The sun and surf

The day we got back from Foz we got cheap flights to Florianopolis and we booked it about 4 hrs before it actually boarded, so packed in a hurry. Mairon and Marcio were joining us three girls this time. Flight was delayed; got a bit of a Brazilian history lesson from Mairon, flight was delayed again; dozed in our chairs, and the flight was then cancelled at about midnight. We blame Vanessa and another of her jinxes, but we got a night and breakfast in a nearby hotel. We were picked up by Marcio’s friends who we were staying with. Floripa, as the locals say, is half on the mainland and half on Ilha (island) de Santa Catarina. We spent the first day driving around the island, going shopping and had a snack (the first time Emma was to eat a chocolate pastel, which would later become her obsession and addiction - it is like a filo/puff pastry parcel filled with chocolate and deep fried)
I fell in love with this island! Cute towns and surfing culture, I could just imagine living there. We went out that night for dinner at the most heavenly restaurant. It was a buffet pizzeria, but they serve you at the table, and they even had dessert pizza. Waiting for a table, one of the kids tried talking to me, not realizing I couldn’t understand her language - so she eventually leant over to whisper in my ear, as if that would help me comprehend. Everyone laughed at this. I also had ‘Happy Birthday’ sung for me in Portuguese in the restaurant - everyone in the entire room was clapping and looking at me, which I guess was the point of the joke.
The next day we headed to the beach, with only Mariana from the family we were staying with joining us. Cloudy day - another of Vanessa’s jinxes, but still warm. Crowded, big waves, fun! Had cocktails on the beach and lunch in town. Conversations about Brazil’s racial makeup, our favourite words in English and how exactly you peel prawns. I drove us home! It was scary driving on the wrong side of the road but it was a bit fun too. Hit one car with my wing mirror - whoops. Haha. The boys don’t want to drive with me now. But I think Brazilians are worse drivers and they are even used to the wrong side of the road. We headed into town for desert later that night and by chance saw a school practicing for Carnaval and some dancers doing Capoeira - my first experience with it all.
The 5 of us drove north a bit the next day to a German settled town called Blumenau. Lots of German-esque buildings mixed in with the typical Brazilians ones, athough the buildings looked kind of recent and a bit kitsch. Humidity and beer seems to be the best two words to sum up the place. Stopped at the beach on the way back, I think it was either Itajai or Itapema, and ate churros with dolce de leite after my swim. Stopped at another beach before we said goodbye to the boys who were flying back earlier.

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