Tuesday, September 30, 2014

September showers bring October flowers


I have come out of hibernation. I haven't ranted about the cold in my blog. I had every intention of whining about it for a few posts but I got busy. I also like to keep an upbeat vibe going in my blog. Here's the thing though: Rio Grande gets really, really cold in the winter. My sister made fun of me because she lives in Chicago and thinks anything above zero is Spring weather. And I was complaining about 5 degrees Celsius (~40 degrees Fahrenheit - ugh the most impossible word to spell. Who even remembers where that second "h" in Fahrenheit goes??). And I get it - in the South a few snow flurries send everyone to Walmart in a panic to stock up on groceries for all of winter. So my definition of "really cold" is dubious. And admittedly anything below 60 pretty much zaps any intention I had of leaving the house.

But here in Rio Grande we don't have the infrastructure for cold. Most houses don't have heating or insulation. There's just a wall of brick or wood that stands between you and the great outdoors. When I take a shower and I look at the cutout for the drain, I can see the earth under my house in the gap between my tile floor and the pipe. The temperature of that tile is the temperature of the ground outside. I have proof.


When it's 37 degrees F outside, it's 37 degrees when you're shivering under the lukewarm-drip of an electric shower head. Here in Rio Grande, we spend most of the winter in five layers under blankets in our house, sipping on some chimarrão, and canceling plans because it's either too cold, too windy, too rainy or all of the above.

But alas, the mean cold has been chased away - thank you Earth's axis! And now instead of cold, windy, and rainy, it's just windy and rainy! Just kidding. Sometimes we have nice days. Actually the weather in Rio Grande is totally unpredictable. I've included photo evidence of the weather variability here.
What it looked like this morning...

By 1:00 in the afternoon

The warmer weather has made me altogether a much more agreeable person. I'm more punctual. I feel more motivated. Today, I rode my landlady's bike to the farmer's market in short-sleeves.

I swear there is nothing more tranquil than riding your bike to the farmer's market. The bike is a big deal because I used to walk to the farmer's market (feira), which was a 2-hour ordeal. It's now a 30-minute trip and no longer takes up all of my Tuesday morning. The market has really interesting fruits and vegetables. Here are a few examples:

bergamota - this word is specific to my state. They say mixirica everywhere else. It looks like a clementine, tastes like a clementine, but is not a clementine. There are a bunch of types of oranges here -  some just for juice. Maybe we have lots of oranges in the US too.. but acho q não.
mamão - papaya
goiaba - guava
maracuja - passionfruit. I know we've all had a passionfruit flavored something but when was the last time you saw a passionfruit at a market??
mandioca - I really don't know how to translate that. Brazilians often fry it and it tastes kind of like a potato. But it can also be ground into a flour that they call tapioca in the Northeast. It's a main ingredient in polvilho, which is what makes pão-de-queijo.. which is duh-licious. Mandioca is basically a staple of the Brazilian diet: Ireland's potato. I'm not really the best person to get into food. I've never been that into food. I've been working in restaurants too long so all food joy has been sucked out of me. You should check out my co-ETA's blog, though. She's much more into food.

Stay tuned!