The wedding vows

On Sunday we went to the wedding of Heliana (Flavia’s cousin) and David an Englishman.  They are both PhDs from Reading University where they met.  This explained a table full of Brazilians who had also studied at Reading.  It is tough to get any PhD but it must be very hard to do it in a second language.

The ceremony took place at 11am which is unusual in Brazil, they are usually held on Saturday evenings. The church is on the Vitoria military base probably because Heliana’s late father was a General.  The officiating priest was the bride’s brother which made it all much more personal.  There was no organ so the music was by a trio of flute, guitar and violin who also played at the reception which was in a local hotel.

As so often happens when I look at people around the world I was struck by the similarities rather than the differences.  Most of what happened would be very familiar to anyone who has attended a middle class wedding in England or Spain.  The best about a Brazilian wedding  are that there are no speeches, the clothing is less formal and there was no heavy drinking.  In fact it was very similar to a wedding in Spain but without the noise and excitement.

It is Holy Week at the moment and as Brazil is a very Catholic country I was expecting a lot more activity.  Around here it is very much business as usual apart from the the very religious who go to church every day. Friday is a holiday and the beaches were full and Saõ Paulo had 248km of traffic jams.  I was expecting processions, penitents carrying statues and passion plays.  There are some of those reported on the television but it seems to be very local.  Not like Spain where the smallest village will have some sort of demonstration of their faith.  In fact it seems as low key as the British Easter.

We went to the cinema twice last week and I was not impressed with the quality of staff at the ticket desk.  I had my passport ready each time and was ready to prove that I was entitled to my over 60s 50% discount. Each time they issued to ticket without comment.  Ridiculous!  Anyone would think that I look 60 years old.

As usual I am a bit rushed and will add the pictures later.  We are off early tomorrow morning for our second Torta Capixaba A traditional Easter fish dish. It is delicious.  One of the ingredients is heart of palm. Rather than coming in small cans you buy a tree trunk around one metre long.  I have not seen how this is prepared yet.  At this time of year street sellers have mounds of palms stacked up and plenty of customers buying them,

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So I am back in Brazil again, this time for six months. On my last visit the blog petered out – partly because it was becoming a chore and partly because some people thought it was unreasonably critical of Brazil. In fact others thought that it was an advert by the Brazilian Tourist Authority so I reckon that the balance was about right.

This time I will try to add to the blog at least once a week rather than twice. There will be some personal stuff but I will try to keep it all fairly general. The plan is to comment on anything in Brazil that strikes my fancy. The country’s affairs are not well reported in Europe and I hope to give a view from a European perspective. As this is my first week I will be more personal than usual while I find my feet in the Brazilian way of life.

Back together

The journey was about as good as you can hope for. I flew TAM because they had the best deal.  My previous journey with them was full of problems but this time everything worked perfectly.  My luggage was a few kilos over the limit but the checkin at Heathrow did not mention it. In São Paulo they tried to charge me R$72 extra which they finally waived.  It took 21 hours door to door which was very tiring.
It was very good to see Flavia again after three months apart. Skype is very good but but no substitute.

My first impression was the weather.  It is fairly humid which intensifies the feeling of heat. The actual temperature is around 28/32C which is much less than in Málaga in the summer. In short the heat is not a problem for me so far and it is going to get a bit cooler as the summer is now over.  Of course the rain is another thing. It has often been quite cloudy and most evenings there has been heavy rain, often accompanied by thunder and lightning.

Some of the guests

The Sunday after I arrived was Flavia’s birthday and she held a churrasco (barbecue) in the grounds of her apartment. There were twenty people most of whom I already knew and it was good to see old friends. It was very nice to have a maid and a cook to do the hard stuff on the day. We will be eating the left over food for the next month. Sadly we have finished all the beer.

My proxy server in the UK was running well but is suffering from some sort of glitch which needs sorting out.  It allows me to access BBC iPlayer which only admits people who connect via a UK computer. It can also access all sorts of other UK sites which have the same policy. This is another plus for Linux as it is very easy to do and is free.  Talking of computers (again) I have spent a couple of days re-installing Windows Vista Home Edition on Flavia’s computer. It is my first good look at Vista and it really is as bad as its reputation. I will also add Ubuntu Linux in the hope that she might be tempted to see how a proper operating system works.

Only three candles?

On Sunday we attend the wedding of Flavia’s cousin who is marrying an Englishman so there will be an unusual concentration of Brits in Vila Velha. It will be interesting to see how Brazilians celebrate weddings.  The first good thing is that the male guests are not required to dress like waiters.

To close here is a nice thing about life in Brazil. Since my last visit I had my 60th birthday; this gives me all sorts of concessions here. Post offices, banks, lottery shops, chemists etc must either allow me to go to the front of the queue or have a separate queue. Also people who are handicapped, pregnant or with very young children have the same rights.  Another bonus is that I receive half price entry to cinemas, museums and various other tickets. All I need is someone who gives half price hair transplants.

On a technical note I have been forced to make people log in if they want to add a comment.  This is because I was receiving over 20 spam comments every day all of which have to be manually deleted. If you want to add a comment please register a name and email address. You can fake both and remain 100% anonymous if you want.