Christmas in Sao Paulo

SO...


New Years eve is the start of crimbo here. I met my American friend at the Rodoviaria that day. Then we dropped our things of at home and met a friend to spend xmas with them and their family in some other part of Sao Paulo. (Can't bloody remember the name) 
Man, I DO NOT want to see another or hear the word 'panetone' for a LONG time. I swear this cake is from Italy, yet everywhere you go it's in front of your eyes in all shops. Jee... but Chocotones are acceptable! (wahey!)
So at 6pm we (my American friend and the SP friend) were eating this cake with coke. Chatting away about cultural differences. 
Many nieces and nephews turned up at this family gathering. One was aged 4 years and had the balls to say to his female cousin 'eu quero namorar com vc'. I mean 'damn', kids got balls to do that! The aunts were shouting 'she's your cousin!'. Well I heard that it don't stop mormons being cousins or not...

Joelho, my friend from US

Then at 11:30pm we were summoned to the table. Ok what we ate... Chester chicken, sausage, white rice, rice with raisins, potato mayonaise salad, roast potatoes and farofa. I don't like farofa. It's just dry dust. It doesn't make sense putting it on your food. It's like trying to put sand in your food. Just wrong! Then ... pudding. Pudding in syrup, pudding in coconut with syrup and prunes, chocolate pavlone and ice cream. I didn't eat the pudding, looked gooey. Just the ice cream. Then we collapsed, stayed over night and next day had morning coffee. This was where we went to the bakery on Christmas morning to buy my birthday cake. 


Then we had a late lunch at another house. Man, the weekend we were truly stuffed. Felt like turkey's ourselves, just needed to jump into the oven. But this Christmas, it felt like something was missing. No cold weather, no Christmas carols, no snow, no Christmas decorations, it just seemed to have lost it's festivity. But most of all, there was no family. Family are the world to me and this year has made me realise that even more. 


So Joel and I keep joking that 'did u know it was Christmas yesterday?'... 

The bday cake... wullah!

or 'did you know that it was your birthday yesterday?' rsrs