brazil -- the monkey country
i've pretty much decided that i'm gonna use this account only for travel-related posts...i think that's probably because that's what i associate the word "journal" with...well, it's that time again -- we've traveled to brazil...
in fact, we have already returned, and i guess this makes it harder to write about it: when we were in brazil, i couldn't wait until i share my impressions and experiences with the world, but sitting at a computer in my office at work, i don't really feel that way anymore...brazil is gone, and so is the mood of writing about it...i bet scott feels the same way: he managed to write one post about brazil (http://msilenus.livejournal.com/94303.html) when we were still there and were able to get a hold of a computer with a super slow internet connection, but now it's been several days since we got back, and i don't see him posting anymore...
well, i'm gonna try to write about our travels anyway...maybe not in one post, but in several -- we'll see...here we go...
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it all started when we got a "gift certificate" for two round-trip tickets to brazil for christmas from scott's parents...great and expensive gift, for which we were very grateful...we kinda didn't think of using it right away, but soon after christmas we started getting questions from scott's mom about when we were gonna go to brazil...of course, now it all makes sense because after all, she ended up going with us and paying for everything, which turned out to be our birthday gift...
i was a bit afraid that we will get bored on the trip, but in the end, our vacation had a great pacing to it...i would say it ended up consisting of three parts, and, considering the whole trip was only about eight days or so (without traveling to and from us for 15 hours each way), it was perfect...
first part was staying in brotas -- a little town, inland, where regina (scott's second mom, as he calls her) and her family lives...the second part was staying at regina's sister's beach house, and third -- taking a short 2-day-1-night trip to paraty (or parati -- pronounced "parachi") -- a small historic town, also on the beach...in the end, there were enough activities on one hand and relaxation on the other that the trip didn't seem to be too long or too short, which is exactly what you want out of your vacation, isn't that right?
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eating is what we spent quite a bit of time doing in brazil, starting a second after we met with regina at the airport in sao paulo...there she introduced us to "pao de queijo" -- brazilian cheese-bread, which is a very traditional thing in brazil...our second snack stop was at the gas station called "frango assado" ("baked chicken"), where we were supposed to have "empanemas" -- some sort of chicken pies, but unfortunately they ran out of them, and we had some other chicken and cheese pies instead...they tasted surprisingly russian...
speaking of which, i was surprised to learn that portuguese has words that are very similar to ukrainian, and pronunciation -- very similar to russian (at least regina told me that i was pronouncing portuguese words without an accent)..for example, those who know ukrainian, guess what the word "cebola" means...yep, "onion" (in ukrainian "onion" is "tsybulya", which is pronounced pretty much identical to the portuguese word, unlike the russian "luk", which is very different)
i heard some english-speaking people saying that they have a hard time distinguishing portuguese and russian -- they think the two languages sound very similar...well, even though both have the sound "zh" and softened consonants, i don't think they sound similar at all...to my ukrainian ear, portuguese sounds like a mix of spanish, italian, and french...
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regina's parents are pretty wealthy...they live in a house that was built in 1917 -- probably one of the nicest houses in brotas with very high ceilings, nice old grand piano in the living room (which i got a chance to play on), all sorts of silver-literally-ware all over the place, and a huge swimming pool outside where we swam on saturday (february 17th) after the fish barbecue...they also own a farm ("fazenda" to be precise), where they grow lots and lots of sugar cane...regina's brother pedro also has a farm...we went to see both farms on monday (february 19th), which was our third day in brazil...
to get to the farm, we took regina's father's truck, which is the biggest car in town, because any other car would not be able to handle the road to the farm...we did not go into the house because the manager's family moved in there after their own house got destroyed...or something like that...the nature everywhere is beautiful -- everything is so green...there is a lake nearby...cows...horses...birds...weird trees...
to get to pedro's farm, we drove for probably more than an hour...the house on pedro's farm was built by slaves (no one knows the exact date though), and regina's great grandpa bought the farm some time in the early 1900s, if i recall correctly...there is a small river running through the farm, and the whole area is surrounded by green mountains...you can even see a couple of waterfalls going down these hills...it's absolutely beautiful...
what's not beautiful is the little shacks where the people who work at the farm live -- there is definitely a very visible difference between the rich and the poor in brazil...it was kinda sad and uncomfortable to pass by their small dirty houses in a huge truck on the way to the farm...
from there we went to check out the farm house -- after all, it's kind of a historic place...it's built on a hill, where the top floors used to be occupied by the owners, and the bottom floor with multiple small rooms used to be the rooms for slaves...regina said that they got rid of the chains and cuffs that used to be in the rooms...when we got to the balcony on the top floor, a crazy bee got out of nowhere and tried to get into regina's hair...scott started freaking out (he is afraid of bees more than of anything else), but i bravely helped regina to get the bee out of her hair, and right after the operation was declared to be a success, the bee stung me on the shoulder...i felt a very sudden and strong pain (that's how i figured out that i got stung), and we quickly left the house...everyone thought that it could have been a killer bee, so they didn't want the rest of the bees to show up and sting us to death...
scott was waiting for my sting to swell up, so he could take a picture, bit in a couple of hours you couldn't even tell where exactly i got stung...
from there, we started driving back to brotas...on the way we passed by another town -- apparently a little bigger than brotas -- called sao pedro...we were planning on stopping there to have early dinner, but the place regina wanted to take us to was closed due to the carnival holidays...we walked around a bit and each had a pastel (another type of pie)...
when we got to brotas, it was already evening...scott and i decided to go down to jacare (crocodile -- pronounced "zhakare") river -- the one we were rafting on the day before...the river is only a block or two away from regina's house, and there are several small waterfalls right down the street...we took a short hike along the river, helped some couple with taking their picture, tried to exchange a few words with them...almost successfully...then went to take a look at the bridge across the river, and that's where a bunch of college or even high school kids sopped us with big smiles on their faces...there were a bit drunk and happy and really liked scott's hat...in fact they liked it so much that they all wanted to wear it and have pictures taken...
finally, we went to say bye to regina's family -- we were leaving for the beach the next day and then went out for dinner to the same place we went to on our first day...by the way, life in brotas starts at about nine in the evening (note, we had our dinner at eleven in the evening on saturday)...people fill the small streets, cafes, and restaurants...they start dancing inside and out...everyone has a drink in their hands...everyone is happy...
in fact, we have already returned, and i guess this makes it harder to write about it: when we were in brazil, i couldn't wait until i share my impressions and experiences with the world, but sitting at a computer in my office at work, i don't really feel that way anymore...brazil is gone, and so is the mood of writing about it...i bet scott feels the same way: he managed to write one post about brazil (http://msilenus.livejournal.com/94303.html) when we were still there and were able to get a hold of a computer with a super slow internet connection, but now it's been several days since we got back, and i don't see him posting anymore...
well, i'm gonna try to write about our travels anyway...maybe not in one post, but in several -- we'll see...here we go...
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
it all started when we got a "gift certificate" for two round-trip tickets to brazil for christmas from scott's parents...great and expensive gift, for which we were very grateful...we kinda didn't think of using it right away, but soon after christmas we started getting questions from scott's mom about when we were gonna go to brazil...of course, now it all makes sense because after all, she ended up going with us and paying for everything, which turned out to be our birthday gift...
i was a bit afraid that we will get bored on the trip, but in the end, our vacation had a great pacing to it...i would say it ended up consisting of three parts, and, considering the whole trip was only about eight days or so (without traveling to and from us for 15 hours each way), it was perfect...
first part was staying in brotas -- a little town, inland, where regina (scott's second mom, as he calls her) and her family lives...the second part was staying at regina's sister's beach house, and third -- taking a short 2-day-1-night trip to paraty (or parati -- pronounced "parachi") -- a small historic town, also on the beach...in the end, there were enough activities on one hand and relaxation on the other that the trip didn't seem to be too long or too short, which is exactly what you want out of your vacation, isn't that right?
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
eating is what we spent quite a bit of time doing in brazil, starting a second after we met with regina at the airport in sao paulo...there she introduced us to "pao de queijo" -- brazilian cheese-bread, which is a very traditional thing in brazil...our second snack stop was at the gas station called "frango assado" ("baked chicken"), where we were supposed to have "empanemas" -- some sort of chicken pies, but unfortunately they ran out of them, and we had some other chicken and cheese pies instead...they tasted surprisingly russian...
speaking of which, i was surprised to learn that portuguese has words that are very similar to ukrainian, and pronunciation -- very similar to russian (at least regina told me that i was pronouncing portuguese words without an accent)..for example, those who know ukrainian, guess what the word "cebola" means...yep, "onion" (in ukrainian "onion" is "tsybulya", which is pronounced pretty much identical to the portuguese word, unlike the russian "luk", which is very different)
i heard some english-speaking people saying that they have a hard time distinguishing portuguese and russian -- they think the two languages sound very similar...well, even though both have the sound "zh" and softened consonants, i don't think they sound similar at all...to my ukrainian ear, portuguese sounds like a mix of spanish, italian, and french...
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
regina's parents are pretty wealthy...they live in a house that was built in 1917 -- probably one of the nicest houses in brotas with very high ceilings, nice old grand piano in the living room (which i got a chance to play on), all sorts of silver-literally-ware all over the place, and a huge swimming pool outside where we swam on saturday (february 17th) after the fish barbecue...they also own a farm ("fazenda" to be precise), where they grow lots and lots of sugar cane...regina's brother pedro also has a farm...we went to see both farms on monday (february 19th), which was our third day in brazil...
to get to the farm, we took regina's father's truck, which is the biggest car in town, because any other car would not be able to handle the road to the farm...we did not go into the house because the manager's family moved in there after their own house got destroyed...or something like that...the nature everywhere is beautiful -- everything is so green...there is a lake nearby...cows...horses...birds...weird trees...
to get to pedro's farm, we drove for probably more than an hour...the house on pedro's farm was built by slaves (no one knows the exact date though), and regina's great grandpa bought the farm some time in the early 1900s, if i recall correctly...there is a small river running through the farm, and the whole area is surrounded by green mountains...you can even see a couple of waterfalls going down these hills...it's absolutely beautiful...
what's not beautiful is the little shacks where the people who work at the farm live -- there is definitely a very visible difference between the rich and the poor in brazil...it was kinda sad and uncomfortable to pass by their small dirty houses in a huge truck on the way to the farm...
from there we went to check out the farm house -- after all, it's kind of a historic place...it's built on a hill, where the top floors used to be occupied by the owners, and the bottom floor with multiple small rooms used to be the rooms for slaves...regina said that they got rid of the chains and cuffs that used to be in the rooms...when we got to the balcony on the top floor, a crazy bee got out of nowhere and tried to get into regina's hair...scott started freaking out (he is afraid of bees more than of anything else), but i bravely helped regina to get the bee out of her hair, and right after the operation was declared to be a success, the bee stung me on the shoulder...i felt a very sudden and strong pain (that's how i figured out that i got stung), and we quickly left the house...everyone thought that it could have been a killer bee, so they didn't want the rest of the bees to show up and sting us to death...
scott was waiting for my sting to swell up, so he could take a picture, bit in a couple of hours you couldn't even tell where exactly i got stung...
from there, we started driving back to brotas...on the way we passed by another town -- apparently a little bigger than brotas -- called sao pedro...we were planning on stopping there to have early dinner, but the place regina wanted to take us to was closed due to the carnival holidays...we walked around a bit and each had a pastel (another type of pie)...
when we got to brotas, it was already evening...scott and i decided to go down to jacare (crocodile -- pronounced "zhakare") river -- the one we were rafting on the day before...the river is only a block or two away from regina's house, and there are several small waterfalls right down the street...we took a short hike along the river, helped some couple with taking their picture, tried to exchange a few words with them...almost successfully...then went to take a look at the bridge across the river, and that's where a bunch of college or even high school kids sopped us with big smiles on their faces...there were a bit drunk and happy and really liked scott's hat...in fact they liked it so much that they all wanted to wear it and have pictures taken...
finally, we went to say bye to regina's family -- we were leaving for the beach the next day and then went out for dinner to the same place we went to on our first day...by the way, life in brotas starts at about nine in the evening (note, we had our dinner at eleven in the evening on saturday)...people fill the small streets, cafes, and restaurants...they start dancing inside and out...everyone has a drink in their hands...everyone is happy...