bá tchê, foi tri massa em RS.
Autor: Mat Gabel | Publicado: 2011-11-10T20:09:00-08:00

WOW hein.
what a week!
so first i woke up pretty early and hopped on a bus at 8:00am. for the 4 hour bus trip to Porto Alegre i lied down over 2 seats and had blinks new album on repeat, was enjoyable. Then from there to jaguarão i just enjoyed looking out the window and seeing things were different.
So i arrived, ricky and his mum picked me up from the rodoviaria and i was welcomed into the family.
The next day was a public holiday, so we walked to&nbsp;Uruguay and looked at the duty free shopping things, saw heaps of cool stuff. It was really amazing being able to just cross a bridge and be surrounded by a complete different culture with different language, food and everything. then we made our way to rickys 2nd host family to experience my first real gaúcho churrasco, which was just lovely. was good to meet the family and see how different people are in the very south of brasil. after the churrasco we went for a ride with some of rickys friends, back to Uruguay through towards the centre of the town away from the shopping. we chilled there for a bit and talked a lot, then we went back home and i tried the chimarrão tea that is very typical from the region, i liked it a lot and tried to get into the culture of it all. The next day we went to rickys school to meet his colegues, it was a public school so everything was quite different compared to my huge school in Criciúma. After that we headed to rickys english school to be teachers. I really enjoyed it as it is the kind of things i want to be doing in my life, it was really good playing games with the 10 year old teaching them english and learning portugues at the same time. One of the kids even added me on facebook straight afterwards. after class we went back home for lunch before buying the things from the duty free shops that we marked on our list the day before. i bought some things that ive never seen before and things typical to the country. Then we went to see rickys first host family and his&nbsp;counsellor&nbsp;person, which was strange for me because i dont have a person in rotary looking after me like he has. and then came 5:00 futebol time. we played against some friends from school and i scored a hatrick! ricky only scored 2, but mentally and in our hearts he scored more, better luck next time ricks. after that enjoyable and needed&nbsp;exercise I headed straight for the hair salon to get a chop and stink the place out with my&nbsp;sweatiness. after that it was time to get my Gaúcho on. I dressed up in the traditional clothes including the boots and hat, as we headed to the ruins of the big jaguar along with our chimarrão. When in Rome as the saying goes. That moment right then was an amazing experience, even having a little horse to ride and get photos on. when we walked up to the horse a little kid ran over to us asking what we were doing, and he was happy enough to let us jump on it, as long as we took a photo of him to take back to our countries. so we took that deal and made the most of it. That night we went out to meet up with some of rickys friends, who were all from different cities in brasil, so they are the gringos of the big jaguar. i ate the best hot dog in my life, was so good, but as the brazilians say: hunger is the best tempura that exists.
The next day we slept in and packed up our stuff, the day was so hot so we were kinda lazy, but we went back to the english school because i left my jumper there. we were about to catch a bus to Pelotas, a near by city where ricky has a lot of friends, until his mum's boss offered us a lift there. so we took the lift as we thought it was a good idea to save some cash and experience things a little differently. we didnt think it was gonna be SO different. but turns out he is a bankman by day, and a horse injector by night. along the way we stopped off at his friends farm to do some errands. the farm owner arrived in style on hourseback with a dead rabbit hanging off the back of his saddle. Our driver injected some horses and fed the dogs before we headed back on the road as the sun was setting beautifully behind us. The trip in the car was enjoyable and not so awkward even in a squishy 50 year old ute with 3 little seats. when we got to Pelotas (which is spanish for balls) and met up with Saviani, a 20 year old mate of rickys who offered for us to stay there in his family. he works in a company that designs applications for ipads and things which i thought was quite cool. so yeh then we went to his house and got ready to go out with his friends. We had a really good night and met a lot of very nice people. The next day, Sábadonejo (saturday), we woke up to the smell of a delicious churrasco and ate our lives away. After lunch we went for a ride through the city and bought our tickets for the dance. Afterwards we headed to rudinho's beautifuly crazy house covered in plants and surrounded by a farmzinho. Rudinho got chased by his black sheep around the yard, until he tamed it by putting some sunnies on it, kodak moment. We got driven back home in style, 50 year old chevrolet baby. That night we went out to rudinho's churrascaria and didnt pay a cent, BEST BBQ EVER. then we had a nap before we headed back out again to a balada with a live country music band. i taught ricky how to dance with the girls and he picked it up easily. after we danced our night away we made our way back home in style, motoristão&nbsp;tri massão yo. In the morning went to our 4th churrasco in 4 days (ohhh eu sou gaúcho) and ricky got all beefed out. then we went and played some futebol before chilling out on the sunset of a hidden private sand dune in the middle of nowhere. It was an amazing way to end the unforgettable weekend and so very peaceful. This city also has the 2nd biggest lagoon in south america, like in the middle of nowhere. That night rudinho made us a delicious feed and so easy to make. then we watched alpha dog. Then on monday we went to Emmerson's soccer school. He is a very famous soccer player in the world who has played for all the top teams and has now started a development academy for people under 17 years of age. He was born in the city and comes back regularly. We got to meet his parents who were so down to earth even though their son is so famous agora. they were asking if we were gonna join the academy, we acted as if we were top players from our country and i lied a little just make the guy showing us around feel more special. after getting a very valuable contact we headed to the centro and i bought the famous traditional chimarrão tea set so i could bring the culture to other parts of brasil and australia. Then we had an ice cream with lovely flavours and chilled at Mateus's house. he is a really good bloke and has the coolest dog/rat i have ever seen. then we went back home and had a mini world cup playstation session with our flags, sock and/or hats. it was cool playing and we cheered for our countries as if it was real. then we went to bed.
We slept late, had lunch and headed to Porto Alegre. we were lucky enough that Saviani was driving there anyways, so we got a free lift again, with a musical experience. Porto Alegre was cool, we got to Saviani's work hotel and used tea towels to dry ourselves after our showers as we were absolutely unprepared for a unit filled with nothing. That night we went out to a place were ricky had already met the owner in Sth Africa, mundo pequeno hein. was a good night and afterwards we stayed at another friends house who went on exchange in the USA, good bloke. For lunch the next day we went to a Buffet Livre (all you can eat buffet) and ate like machines. then we went back to the unit, and drove around all day in the stupid traffic, making a little nightclub in the car, with some crazy awesome clapping with people watching in disbelief. then we took the bus and was sad to say goodbye to such good blokes who i knew i wouldnt get the oppurtunity to see for a long time. then we arrived in criciuma, after detouring through milhões of cities, instead of going there directly. at least it gave us some time to reflect on our awesome adventures though the past week.
mum picked us up, ricky got welcomed into our family of 2 and we went to bed. This morning we went to my school for my formal rehearsal, kinda mega boring, especially for ricks. then we chilled with mates and i showed him the city. we found some ice blocks for 25 cents, bloody delicious. being gringos we asked an old man to take our photo, he was very interested in us and told us about the opening ceremony of the Santa Catarina Olymic Games that night. so we went there caught up with Patrick from USA and watched a very random but special and beautiful ceremony with fireworks demais (demais). then we ate pancakes with patrick at my casa, had a good old chat, now is now, ive been writing for too long, and tomorrow is my school formal! strath and logan are coming and its gonna be an amazing night of graduating, alongside my fellow gringãos.
ricky is a little tired/upset, so we'll call it a night.

moon.