read "As if the dollar wasn't weak enough already" (compared to the Euro). I looked it up and the Euro was trading at $1.27 in March of 2005 when I wrote that. Right now it's $1.57, which is a few cents better than last month when it was around $1.60. Hmmm... let's see what gas prices were then and now...

Okay in March 2005 gas in Honolulu averaged $2.40/gal compared to $3.95/gal (which isn't SO bad compared to the national average of $3.91/gal and how much higher gas prices usually are in Hawaii compared to the U.S. mainland... (I got those stats from http://honolulugasprices.com)

Just a thought... =)

Blog Resurrection

It's been years... should I revisit this blog or blog on myspace or facebook? I'd like to streamline and condense a bit but it seems a bit complicated... maybe I'll think about it for a while...