Caine's Arcade

Note: This is a non-Brasilian post. The closet thing to Brazilian in this post is the word bazillion. Carry on if you wish.....

Sometimes I get frustrated with social media - seems like it sucks away the time. Is is better to keep in touch with lots of people a little, or a few people in more depth? But then I happen upon stuff like this, and it seems that social media is the best thing since sliced bread. (Incidentally, I've seen debates on whether or not sliced bread is really that great.) Seems to me that putting a smile on a kid like Caine is worth about a bazillion dollars.




Caine inspired a few make-it-yourself games in the office this morning. There was a pseudo-plinko, a loopty-loop game where the ball would come into the shoebox, bank off the back of a domino holder and knock down Lego "pins", a skate-board ramp/jump/see-if-you-can-land-it-in-the-hole, and a few others.


And thanks to Gloria for sharing the video on her blog.

New things to taste...

This is one of my new favorite fruits. It is an atemoya.


Per Wikipedia, it's a cross between a sugar apple (Annona squamosa) and a cherimoya (Annona cherimola). It is also known as a pineapple sugar apple. And Cubans know this fruit as an anón. It has a creamy texture, is very sweet, and reminds me a little of a lychee. It's delicious. I just bought some more at the feira this morning, and hope these are as good as the last few that I bought.


Next up, Halls. We have these in North America of course, but Brasilians seem to have a love affair with them. There are so many different kinds, and they're located right next to the gum and candy at the checkout aisle. I haven't seen too many people partaking this summer, but as the weather starts to cool now that it's fall, I suspect consumption will increase.


This was a new flavor that looked interesting. Maracujá (passion fruit) with a chocolatey center - and CREAMY, as you can see. The boys and I each tried one, half assuming with all these flavors that it wouldn't taste like a cough drop at all, but rather just a candy. Nope - it's just an interestingly-flavored cough drop. And since we didn't have a cough and don't particularly like the flavor of cough drops we spit them out. But good to know I have a large variety to choose from when I DO have a cough.

Here was an item I had been eyeing for a while in stores, and finally took the plunge. I'm not sure why it says NOVO as I'm pretty sure these have been around for a while.


It's kind of a cross between marshmallows and gelatin.


Sam likes marshmallows; Andy not so much. Here were the reactions.

The first bite.

Thinking.


He was giving me the so-so hand motion here, which I believe is the same sign for the equivalent Portuguese expression, mais o menos.

This wasn't as much of a reaction as us noticing that a moth had just flown in from the veranda. Maybe there were two, as it seems we're looking at different spots on the ceiling. There were many moths appearances that week.

None of us cared much for the new sweet. But it looks like Andy liked his dinner.

Santos FC celebrates 100 years!!

Parabéns Santos FC for your 100 years of existence!



(For non-soccer people, FC stands for Futebol Clube - this perplexed me for years as to why several of the pro soccer teams in the US and around the world had FC in their names.)

There was a countdown clock on the beach that started a couple months ago, which finally hit 00:00:00 around 2pm yesterday, I think. There were fogos (fireworks) Saturday at midnight, and festivities yesterday by the clock for the countdown.

Here's a trailer of a film celebrating 100 years.




I'm sure there have been MANY other activities helping to commemorate the anniversary of which I'm not even aware. One that was brought to my attention was this mural that has been in-process for the past two weeks on exterior walls of the club's practice field. The artist is Paulo Consentino, and here is a link to the Santos FC website that talks about the project.


They used stencils that has been prepared ahead of time in his studio.



My friend and her sister participated in helping to put the mural up, and we stopped on by Friday to see how things were going. We met Mr. Consentino briefly, as everyone was working fast and furiously to try and complete the mural. But he was very courteous, and even let Sam and his friend Helena (whose mom and aunt were the ones who participated) do a little spray painting themselves.




Happy Birthday Santos FC, and very nice job Paulo Consentino and crew!!

São Paulo

The reason I didn't list São Paulo in my last post as one of the places we'd like to visit is because we've been there a few times now. Actually Otto has been MANY times now, as he has to go frequently for work.

On our first visit back in November(!), we visited Avenida Paulista. Lots of shopping, the art museum (MASP), and this park which was our first stop after parking the car and getting our bearings. It is called Parque Trianon, and is one of the oldest parks in São Paulo.

It's a nice breath of tropical lushness - huge, big, deep, old green - in the middle of lots of concrete and traffic.


Most of the trees are thoughtfully labeled. This one is an "iron-wood" - wouldn't want to try and chop it down. :o) I love the variations of color in the bark.


There were some spectacular Christmas decorations up and down the avenue. (Sorry, I'm a bit late here.)


Santa's sleigh was parked in one of the shopping centers we meandered into.


We also found this HUGE bookstore and probably spent an hour in here perusing and reading. Andy was particularly happy as there aren't many books in English at the stores here in Santos.


We then walked over a block or two and down several...

and ate lunch at Figueira Rubaiyat with it's huge tree growing from within. Que chique!! It was very tasty.


As we walked back up to Avenida Paulista we ran into a rain storm and probably the most exciting part of the afternoon. The rain lasted about 15-20 minutes, but before our very eyes a white-water rapid formed in the street!


It was amazing and thrilling and mind-boggling all at the same time. The restaurant across from where we took cover even had a ready-made dock for its patrons to be able to reach their cars sans-soggy feet. We asked some people working in the shop behind us, and apparently this happens quite regularly!

Once the rain stopped, the water cleared out and we made it back up to the avenue, we decided to show the boys what a metro station looked like. Once we were down there they begged and pleaded. PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE can we ride on the metro???!!!! And we said, "It's just like any other subway, we don't need to actually RIDE on it." And they looked as us like we were crazy and said, "But we've never BEEN on a subway before!!!" And Otto and I looked at each other and said, "Really?" And they just gave us this look like, "You are our PARENTS - shouldn't you know these things?!" So we took a ride on the metro.


And we had two VERY excited boys with us.


We ended up riding to the São Bento Monastery. We heard at times you can catch the monks chanting, but this was no such time. So we admired the stained glass and enjoyed the solitude for a bit, then headed out.

And a somewhat fuzzy shot of us at a cafe across the street from the monastery before hopping back on the metro to make our way back home.

Oh, the Places You'll Go!

Sam had his puzzles out this morning, so we decided to take a photo of all the countries where he has lived.


We were discussing the shape of Brasil (Brazil), and how it's really shaped like a mini South America. It's a little bumpier on top, and not as long, but very similar. Washington State seems to have gone missing. It's around somewhere - the puzzle was complete when we unpacked everything six weeks ago. Oh, Washington, where are you???

There are many places we'd like to visit while we're here. First up will be Argentina during the boys' winter break, and the list is growing daily for places within the borders of Brasil: Floronopolis, Rio, Curitiba, some town in the southern-most state of Rio Grande do Sul. We hear the state of Minas Gerais has the best food (better than here?!), and I haven't even begun to research any place in the Nordeste or near the rainforests in Amazonas. Since we only made it to three provinces (any we barely squeeked in that last one) while we lived in Canada, I'm sure we won't see everything we would like down here, but we'll try!

Who are the people in YOUR neighborhood?

I'm not sure if I've mentioned it on this blog yet, but one of my favorite things about living in Santos is that I walk almost everywhere in our day-to-day activities. The boys' school is very close, and the grocery store is across the street from the school. Shopping centers are nearby, as are many great restaurants and the beach.

Because we walk so much, we actually do have people that we know in our neighborhood, and it's so nice to say hi to them when we walk by. Because of this, I frequently have this song in my head from Sesame Street. Bob appears to be flirting a bit with the lifeguard in this clip.



There's the man that sells papers at the banca (newsstand), the people that make the pasteis at the corner near our house, the ladies at the Caramba! ice cream stand, and many more that give us a friendly wave and smile with a Tudo Bem? when we walk by. When I had a car and drove everywhere in The US and Canada, there were certainly familiar and friendly faces out and about, but they were never really a part of our neighborhood.

Now I can walk along and sing this and really feel like I'm living one of my favorite childhood songs. But I try not to sing too loudly. ;o)

São Paulo by Marco Aslan

This is a video of the filmmaker's Sunday afternoon in São Paulo condensed down to three minutes that I saw on the blog Discovering São Paulo. I have gone back to watch it several times, and thought there might be someone out there that may appreciate it that hasn't caught it yet.

As I sit here and watch the Academy Awards, I'm reminded of the importance of music in film, and one of the things I love about this film is the music composed by Ludovico Einaudi. And the more I watch this film the more I know whenever we move away, I will have saudade for this place.

São Paulo from Marco Aslan on Vimeo.