brazil, me and futebol

In Sao Paulo there are four major footbal clubs as far as I understood. In alphabetical order (no preferences implied): Corinthians, Palmeiras, Sao Paulo e Santos. So people here do not choose their football club based on their town, but based on family tradition. Which means that my Court actually doesn't agree on which team is the best one. Felipe is Corinthians-Fan, Cesar belongs to Santos and Ricardo to Palmeiras. Up to Saturday, I considered myself a light fan of Flamengo from Rio just because I've been to one of their games already.

For Ricardo this was just not acceptable, so he tried by any means to convert me to Palmeiras. One of his dearest wishes was to take me to one of their (minor) games, so I could have my own Palmeiras experience to counterbalance the Flamengo one ;-) Perhaps I should add that we went to a minor game because of safety reasons. The "classical" games between the four local teams are much too violent to watch anywhere than on TV.

So I agreed to come to a football game with Ricardo. A little one, Palmeiras vs. Santa Cruz, a team so unsignificant that it wasn't even a question if Palmeiras would win. A safe play to try to win over a new "torcedora" (fan). The day before the "big day", Ricardo surprised me with a Palmeiras T-shirt! Of course without forgetting to warn me to wear something over it when coming to the stadium. Just to avoid being beaten up by someone elses fan... so here you see what is a Palmerias-couple ;-)

And they tried everything to get me into the right mood. T-Shirt, Popcorn, hotdogs, what else could I ask for? Do you see, I am a little sceptical? Palmeiras hasn't been particulary lucky during the last games, so I didn't really believe in Ricardos prediction of three goals for Palmeiras.

And here you see the fans. In Sao Paulo it is forbidden to form official fan-clubs for the games. Of course there are fanclubs (many things are forbidden in Brazil and nobody cares), but they try to keep them out of the games, not allowing anyone with the fanclub-shirts to enter, for example. So this was quite a difference to the game in Rio where most of the fans belonged to the official club, creating a very particular feeling.
Oh, and in the middle of the picture you see one of the popcorn-sellers.

17:56. The game is over. Actually there were 3 goals made by Palmeiras. Only that one entered the wrong goal... so they won "only" 2:1.

Conclusion? I liked the game? I even went to watch the next game on wednesday with Felipe and Ricardo in a bar (Palmeiras started loosing again...). Bit by bit I am even understanding the game, thanks to the constant comments from everyone around. And 45 twice isn't really that long.
And concerning the club affinity, I found some kind of compromise: I am Palmenguista now. A rare mixture between Palmeirense in Sao Paulo and Flamenguista in Rio. Schacka.
(Just a shame that both of them a constantly loosing...)

Lunch with the Polish

Last weekend (middle of may) my three body guards took me to a Polish lunch to eat real Pierogi. Ricardo and Felipe a learning Polish and they are heaving this lunch once a month at the Polish Church. They (the three boys) did make some fun about me being German going to a Polish lunch, but I am already kind of used to this kind of joke. Or say, I do not care any more to show my disapproval. They don't understand why Germans get so jumpy when making jokes about our past...

And we actually had a very good time, although I only understood half of what was going on. My polish is not really existent, so I stuck to smiling to everyone. Something I learned during my exchange year. It always works. So did it this time.
And as you can see: we ate some nice Pierogi and other tipical Polish food, prepared by real Polish Brazilians ;-)

And these are two of my bodyguards (or "the Court" as some friends refer to). Looks a little bit like they are "fofocando" (talking about other people). Cesar, the one with the blue shirt, just CAN'T believe what Felipe just told him.

And Felipe goes on spreading whichever cool news he has to spread. While Cesar is analyzing who else he could give his valid information to?

After dinner: singing. In Polish of course, what did you think?

Felipe, me and Cesar! Taking care of me as always ;-)
Thank you guys! You are really special.

Parties in Sao Paulo

Just in case you were wondering: no, I do not only spent my time with travelling. In fact I do go to parties as well ;-)
In April, namely the birthdayparty of Ricardo and the birthday sit in of a German friend Nina.

Ricardo threw his birthday in my favourite Salsa-Club. And he actually improved quite a lot since he started salsa classes with me.

In Brazil it is VEEERY important whom you give the first piece of your birthday cake. Ok, here you see the person Ricardo gave his first piece to. What a surprise.
Remember: I do know how to bake a birthday cake from time to time. So I did for Nina's birthday party. I even managed to find enough candles! So everyone sang happy birthday, then we killed the cake and then we still sat around for some hours before trying to get the last metro (luckily Cesar gave us a ride, because the last metro didn't wait for us).

Some Brazilian friends, Nina (the blond girl), me (the red-haired one) and Ricardo in one out of hundreds of fotos. Brazilians just LOVE to take group pictures.

Wanna see another one? Me, Ricardo, Nina and Cesar (the one who gave us the ride). Red seemed to be the color of the day.

Day 1, part 1: Sao Joao del Rei

The weekend from april 21st - 23rd we spent in Sao Joao, Tiradentes and Barbacena, three colonial towns in the south of Minas Gerais (about 14 hours north of Sao Paulo by bus). Our plan was to visit two friends we met during our january trip, but of course we were able to combine the visit with tourism.
Oh, by the way, the 21th was the day of Tiradentes. And we went first to Sao Joao and then to Tiradentes ;-)

And here you see the standard colonial church in Sao Joao.

This is another colonial church from within. Please note the subtle way the integrate the technical equipement into the surroundings.

Oh, and I love cementeries, did I mention that? It's very interesting how different graveyards can be. This is for the richer ones. You get your own little house.

In case you can't afford the upper one, just try one of these grave apartments. Ashes do not need that much space anyway.

Day 1, part 2: another trainride

This is me, in the antique train between Sao Joao and Tiradentes. And with my good camera! That's why you see so many photos about me during the trip. Anja was in charge of my digi-cam.

And this is the train itself. Nice touristic, 30 min ride. Just nice.

Day 2, part 1: Tiradentes

This is Tiradentes, our second colonial gold town this weekend. And is was reeeally relaxing, as you can see in this foto.

Oh yeah, did I mention already that churches in Colonial Towns are rather overloaded with gold? Here you go:

This is a view of the town of tiradentes from the church. Nice, little, totally restored because the local TV "Globo" uses the town for its TV-series about the colonial time.
And this is Mr. Tiradentes, the one the town was named after. He was one of the leaders of the rebellion of the inconfidents. Something against the portuguese crown, because they claimed too much gold.

Day 2, part 2: nature near Tiradentes

After lunch we met again with Rejane and Sergio. They wanted to show us the beauty of the surroundings.


Here you see Rejane, me and Anja. Rejane is almost 30 and a laywer. Studying to be a judge next year.

The plan was to find a nice little waterfall and refresh ourselves in the river. Because Minas has a really different climate: veeery hot during the day and freezing cold at night.

Voilá: a waterfall!
And me and Rejane from the back ;-)
(Ein schöner Rücken kann auch entzücken, hehe)












Different ways to refresh yourself. Or you put your feed into the water, or your head as a whole. Anja and me preferred the foot-option.

Day 3: Barbacena

And that's us: Cristina and me, Rejane with me and Anja. The two girls we met on our January trip and we actually visited them in Barbacena! First time that those "we should meet again"-plans actually came true.