Ground hog day…

[Automatic translation in Chrome messed up this post. I'm converting it back to English.]
except if we keep going to the beach with good weather, I don't mind in the least. We went to Camboinhas today and spent the entire day there. It has become my second favorite beach, a close second to Ipanema.  We sat near a different kiosk today. The difference was immediately obvious as the service was much better.Where else in Rio do you get a free table and chairs as well as a cooler full of essentials (that you pay for) brought right to you?I drank about a million beers. They go down nicely in the winter heat. Itaipava innovated a little foil doily to give the can’s rim the appearance of being clean.Marina cut class today to join us. Bad for her education, great for us! Her friend Bárbara also made an appearance.The weather feels like summer now. It got up to about 35° today without much wind. Rio was a little misty in the distance, but beautiful (and a little mysterious) as always. I spent a lot of time in the water today, although it wasn’t as clear and blue as it was on Tuesday.Today we’ll meet a bunch of folks for dinner at Paludo. I have to be ready in about an hour but I’m about half drunk and completely sun-baked, so I’m not sure if I’ll be ready in time. Tomorrow we head to Cabo Frio for a few days so I won’t be posting. Is that a sigh of relief I hear?

More Itacoatiara…

A couple more clips I shot today. The bike in the foreground annoyed me when I shot this clip, but now I actually like it.

This one is my favorite.

Peaceful easy feeling…

I’ve been filming short clips during our travels lately of landscapes and other interesting scenery. In the national park in Terê, I filmed a few of the waterfalls to relive this peaceful experience back in my real life. Here are a few samples.

I love the still water in the background of this one.

There’s a little “tripod drift” in some of them as I took the sample from the beginning of the recording (the tripod seemed to have settled further into the full clip). Once I’m back home, it should be easy to loop them for hours of nature-induced calm. It’s worth bumping them up to full resolution and watching them full screen.

Alien invader…

Robert found a caterpillar in the driveway today that probably wouldn’t catch the eye of most Brazilians. To us though, it seemed pretty exotic. Its colors were beautiful and we were intrigued by its flicking “tail”.The video is a little freaky, no? Watch its tail wag.

ee-tah-kwah-chee-AH-rah

This afternoon we explored another Niterói beach, Itacoatiara. This beach, named by Brazilian natives ages ago, is quite the tongue twister for your average Gringo. The surf had formed an inland pool that kept the kids distracted for hours. When we arrived, it was fairly windy, which made the surf too rough for the kids to enter the ocean.Emily found a mussel shell with some kelp attached to it. When she looked inside, she found some very small crabs.Itacoatiara is beautiful and we  enjoyed ourselves, but I think I prefer Camboinhas.

Easy like Sunday afternoon…

On Sunday afternoon in Terê we had a churrasco. We drank Caipirinhas, ate the leftover party bomb fragments (vodka-soaked watermelon) and ate kilo after kilo of meat.

Caipirinhas made with fresh passion fruit are a beauty to behold (to the eyes and palatte). Grill-meister, Seu Horácio, was on point. Although most of us dramatically increased our chances of cirrhosis of the liver and heart disease,  it was a wonderful way to wind down an amazing weekend.

Back to the park…

Sunday morning I went back to the park beside the house by myself to film the waterfalls. This time I climbed a rock wall about 20 feet high and found an isolated pond and the stream that feeds the waterfalls and pools below.  Preparing and uploading high definition video on my laptop is tedious, but I’ll try to post a bit of video as it is absolutely gorgeous.

At home among our herd…

What really makes for a great dinner is the company. This year was no exception. I think our joviality might have startled some at times, but we wouldn’t have expected anything else from our extended family. Dessert was good but, like last year, not particularly remarkable. Renato and Iza put on their banker’s visors to assess the damage and collect restitution. It worked out to about 45€ per person (R$ 100)!

Jazzed up…

The first time my wife and I went to Dona Irene, we attended a chamber music concert there before dinner. This year, there was a wonderful jazz trio upstairs playing everything from standards to The Beatles. I must say that Dona Irene is a “must visit” for anyone that finds themselves in Terê. By the time we left at around midnight, the place was really hopping.

Main course…

After savoring some beet soup, the main course dishes were rolled out in abundance.They were all good, but simply weren’t quite up to par relative to last year.The highlight for me was still the “chicken/crouton/gorgonzola on delicious fried potatoes” dish.We (of course) also loaded up on the house vodka, Nazdaróvia, served as always in a solid block of ice. It really goes down nicely with the Russian fare and is much tastier than the sterile stuff you buy in bottles.  Notice the delight on the face of Brazil’s newest vodka spokesmodel, Iza.