Fishing

Today I went to the reservoir close to Juiz de Fora with my host family. It's a really nice area and we had a very calm day there. First we visited a cute little farm of some friends with pigs, cows, cats, dogs, chicken, ducks and horses.

The flower of this tree is called "parrot's bill". On the next photo you can see why.

When it is time to milk the cows, they are all called separately by name and come! This nice guy let me have a go in milking a cow as well. It  wasn't as difficult as I thought it would be. I also got to drink some milk so fresh that it was still warm and creamy. Very good!

After that we went to the water side and fished for the rest of the day. There were only birds, cows and us. 

Even I caught some fish :-)

Feijoada

It's time to introduce you to the most typical Brazilian dish for birthday parties, family meetings and all other kinds of celebrations: Feijoada 

Feijoada is a kind of bean stew with black beans, lots of different bits and of pork (even pork ear and feet! - these are the parts I try to leave in the pot for the others ;-)) and a special type of Brazilian sausage.

You eat Feijoada together with rice and couve. This is a vegetable we don't have in Germany (Gemüsekohl). It's a type of wild cabbage that grows on top of long stems. The plant looks a bit like a funny little tree. To eat it, the leaves are cut into very fine stripes and stir-fried with garlic.

Ibitipoca National Park

Ibitipoca is a beautiful National Park near Juiz de Fora. Today we went there to do some of the bush walks there. I loved it! The nature was amazing and we walked up and down quite a few hills to get to the nicest little places with caves and waterfalls.

janela do céu - window to the sky

ponte de pedra - stone bridge

cachoeira dos macacos - monkey waterfall

cachoeirinha - little waterfall

Churrasco - The Brazilian BBQ

Barbecues are a very important part of Brazilian culture and they know how to grill meats very well!

They grill the different meats (beef, pork, chicken, sausage) in big chunks and cut it into thin juicy slices before serving. And - like all the meals here - you eat it with rice. Without rice nothing is considered a real meal here ;-)

Liberdade - Japanese district of São Paulo

São Paulo is the home of the biggest Japanese community outside of Japan.
Today we went to visit the district of the city with the strongest Japanese influence. It was really nice. They have shops here with only Japanese products, like electronics, comics, movies and foods. Of course everything is written in Japanese :-)

Centro de São Paulo

This week is another public holiday here and I got the chance to go to São Paulo again to see a little bit more of this gigantic city. This time we went right into the city center where the city was founded.

Catedral da Sé

Geografical center of the city

VW Beetles

A curious fact about Juiz de Fora:
Here I see more VW Beetles in one day than in Germany in my whole life! Somehow this little car (they call it "Fusca") is very, very popular here. Apparently one of the past mayors loved and promoted them a lot...

Old VW Buses are also very popular!