Surfing, birthday and deadlines!! :D
Summer is nearly, yes nearly, here!!
Summer is nearly, yes nearly, here!!
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Brazil and the Nut... |
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So! This year I did something I've never done before and I (half) celebrated the American tradition of: Thanksgiving! This year it fell on the 28th of November - it seems to be the last Thursday of every November (!!), but I don't know for sure: sorry!! I didn't celebrate it on the day as such, but I did give thanks! I gave thanks to all that had occurred, good and not so good, in my life so far because it has all been experience and character building and built my confidence. I wouldn't be who I am today having not experienced these things. I gave thanks for my current situation: I'm 21 years old and living comfortably and studying in Brazil! How many British 21 year olds can say that nowadays?! (Nowadays because I'm sure my grandchildren will be taking their year abroads on the moon). I give thanks for the fact that I am healthy, have great friends and a wonderful family who have supported me through everything. And I give thanks for the fact that I have so much love around me too. To my wonderful friends and family: thank you!! You are truly beautiful lovelies, I love you and your wonderfully abnormal selves!! ;D But not to get tooooooo deep or anything! I would like to take a moment to also thank those who came and have gone from my life too!! You have also believe it or not, taught me so much as well: so thank you for that!! I wouldn't have learned those lessons without you! THANK YOU! THANK YOU! THANK YOU!! Then on the Friday, we helped ourselves to Thanksgiving leftovers that the American students had left from their party the night before - so we had even more to be thankful for!! There was turkey, pasta, cake and no matter how much all of us ate, there was still some to spare over the weekend too! Not forgetting that the party food was also balanced out by Brazilian feijoada (beans) and vegetables too heehee! *Food baby!* So!! This week I thought I'd just show you what I did to celebrate my birthday!! A bit more personal this week instead of the usual informative stuff I normally vlog :D I got a bit tongue-tied in the voice over but I had a wonderful couple - yes couple! - of days :D It feels amazing to be the age I am and have achieved so much already!! For example, I've lived in both hemispheres of the world. I've lived in three very different countries, visited three continents, lived in two, been to Latin America twice, have attempted five foreign languages (French, Spanish, Portuguese, Italian and Mandarin) and confidently speak two (Spanish and Portuguese - although I want to get my French back up to par), along with many other things! I feel blessed to have had so many fantastic opportunities made available to me and it only gets better from here!!!!! I cannot wait for December and for 2014 because I've got so many exciting things to look forward to!!! But you'll just have to wait and find out what, teehee!! But all in all, I had a wonderful birthday!! Thank you to everyone who celebrated it with me and to everyone who sent me lovely messages on my birthday tooooo!! One of the wonderful perks of being a linguist is getting birthday messages in different languages and from loads of different time zones as well!! (China, Mexico, Columbia, Chile, France, Spain, Germany, Switzerland and of course the UK and Brazil)! Jubbly indeed!! Oo! And thank you again to Zuz for making the beautiful bracelet for me!! (Second in from the left). So! Week 16: 4 months (ish) in?! What?! This week I thought I'd talk about a fairly huge topic: FOOD! Because who doesn't like to talk, read or know about food? Ok, so simply put: Brazil is a Foodies Dream! Why? Because there is a lot of variety of fresh fruit, veg, meat and fish available! For example, you can buy freshly squeezed fruit juice pretty much everywhere you go, and I'm now hooked on Passion Fruit (maracujá ("mah-rah-coo-gah") juice. Will definitely be missing that when I'm back. They even have it available in the food courts in local shopping centres. Right! As I've started with fruit juices, I'm going to begin the blog with them. Most places you go to eat, whether it be a restaurant, food outlet, bar, beach bar etc, will serve you freshly squeezed juice (as I've already mentioned). Some places will ask you if you want it with milk ("leite") or water ("agua"). I haven't tried it with milk but I'd imagine it was more milkshake-y. Personally I prefer it with water because you then get the fresh juice of the fruit. I don't think any place is better than the other but I got a great passion fruit juice from one of the food outlets in Iguatemi Shopping Centre, and a fantastic strawberry ("morango") fruit juice from a restaurant on the Lagoa lake (the first restaurant when you step off the boat); see first picture. They're fantastic, refreshing and you pay around £2 for one, which I think is brilliant; pretty sure you pay about three/four times that amount in England, especially if it's a tropical fruit. Tax-free juice equals winning! Now on to fizzy drinks and sodas. I never really fancy these when I'm at home. I stick to juice, tea and obviously water. But when I'm travelling or on holiday, I can't get enough of them. Coke is extremely popular along with Redbull, Sprite, Fanta and other energy drinks. My fizzy drink of choice is Fanta, always has been, always will be when on the beach. In England there are quite a few flavours, but here they have three (that I know of): orange, passion fruit (yellow) and grape (purple). The first two I love, the third I think tastes a bit like cough medicine we were given as kids. See second pic for passion fruit Fanta. Next one is slightly boring: water! Tap water is generally not drinkable, it is either unfiltered, or in the case of my building: so filtered it has a lot of fluoride (I believe) in it. I have and do drink the tap water from my apartment and have so far been fine, but I would recommend not being stingy and splashing out on bottles of water when you can :) I normally keep a big bottle of water in my room. And on the subject of water, if you make it out to Brazil: get yourself coconut water ("agua de coco") from an actual coconut!! It doesn't taste of anything, it's pure water and it's delicious!! Best thing to get when you go to the beach!! I've only ever seen them on Praia Joaquina, but it's fairly popular. Oddly enough though I don't like it from a carton: smells weird xD Tea!! A Brits water! Unfortunately, I've not been very impressed with tea here. There are quite a few brands like "Chileno" but I've quite often been buying Twinings (a British brand) simply because the native brands are very weak and you don't really taste anything. I myself am a huuuuuuuge tea fan. I will normally have about 6-8 different types of tea in my cupboard, simply so I have the choice for whatever I fancy at the time; if I have any lower than four brands in my cupboard, I have to go buy more. We decided in second year that I have as much variety in my tea as one of my housemates had in his beer collection. One thing that I would recommend trying is "Matte" tea when you're out here. It's a local tea made from ground tea leaves and you use a special wooden mug and a straw to drink it. Have it made by a local when you first try it! It's strong, but really good! (See last picture in slide show below). So that leads me on to alcohol: Beer is the popular drink of choice here and the etiquette here is you buy a big bottle of beer in a bar and share between two-five people. It's served in a cooler and you get given half pint glasses to share it out. Heineken is extremely popular and then there's the Brazilian brands: Brahma, Skol, Antartica, Devassa and there are some others but I can't remember what they are. Beer is quite "fraca" (weak) here. It's weird for me because I never drink beer back home, but I sometimes do here to be social, but mainly it's because: THEY DON'T HAVE CIDER!! :O My heart is broken! They supposedly sell cider in the Irish pub in Lagoa (The Black Swan), but I have yet to go and try it. Plus! Now that I only have a month left, I feel like I should wait til I'm home now and have the choice. Wine is a fairly big deal here. It's much cheaper of course because it's all mainly South American made (eg. from Uruguay, Argentina, Chile...). I can't speak for white wine because I prefer red, but even the cheapest red wines (around R$15/£4-5) are really good. Mixers/Cocktails: simply put: I never drink mixes, spirits or liqueurs unless I'm clubbing or out on a special occasion so I have no idea how cocktails compare here. The general vodka mix tends to be vodka and "energetica"(energy drink), not always Redbull. In most UFSC parties you will only have this as the option of mixer; in clubs you may get more choice. I've found that you get more "Western" drinks like Jagerbombs in the Centro. So if that's what you prefer: voila! I'm not sure if you'd classify this as a cocktail or a mix but one thing that is a must if you come to Brazil is a Caipirinha! If you've been following my posts back from the Build Up you'll remember I explained exactly what this drink is on that page. As refresher though, a Caipirinha ("kai-pee-reen-yah") consists of cachaca spirit, chopped up and squeezed lime (or any other citrus fruit of choice), a tablespoon (unless you prefer it sweeter) of white sugar (because brown doesn't dissolve as well and turns it a revolting colour) and ice or cold water. Ice I can understand, but water?! I hear you cry. If you don't have any ice then run your glass under a cold tap for two seconds because it is a very lethal mix to be had on its own. The alcohol will go to your head very quickly. In first year we spilt some Cachaca and within about two minutes it had evaporated off the table while we were looking for something to mop it up with... Very strong stuff! I love Caipirinhas but again tend to stick with less alcohol content when having a casual gathering. So on to food!! There are definitely a few dishes to sample when you're out here, including Feijao (beans and sauce), Churrasco (meat (beef, steak, sausage... kind of BBQ/rotisserie style) and also Bacalhau (fish). I don't know where you can get churrasco in Floripa, but we've had it multiple times when our landladys husband has cooked it. I also had it at Casa Brasil, a restaurant in Southampton (see Build Up page); but I think it's a chain restaurant. They offer an all-you-can-eat churrasco and you can have as much meat as you like and have six types to choose from. Soooooo worth it!! The only trouble that I've found is that if you want say, a pizza, the ones in shops are way too salty and don't actually taste that brilliant. Same for pies or other pre-prepared food, it's all salty and just tastes rather revolting. So I miss that. And then I miss the variety of food styles. For example I haven't had curry for nearly half a year, so I'll definitely be going for one of them when I'm home. What I do like here though is that you can buy a burger (etc) and it be good meat, nothing cardboard-y or McDonalds style. It's great! Like at Oktoberfest, I wasn't expecting my burger to be good meat, but it was delicious! As you'll see in the pictures, we even went to an event for all you can eat hot dogs! In terms of sweet/pudding/desserts! One thing that you *must* try is "brigadeiro" ("brih-gah-day-roh")!! It's a sticky ball of milk chocolate with chocolate sprinkles on top. I had one and I couldn't finish it because it's very very rich! But they are definitely worth trying!! Markets and shops: Markets: they are supposedly the organic food shop equivalent, but do not be fooled! You'll know it's organic if there is still soil on the vegetable! Otherwise it has been brought from a larger chain food supplier. There is not a lot of difference, but just so you know :) One tip when you go to say, the Centro market, is to watch your produce on the bus back! I bought some papaya and it got horribly bruised on the bus ride home. Be careful!! Supermarkets are plenty and varied. They tend to be cheaper than markets, but not quite as great quality. Corner shops tend to have good quality food - albeit slightly less choice - although again, it's a little more pricey. Health food stores are not very common, but in Iguatemi Shopping Centre there is one. Here you can buy vitamin tablets/capsules (I bought natural iron tablets from there) and other alternative remedies. Meal vocabulary:
*Café da manhã: breakfast *Almoço: lunch *Janto/jantar: dinner BOM DIA!
Apologies there will be no Week 15 video BUT I did put up Day 2 of my SP trip and the end of the month photos because, ladies and gents, it is indeed the end of another month and it is now November! What what! Here in Floripa that means deadlines and end of year exams are right around the corner (two-three weeks to be exact) and so life is getting that little bit more demanding. So! Having been ill last week and slowly getting my brain back into "focus mode" (because my brain only goes that fast - or slow depending on how you look at it) this week, I haven't really had the head space to think about filming and editing another video. And I was only going to tell you guys about the Hallowe'en event they celebrate here, which I can just as easily tell you in written form anyway. My goals for November: 1. Reducing my Social Media usage. How? By playing SIMS on my iPad for five minutes rather than checking Facebook, Twitter or Tumblr. I downloaded it for free yesterday and so far, it's actually proven effective and I've got a lot more done in one day than I did for most of this week. P.S. Don't hate on me because I have SIMS! 2. Trying all that I have fancied trying by July 2014, but it can't hurt ticking a few off now. 2a. Trying things that don't break the bank. Eg. Surfing: £55 for five lessons. And Dune Surfing: I'm not too sure of the price but it's just the hire of the board so R$20/£6 maximum? Then I'll just have stand up paddle boarding, Iguacu Falls, Rio and Blumenau (during the day) left. 3. Spending more time in the library. Believe it or not, I miss my university library! I can get so much done in there! Safety-wise I wouldn't want to stay in UFSC library after 6pm because campus is not particularly safe afterdark; plus it's closed on Sundays. Yet I miss having piles of books around me and having no laptop/Social Media to distract you. So! What with the final four-five weeks of deadlines about to hit, might as well get stuck in properly and make regular trips to the library. My Brazilian Bucket List: Things that I have ticked off so far include Oktoberfest, Sao Paulo, eating Churrasco (BBQ) and making Caipirinhas. I still want to tick off going to a football game, going to Rio de Janeiro and Iguacu Falls. These will probably have to wait until next semester however - given the little time I have left this time. However! I have since Week 1 wanted to go Dune Surfing, so I have said already that the plan for my birthday is to go Dune Surfing, go out and then watch the sun rise on the beach! I will be making this happen!! The last part shouldn't be too difficult either considering most events finish an hour before sun rise anyway. I have also reserved surfing lessons once a week for the next five weeks so: tick! That's another one off the list! (Providing of course the weather holds out!) Living the 'Friends' lifestyle: I've kept this quiet for aaaages but it's got to the point where I can hold it in no longer! For anyone who knows the hit American TV show 'Friends', you will be familiar with the 'Ugly Naked Guy' who the cast can "see" from Monicas flat in the earlier series. Well, we live in an apartment complex and are surrounded by other apartment blocks. We're on the fourth floor (one of the highest) and my bedroom along with the living room balcony face out over another complex. Basically I have a perfect view right into a flat opposite! And not only that, I can see right into a guys bedroom. But he is not just any guy, he is a guy who, until this week actually, has not understood the concept of curtains! Now before you get too excited nothing scandalous has happened like him walking around naked. However, for a while it did seem like he enjoyed taking his shirt off for the world. I would be working on my laptop or skyping friends from home and I would catch a naked back out of the corner of my eye. He especially liked to do this when it was getting dark and thus required turning the light on. So the world was even more aware of his half-nakedness. Notice that I've used the past tense? Yeah, this week he became shy and used his curtains. It's only taken him three months... I'm not sure if I'm upset by this or if this boy should be congratulated? Because it's not like he's open with his flatmates. No! He shuts the door first! ANYWAY! In summary, I couldn't actually tell you what his face looked like but he has a very nice back and shoulders. My flatmate concurs. And the 'Friends' reference? I've named him 'Cute Naked Guy'. Cool story, correct?! Nostalgia And now for the sad bits: what with Hallowe'en, Bonfire Night/Guyfalks Night, my birthday and Christmas not far off or just gone, I've been feeling a little nostalgic. They're some of my favourite parts of the year and I'm a little sad I can't be home to celebrate them. But! Six weeks today I will be home so instead of feeling sorry for myself I've been putting my energy into coursework (slowly haha) and ticking things off my Bucket List! Hallowe'en in Brazil: So I read somewhere online that Brazil is apparently too upbeat to celebrate 'Day of the Dead' as they do in Mexico, and in general, there was no hype about either in shops, in conversation, nothing. Yet online it was saying that Brazil celebrates Hallowe'een as we do in Anglophone countries: dressing up as hideous monsters or honouring Hallowe'ens Pagan origins. However as far as I know there was only one club in the Centre that actually did anything to celebrate the occasion. We all had our own things going on though so we didn't celebrate it anyway. Hope everyone had a great one though! It was really fun being able to see people from different parts of the world celebrating it in different ways :D Christmas decorations: It was early to mid-October, and already the Christmas decorations were making their grand appearances! I thought early November was too much! But it would appear otherwise... I love Christmas! But early October?! In other news, I normally don't give into this until after my birthday, but today I blasted out my first Christmas songs of the year! Not long now! Portuguese language: It's reached that stage where I sometimes go to speak Portuguese as the first language to people now instead of English or Spanish! I'm rather surprised! I'm definitely not saying I'm now a fluent native, oh no no! Probably at the point where the environment is having an effect :) Happy days for my Portuguese! Not so much for my Spanish though :S That should be added to my November goals: working on my Spanish!! Oops! I've got a lot more confidence in my conversational language and according to one of the girls in my theatre class, my accent is a lot better than it was too! Score!! Well! I believe that is all for now. I hope everyone had a fantastic Hallowe'en or Day of the Dead, and for those of you in Britain: enjoy your Guyfaulks Night celebrations on the fifth! Big hugs and kisses!! |
Floripa
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