belo horizonte - bela cidade

for me, a lack of blog postings can mean one of two things - either nothing is happening or too many things are happening - happy to say in this case it is the latter =) so time for an update!

about a month ago on the last public holiday here in brazil, triinu and i went to belo horizonte on the invitation of two aiesec friends, elvio and gabiru. BH (be-agha), as it is affectionately known, is about 8 hours by bus from São Paulo and is the capital of the state of Minas Gerais (which has the historic mining cities of Ouro Preto, Mariana etc). The city has a population of about 2.5 million people and was the first modern Brazilian city to spring from an architect's design board (in the 1940s a young Oscar Niemeyer designed the Pampulha district (the lake where Triinu and I are posing).

BH is known for its wide avenues, large lakes and parks - i just loooooooved all the trees that you can see through out the city!! we checked out various parks through out the city, including one where we bought fresh cane sugar juice (see the photo of the juice being made), and we also had a great time exploring the vibrant Mercardo Municipal (town market), where the locals can be found drinking from at least 10am in their choice of the two rival bars based on the local football teams (we also checked out their stadium). we also got to experience family life in BH with our wonderful host, Elvio and his mum, where we ate home-made pão de queijo in the region that invented those little pieces of heaven! we also went to the home-coming family bbq of Rafa, who did a traineeship in Ukraine. her family was very welcoming and full of life, as demonstrated by her uncle and his tasteful apron ;)

one of the highlights of the weekend was the concert of brothers Zeze di Camargo and Luciano! they are stars of brazilian country and western music whose remarkable life story was told in the film "Dois Filhos do Fransisco" ("Two Sons of Fransisco"). the concert was in the town of Pará de Minas, about 1 hour from BH, with a population of approximately 100 000 people (and I think all of them were there at the show!) we didnt know any of their songs before we went to the show, but there were some key words that we discovered:
* coração (heart)
* paixão (passion)
* amor (love)
* dor (pain)
* saudades (missing you)
* felicidade (happiness)

with these songs you can easily participate in most of the songs they were singing =) was a great night out!