ANDRE!

Alyece Says:

Oi! Erin, Elron and I got to spend the past week in Rio hanging out with Andre. (For those of you who don´t know Andre, he is one of our best friends we met in university and since he´s moved back to Brazil after graduating, we don´t exactly get to see him very often... so we were thrilled to get to spend some time with him, especially in his home country). Andre and his beautiful fiance, Raquel, were staying in the city with her family. We were more than excited to return to Rio for a reunion with our Brazilian buddy... and we were also excited to return to our favourite restaurant in Rio... Amir. One of the most important travel components for us has to be the cuisine. Some people like to base their travel paths based on activities, churches, museums... but we tend to be guided by food. Erin, Elron, and I became regulars at this quaint Lebanese restaurant with their amazing all-you-can-eat buffet (I think we may have caused them bankruptcy). (Thank you, Amir, for my food baby)

The first day we hung out with Andre and Raquel we did the most touristy, yet necessary, thing you can do in Rio - visited the Christo. It´s hard to capture the sheer size of the statue that sits overlooking the southern part of the city, but we took enough pictures (as per usual) to try to show its´ 38 foot tall structure.(How you doin´?) (The lovely couple) (View of Sugar Loaf) (Elron not understanding you are supposed to face the camera when doing the classic Christo pose)(´CHRIST THE REDEEMER´) After Andre gave us a hard time about eating Lebanese food while in Brazil (fair enough), he arranged for us to have the ultimate Brazilian cuisine experience. Brazil is big on their buffets, and one of the more traditional methods of eating until you explode is offered by Churrasco restaurants, which specialize in meat, particularly on sticks. So the five of us went to this swanky Churrasco restaurant where you pay a flat fee and then eat enough gourmet food to feed a small village. First of all, you order whatever you want, and as much as you want, from the kitchen - fish, prawns, beans, eggs, little balls and pockets filled with who-knows-what. Then there are about 6 or 7 waiters at any given time wandering around the tables with big sticks all types of meat under the sun (so delicious and cooked to perfection)... and you have a ¨stop and go¨ card sitting by your plate which you flip to the green side if you want meat shaved on your plate, or to the red side if you´re meated-out and need a breather. And as if this isn´t enough, there´s a MASSIVE buffet of any kind of food you could imagine - veggies, salads, breads, cheeses, seafood, raw fish (including sushi and caviar)... the list goes on. And then there was dessert. It was one of those ¨undo the top button of your pants¨ kind of meals where you die a little afterwards. (Erin about to dig into the unnecessarily large buffet) (The waiters took us into the back kitchen so us foreigners could get some pictures with the sticks of meat and the brick fire ovens) (The view from Raquel´s families condo... not bad - we had to sit somewhere to digest for several hours afterwards)

On a day when Raquel went wedding dress shopping, Erin, Elron, Andre, and I went to explore Rio´s botanical gardens. It was very pretty, but Andre commented that it was no Buchart Gardens.(Andre you look a little stunned) (Lovin´ the cacti)

Because Erin wanted to take advantage of the time that we were all together, she generously organized an early mock-birthday dinner for me later in the week. The five of us (and Igor, the awesome Rio local who works at our hostel) went to this funky restaurant with amazing food called Miam Miam. It was decorated with cool furniture, which you could actually order off of their furniture menu. The dinner was delightful and accompanied by many colourful drinks (thanks guys!).

(And of course no classy dinner would be complete without taking a body shot off of Erin´s chest)

Earlier that day Erin and Elron had attempted to buy me a birthday cake from a bakery to bring to the restaurant... and we´ve yet to pick up on Portuguese... so by guessing and pointing at what appeared to be a delicious chocolate cake, they purchased the most interesting (to put it delicately) cake any of us had ever tasted. This thing was composed of alternating layers of bad cake and a soft pudding-like substance disgustingly flavoured like rum. And to top it off, the cake was entirely covered in these little ¨chocolate¨ balls, which I think were supposed to be crunchy, but instead were soggy from the rum permeating through the cake. mmmm. Everyone took one bite and looked around the table at each other and then we asked the server to please do us all a favour and throw the cake in the garbage.

(Out comes the TEQUILA....not sure about Andre´s look)(Erin comments: After feeding Alyece full of alcohol we all make her make a toast..hee hee)

After dinner we went to a wicked bar in Lapa, the area of Rio where a lot of the partying happens - mostly locals, mostly Samba.





This place is a museum during the day, and a bar by night. It´s huge with three floors, all elaborately decorated with art, statues, antiques, and chandeliers.Probably the most beautiful bar I´ve ever been in. And the live local Brazilian band was rad; they used instruments like bongos, ukeleles, and accordians. I tried my hand at dancing Samba and had a really good time... great mock-birthday: awesome food, hilarious cake, excellent company - thanks to my wonderful friends :)

We spent the rest of our week hanging out with Andre and relaxing. It was awesome to get to visit with him and Raquel... and we´ll be back for their wedding in Manaus in August... woohoo! After Andre left town, Elron also caught a flight back to Canada... I suppose some people actually have jobs and responsibility to attend to. We had a wicked time traveling with him and now it´s back to the terrible two-some...