Welcome back
everyone! Since I have been in Brazil for a little more than a month, I think it's time to discuss some cultural observations I've had so far, and as a
bonus, I'll also talk about a trip that my colleagues and I took to Gramado not too long ago.
*DISCLAIMER: When
I discuss Brazilian (Rio Grande do Sul) culture, this is based on MY observations, experiences and
discussions with people I meet in Brazil*
*Also, when discussing culture, keep in mind these will be generalizations and won't be true for every person*
The first topic I want to cover in my cultural discussions is something that is near and dear to my heart (and I'm sure it's the same for a lot of you), FOOD.
Rio Grande do Sul Food:
When you talk about food
in Rio Grande do Sul, it's important to keep in mind that while there may be
some things that are considered "traditional Brazilian", a lot of the
food in the state will have a lot of influences from the diverse heritages that
you can find here. For instance, during a recent weekend trip into the
Rota Romantica near Porto Alegre, I was able to find some of the best German
food I have ever had and that includes what I had when I was in Germany.
In Gramado (a small Italian/German resort town I will discuss later), you can
find a lot of restaurants catering to the local Italian and German heritage.
In Porto Alegre
specifically, the food culture is harder to define because of the city's large
population, you can find almost anything you could want: vegetarian Indian,
pizza, Spanish, Mexican, etc.
The people here seem to
love pizza, but coming from the US, there are a few things that you will find
different about pizza here. The first is that the porto-alegrense have an
obsession with something called requeijão. Now, if you were like me and
have no clue what it is, let me tell you: it's cream cheese. Pizza isn't
the only thing that you can find requeijão on however, they also like to
put it onto sandwiches and even sometimes a hamburger.
Before I move onto more
traditional food, there is another food item that, like cream cheese, you can
find on almost anything: egg. There are two different kinds of eggs you
can find here: chicken and quail. The most common dishes I have seen that
include eggs are: pizza, salad, xis (the word used here in RS for sandwich) and
hamburgers. Since I am not a huge fan of eggs myself, one of the first
phrases I learned here was "sem ovo, por favor." (without egg,
please).
There is also a lot of
places to try what appears to be more traditional Brazilian (RS) food. An
important thing to keep in mind though is that this food tends to be fairly
basic, with little to no spices used, but is usually fairly healthy and
filling. It usually consists a plate of food with rice, black beans, a
side salad, and some kind of protein; usually steak or chicken. This is
what they serve where I work for lunch and admittedly, I'm not sure how I will
survive without my rice and beans anymore.
There is a type of food
that is fairly unique to Rio Grande do Sul that a decent number of Americans
should be familiar with, churrasco (or Brazilian BBQ). You may not know
the word, but if you have ever been to a restaurant like Texas de Brazil or
Fogo de Chao, that is a churrascaria. As I have been told by several
coworkers, there is a lot of respect here for churrasco and it is usually a
social event where you meet up with friends, knock back some beers, and try to
eat your weight in tasty grilled meats.
While this is specific
to what I have seen in Rio Grande do Sul, you can be sure that I will update as
I travel to other cities/states in Brazil.
Language:
One of the most easily
identifiable elements of culture is the language. In Brazil, the native
language is Portuguese. However, as mentioned before, there are a lot of
Italian and German descendants here in the state, which means that you can also
find these languages. In fact, during my weekend trip to Gramado, I was
able to speak with quite a few Brazilians that spoke German as a native
language. In fact the people here who speak German have their own dialect
called Riograndenser Hunsrückisch that is only found in Southern Brazil.
If you are thinking
about living in Porto Alegre or decide to visit the state, one thing to keep in
mind is that you will have a hard time getting around without any
Portuguese/Spanish background. If you know Spanish, you will be able to
transition to Portuguese with a lot of the basic vocabulary being similar to
Spanish. If you are like me, and don't speak either of these, it will be
fairly important to try and get a grasp on basic phrases. People here are
generally friendly and if you at least try to speak the language, they are
pretty willing to help you.
Something to look into
is getting Google Translate's app (or a similar app), and downloading the
Portuguese dictionary. That's how I survived my first few days here
actually. There were a lot of times I would go down to the front desk of
my hotel here, and there wouldn't be anyone who could speak English and Google
Translate saved me.
I am working on learning
Portuguese, and while I can read/write in fairly basic Portuguese, the hardest
part so far has been trying to train my ear to the native speakers. I
have started to be able to pick out some words, but a lot of it takes a few
times of hearing them before I can understand.
Where I work, I am able
to use my English for everything since most manager level people at the plant
here in Porto Alegre are able to speak and understand English.
Transportation:
Because Porto Alegre is
a fairly large city, there are a lot of options to getting around.
Walking is not advised most of the times due to safety concerns (especially at
night), so if you need to go short distances, it's best to hire a taxi or get
an Uber. Driving in the city is something that you will need to get used
to, especially if you haven't driven anywhere like urban Mexico or other
non-first world countries. As a driver, you need to keep an eye on the
side streets, as a lot of people will fly through those areas. There is
also the issue of traffic, as the city is very congested during most of the
day. Probably the biggest problem for drivers will be watching for the
motorcycles or scooters that weave through traffic.
As a pedestrian, you
need to be very, very careful. You should only cross the street when you
KNOW that there are no vehicles coming through the crossing. A lot of
major intersections will have crosswalk signals, but you still need to make
sure that no vehicles are coming.
There are also several
public transportation options. The first is your standard bus, where the
fare will be cheap, but it will be fairly crowded. The second is a type
of bus called a lotação. These buses are similar to a greyhound bus,
where you have air-conditioning, and they only take as many passengers as they
have seats. The third and final is the Trensurb, which is similar to the metro
system in D.C or the S-Bahns that you find in Germany. This is a fairly
limited option with it only operating in the Centro Historico district and
heading North.
Personally, since I am
not comfortable driving here, I have been relying on Uber, so I would recommend
that if you are staying here for a short period of time.
*I will not be talking
about the workplace culture yet, as I want to have more time to observe and
analyze before discussing it, but don't worry, I will have a post about it soon.*
Weekend Trip: Gramado and the Rota Romantica:
As I mentioned a few
times, I was able to take a weekend trip to Gramado with a couple of my
coworkers. Now if you are wondering what the Rota Romantica that I have
mentioned a couple of time is, it is a tourism route through a lot of the small
German and Italian towns in the mountains outside Porto Alegre. During
the trip, we visited the city of Nova Petropolis, Gramado and a small town
called Canela.
It only takes about 2
hours to get from the center of Porto Alegre to Nova Petropolis and the view
along the way is amazing. It's like driving along the Blue Ridge Parkway,
but even better.
Nova Petropolis itself
is fairly small, but is charming and houses one of the best German restaurants
I have ever been to, a place called Unser Haus. Any place that lets you
get all-you-can-eat, high quality German food for about 15 USD, I am in.
We did have the chance
to see a festival while we were there. It was called the Festival de
Primavera (or the Spring Festival). Since I am in the Southern
Hemisphere, the seasons are flipped. So right now, I would normally be
preparing for Winter, but instead I have to get ready for Porto Alegre's
summer. The festival itself was mostly stalls selling gardening supplies
or plants, but it was cool to see none the less.
 |
| Festival de Primavera |
Moving onto Gramado,
there is something that you notice right away about the place. They have
an extreme love affair with chocolate. I noticed four or five different
brands of chocolate, with stores what felt like every 50 feet. They even
have a chocolate museum with a lot of sculptures and some free samples at the
end.
As Gramado is a resort
town, it does emphasize its European heritage. This is best evidenced by
the fact that most of the buildings are done with the Bavarian architecture
style.
While Gramado is a
picturesque town, with a lot of good restaurants and shops, but the town
itself doesn't have much to do. The true attractions, in my opinion, are
the ecotourism options in and around Gramado. In Gramado, there's a
really nice park called Lago Negro, where you can walk around the lake or take
a paddle boat onto the lake itself.
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| The main church in canela |
After spending the night
in Gramado, we decided to head to a smaller town 15 minutes away called
Canela. Canela is another one of those small German towns, but there
really is not much to do there. You can find some cool shops and
restaurants, but like Gramado, I think you are better off using it as a base to
explore the things around it. For my group and I, we paid a visit to
Caracol Falls. Caracol is actually the second most visited eco-tourist
site in Brazil, only behind the world-renowned Iguacu Falls (which I will be
visiting while I am here in Brazil).
Now, if you are in shape
and want to do some hiking, there are several trails in the park that will take
you to the waterfall itself, but we didn't really have the time to do it.
So that will do it for
this update, but from here on out, I will be posting every two weeks, so be on
the lookout for that.
Tchau!
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