A post about Easter, Flamengo, waterfalls and Capivaras :)

Oi gente!

Tudo bom? Here in my small-town Brazil everything is still beleza e muito tranquilo (meaning nice and relaxed in English)!! 

I really enjoyed Easter in Brazil. Brazilians call the time between the Thursday before Easter and Easter Monday Semana Santa, Holy week. Most companies close between those days and people celebrate the holidays with their families or use the time to get away to some beach town. It is common to eat fish for lunch during Easter. We ate a lot of Bacalhau, which is Portuguese for Cod fish, with potatoes, vegetables and rice. It was delicious! 

Other than that during the Semana Santa people enjoy eating Paçoca, which is basically a mix of ground peanuts and sugar. Not bad, but my favorite Easter treat in Brazil is Canjica doce. That is a mix of white corn with sugar, milk and cinnamon. Very similar to rice pudding.

Last week Flamengo won the Carioca Championship. Flamengo is Brazil's most popular soccer team and based in Rio. The way things go is you either love Flamengo or you hate them! Here in Resende the majority of people adore Flamengo and are proud to call themselves Flamengistas, thus everybody was super happy, having beers in the bars and celebrating the success.It reminded me of Germany in many ways as the passion for soccer is one of the few things Brazil and Germany have in common.

Oh one more great thing happened! :) I got my first pair of Havaianas - yay, now I am almost Brazilian! ;) haha They are a special edition to show my support for Germany during the world cup. :) Here's a photo of them:

Finally got my first Havaianas! Yay! :) :) :)

Go, Germany! :)

The other day my better half and I went on a little drive to a small town nearby. It is called Itatiaia and famous for its National Park. The scenery around Itatiaia is just lovely - blue mountains, green hills and tons of waterfalls. 

We spent the afternoon at the patio of a small hotel, that offers great views of some really nice waterfalls. It's the perfect treat to end a hot, sunny day. Afterwards we went to a little pub nearby called "Balneário do Gaúcho", it is located along the same river and has its own waterfalls too. Very pretty! It was such a wonderful evening, just my love and me, good conversation, a couple of beers and funny Brazilian folk music. What more do I need to be happy? We sure had a good time. :) Here's some photos for you!

Sunshine, blue skies and the lovely hills of Itatiaia

Hum the cows look just like in Germany :)

The patio of Hotel Conora - such a lovely location

Eu! :)

Cachoeiras lindas!

Alegria :)

A nice little Gaucho bar! Perfect to relax and have a few beers

It was a really beautiful, clear night - You could see the moon and the stars over the palm trees.

Also I finally managed to capture a photo of the Capivara family for you. :) Unfortunately it is hard to catch them during the day as they spend their days swimming to cool down from the hot sun, but at dusk you can usually find them at some river bank. So here they are:

Capivaras at the Paraiba do Sul :)

They get about 60-80 cm tall, 100 cm long and can weigh about 60-
70 kg, sometimes even 90 kg. Quite heavy, eh? Funny little critters, I like them. :)

Oh and last but not least, today I have another song to share with you. This one is just amazing, because it is called "Dani". A song just for me! It basically says fuck the rest of the world I am only thinking about Dani. Que legal, eu gosto muito! :) hahaha So here goes, enjoy! :)

Well, so much for today. I better get back to my studies.

Um beijo,

Dani

O Paraiba do Sul

Boa tarde a todos! :)

I have been in Brazil for 12 days now and I have to say since my last post not much has changed. I am still trying hard to study Portuguese and while it is a pain at times, sometimes it is fun at the same time. After more than a week of me being VERY awkwardly silent and feeling really stupid during every lunch spent with my boyfriend's parents, I finally managed to speak more than 2 consecutive words of Portuguese. Though also very awkwardly, using my bit of Portuguese vocabulary, some Spanish and my hands and feet, but believe it or not, they understood what I was trying to say and we started a real conversation. A real success! :) So things are looking up. 

Plus this week I have discovered quite a few lovely Brazilian songs, that are a big help in my learning process and I am starting to really love the sound of Portuguese. It is a very beautiful language and I am really keen on learning it. 

Here is my current favorite song from Brazil. It is called "Alegria, Alegria" ("Joy, joy" in English) and sung by Caetano Veloso. He wrote it in 1967, when the Brazilian government was a military dictatorship, so the people have been going through a bit of a rough time. It's a really beautiful anthem of freedom and I instantly fell in love with it the moment I first heard it.

Another good thing: I got a bike. Yay! My boyfriend's aunt lent me hers as she didn't use it in 4 years. That's really awesome as we'll be able to go on bike tours to the neighbor town Penedo or to the Itatiaia National Park, where we can swim in a waterfall and cool down from the heat of the Brazilian sun. Plus I can take some nice photos there. So I am excited! :)

So far I feel really safe in Resende and like living here.  As mentioned in a previous post, it is a relatively small city in the country side of the state of Rio de Janeiro, thus there's not much violence happening and traffic is not so bad. Plus my better half takes really good care of me, hence tudo bem - everything is alright.

For now let me take you on a little photo walk along the river Paraiba do Sul! :)

A sunken boat at the river bank

If you cross the bridge, you get to the centre of town. It's called Campos Eliseos

Another bridge to the other side of town - this one is called Ponte Velha (old bridge in English)

Que linda!

The mountain in the back is the Pico da Agulhas Negras - Hope to be hiking there soon :)

There's a family of Capivara living along the river. The Brazilian readers will know what I am talking about, for those of you who don't: Capivaras are water pigs. They look a bit odd, kind of like a mix of a guinea pig and a hippopotamus. Really funny! And you find them all over South America, sometimes even in cities like Rio de Janeiro. Crazy! Unfortunately whenever I carry the camera with me, they seem to be hiding. But I will do my best to get a shot of them soon to share with you. 

Now I will go on a little run and then back to my studies. Next time I hope I can share some Capivara or monkey photos with you. :)

Um beijo,

Dani

My first week living in Brazil! So far so good :)

Hey everyone! Tudo bem?

First of all I would like to thank you for all the lovely comments, Facebook messages and emails I received from so many of you. I was really surprised to get such positive, encouraging feedback. Muito obrigada to say it in Portuguese! :) 

It has almost been a week now since the day that I arrived in Brazil. I am really happy to be here, but I have to say that I have had my ups and downs already. It is very challenging not being able to express myself, I do understand a lot of Portuguese, however speaking is another story and I get very impatient with myself easily. Being surrounded by native speakers makes it twice as hard, but my boyfriend's family is a great support and I am studying a lot of vocabulary, so I am sure I'll get there eventually.

So this is how I spend most of my days: Having breakfast and lunch with native speakers practicing my listening skills, learning lots of vocabulary and watching Youtube videos on Brazilian pronunciation throughout the day. I also try to go running daily to get some excercise. We have a really nice park nearby called Parque das Aguas, that is perfect to go running. Just scroll down and you will find some photos of it. 

There's lots of palm trees, birds, beautiful flowers and a little lake in the park. Muito bonito!

Studying Portuguese!!

Running in the Parque das Aguas

Que bonito! :)

Uma Palmeira

Besides the Parque das Aguas, I also enjoy running along the river that flows through Resende. It is called Paraiba do Sul and is about 1200 km long flowing through 3 states: Sao Paulo, Minas Gerais and Rio de Janeiro.

O rio Paraiba do Sul

One thing I really love about Brazil is the fact that you can see tons of charming, old-school VW beetles (I mean the original ones from the 60s, not the crappy new ones; see photos below). That is because they have been produced in Brazil from 1959 until the 90s. I have been told that you can buy one for just about 1500 Brazilian reals (that is about 650 US dollars). I might get one of them some day! :)

Aww, I just love this car! :)

In Brazil it is called a Fusca

Another asset of Brazil is the luxury of being able to drink fresh coconut water. I love it! There is nothing more refreshing than agua de coco.

Agua de coco! Que gostoso! :)

And this is us, my better half Helcinho and myself after a run in the park :)

So far, so good! I think I will be quite happy here, but let's see where our road will take us. Now I gotta go back to studying Portuguese. Ate logo!

Um beijo de Brasil :)

Dani

Sometimes you have to go a little crazy.

Well this is it, my long promised new blog about my life in Brazil. I finally did it and moved here, probably the craziest thing I have ever done in my life considering a) I do not have any job here and b) I speak the crappiest Portuguese. But I believe sometimes you have to do something crazy in order to really live life. So I followed my heart and decided to follow the man I love to his home country. Being German and having lived in Canada for the past 3 years of my life, I am sure living in Brazil will not always be easy, but I decided to give it a shot. So here I am. :)

Flying over Africa's Sahara desert

... And this is the first impression of Brazil. Lots of green and rivers :)

I took my flight early morning last Monday, March 31, said my goodbyes to my family, friends and my dear dog and took off towards Rio de Janeiro. The thoughts that were going through my mind that day were really mirroring a lot of mixed feelings, fear of failing, sadness to be leaving my family and friends once again and joy and excitement on the other hand to be seeing my boyfriend again. 16 hours later I arrived in Rio, made it through Immigration and fell into the arms of my better half. That moment I knew I did the single right thing. I do realize that an awful lot of you readers will think I have gone insane and I might have, but it would be even more crazy not to follow my heart and to keep asking myself "what if", so within this blog I will share with you my ups and downs, my experience as a "gringa" to say it in Portuguese, a foreigner, in Resende, a 120.000-people city in the state of Rio de Janeiro, where we will be living for now.

In my next post I will  be telling you about my first impressions of my new home. Stay tuned! For now I will have to go back to study Portuguese, which will be my full-time job for a little while.

Beijos!

D.