Cachaça

Enjoying the national drink of Brazil.

After our second full week of work at INACE, the three of us were invited to the birthday festivities of the new girl who works in Matt's office.  What we've learned about aniversarios (birthdays) in Brazil is that at least with the people we've been exposed to, that they last the entire weekend.  Even though an invitation to all three nights of festivities was extended, we only participated in the first night so we weren't seen as the ever-present Americans that have to be entertained with simple phrases of broken Portuguese.

To get to the Italian restaurant for the Friday night, we boarded the hotel shuttle to the ever-familiar Beira Mar, and walked up a familiar path into town until we got to the "Circle of Death" which is our name for a traffic circle that exemplifies the danger of driving in Brazil... or walking for that matter. To avoid risking life and limb, we crossed the street far removed from the busy circle and passed through a mall as a bathroom stop.  We asked for some directions to the destination to verify that we were headed in the right direction, and arrived at the restaurant.

While we were at the restaurant, we each tried a caipirinha (keye-peer-een-ya), the Brazilian national cocktail according to Wikipedia (and we all know that if it's on the internet that it must be true).  All sarcasm aside, it actually is the national drink.  The caipirinha uses cachaça, a sugar-cane alcohol, as well as lime, which led to much confusion.  We were asking if the drink was made with lemons or limes, and they informed us it was "limão" which we took to mean lemon.  Then to verify we asked about the color, and they kept insisting that a lemon was green.  Further research explains the misunderstanding which I will paraphrase for those with dial-up (seriously, who still has dial-up?) and don't want to open the link: Essentially the word that sounds like lemon here is actually lime and they do have "lima" here after all.  This problem could have been solved with some handy-dandy internet access and google translate, but alas it was not meant to be.  Oh, and with a hint of South American pride, our friends made it very clear that while Mexican tequila and cachaça may taste similar, it is tequila that tastes like cachaça and not the other way around, as if cachaça was there first.

Throughout the night of celebrating birthdays and amongst us three, a three-month paid vacation in Brazil, we were raising glasses and bottles in cheers.  From the enjoyment stemmed a saying in Brazil that if you don't drink after cheers-ing (word?) that you won't have sex for ten years; not an omen we want hanging over our heads.

As things came to a close, we were invited to continue the festivities at Mucuripe, a club within walking distance of the hotel.  The club was an amalgam of around five clubs with different music.  Over dinner we were told that they would be playing "funk" music that night and as a fan of the funk/soul work of Tower of Power, I was excited until I heard it was some kind of screamo singing-rap.  We wandered from venue to venue trying to get our dance-worth of the higher cover charge, but mostly just danced in a group with our birthday friends or tried to make conversation with people that didn't understand us.  There are only so many ways you can ask a person's name and tell them that you're an engineer from the U.S. working in the shipyard before you just get frustrated that it's as deep as you can go in conversation at this point in the summer.  At the early hours in the morning, Ben and I walked home while Matt stayed behind hoping to stay awake until our 7:30 AM departure for Praia do Futuro... which, after getting dropped off at the hotel at 5:30 didn't happen.

I'll tell you all about the day at the beach and accompanying misfortunate awakening in the next post.

Until next time,

-David Rood