and the baby stole the show

My first Christmas with a baby!

hand over that coconut!

Couldn't leave town without some authentic Pernambucan food. Coconut water and coconut-cheese-sweetened condensed milk filled tapioca pancakes of deliciousness!

hot mess moments

Esculhambacao. Translation, A HOT MESS! Here are my top ten "hot mess" moments of the semester:

1. Biking around town with a flat tire and having to store the bike in the apartment of a friend of a friend who was out of town for the weekend.
2. Using fabric softener instead of laundry detergent to wash my clothes. For TWO MONTHS!
3. Surviving a four day weekend alone without electricity (no refrigerator, no tv, no internet, no washing machine--with my clothes in the middle of a cycle after recently discovering the previously mentioned softener fiasco...)
4. Racking up an R$18 library fee for checking out one book for less than a day. I quickly learned the don't-check-out-periodicals lesson. And to pay library fees you have to print out a bill, go to the bank to pay it, and bring the receipt back to the library. Boy was I missing on-line bill pay!
5. Using matches to light the stove when I could have just flipped the switch.
6. That time I spilt chimarrao all of the couch...
7. Deciding it was the right time to discover that the bottom of the blender screws off while it was full of my precious and hard-earned pumpkin puree.
8. My phone's SIM card decided to burn out (who knew they could just stop working?) when I was on my way to meet a friend for lunch in a building I had never heard of before.
9. Let's just say polenta + a blender full of fresh juice = bad idea, expansion of polenta in my stomach.
10. Trying to navigate Argentina and Paraguay with my creative but not necessarily correct "portunhol" (portuguese + espanhol).

meu chuchuzinho

The chuchu. Literally a vegetable that tastes like water, but also used as a term of endearment. Obviously I love it. So, what started as a simple effort to eduate me in the ways of the chuchu (as my time here is coming to an end and I'd never seen one) ended up as a lunch adventure that resembled Veggie Tales.

What do you say? Is the chuchu guilty?

notice to users

One of my favorite parts of Brazil:

"Notice to users: Before entering the elevator verify that it is actually stopped on this floor."

jump!

Every day this semester as I took the bus to school I thought about the pictures I wanted to take with the sign at the entrance to my campus. Today that day finally arrived! I made my way to campus bright and early for my last school-related activity (just picking up a test), stopped by the Antonio for a "cafezinho" (little coffee), and my classmate and I trotted down to snap some pics.

juicy juice

It may not look like much, but they've got the best all natural juice! Cheap and plentiful, it comes to ya still in the blender! Perfect on a hot summer day. My favorite, obviously mango.

Foz do Iguacu

Ginger and I took a trip to Iguacu Falls, one of the largest waterfalls in the world! We started out on a trail and every time we thought we had seen it all we turned the corner and there was an even bigger fall!

The trail ended in the "Devil's Throat." Talk about getting soaked!

First we went to the Brazilian side of the falls, then hit up the Argentine side.

Some crazy wildlife!

roaming porto alegre

four sore legs

Today was a full day of exploring downtown, the public market, souvenir shopping, a great buffet, sagu, lots of pictures, the botanical gardens, a couple bus rides, lots of walking, all natural mango juice, and caipirinha.

Ginger bought her first cuia!

Woohoo! Botanical Gardens!

Ginger came to visit!

My friend Ginger from Florida came to visit Marta and I! She's staying for a little more than a week, so we are packing in as much gaucha culture as we can! Today we started with the basics...

Grocery store! She's already addicted to chimarrao, and is sporting her pride in the tea ailse.

Bananas! So many different types!

First bus ride. It's suprising how much fun the mundane things of life can be when they're in a different country!