22 April 2019
One of things I like abroad is to experience a totally different live styles and customs which are sometimes miles away from what we are used to experience in our home countries.
My Xmas or Easter in England were different from what I knew from Poland but also very similar because I used to spend them with my family living there so we tended to organise everything they way we knew from our homeland.
However Brazil was a totally different experience. First I am here without any family. Secondly I barely know any Polish people or even a single English person, not to mention that I don't keep any close ties with them so had to rely on my Brazilian friends in this case. And that's what I hoped for.
I never spent Easter on another continent yet alone in a hot country on another hemisphere. That - I hoped - will be totally new to me. I already spent Christma Day with my friend's family and we planned to go there again for Easter Monday. In Brazil only Sunday is a national holiday but this year on Tuesday falled the day of St George's which is a national holiday too so I guess lots of people had Monday off as well.
Before the weekend shops were competing in prices to sell chocolate in every shape and size and people were madly buying them. Chocolate eggs were also on offer but that wasn't the main focus of the event. I bought also some sweets, cooked my favourite special dish and so prepared we headed to the favela Encontro (favela do Complexo do Lins) in Rio de Janeiro.
On the bus we met my friend's cousin who was heading to the same neighbourhood to visit family. After a chat she joined us and went to visit her uncles' - my friend's parents. At home we already found his family and other family members reunited so it was quite a happy company.
We ate, chatted and laughed when someone threw a gossip that Suquinha - my friend's older brother living just a few houses away - is making churrasco (BBQ). Fabulous, we're going for churrasco! Half of the people left and we headed to Suquinha's house for the feast.
On arrival we saw this:
It looks like he's not making BBQ as yet, he's still constructing the grill!
That didn't put anybody off, in the contrary, everybody was looking forward to see the meat sizzling on the plate and it gave us another reason to laugh and talk. And me, well, I am vegetarian, so it was rather the company that mattered and the experience than the meal itself.
And after all - it is the journey, not the destination, that matters ;)