My Brazilian Family

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After all my travels in South America and Antarctica, I was finally got to the place / person that had inspired the whole trip. For those of you who don't know my family is heavily involved in Rotary Youth Exchange. As a result there have been a large number of exchange students who've shared our home and a special few who have found their way to be considered a permanant part of my family.

My parents had been able to visit quite a few of these adopted family members in Europe 2 years ago when they escprted some outboand students there. But hadn't yet made it to visit one such student, Gabriela, who is these days studying in Sao Paulo. Originally when I decided that I wanted to spend a decent amount of time travelling the plan was to meet up with folks in Brazil right in the middle of the holiday and visit with gabi and her family together. It didn't work out for my folks, but that wasn't going to stop me. I still wanted to see Gabi.

So at the end of my South America trip I'd arranged to have a week in Sao Paulo. No real plans. No real agenda, just fit into whatever plans Gabi had. At 7:30 am on the 31st I flew to Sao Paulo to meet up with her. The only problem was that in the time leading up to my time in Sao Paulo, Gabi let me know that she had exams coming up and was in the middle of a move and really couldn't spend much more time with me that just the weekend. So I'd been thinking about the different things that I could do. I considered heading back to Uruguay to spend a few days on the farm there, but after emailing them I found out that they weren't taking any more people until May since Suzanna was getting too close to giving birth.

The other places that I considered and were suggested were the Pantana or the Amazon. Both of which just sounded like too much effort since I didn't have malaria tablets. In the end I decided to just play it by ear and book something once I got to Sao Paulo and had Gabi's recommendations. She thought I would enjoy the beaches in the north east more than anything else, so we looked at how much it would be for me to go up there and enjoy a litle luxury... whilst I was thinking about the expenses (quite significant) Gabi came up with another option for me. Head out to Bariri, her home town, with her family and see what her life was like. This in my mind was a great idea. As far as I'm concerned Gabi is my sister so it only made sense that I should try to get to know her family too.

In the mean time Gabi and I had some catching up to do. Although I'm sure there are plenth of brilliantly exciting things to do in a city with a population the size of all of Australia, it is much more of a business centre than a tourist centre. Especially coming straight from Rio. Which may have been a good thing since I didn't have heaps of a chance to see things around the city. We went to a few restaurants, we went to a couple of shopping centres and we did a little sight seeing... but a large amount of time was spent doing the final stages of the move, checking into the interim flat and handing over the keys to the old appartment to the new owners and for me catching up on my sleep. As a result of the franetic pace we set on the intrepid tour I was exhausted and it took a good couple of sleep ins to fully catch up.

There were of course a few highlights than just sleeping to my time in Sao Paulo. And I would have to say for sure that the one that has stuck with me was the night that I got in to Sao Paulo. After having caught up on sleep and probably uploaded some photos or some such I went with Gabi to her a little bit a get together with some of her class mates. These were the top of the class and were doing a special advanced project together. Yes my sister Gabi is one smart cookie. The thing that I really enjoyed the most was the fact that the place they decided to get together was at... a karaoke bar. So in addition to my Spanish karoake experience in Montevideo, I also got to have a Portuguese karaoke experience. Do I have something that just attracts karaoke? Or is it just good luck?

I also learnt that the a large portion of the Brazilian youth, or maybe just the smart, wealthy Brazilian youth is speak english. So although I didn't really know what to say or who to say it to, I did get plenty of Gabi's friends coming up and chatting to me. It was quite flattering. One of the main questions that I got asked was how old I was or what university I studied at. everyone seemed to think that I was much younger than I really and most people were a little bit surprised when I explained that I am actually 28. Yay for me I guess.

Other than that the next really exciting time was on Sunday. Gabi and I met up with Gabi's father and a friend for lunch at one of the best Brazilian barbeque places around. Fogo do Chao. Which translates roughly as fire of the earth after the traditional manner of cooking involving a fire pit and the meat on spits right next to fire. The food was fantastic and like so many other meals... I ate far too much. That's always to be expected when it's all you can eat. Nice wine, brilliant meat of many different kinds and one fantastic dessert. Creme de manga. Which is basically mango and icecream blended together. Some times with condensed milk added and always with a touch of creme de cassis (another traditional Brazilian liqueor) poured over the top. Yummy. But this isn't supposed to be a blog about food...

After lunch we got to spend more time at one of my favourite places ever. We went to: the airport. If I could have all the time I've spent sitting around airports in my life back I would probably be about 2 years younger. But I haven't figured out how to get that time back just yet. The reason for this particular visit to the airport was to pick up Gabi's mother and sister. They'd been to China on a business trip for Gabi's parents' company then to Dubai for some shopping. Of course to make my trip to the airport even better, the flight was delayed and there was a huge line up going through customs. But I did managed to do something I'd been dying to do for a long time: buy a couple of novels in english. I'd run out of novels to read in pretty quick time so I'd been craving something to read. Something light and easy to read and in english.

After the airport and getting to meet all of Gabi's family I said goodbye to Gab and went with her mother and father for the 3 hour drive to their small home city or Bariri. I'm not sure that Bariri is really large enough to be called a city but either way that's where I was headed for a few days. The first shock of my time there was just how nice their house was. From the time that Gabi had spent in my house I definitely didnt' pick her as someone who had a huge, fancy house... and I later learned that the house is new and that she didn't grow up in a house anywhere near that fancy...

In this house I had pretty much the entire upstairs area to myself. This included my bedroom and my ensuite bathroom, the massive TV and home entertainment system and a small kitchen. Which is their third kitchen. There is a massive one downstairs, plus a second one downstairs and a third one upstairs. Again in Bariri I spent a large amount of time sleeping, but I also went spent time meeting Gabi's extended family, seeing the family farm and getting shown around Gabi's parent's factory. I spent an afternoon in Gabi's cousin's English class.

So I didn't really spend all that much time in Bariri but I'll definitely better end up going back sometime. The Raneiri family are definitely people that I want to spend more time with. After Bariri I headed back to Sao Paulo for 2 nights with Gabi and her sister Alessa. We drank and we ate and had a good time. And then we had to say goodbye.

It is hard to say goodbye to people that are family (or friends). Especially when you don't know if you will see them again in this year, this decade or this lifetime. But being a traveller means that you are always saying goodbye, because you have to in order to say hello to the next experience... so we made our promises and said farewell and will be seeing each other within too long. Exactly how long I'm not sure. But even though it saddened me to be leaving my sister behind again I was excited to be saying hello to my friends Jacob and Melinda, to Las Vegas, to the Bellagio and also to my Business Class Flight to get there. I had a few days of luxury coming up and I was long over due....

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Photos

Lunxh with Gabi and Ulissess
Not sure if I have the spelling right but this was lunch with Gabi and her father.... such good food.

Graziela and I
On my last morning in Bariri I posed with Gabi's mum before leaving for Sao Paulo

In Gabi's flat
Last night in Sao Paulo. We were supposed to be heading out to a pub but the one we wanted was full so we got wine and drank at Gabi's with a couple of her friend. Good night. Farewell Brazil