Then there was the wedding

Friday, 4th November and my brother and his wife got married for the second time!!  ON A FRIDAY!!!  Silly sap kept telling me (turned out it was 'us') it was on a Saturday.  Makes no difference but I don't know how Mrs. M. puts up with him, he's hopeless with times/directions and, er, days.

Started the day with a nervous bride, told her most brides are nervous and it's not natural to NOT cry on your wedding day.  Think she believed me because she laughed and seemed calmer.

Had make up done, nails done (sigh, they're chipped now and it's brutal.  Had gotten used to pretty nails).  Thing is, with 'night time' make up it looks fairly full on in full sunshine.  Seeing as how we were in Brazil  . . . yeah, FULL sunshine.  When I got back to the house the lads kind've looked at me and I simply stated "I'll look fantastic once it's dark".  Yup!  I really said that.  I said I'd look better in the dark.  Big frickin' doh!!!!!!  Thing is, I did look much better as the light faded, it was night time dramatic make up and looked stunning.  I think.  

I gave the bro' away and the lovely mother of the bride gave her daughter away.  I'd been handed a handkerchief by the second-best man as I was tearing up but the mammy of the bride looked in more need (she had dramatic night time make up on too and that stuff doesn't take kindly to tears).  So I passed her the hankie behind the bride's bum.  But then 'I love NYE' was played and I started sniffing again (one of my favourite songs you see).  Damn.

Back down the aisle with the m-o-t-b (work it out) and we were followed by the second best man and one of the bridesmaids.  We were then handed rose petals by the wedding dictator and, well, I guess we'd all been intending to throw them gently over the heads of the happily married (again) couple but. . well, er, three out of eight of us fired the petals at them like snowballs.  Happy days.

Then there was drinking and eating and laughing and shots and a bit of dancing a bit of (sssh) smoking.  The bride and groom had their life laid out for them in a slide show but none of the sodding photos I spent hours working on were used.  Not enough time.  Arse.

More drinking and lots of lovely people to talk to and . . . yeah, it was a great wedding.  Thoroughly enjoyed myself, loved the people I met.  Not a very good matchmaker (I introduced Mr. R to a, gulp, 15 year old - she said she was SEVENTEEN!!).  Mr. R. did quite fine by himself BTW.  Poor minx left her shoes behind the next morning so she had to come back the following night for them.  Uh-hmm!!

Brazilian weddings are pretty much like Irish ones, only difference is, I think, you have a better chance of sunshine.

A long and happy life to the pair of them.

Mr. R., Second-best Man, Bro' and Mr. B.

 The Bro' and me.

 Mrs. M. and the lovely mammy of the bride.

 The wonderful Ring bearer and his gorgeous mammy.

 Sisters, everyone needs them.

 Happily married again

 The gorgeous Ms. G and her mental mother.

 Mr. B (a desperate snorer!!) and Ms. S.

 In retrospect Mr. R. . . she looks 15.

 AGAIN!!!!  Shots.

NOT AGAIN!!  PLEASE, NEVER AGAIN.

Then there was the food

Oh God but the food in Sao Paolo rocked.  Like, really rocked.  As for the booze?  Hmmmm?  I was quite taken with the Cachaça, although I'm pretty sure the person I was doing shots with ended up with a mouthful of 'bounced' Cachaça, if you know what I mean.  At the wedding I kind've turned into scary lady who's rarely let out and really went for it.  My brother returned from the bar with two shots, one for me and one for my pal.  We drank them and I turned to my brother and said 'again'.  My drinking pal looked pained but drank it nonetheless. . . . I kind've, er, discreetly tipped most of mine into a different glass and only got a mouthful.  Sneaky.  A guest at the wedding by the name of Gutenberg (he said 'like the press' but we all thought 'like Steve, from Police Academy') and he told us that your first  Cachaça will taste good, perhaps even great, but your second one, quite possibly, could kill you!      It's fermented sugar cane and it really comes into it's own when you turn it into a Caipirinha.  My favourite was the every day Lime Caipirinha but feck it, I tried lemon, strawberry, kiwi and grave and another fruit one that I can't remember the name of.  Looked like an olive but soaked the alcohol right into it's gorgeous white heart and was boozy as hell.  

So taken with Caipirinhas was I that I think I was pretty much 80% proof for the remaining two days of my trip to Brazil.  Perhaps even 90%.  Hmmm?  Wonder if that's why I still can't sleep.  Yeah, still awake and home over 36 hours now.  Not good.   

The food is great.  We had North Eastern food (beans and rice etc.) in a fab restaurant and ordered a whole lot of stuff on the menu.  Actually, Mrs. M. did.  None of us spoke well enough to order.  Funny though, now that I think back.  We all went through the menu, flicked the pages and read it as if we understood it.  Which we didn't.  We got a rice dish, a chicken dish, something like a goat (it was goat) and a type of bacon Shepard's pie.  Twice.  Nice.

That evening, of the North East meal, we went to a bar called North Beer and well, I got quite merry.  I didn't intend to but I was having great fun and the boys were pretty and funny and it would have been rude not to have a drink with them.  The fact that margaritas were only €3 made it very easy on the pocket too.  We drank and ordered food and ended up with mandioca fries (think potato only really, really crispy), then boring potato fries.  Cheese fried in sesame seeds and chicken in something.  Oh, and a bottle of Absolute to wash it down.  I also appear to have developed a 2 day obsession with smoking in Brazil.  Never smoked before and never will again but for two days straight I smoked happily, if awkwardly.  

Back to food.  We also went to a Churrasco (Brazilian BBQ) where, for the equivalent of €24 you can eat as much as your belly will hold.  There were six of us, four fellas and another girl and myself and I swear to God we were like . . (cliche) Irish at a free bar.  We loaded up at the buffet and then sat down and turned our token to green.  You're given a wheel, one side red, the other side green. The concept is simple - green side up for more meat and red side down if you'd like to take a break.  Thing is . . . we just kept it on green and let them keep loading up our plates.  Sausage, chicken, lamb, beef, a different type of beef, pork belly.  Hell, they even wrapped meat in meat and served it up.

We were gluttons.  All I could think of was Himself and the   lads, they would have loved it.

Apparently it's a dining experience you can make last for hours. I think we last 45 minutes.

Then, it was remembered, we hadn't had the chicken hearts.  Thought 'I'll try this' and remembered how much I  hate offal when it was in my mouth.  Bleugh.  Mr. R. said his 'popped in his mouth and tasted sour'.  Not good.

What is cool is that the waiters go around, with swords (huge skewers?) filled with meat, anxiously keeping an eye out for anyone who'd left their token on green.  Like us.  Savages.

On my last day I got to go to the Liberdade.  Wow, oh wow.  Japanese food.  Gorgeous Japanese food.  I ordered a whopping dumpling and then some Takoyaki . . .  which came with live shrimp.  Not great for me.  Don't like my food trying to swim in it's sauce.
Last meal was a delicious Beef Stroganoff - a national dish of Brazil and then it was time to head for the plane. Home to babies and Himself so was happy with that.
The food rocks.  The booze is out of this world and the juices are fabulous.  I had orange and soya juice, plain orange, pineapple and the very delicious sugar cane juice.  Yeah, stuffed and happy.
Oh, and I really can't forget the utterly delicious 'pao de queijo' cheese bread balls - yum.  They were the very, very, last thing I ate before leaving the country.

 source

Finding one's way around Sao Paolo

Yeah, so like I said before. I have a shite sense of direction and have always 'landmarked' where I am or where I'm going.  That's how I find my way around, well, everywhere.  Got really shafted before when someone painted their awful yellow house a very boring beige.  A beige like every other house on the street.  Yup, the yellow house really made it easy for me to find my way around Drimnagh.

In Sao Paulo the graffiti is magnificent.  Seriously, it's fecking gorgeous.  I guess the city, like it's people, is tattooed to the nth degree (Brazilians seem to really, REALLY, love their tattoos).  No matter where you go you will find something really amazing to look at.  I was told that shopkeepers etc. pay the graffiti artists to draw on their shop fronts, shutters, whatever and that deters everyone else from tagging their walls.  There is a definite code of honour here, no artwork was ever defaced by someone else's.  I like that.
So, for me in Brazil . . .  with no fecking Portuguese or ability to read and then remember road signs I took to using the artwork as my guide to getting around.  It worked.  To start any journey over there you always, always got the 175P bus to The Joker.  You then walked past Spiderman 3 and you were on the right road to the metro.  Perfect, huh?

   Something else, isn't it?

Saudade

Saudade, you can find the wikipedia explanation here but basically the word is unique to Brazil.  It means 'a longing for something or someone' or 'the loss of someone very special, they're not there any more.  

It also sums up how I felt during my first days in Sao Paulo.  I wasn't that keen on going, for many reasons.  Mostly . . . I do not like flying and I do not like being that far from my family.  That far from my family with people I don't really know.  No disrespect to my brother or his wife but they are not an every day part of my life and even though I was really looking forward to spending a lot of time with them I guess I don't really know them that well.  Bizarre thing to say really but when there is an eight year age gap and you were buying your first house as he started college it's pretty safe to assume that you didn't spend a lot of time clubbing together. 

Thing is, we didn't really get to do anything those first few days in Sao Paulo. Obviously they were busy with the wedding but I had mistakenly assumed that we would do some touristy stuff while I was there and was really looking forward to seeing the city.  And let me tell you it's a city in a way you can't comprehend.  It's huge!!  I'd read it was huge but WOW.  No matter where you look there are skyscrapers and then low level buildings and more skyscrapers and . .  it's kind've beautiful.  I loved it.  Really loved it.  It wasn't as dangerous as I was led to believe, at least I never once felt nervous . .  that's saying something as you know how lousy my sense of direction is.  I never once felt on edge, even at night.  We got  the wrong bus one night and had to hop off it before we went too far afield and, good friends, I knew where we were!!  Me!!!?  Actually, in total we got a bit lost three times and each time it me who found our way home.  I used the wondrful graffiti to find my way around the area we were in. Great way to get about.  More in another post.

I am disappointed that I didn't get to do sightseeing, and no, it's not a touristy place but there are places of interest.  Lots of them.  I would have liked to get to see the grave of one of F1 racing legends, I would have liked to get to the zoo or find that highest building but it wasn't to be.  My hosts were busy and . . well, it didn't happen.  I did, however, get to go to the market in the Liberdade district and it was brilliant.  Hung around the square for a few hours, trying different types of food (some of which was alive - not good) and watching the world go by.  A lovely man taught me how to make a origami doll which he then gave me and I gave to Ms. Urban.  How great is that?  I was taught how to do something funky.  In Brazil.  

I found my initial few days in Brazil very disconcerting.  I missed my family and was lonely as there wasn't anyone to, sounds so dramatic (and it wasn't), show me around or keep me entertained.

So Saudade, is the word for my trip.  Initially anyway.  

Keep hanging on

You know that picture, the one with the kitten hanging off the branch of the tree...?  Anyway, the poster shows a kitten hanging off a branch and the phrase Keep Hanging in There written underneath.  Well, thats me. 

An eejit abroad . . . flying rocks

Ms.Urban posted a great ad for me, with a thumping tune but I remembered this one .. .  yeah, flying will be, er, grand.

An eejit abroad . . . it starts!

One of the best things about going to Brazil, for me, was getting to go through duty free and buying myself a bottle of Chanel No. 5.  I have loved that perfume ever since I was 14 and the woman of the house, Gill (utmost in chic and wonderfullness and now a great friend) always wore Chanel.  As I inspired to be the utmost in chic too I became a huge fan of No. 5.  I never achieved the chic but I do smell fabulous.  

I digress, I ran out of Chanel No. 5 two weeks ago and rejoiced in going to Brazil because I could buy more, tax free.  

But last night I won a bottle of the good stuff, the Parfum!!!!!  At a charity night, best €30 I ever spent.  So now I don't have to get into a metal tube and have that metal tube spark up and take off and stay, touch wood, in the air for ten and a half hours.

'Cept I do as my brother is getting married and he's my brother and . . .  fuck, but I hate flying.  It's only 11.20, the day BEFORE, and I have already taken my first, half, Xanax.  Himself was shocked to find out that Xanax is a tranquilliser. Looove tranqs.

Oh, and whilst I think of it, my lovely pal Ms. Urban wrote a lovely piece about my panic.  She also took the piss out of my 'I'm dead hard, don't feck with me' walk!  Yuh, you should see hers. She looks like a jive turkey.

An Idiot abroad??

We've all watched the Karl Pilkington programme of the same name, right?  Well, he has people telling him where to go and what to do . . . even if he doesn't like it.

Me?  Well I have a hopeless sense of direction and am heading to Sao Paolo in two weeks.  For my brother's wedding.

I'm freaking out.  Man.

Firstly, there's the getting to Amsterdam and making the correct connection flight.  What if they don't send my bags with the new connection?  What if I get bloody lost in the airport.  Did happen once in Dublin.  Got so lost that, on my to Manchester!!, I ended up going back through passport control.   As if I was coming IN to the country?  How the feck did I manage that?  Then I had to exit through arrivals before booting back into departures.  Never told anyone that before.

So then I get to Brazil.  I'm staying in a house with my bro and, when they arrive,  couple of his mates.  I cannot tell you how delighted I was to hear today that there are more Irish people coming to the wedding.  Even if they are all young enough to be my brother and are single.  And mental.  And probably not caring if i get lost when out with them.  Or not.

Sao Paolo is huge.  Bigger than London and has 20million, yup you read it correctly twenty million, people living in it.  It's so huge that the beach is 100's kilometres away.  I've never been further from the sea than . . I dunno, Birmingham City.  

I got lost once in London, leaving Himself in a Virgin Megastore (THE megastore I believe), got on a tube and stayed on it for 15 minutes.  Got off tube and wandered for a bit before getting bored and heading into another Virgin store.  Only to find Himself there.  I asked how he'd gotten there and he told me he'd never left.  HE NEVER LEFT!!!  I'd travelled for over an hour only to end up right where I started.  I'm going to be in Sao Paulo, bigger than London, only they don't speak English.  They speak Portuguese.  I can say hello and goodbye and thanks.  But only to women.  I can't remember how to say thank you to men, there is a difference  you know..  

It's a huge city and there is so much to do and see I'm feeling ill even thinking about it.  It's like that time, last year, when I finally got to go to the V&A Museum only to be so gobsmacked by the sheer size and volume of exhibits I had to sit down quietly and then, after checking out the gift shop, leave.

Apparently I don't need insect repellent but they have big, BIG, spiders.  Spiders with the name of 'The Wandering Spider'  WTF??  Mind you, they also have this cute little chap who is rather cute.  Only on video mind.  He looks like Carnival.

Food doesn't worry me as it's meant to be amazing and drink equally so.  But getting lost does bother me and I swear on Billy the Dog's favourite food bowl that if my brother loses me I'll hunt him down and . . don't know what I'll do to him yet but it will be something dramatic.

I don't want to come across as an oaf but I am genuinely nervous.  I love travelling but, here's the thing, I have always had Himself by my side.  Or Carol.  Both are good.  So to be travelling alone is terrifying.  

Actually, I did go to Istanbul and Urfa in Turkey with Eoin (the brother) before.  But there was Him, Michelle and the mental mother of one of my sister's friends.  PLUS, this is a big plus and therefore worthy of capital letters, I had nos. 1 and 2 with me which meant I had to be focused.  I mean, they trusted me not to get lost, even though we did, and it kept my head straight.

I have no one on this trip to keep my head straight.

Bugger, but I wish it were this day two weeks.  I'd be nearly there now. Okay, so I wouldn't be nearly there, but it would be Tuesday and that's nearly Friday.

Upgrade?

I have finally, finally gotten my head around the fact that I am going to Sao Paolo in a couple of weeks.  Eoin and Isabella are getting married and are going to have the wedding in Brazil.  They're getting officially married here on the 17th October but they're going to do it in Brazil too.  Kind've like myself and Himself did way back when, only in reverse.  

So . . have been reading about Sao Paola and wow.  Here's what I now know:

• Sao Paulo is home to 18 million people. Many of those people are very rich but many more are very poor.  
• It'saSan Paulo fact that the people love their football - the city has three A division teams!!
• Sao Paulo is the third largest cities in the world.
• Brazillians are not knownfor their timliness.
• Great shopping.
• Rainforests.
• One river.  The Amazon.  This contains 20% of all of the fresh water in the world. 
• Daslu, just don’t plan on walking to Daslu. It’s against the rules to arrive on foot at São Paulo’s most over-the-top shopping emporium. A taxi is one option, though a much chicer option is to arrive by chopper at the rooftop heliport.   Apparently Servants in black-and-white uniforms dole out free espresso, biscotti and sparkling water at bars in the store.  Yup, it's a shop.

Have a list of things I want to do and see.  In 7 days, two of which will be taken up by a, sorry, the wedding.

• The Museu de Arte de São Paulo (MASP) museum possesses Latin America's most comprehensive collection of Western art. Hovering above a concrete plaza that turns into an antiques fair on Sundays
• The Beach.  Any one of 'em.
• Banespa skyscraper, Brazil's version of the Empire State Building.
• Feira da Liberdade - Sunday Japantown fair
• Feira da República - Sunday crafts fair
• Bela Paulista - it's a bakery!!!!!

Am sure there is tonnes more stuff to see but Eoin and his bride to be can show me what they reckon is the best of Brazil.

Fingers crossed I can charm someone in KLM into giving me an upgrade.  Going to be lovely and beg "please please can I have an upgrade first time I've been on a plane in three years, first time in ten years without a boy on my lap please please can I have an upgrade" type thing.