Some Good Meals

Despite my being sick, Clay and I still tried to get out a bit. On his day off this past Sunday, we walked down to a new (to us) Churrascoria, Porcao. We had heard it was one of the better in town and we really had a great time! We got there around 2pm and put our name on the list, then went to the bar to wait. The bar is a little more than a bar though. It's a separate room with tables and it's own wait staff to bring drinks, empadas and clear dishes. There was also a anti-pasta bar with cheeses, breads, mini sausages, chicken hearts (blech!), hard boiled quail eggs and black bean soup. We could have filled up before even going into the main dining room, but thank goodness we didn't!

Churrascorias are, if you haven't been to one, a kind of Brazilian barbecue restaurant on steroids. There is every kind of meat you can think of, brought to your table on large skewers by servers who cut slices for you. You each have a card on your table, one side is red - meaning no thanks, and the other is green - meaning bring me the meat!!! (Exactly like Fogo de Chao in Houston if you've been). There is also the biggest and best salad bar you have EVER seen. 

We ate sooo much food. The salad bar had, wonderful sushi, fresh fruit and veggies, various personal salads (caprese, ceasar, corn, etc), and some wonderful warm seafood (paella, shrimp, crab cakes in sea shells). YUM. The meat selections were roasted hen, barbecue pork ribs, lamb, various sausages, and more cuts of beef than I think I could list. I think I had: brisket, flank steak, top round, filet mignon, and I'm sure there was more.

I also went on Saturday with a friend to have traditional Feijoada at a new (again, new to me) place that does it every day! (Normally Feijoada is strictly a weekend meal. But with the name Casa de Feijoada, you have to bet that's all they do and they do it well!) It's a popular place because after we showed up at about 12:45 a long line formed outside. Feijoada is a bean stew with all kinds of meat that has been slow stewed together. You also get rice, beans, farofa, kale, yucca, orange slices and hot pepper sauce along with the stew pot. It's kind of a make it the way you like it meal so you can take as much or as little of all the sides as you want. This will be a definite stop when my family comes to town in two weeks! I can't wait!

The Sweeeeeeen Gripe

Sorry for the lapse in blogging all, but I have been under the weather for about two weeks! I am finally beginning to feel like myself again this week and have been getting out and about again (finally! I thought I was going to go stir crazy!). I'm not exactly sure what it was, my vote is that I had a bacterial something after eating some bad food, and mom's vote is Swine Flu which is currently running rampant in South America. Here it is referred to as the Swine (pronounced sweeeeeen) gripe, hence the title.

I did try out many different Brazilian medications, which was interesting. All the medication here is about 3-4 times as potent as what we have back home. For example, one dose of Tylenol back home would include two 200mg pills. Here, one dose is one 750mg pill! It is also interesting here that you don't really need a prescription for anything here. I was given the name for an antibiotic used by one of Clay's coworkers who was given the name by another coworker, both of which needed it. And needless to say, all I'd have to do is walk up to the counter with the name of what I wanted and I'd get it. I'm curious how many people take advantage here...

Thanks to everyone for all the prayers and thoughtful emails, chats, etc. I'm doing much better!

Some Random Pics

Here are some random Brazil pictures I've had in my camera for a week or so:Still trying to get a good picture at our favorite place, Sindicato. Maybe there's a ghost...

Our Picannha dinner. You cook the meat on the skillet and then add the carb-trio and beans.

Ipanema Beach.

Clay and his coworker.

The drink of Brazil, Caiparinha.

The Cinema Experience

Yesterday, Clay and I went to see the new Harry Potter movie in Copacabana.  This was an interesting adventure for a few reasons. The first being that there is not, that I've been able to find, a website for the movie theater we wanted to go to! I knew HP was one of the movies showing from walking past the theater, but had no idea what times or if it would even be in English!

 Finally I found movie times via Google's Showtimes feature. (I can't believe it took so long!) And it also let me know whether the film would be Dublado or Lengendado (Dubbed or in English with Portuguese subtitles). So now we know there's a movie that we are able to understand at 4PM! The next step is actually conveying which movie and what time and then figuring out the theater.

 Luckily, Clay and I have been practicing our Portuguese. We walked down to the Roxy and got in line for tickets. (Tip: it's always a good idea to have enough cash b/c you never know who will or will not have credit card machines or have them in working order). Good thing we brought enough cash, b/c their machines were broken that day. We asked for two tickets and were surprised to be asked which seats we wanted! The attendant pulled up a computer screen showing us a layout of the theater with seats that were already taken and those that were left. It looked like we got there just in time to get some of the last seats together! Now we know people get there early to choose their seats! 

 We got our tickets, our popcorn and soda (which was very much like back home) then headed to the theater...wait...there are three theaters and none of them are marked. It didn't say on our tickets which one we were in...so we just followed some people into theater 2 and hoped it was the right one. Then we found our seats, C6 and C7, only a little boy was in one of our seats. When we showed him our tickets he agreed with us that our tickets said 6 and 7 and agreed that my seat and his seat were numbers 6 and 7, but didn't seem to understand that he needed to move! He just sat there, agreed, and then looked away. This would have been fine had there not been another man who needed seat 5 that Clay was in. We tried, in very bad Portuguese, to explain and found out (THANK GOODNESS) that he spoke English! We said we were sorry, we couldn't explain to the kid that he needed to move and could he help us? He did and the kid moved. I don't understand why showing him our tickets wasn't enough to prompt him moving, but it all worked out!

 The movie was wonderful and Brazilians seem to be very concerned about keeping quiet and not bothering others. We noticed this when a baby started getting fussy, the crowd wasted no time shushing the baby and mother, and when that didn't work, telling her to take the baby out! Haha, it was pretty funny, especially considering they're reading the subtitles and not listening. (That's a blanket statement; I'm sure some people in the theater knew English and were listening.)

It was a fun afternoon out! 

Exploring Leblon

Clay had his day off yesterday and we had planned on having a Copacabana day, sitting on the beach, eating in the area and just sort of exploring the area. Well, luck would have it that we woke up Sunday morning to a drizzly, windy and COLD day. It was probably the coldest day we've spent in Rio and the wind made it feel colder! We were walking down the beach and it was so windy that sand had blown into dunes on the street! We had to go into the city to get away from what reminded us of Texas dust storms!

So, needless to say, we had to change our plans. We walked to one of the main roads in our neighborhood and started walking towards Leblon (the neighborhood just to the east of us). Neither of us has really seen that area before and we really liked it. The sidewalks are bigger so you don't feel like you're going to run into people all the time and it looked altogether a little more upscale. 

We ate at this great place near Lagoa called Via Sete for lunch. We shared their chilled tomato soup, that came out in cute little shot glasses with a mini sausage and celery and mushroom pate. Then we each got one of their combos. You pick a meat, a side, a salad and a sauce. I had the chicken (when I ordered they asked me if I wanted my chicken cooked "Medium" which is really strange, I just told them to cook it through, but I still got a chicken breast that looked like a steak in the center. Still very good, just an interesting difference here) with a caprese salad, grilled veggies and a creamy mushroom sauce. Clay had their picannha steak with brazilian sauce, a ceasar salad and fries. The best part were the fun cocktails they had. I didn't believe my eyes at first, but there it was, Margarita was on the list! I couldn't help myself and got one. A Brazilian margarita is VERY different from what we have in Texas though...it was more like a tequila martini with a salt rim. Tasty, but strong!

Then we walked down into Leblon and found a mall. We walked through it to see what a Rio mall is like. It was very nice and seemed to have some pretty high-end shops. They even had a Mac store! We also found a movie theater that has movies in english that are just subtitled in Portuguese. I think I'll be going back there some afternoon. Around 4 a futebol match between our new favorite team, Flamengo, and Sao Paulo was on so we ducked into a restaurant/bar to watch. The teams tied, but it was a fun game!  

That evening we tried a new place for dinner that is on our street. It's a chain they have all over the city called Koni. It's basically a restaurant for sushi hand rolls. We each had two, I had a salmon and mushroom and a Philadelphia style hand roll. Clay had a tuna and "hot steele" slamon. He couldn't pass up the name! It was gooooooood. And in keeping with the cone theme, they have desserts in waffle cones. I had a chocolate mousse and Clay had sweet coconut and nutella. YUM! 

Well, that was a long post, but we have to cram a lot in to the ONE day a week we have together! I'm off to the beach for the afternoon!

Clay's Project

has officially begun! As of today the rig is in the shipyard and we begin the 113 day countdown until project end (that is, assuming nothing goes over schedule). Clay should be done October 10th and be able to come back home. 

That also means that this is the first Saturday I'm spending without Clay. It's only Sunday's off from here on out! :( But It should go quickly, I've got things to do around the apartment to make it a little more like home, some graphic design work for the Church, and of course there's always shopping and the beach! 

Clay sent me some pictures of the rig coming into the shipyard for everyone to see. It's definitly in need of repair!

Best dinner in Rio so far!

We had the best dinner the other night at a new place in Ipanema. It was nothing fancy, but it was different than what we've had in Rio so far. We had shrimp empanadas for an appetizer and they were soooo good! Then we had this dish called file mignon apertivo, which was little bits of file mignon, pearl onions, gorgonzola cheese in a gravy and topped with potato chips! It tasted just like french onion soup. I wish I'd brought my camera to take pictures. i need to get better about bringing it with me! I think we'll be eating there again!

The Rio ER Experience

Now before I worry anyone, we're okay, Clay has had a pretty bad cold all week and needed to be seen by a doctor. His secretary set up an appointment for us to be picked up and driven to the hospital. When we got there, the receptionist told us that the appointment was for the emergency room. So we walked down the hall to the ER reception and outside the door was a box of masks with a note about wearing one if you have flu symptoms (Swine flu has just gotten to South America and they're in full freak out mode). That didn't worry me too much until we go in the reception area and there are people coughing all over the place and only some are wearing masks...no flu symptoms here yet though (knock on wood).

After about a 30 minute wait we get called back. The ER looked pretty much like the ones in the US, but maybe a little older looking. The doctor spoke enough English to be able to understand Clay's symptoms and give us some medicine. Turns out we didn't have to pay anything, but left with a list of medications. One was Tylenol, which is pretty normal except for the fact that one pill here is 750 mgs where one at home is about 200 mgs. The other is like a cough drop with a numbing agent in it and we're not quite sure what the third is for because we can't read any of the information. 

Clay seems to be getting better every day though so whatever the medicine is, it must be working! At least now we know where to go if either of us get sick.  

First week back and 4th of July

Happy 4th of July (a day late)! Yesterday Clay and I spent the day looking for all the ingredients for the traditional 4th of July hamburgers and hotdogs and apple pie! We found everything but the cinnamon, but the pie was still great! We invited 6 of Clay's coworkers over to eat with us and celebrate the day. It was fun to have them all there, but I'll tell you, it was quite a feat to make so much food in that tiny kitchen! I almost ran out of room!! I didn't think to get any pictures, but the whole dinner tasted almost American! Haha.

Now that I'm recovering, it seems I've passed on my illness to Clay whose not been feeling to well today, but seems to be perking up this afternoon. 

We took some pictures of our favorite restaurant at our corner (Sindicato) but unfortunately our horrible camera corrupted all the files. I'll post what I can and from now on we'll use a different camera. Enjoy!

Clay and Marlon

Clay and I (again sorry for the files) The guy in the white shirt behind us is our waiter/friend Elemar.The food, Frango a Passarinho and batatas fritas.Us again.