Brazil Tour 7: The Meat of the Cow’s Bebe

January 6

Breakfast at the hotel. Then we drove two hours to Caxis. Very pretty countryside. When we got there we unloaded our instruments and “did all of the bathroom things” as our tour guide said. We were supposed to get right back on the bus, but instead we waited in the sun for an hour. Since one girl, Daria had to leave early because something was wrong with her ticket so they wanted to straighten it out there at the college so the rest of us all stood around outside. And finally we got back on the bus but now we were an hour behind schedule. Oh we almost ran over an alligator.

Then we got off the bus at this Italian restaurant where this guy and his posse came out and sang to us. They sang some American songs and some Italian songs (“Va Pensiaro” the piece we played when the high school went to Italy). And we sat down to a really yummy dinner. First we had soup which was noodles filled with veal. Adam wanted to know what was in the soup so he kept asking the waiter and finally he said “it is the meat of the cow’s bebe” Jeff was like “did he just say bebe?” Oh and there was this “wine” on the table but really it tasted like grape juice with a wine after taste (so it was really sweet and I liked it). The rest of the meal was like this buffet stuff. Some noodles and fried cheese. Then for dessert we had tapioca in a wine sauce with cream (really good but not nearly big enough). While we were eating Paul came over and told us that the tour guide on his bus was kinda weird. Apparently she kept changing things and told the bus that Paul was bad and that they had almost refused to take us on the trip today. (Our tour guide was the sweetest lady ever). We were supposed to go on some tours after lunch, but we were behind schedule so we only went to one winery place that is only 30 years old. We had a cool little tour of it though and got to taste some wine. I liked the white one I had.

Then we drove back to the university where this guy talked to us and we watched a promotional video about the university. Everyone at the university was all dressed up, but Paul was in shorts and a t-shirt and we were all really casual too-oops. And then they gave us a gift bag-complete with a t-shirt, info on the university and a squishy heart. Yup, a squishy heart. Then we drank some coffee and piled onto the bus to go to the concert hall place (except some people walked because it was really close but I wasn’t sure how close it was so I took the bus).

So we had a quick rehearsal on stage. Paul dragged the rehearsal out even as the doors were ready to open so we had to run down and quick change afterward. They set up this tented area for some people to change in. But the guys left the thing open so Jeff started “seductively dressing”. I told him he was going the wrong way and he said “This way I have more to take off later”. So after the concert he pretended to do a strip tease. When I was putting my cello away he was like “wait I didn’t say goodbye”. I thought he meant me but then he ran up and grabbed my cello.

The concert again felt long and Paul did his usual speech in the middle where he said happy new year in Portuguese and then got a translator to give his speech about thanking everyone and thanking the translator and embarrassing them and then about how you may not know that most of the orchestra is not music majors. . . blah blah blah.

Then we had dinner at the university Goucho place. Argh another meat bar! I didn’t really eat too much, just some bread and stuff and drank some wine. Megan wanted a fanta but she didn’t know how to make them understand so she kept saying “fanta” then “fanta sota” saying it so that it rhymed which made us laugh because saying “sota” wasn’t gonna help. Then they had another goucho show and then afterwards we all just started dancing. I was trying to make Jeff dance with me but funnily enough he wouldn’t.  Oh and Eric tried to do a feet stomping imitation of the Goucho spear dance (where they dance over a sword without touching it).  Then on the bus Becca and I slept for the two hours back. Then sleeping at the hotel.