P. Alegre II

March 29-30

My second visit to Pouso Alegre was a fun one.

Saturday

In the morning I packed my things, ate a quick breakfast, and headed to CELIL to present an activity for a class. After the presentation and signing-up two students to participate, I headed to the bus station. I took the bus at 10:30 that headed to Campinas. The second stop on the route was in Pouso Alegre, where Tiago met me at the bus station. We then took a local bus that dropped us off in his neighborhood.

I tried a new fruit, caqui (persimmon fruit).

When we arrived at his house, it was lunch time. Tiago had been talking about cooking some beef stroganoff for a few days, and decided to do it then. Meanwhile, I prepared mango juice to go with the meal. I peeled a mango, cut it in to pieces, placed those pieces in the food processor with water, and let it go to work. Once the fruit reached that smooth, juice/smoothie like consistency, I added some sugar and poured it in to a pitcher which I then placed in the refrigerator.


Tiago's stroganoff was tasty although he accidentally cooked with the wrong type of beef. He thought that his mom had left out the filet mignon to thaw that morning, but it was a different cut of meat. So the stroganoff was a little chewy than it otherwise would have been. It was all good with me though. I'm kind of glad it didn't go perfect the first time, because Tiago told me he would fix it again another time, with all the right ingredients. That works for me!

A few hours later we went to Tiago's grandmother's place to pick-up Marlene (Tiago's mom) who was visiting. Tiago's grandma had a pretty bad fall recently in which she broke her arm and acquired a few other bruises- including a black eye. She looked pretty banged-up when we arrived, but her daughters and family have been taking good care of her. Plus, her spirits were up and she seemed to be doing well.

From there, we went to the grocery store to find some ingredients I would need for the weekend. See, Tiago and Marlene have been anticipating and looking forward to trying an American-style breakfast, ever since I talked about it during my first visit. So this weekend we were going to cook that. The fist grocery store did not everything we were looking for (turns out it's not so easy to find maple syrup in Brazil), so we went to another, larger market in town called Hipermercado Baronesa.

They had a variety of international goods there, including maple syrup. We also bought Farinha de Milho em Flocos Pré-Cozida (aka- instant grits), queijo cheddar (cheddar cheese), suco de laranja (orange juice), bacon (bacon- [haha]), calabresa (a type of sausage), pão (bread to make toast), and whatever else was not already in the house. It was tricky figuring out what exactly was "grits" here in Brazil. Also with the breakfast meats, I tried to determine which one was most like typical sausage that I am accustomed to. There's quite a selection here: salchicha, calabresa, and linguiça.

Later I looked up recipes for pancakes and grits to make sure I cooked them correctly. Being in another country, it made for a neat experience finding recipes in Portuguese. Then I could read the ingredients directly from the steps and translate any words or foods I wasn't sure about.




A little before 20:00, Tiago and I headed out to meet up with a friend of his and head to the futsal court. I wasn't prepared to play soccer this trip, having left my indoor shoes back in Itajubá, but any opportunity to play soccer here with Brazilians- I'm going to take! Ha. Tiago did not want to play, so he was able to take some pictures and record video for me as I played. It was pretty fun and I met some new people.







We returned to the house, cleaned-up, and decided to visit another friend of Tiago's who had recently moved. Tiago had not been to his new house yet, and there were a few other friends gathering there to hang-out. Before heading that way though, Tiago ordered for us some esfihas abertas, which were basically like a personal-pan pizza. Tiago had raved about the esfiha de brócolis during my first visit, so I was finally able to try it for myself. Marlene prepared suco de acerola, a fruit that is packed with vitamin C!

I had the esfiha de brócolis...tasty!
The acerola juice was good too. 

I enjoyed meeting Tiago's friend Guilherme later that night. There were 7 of us gathered. We had good conversation over snacks, soda, and cocktails. I did not partake in the alcohol. I got to practice my Portuguese and received some compliments on how well I was speaking after only having been here for a little over two-and-a-half months... [Yesssss!] :)


- We arrived back at the house at 3am, com muito sono.

Sunday

Domingo, I had cafe de manhã (breakfast: coffee, bread, banana) with Tiago's mom while Tiago was still sleeping. We discussed the American breakfast that we were going to fix and I suggested we do it after church, at lunch time. So we were going to have breakfast (again) instead of lunch today, haha. We walked to Mass in a church not too far from the house. This was another new church for me, different from the one I attended on my first visit to Pouso Alegre.

My plate

After Mass, we returned to the house and started cooking! Tiago's mom and I had fun working in the kitchen. She first started to cook the sausages while I prepared the pancake batter. The first pancake I cooked was a "test" pancake, after I botched the flip. I set it to the side as I poured my second and third pancake on to the hot pan. I then tasted the folded over pancake to see what kind of pancakes these would be, and I was pleasantly surprised how good it tasted. These pancakes were going to be off-the-chain! To tell you the truth, they tasted better than some buttermilk pancakes I've ordered from IHOP before. [ohhhh, no he didn't.... yep, I did.] After the pancakes, I moved to the bacon, then the grits, and finally the eggs. Tiago's mom was here and there, helping me collect things from the kitchen that I needed and assisting with items on the stove. She enjoyed it too, comparing the grits and other food that I was preparing to foods she had seen or tasted before in northeast Brazil. When we finished, we had quite a spread of breakfast foods- American style!

From back to front: yellow corn grits (in pot), maple syrup, honey,
butter, orange juice, toast, pancakes, sausages,
bacon, cheddar cheese, eggs (covered)

The Cooks!

That evening, we headed to SerraSul Shopping again to see a movie- this time, Need for Speed. Tiago's friend Alison joined us. I had first met him the previous night, when he walked with us to and  from the indoor soccer court. Alison is already a pretty experienced traveler. After futsal, he told me about backpacking through the big cities of Europe, catching planes, buses, and trains between Madrid, Rome, Athens, London, and other prominent European cities. He has also traveled to the States, and plans to return and visit New York next year during his vacation time.

We took a corona (carpooled) back to Itajubá that night with some other friends of Tiago. It was quicker, more efficient, and cheaper than traveling by bus- and we were dropped off much closer to our house than if we had went by bus.