Brazil 2010

This year I spent the holidays in Brazil.  I'm not doing a play-by-play but here are the highlights:

Bagé
Hot, humid and busy were the streets with lots of people buying sundaes and cones.

Cassino
Claimed to be the longest beach in the world, it was (thankfully) much cooler and pretty windy - though that made the intense sun barely noticeable which led to my burnt thighs.

People pushing ice cream carts honking horns, selling corn on the cob, hotdogs, sunglasses, hats and even clothes - there was always someone coming by.

At night, people walk the avenida with some parking on the grass in chairs people watching.

New Years - New Years Eve is big at Cassino Beach (Praia do Cassino) - it's tradition to jump seven waves for good luck and they set off lots of noisy fireworks - not so much of the pretty ones, mostly just the loud ones.  At midnight it sounded like we were being bombed.

Our New Years Eve dinner was a little bit of a disaster.  Jose set up a nice table outside and just as he was wrapping up, it started to rain.  No sweat, there is a sheltered area still outside so we started moving everything there.  Jose hit a outdoor shower with the table, which dumped some water on him.

Then we had trouble getting Mauricio to calm down to eat since he's terrified of fireworks and they had already started setting them off around 6 pm.

Just as we were about to eat, the power went out.  It was off for about 2 hours.

Another tradition is to eat lots of little things that symbolize abundance, like lentils and grapes.  We were eating grapes and Jose reached in the dark for one that was on the table that turned out to be his father's teeth.

I elected to stay home for midnight, while Jose, Michele and Cilene went to the beach.  Apparently just as 2011 arrived, it poured.  I hope it's not a sign of things to come for the new year!

São José do Norte
(Literally) Sleepy little town on New Year's Day - everything was closed except for a small truck selling food.  It had a pretty blue and white church, though, and was a pleasant little trip via ferry.

Here are the photos...