Day 2 and 3 - hanging around Campinas

It didn't take Mom and Karen long to relax and get into the Brazilian lifestyle.   Easy mornings enjoying coffee outside on the deck.  A charming walk through a wee bit of Campinas and we had dinner with Donna to wish her a happy birthday and a sad goodbye.

We have not done too much yet, just taking it easy and getting ready for our 9 day road trip.

Here are a few shots (from my phone) from yesterdays outing.  

 The big yellow church in downtown Campinas.

 Mom is fascinated by the telephone booths here, they come in all kinds of colors.  

 Delicious  lunch at D.O.N.N.A a few steps from the church!

And a picture of the very sad looking (but tasty) cake I made for Donna.  As Tony said it looks like a 10 year old made it.   Oh well, it tasted good.

Mom's arrival

I left bright and early this morning, 7:30am to get Mom and her friend Karen at the airport in Sao Paulo.  I arrived at 9:30am and look what airplane I did see as I entered the airport.  Yes, that is Delta flight#59 from Atlanta!  Pretty cool!

I waited patiently for the ladies, they came out of the arrivals gate at 10:20am.  

It is a shame that I didn't have my camera on the correct setting, especially since I was standing around for 45 minutes and could have been prepared.  I guess I was too excited.

 When we got home I gave them a tour of the house, inside and out.  And look what we found, a ripe pomegranate on my tree.

And the tree is still full of lots more fruit.

We headed out for a quick lunch and to buy some ant spray because we also found a teeming mound of ants at the back of the house.  

Now mom is napping and resting up for a light dinner and then back to bed.  Apparently she didn't sleep the night before the flight because she was so excited and she did not sleep much in her "sit-up" sleeping chair on the plane.    Well, I told her that's what it was called, I mean who wants to know that they are in economy class and have to sit up all night.  Shhhh, don't tell her.  I think she thinks I paid extra for the more comfortable "sit-up" sleeping chair. 

So begins Mom Brazilian Adventure.  I will try and take pictures that are in focus from here on out.

Back to Brazil

It's been a long long time since I have blogged and there have been a variety of reasons.
First and foremost we have had two new beautiful additions to the family

Tucker Dewitt and Evie Grace!  We welcomed them to the family on July 18th, 2014.   They are healthy and happy.......

Well, most of the time......
And their proud mama and papa are doing well albeit tired. Here they are 2 hours old.

I was lucky enough to spend a few months helping Lisa take care of these precious babies. I did some babysitting and cooking up meals for Lisa and Kris.  

 Lisa, the absolute best audience for my cooking because she was just so happy that there was food around that she didn't have to cook or shop for!  She always said she loved it, even the experimental no dairy no gluten potato casserole cooked with soy "things" that are suppose to be like dairy.  And really it was not good, she was just being kind.  Then there was the sad day that I cooked a potato gratin, with loads of real cheese and butter and as I carried it into her house it slipped from my hands and shattered to the floor!  All that good cheese and potato mixed in with shards of casserole dish, YIKES!  A sad moment for all.

In addition Tony's parents came down for a visit to see their great grand babies!

But after leaving my husband alone in Brazil for four months it was time for me to return to Brazil and start taking care of business here.    I miss those babies and Lisa and Kris everyday.   Lisa sends pictures and we get our updates regularly.  Their Halloween picture!

The second reason why I have not been blogging is that I have been having trouble accessing my blogspot account.  And this morning I just decided to reset all the settings and low and behold it reset to Google Hong Kong.  Which for those of you who understand the "Great Firewall" apparently I had been blocking myself as I had loaded Google Chrome back in 2012 in Hong Kong.    I un-installed and then installed, via a VPN (not that you need one in Brazil but I wanted the new google version to come from the USA) and it looks like all is well now.  Phew!

So I hope to blog frequently and keep you up to date on the various bustle from Brazil!

I have been back in Brazil for one week now and it's been wonderful.
The newest adventure has been a marathon spa day in Sao Paulo with some lady friends.  We left on Friday morning at 7:30am to get to the Grand Hyatt Sao Paulo in time for our first appointments which began at 10:15am.   After a full day of spa'ing' we all met by the pool at 5:00p for drinks and to discuss dinner plans.

It was decided we should go to Hotel Unique with it's famous (and possibly the only one in SP) roof top bar.

 View of the city.

 Elegant water feature on the roof......I wonder how many fall in during the late hours!?

 The ladies who "spa" in Sao Paulo.

 The famous chef Emmanule Bassoleil at his restaurant Gastronomy Concept.

A desert plate to share!

It was a wonderful 24 hours and I hope to repeat the experience again.

Meanwhile at home, well it's a jungle out there!  I discovered a hummingbirds nest located right behind the couch on the outdoor deck.    This furniture is new and was delivered a week ago Friday, the day I arrived from the USA.   I did not discover this nest until Sunday morning.   I did some research and it is a 14 - 18 day gestation period before the eggs hatch.   I also learned that the mum usually sits on her eggs 16 - 18 hours a day.   I am afraid that on Friday and Friday night when we were enjoying our outdoor area with a friend the hummingbird did not sit on her eggs for the required amount of time and on Saturday with all the comings and goings I feel she did not get the chance to sit then either.   Once we discovered the nest we moved our outdoor sitting to the pool deck and have tried not to disturb her.  She is definitely less spooked by us but I don't know if the chicks will make it.   I decided to start the clock for the gestation on Friday Oct. 24.  so day 18 will be Nov. 11.   If the babies have not hatched by then then I know we disturbed the mum to frequently.  Keep  your fingers crossed.

 And there was the butterfly emerging from her pupa.

And screeching green parrots on the roof!

All in all wonderful to be back.

Tomorrow Mom and her friend Karen will arrive and will spend one month with me.  Super emocionante! The translation : Super exciting!

Monte Siao (the pottery town) and the Cheese Shop

Monte Siao is a town known for it's beautiful blue and white pottery and I was eager to take a trip to visit the town and the workshop.  I had done some research and knew that it was a mere 1 hour and 30 minutes drive.  About half the trip was on a highway but the other half consisted of small winding roads cutting through the verdant hills of Brazil.  Monte Siao is in the State of Minas Gerais.  There are 26 states in the country of Brazil.  I live in the state of Sao Paulo in the city of Campinas which is near the city of Sao Paulo.  This should not confuse you as it is similar to the American configuration of  New York State and New York City. 

I invited a few new friends (Donna and Chris) on my porcelain adventure which made the whole day that much more fun! We left at 8:30am from my home and arrived 10am at the store and workshop.

Porcelana Monte Siao Ltda was founded in 1959 and only made miniature porcelain decorations at the time.  Now the company makes beautiful plates, bowls, mugs and other great tableware and produces 2,000 pieces a day!

 

The blue and white pottery is quite sturdy and seems like it would not chip easily.

 

We were permitted to walk around the factory which was connected to the front shop.

Here is the BIG kiln, firing of the porcelain lasts about 50 hours and the temperature of the kiln reaches 1,300 C/ 2,370 F. 

The pieces of pottery are placed inside these round vessels called saggar boxes which are made of refractory baked clay in which the finer ceramic wares are enclosed and protected while baking. 

The pottery in this shop is made by the slip casting method.  A liquid slurry of porcelain (watery clay) is poured into molds and left to set for 24 hours.  The set slip is then removed from the molds

and these lovely ladies wipe down the pottery and trim the excess off the edges to make it smooth.

 

 After the trimming the pottery it's left to dry and then it is dipped again in another slip to coat and cover any imperfections.  a white pigment is added to the slip so that when fired the end product will be white. 

 

The next step is the painting! Only two colors are used in this shop blue or brown. I prefer the blue color.

 

Everyone was friendly and kind and allowed me to take as many pictures as I liked.  We had a great time exploring the shop! 

Now that we had seen the main attraction of Monte Siao we were ready to explore the rest of the town.  The first thing that greeted us as we exited the pottery factory were these wild green SCREECHING parakeets.

 

 

These wild green parakeets are everywhere and deliver an amazingly loud screech; pretty but noisy devils. 

 

 Monte Siao has a population of about 17,000 and has two pretty churches in the center of town. The yellow one, known as the Rosario Church was not open for us to get a look inside but I found out that this church was build in 1953 and is the second church on this site. 

 The white church is named Our Lady of Medalha Milagrosa and was built in 1849.

 

This one was open!

It was nice and cool inside and everything was light and colorful.
 

 

 

 

Next stop LUNCH!  There are always too many choices and not enough time to try them all.  I had a restaurant picked out but apparently that one was only open for dinner.  So we walked into this little Brazilian buffet joint and prepared to be satisfied!  The Brazilians really like their buffets but I have not figured out why it's so popular.....yet.  
 

And yes we were the first because I was HUNGRY.  I eat breakfast between 5:30a and 6:30a every morning so by the time 11am comes around I am STARVING, AND MUST EAT NOW! I am usually the first in most restaurants at lunch time because I need to eat the minute they open.

 Every buffet has a wonderful salad bar, you could fill up on that alone!!
 

But you need not fill up on just lettuce because there is a hot bar too! Rice and beans are always served, a pasta, beef, chicken, fish and hot veggies of some sort. 

But what I am finding to be my favorite item at these local restaurants is the homemade hot sauce! And so far they all taste great!

The cost for lunch (all you can eat) is about $7.00 USD.
 

 

Another important site in Monte Siao is the cheese shop.  Campinas (dare I say Brazil???) has a poor selection of local cheeses.  So far they all taste like American pasteurized cheese very good for melting but not a lot of flavor.  We had been told there is a cheese shop in Monte Siao that sells cheddar cheese that tastes really good!  We were given some very loose directions as to the location of the shop. They went something like this: "  It's near a gas station(??) you can't miss it, don't worry you'll find it. "

What we found was a sign on a concrete wall indicating that there was a cheese shop down the hill.

 

And around the corner

 

 

Inside was nice, clean, cool and there were bottles upon bottles of hot sauce!

But no cheddar cheese just the soft white non-flavorful kind that I seem to find everywhere.

 

 

 

So back up the hill we walked.....sad that we didn't have the address or name of the shop that sold "yellow gold".

 

 

There is one more 'famous' feature of Monte Siao,  knitwear.

 

It seems the growth of the pottery industry in Monte Sião is directly involved in the rise of what is actually the city's major industry: knits. Monte Sião used to depend almost exclusively on agriculture before the pottery business began and generated more traffic in the town. Women in this little mountain town began selling hand-knitted products they made at home right out of their front door to passing travelers.

Today, Monte Sião boasts hundreds of knit and textile companies, many of which are small to medium family businesses.

The high season for this kind of shopping is the Brazilian winter, especially June and July.
 (Go Brazil)

I plan to explore these shops more carefully the next time I come to Monte Siao.  I did notice that along the main street they painted "knitwear" on the trees but I didn't exactly understand why until I began reading more about Monte Siao.

 

We hit the road disappointed that we didn't find the "cheddar cheese" shop but satisfied nevertheless as we had had a banner day seeing a new town! Goodbye pretty Monte Siao!

As I was driving along the winding road, Donna shouted out from the back of the car - LOOK there it is, I remember the name of the shop now - QueijoBom! And low and behold,  it's near a gas station just like they told us!  Uh, looks like it's IN a gas station but I wasn't going to quibble because maybe, just maybe good cheese will be had here! You know, in a gas station, like we do it at home.

I was pleasantly surprised to see that this was a really nice cheese shop that had all kinds of wonderful products.  There were smoked meats, plenty of cheeses, wine and many other tasty foodstuffs.

I did not buy any cheese but the girls did and I was happy to sample the products.  I didn't really think the cheddar tasted all that good but I never said I was a cheese connoisseur, I just like what tastes good to me.

And since I enjoy eating Black Wood Fungus Ears with garlic are you really going to listen to me?!

 

Our salesman was very chatty and helpful and even gave us a sample of concord grape juice squeezed and bottled without chemicals or preservatives.  It was very very good.  I did buy a bottle of that and have been enjoying it with sparkling water. 

And so after shopping complete we headed back home.  Satisfied and content that we had found the elusive cheese shop.....in the gas station.