Tis the season - Hydrangea in Stucky

Normally the Hortensias bloom, starting the first week of December and are in full bloom for Christmas and New Years, this year they began blooming before the first of November. Also this year there were more color variations among the blooms.

A little adventure

Last week Camillo and I went to the Continental Air office in the Copacabana Palace to get my tickets to the USA in February (yippee!, Yippee!). I saw a magazine called 'Eating Out' on one of their tables and I helped myself to a copy. We are Always looking for new places to eat in Rio . We have three favorite places and tend to get stuck in a rut - eating only at the favorites - so the search. To our surprise there was a restaurant featured called Parador Lumiar, practically at our own back door in Condominium Stucky, Nova Friburgo.

This Sunday the weather was fantastic in Friburgo so we decided to take the MP, top-down, and have an adventure (this means that we promise not to complain if disappointed.) We drove to Lumiar to try this place. This Parador/Pousada/fazenda is not in Lumiar but in Boa Esperanca - another fifteen minutes past Lumiar on a very bumpy, roller coaster dirt road. I am not exaggerating! The road starts as a wide dirt road, becomes a narrow dirt road and finally end up a trail that only one car can drive on at a time - all widths are in terrible repair. By the time we got to the narrow, narrow dirt road, we had begun to despair - the ad promised 'a privileged view' and 'that chef Isias Neries matches Brazilian country (fresh) ingredients with contemporary cuisine techniques' so we continued on with a positive adventure like attitude.

 

(I gave you all the bad first because you have to be willing to accept the trip to reap the rewards.)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Finally - we found a one lane private drive lined in Bromeliads and colorful flowers. There are sloping lawns, chalets spaced for privacy and a stylish building that houses the reception area and the restaurant.   We both took a big breath of relief.  Inside the restaurant, from the open patio you can sit to look out over the flower bed and herb garden, watch the cook's helper picking fresh herbs for your dinner.

They have a wine cellar but we decided to try their caipirinhas. GOOD! choice! We shared a starter of fresh made goodies - hot pepper jelly, eggplant, jabuticaba jelly, buffalo mozzarella and more.   We shared a green salad with apples/nuts/and arugula.   We shared 'Rissotto de Rabada' and finally we shared a desert (a Neapolitan tort - strawberry, vanilla, chocolate delight). We ordered much  too much food but everything was excellent and was absolutely worth the bumpy dirt road.

(Note that we also shared a special treat from the chef - a small but fantastic mix of coconut/pineapple/sugar desert. We has already ordered the Neapolitan tort so we ate both - no problem one was with coffee - no sugar added.) We have our own little piece of heaven but if we didn't, and needed a quiet place to recharge from Rio City Life - we would spend time in one of their Chalets - as it is, we will return again for more of this Brazilian food. Visit http://www.paradorlumiar.com/

Missing persons

I feel I have to apologize for not writing something, anything this past week. I have eaten a ton of chocolates, played solitaire by the hour and written nothing for a week. It is not just this blog, but the paper that is due tomorrow for my class at PUC that is causing my distress.

 

The paper due is for the section on literary discourse. It is not that I haven't read all the material, done Internet research to clarify the definitions and had my basic idea for over a month - it is that I can't seem to put my mind in order. To combine the concepts learned (well discussed) in class with my idea, is what is driving me to overdose on chocolate. We have gone over (I almost said 'learned' again) so many concepts, written so many papers and made so many presentations that the ideas are overlapping and instead of getting clearer are becoming jumbled. I simply can not find the words to make this paper mine. This is a blow to me - I always have words - but to put the literary work of Hemingway within the context of literary discourse and corpus linguistics is driving me MAD!

 

Where is Rosemary that is my real question? Have you heard from her? I know she is on a roof top in Rio planting flowers but where is she??

Carnival 2005

Okay so the one on the right is me! My carnival experience.

city streets, Santiago, Chile