Um ano no Brasil: Churrascos, barzinhos, and Kevin Costner

So the pizza here is really tasty. It's generally made with less sauce, yummier cheese, fresher toppings, and most importantly, a thinner crust. I never realized how much I treasured the perfect pizza until I ate it. There's a place here called Vero Verde that's generally considered the best pizza joint in town, and I went to a Rotary event there a few weeks back. Caramba, such good pizza! I was inspired, so Sandra helped me make a pizza at home a few days later. It wasn't nearly as good because we bought the crust instead of making it fresh. But still, the mozzarella here is superior. Above is a picture of the pizza I made at home about two weeks ago. It doesn't really have a specific name, but it's a pretty standard pizza here in Brazil: greek olives, corn, tuna, onions, mozzarella, provolone, and oregano. I don't mean to gloat, but seriously. Yum.

We also have these things called churrascos here. The best translation for the word would be "barbecue," but it still doesn't really say everything about it. Nearly every house and party space here in Brazil has a brick stove specifically for cooking as much meat as possible at one time. The churrasco generally starts in the afternoon, involves lots of skewered beef and chicken, pãezinhos (little loaves of bread), lots of conversation, napkins, and no plates. The main difference between a barbecue and a churrasco seems to be the fact that at a barbecue in the United States (at least the ones I'm used to), we cook a whole lot of meat and then all sit down and eat together. Sure there's a lot of conversation and walking around, but we usually have a designated time to eat our hamburgers, hot dogs, ribs, steak, chicken, whatever. Here in Brazil, someone is constantly grilling and everyone is constantly eating and drinking. There's no table to sit down at. Just a counter that has a giant bag of bread and a dish of bread crumbs for rolling your kabobs in. It's pretty much the best social get-together imaginable. The one I went to earlier this month was with my friends from the cursinho. It started at 3:00 in the afternoon, which in Brazilian time means that no one showed up until about 4:00 (I didn't come until 4:30. I've been the lonely on-time bird once already, so I didn't want to risk it). We had lots of food and drinks, an amplifier to play music from our iPods, and it didn't end until about 3:00 AM. At that time, we all called our parents to pick us up. I couldn't imagine calling my real mom to pick me up from a party in the middle of the night in the US. She would probably just laugh at me and tell me to walk home! But the streets are really dangerous here, most kids don't have their licenses, and many of them are drunk anyway. So parents would really rather pick us up than let us figure out our own way home.

More common than the occasional churrasco is a night out at a barzinho. I've gotten used to this by now, but the idea of going to "the bar" was definitely strange at first. The drinking age here is 18, but anyone can go into a bar, and nearly everyone can order alcohol no matter what age they are. Consequently, these barzinhos are usually full of teenagers. There's a lot of pool and lots of smoking, and it's a pretty laid back atmosphere. It's common to have your birthday at a barzinho and just invite all your friends to meet you there. It's fun to walk around and hang out with other people you recognize, make conversation, and (though this doesn't apply to me) relax after a long week of studying. The downside is that I always smell like smoke when I get home. Gross! But generally, it's a really fun thing to do on the weekend.

On Friday, I was invited to the Festa Alemã (German Party) by my Rotary Club. It's an annual event that they host in order to raise money for charitable organizations here in Santo André. I was nervous when Takehara (a rotarian and my next host dad) told me I should wear something German to the party. Something German? What, like Josh's lederhosen? Then I just figured he was joking and wore something more... appropriate. Sorry Josh =). Well, I got there and was relieved to see that no one was sporting anything remotely Bavarian. However, I had come alone, and ended up spending an uncomfortable amount of time making light conversation with people I didn't really know. I knew the rotarians from my club, but they were all working the event. Eventually, I found my friend Sabrina- the daughter of a rotarian and recent exchangee to Germany- and a couple other exchange student friends- Dora and Jack from Taiwan (all the chinese-speaking exchange students get to pick the names they want to use here in Brazil because no one can say " Anyway, the party was definitely for adults, but it was pretty fun. We ate a lot of sausage and there were probably 50 kegs of beer for everyone. Needless to say, it didn't take long for all the rotarians and their guests to loosen up. There was a live band that played just about every style of music, Brazilian and American, and I had a lot of fun dancing with my friends. Occasionally, a rotarian would grab me and I would laugh and dance with them for a minute, and then slip away to go dance with my friends again. All in all, it was really fun. It started at 9 PM and ended at 3 AM. I learned that it's not just the teenage demographic here that loves to party.

Well, I'm about to go, but I was just reminded of something sort of funny/weird/interesting that I want to tell you about. No one here can say my name very well, so instead of introducing myself as "Kevin," I usually say something closer to "Keveeng." People usually look confused for a second, and then ask "Oh, like Keveeng Costner?" Yes. Like Kevin Costner. This is amusing enough that it hasn't gotten old yet. But what I think is really funny is that my name sounds a lot like "quer vir?" in Portuguese, which means "do you want to come?" It didn't take me long to figure out why everyone was saying "Kevin, quer vir?" and then cracking up laughing. It seems that Brazilians are nerds for puns and word play, which suits me perfectly! It's hard to translate all the funny situations where people take advantage of my name sounding so much like, "wanna come?" but just trust me. It's fun. I love these people.

So I still have more to blog about, but don't expect it to go up tomorrow! Hopefully I'll be doing something besides typing on my computer tomorrow evening. I love you all very much, and I'm still waiting for those dream interpretations!

Abraços