I spent the holidays with my friend and her family in the city of Hortolandia in the state of Sao Paolo. I arrived there a few days before Christmas so everybody was busy getting ready for Christmas. I went with my friend to city center to buy gifts and the place was packed. There was hardly anywhere to walk. All the stores were crowded. I could not imagine how it would have been in a bigger city. Christmas here in Brazil is one of the biggest holidays and is a time of great celebration. It is also a time for getting together with family and unfortunately a time of over indulgence.
The family I was staying with consisted of mother, father and three adult children. One of the children my friend lives in Abadiânia with me, the other female lives at home and the older child, the son is recently married and lives 20 minutes away. The Christmas dinner was held at the son’s home on the 25th in the night. Traditionally, Christmas is celebrated on the 24th at midnight. At that time people eat a huge Christmas dinner and open presents.
Given that family I stayed and I are vegetarians we did not have traditional, Brazilian Christmas dinner. The traditional meal consists of a lot of meat and in particular turkey. One traditional food that we did enjoy was panetone. This food is very similar to fruit cake. The really cool thing about panetone is the way it sold. They are usually sold in a bright colored box to match the festivities of the season. It’s like a gift box with a little cake inside. Many years ago, when I spent Christmas in Peru I was introduced to panetone, but I did not particularly like it because of the dried fruits. This experience with panetone was totally different! Now, panetone comes with either chocolate chips or dried fruits. The chocolate panetone is called chocotone. I totally enjoyed the chocotone because it was like eating cake with chocolate chips, and I love chocolate.
There was one downside to Christmas in Brazil. As you know Brazil is in the southern hemisphere, so this time of year is also summertime. Besides being summer, it is also the rainy season for many areas. For the two weeks that I was in Hortolandia, the rained probably most of the time and two of the days it rained was Christmas and New Years. I love the rain but it sort of put a damper on the holiday for me. I am used to having either sun or snow for the holiday season.
The New Year’s tradition in Brazil I think is more or less similar to many places in the world. We went to church at sunset to welcome the New Year. After the church service, the church had a large feast with fruits, nuts and bread, which is a tradition in the church. The family that I stayed with had a laid back family dinner and watched the New Year's concert and fire works on television. The rain dampened everyone’s enthusiasm to leave the house.
One New Year’s tradition in Brazil has to do with cloths. It is a tradition to welcome the New Year, in white. Usually all garments of cloths is white down to the underwear. This tradition helped explain why many of the clothing stores had mannequins dressed in white in the store windows.
I have to say all in all, Christmas and New Year was good. Even though I was not with my biological family, I felt like I was with family, because the family made me feel right at home and welcomed. Thanks to the Gonçalves Family!
Tuesday, January 20, 2009
A Bus Ride to Hortolandia, Sao Paulo
For the holidays a friend of mine, a fellow teacher, invited me to spend the holidays with her and her family. She lives in the State of Sao Paulo in the city of Hortolandia which is approximately 1 hour from the city of Sao Paulo. Rather than flying I decided to use the more affordable and longer way. I took the bus, 12hrs in all! My friend went a few days before. So, I took the bus alone, which was fine by me.
I bought my tickets the day before I had planned to go. Prior taking the trip, everyone warned me that the bus was punctual so I had to on time and that I had to be vigilant in the bus because people would try to rob me. I felt like they were trying to scare me but I know they just wanted me to be careful. Anyways, the most interesting thing about the busride, ironically, was the security and safety measures implemented by the government and bus company.
When I bought my ticket a form was stapled to the ticket, where the passengers had to fill in their name, address, phone number, date of birth etc. The bus driver would not allow any passenger on the bus who did not fill out the entire form. That was a first for me! I have taken the bus in several other Latin American countries and I had never had such an experience. Once in the bus, I noticed that all the seats were equipped with seat belts. Before leaving the bus station, the driver instructed all passengers to fasten their seat belts, because it was federal law. He, then, walked about the bus to ensure that all the passengers did as they were told. There were several stops on the way and before leaving each of the bus stations someone from the bus company did a walk through of the bus to ensure that no one had snuck into the bus and reminded the passengers to fasten our seat belts.
The bus ride was fine I had not problems with missing the bus or being robbed. Even though the bus ride was long I happy I took the bus because I had the opportunity to see the Brazilian landscape. The State of Goais, where I am living is in the center of Brazil while the State of Sao Paulo is in the South East of Brazil. Most of the areas we drove agricultural area, I saw several sugar cane field, soy beans field and other I could not quite identify. Driving through the countryside allowed me to see just how larger Brazil is. There were several towns and city spread over the Brazilian landscape. One interesting things I notices was that with every city we drove through there was a large sign with name of the city or town. The signs were not just a metal sign. The name was either chiseled in stone standing several feet high or was artistically done a the hedge.
As we approached the state of Sao Paulo I could notice the difference from the other states we drove though. Sao Paulo is an industrial state. There were several plants for various makes and models of cars and there were factories for several well known companies such as Dell and IBM. The cars in the area of Sao Paulo were also different. Many different makes, several Europeans models and there were larger cars than other places I had been in Brazil. Without a doubt you could see that this state is the industrial state of Brazil.
I bought my tickets the day before I had planned to go. Prior taking the trip, everyone warned me that the bus was punctual so I had to on time and that I had to be vigilant in the bus because people would try to rob me. I felt like they were trying to scare me but I know they just wanted me to be careful. Anyways, the most interesting thing about the busride, ironically, was the security and safety measures implemented by the government and bus company.
When I bought my ticket a form was stapled to the ticket, where the passengers had to fill in their name, address, phone number, date of birth etc. The bus driver would not allow any passenger on the bus who did not fill out the entire form. That was a first for me! I have taken the bus in several other Latin American countries and I had never had such an experience. Once in the bus, I noticed that all the seats were equipped with seat belts. Before leaving the bus station, the driver instructed all passengers to fasten their seat belts, because it was federal law. He, then, walked about the bus to ensure that all the passengers did as they were told. There were several stops on the way and before leaving each of the bus stations someone from the bus company did a walk through of the bus to ensure that no one had snuck into the bus and reminded the passengers to fasten our seat belts.
The bus ride was fine I had not problems with missing the bus or being robbed. Even though the bus ride was long I happy I took the bus because I had the opportunity to see the Brazilian landscape. The State of Goais, where I am living is in the center of Brazil while the State of Sao Paulo is in the South East of Brazil. Most of the areas we drove agricultural area, I saw several sugar cane field, soy beans field and other I could not quite identify. Driving through the countryside allowed me to see just how larger Brazil is. There were several towns and city spread over the Brazilian landscape. One interesting things I notices was that with every city we drove through there was a large sign with name of the city or town. The signs were not just a metal sign. The name was either chiseled in stone standing several feet high or was artistically done a the hedge.
As we approached the state of Sao Paulo I could notice the difference from the other states we drove though. Sao Paulo is an industrial state. There were several plants for various makes and models of cars and there were factories for several well known companies such as Dell and IBM. The cars in the area of Sao Paulo were also different. Many different makes, several Europeans models and there were larger cars than other places I had been in Brazil. Without a doubt you could see that this state is the industrial state of Brazil.
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