A Warm Welcome

I arrived at the Porto Alegre airport late this afternoon after about 24 hours of travel. I was running on 4 plane-hours of sleep (one plane-hour of sleep is ~¼ bed-hours in my book) and an airport nap (which looked a little like this), but I was eager to see familiar faces. We waited a bit for Allie, checked in at our hotel, and met our university host: Professor Carlos, Dean of Engineering. But before we had time to think about anything else, Prof Carlos told us that we had been invited for a welcome dinner – a “barbecue” – by one of the faculty members, Ana, her partner, Marcelo, as well as some of their family.

Yeah, no veggie for me (see previous post). Marcelo had already fired up the grill in their living room area to cook all types of meat: sausage, pork ribs, beef ribs, filet-like cuts, and sirloin steak. It wasn’t a Texas-style barbecue by any means. Churrasco, they call it. Almost every house in this part of Brazil has a barbecue grill like it: “A house is not a home unless it has a grill like this,” Marcelo joked.

In addition to the meat, Marcelo cooked bread, pâo de queijo (cheesy bread), and potatoes on the grill. Ana had prepared fresh papaya, homemade mayonnaise, tomatoes, and a delicious cake-ball-like dessert.

It seemed like we were just visiting old friends; they somehow made us feel completely at home, despite the language differences, when we were 8,123 kilometers away (Nathalie, Allie, and I have decided to protest the Imperial System #awayWithImperial).

Ana told us about the different neighborhoods of the city, the most popular types of food in Rio Grande do Sul, and Marcelo’s travels to the U.S. for his beer microbrewery consultations, and Marcelo put us in contact with people we would meet at PUCRS. They insisted that we stay for coffee –  coffee in shot-glass sized cups and stronger than I’ve ever had. As we left, I thought about how much I was looking forward to spending the summer (winter here!) with Ana, Marcelo, Prof Carlos, and the rest of their team. We went back to our hotel and went to sleep with our bellies plenty full.

We’ll be in good hands here. Needless to say, we’ve been welcomed in the warmest way possible.