Eat Rio Blog - Page 70 of 106

The bad behaviour of Brazilian bees

15/07/2012/22 Comments/in Musings

One day when we were shopping for something completely different, I spotted a hummingbird feeder for sale. I’m not sure if I’ve mentioned it before, but I love birds and I find hummingbirds particularly wonderful. As soon as I saw the feeder I lost interest in everything else! On the way home I was already googling how to make the sugar solution and where best to place the feeder.

Before long we had several hummingbirds visiting regularly and I started taking photos. All was peace and harmony in the garden until one day, this happened:

A couple of bees discovered that there was free nectar on offer. Guess what happened next…

More Hortifruti Word-Play

12/07/2012/7 Comments/in Food and drink

Do you remember all those great adverts that Hortifruti were running a while back? They put fruit and vegetables into famous film posters using excellent word play skills. Edward Scissor Hands (Edward Mãos de Tesoura) became Edward Mãos de Cenoura, Moulin Rouge became Melão Rouge (melon) and Shrek became ChuChuRek (chuchu) – take a look at my post about it to see the brilliant film-poster adverts.

Regular readers will know I have a weakness for the art-form (yes, art-form) of the pun, but whoever worked on that advertising campaign was a genius. And isn’t it nice when smart adverts are created for a product you really like? Hortifruti is easily my favourite food store in Rio – if you’re looking for fresh fruit and vegetables and a great selection of other really high quality ingredients, Hortifruti (OR-tchee FROO-tchee) is the place to go.

After their last campaign (fruit/veg transformed into super-heroes) things have been quiet for a while. And then look what I saw this morning!

My favourite word in Portuguese

11/07/2012/24 Comments/in Language

Back in 2009 when I was planning my 4 month (ha!) trip to South America, I started taking Spanish lessons. Back then there were no plans to visit Brazil and so Spanish was the obvious choice. A couple of friends and I found a lovely teacher and we would spend a very enjoyable hour each week having lessons. After a few months we were discussing how the lessons were going, what we thought of Spanish as a language, what we liked about it and so on.

Words, words, words…

My favourite word in Spanish

At some point a question came up: What’s your favourite word in Spanish? I hadn’t given it much thought before, but I knew my answer immediately:

Looking up

07/07/2012/8 Comments/in Musings

I’m feeling a bit wistful at the moment – perhaps some saudade even. It’s because we have reluctantly made the decision to leave our lovely big apartment in Santa Teresa and move a bit closer to my work. A young couple came to look round this morning and they loved it – the looks on their faces said it all: “You guys are mad to be leaving this place”. Maybe they’re right. It’s just that it takes between 1.5 and 2 hours to get to my place of work. And when you spend 4 hours sitting on a bus each day, you don’t have much time left for anything else.

We will probably end up in a much smaller apartment and it almost certainly won’t have the roof terrace and amazing views we currently enjoy. This morning I woke up with a bit of a heavy head , wandered outside and looked up:

Woah! Awesome clouds!

Waiting for the Bondinho

06/07/2012/3 Comments/in Art and culture

The Bondinho (sounds like bon-JEEN-yo) is the name used by the people of Rio for the little yellow trams that used to trundle along the steep and winding streets of Santa Teresa (the neighbourhood that I currently call home). They would make their way from the hills of Santa, across the amazing arches of Arcos da Lapa and end up in Centro (downtown Rio). They were sweet, rickety old things, clanking and shaking as they made their way up and down the hills, almost always full to overflowing with a mix of locals and tourists – it was common to see people hanging off the edges as the street-cars went by.

Quintessential image of Santa Teresa in happier days.