Day 2 (Monday) - Hanging Out With the Team

I had every intention of sleeping in this morning. However, I awoke at 7:00 am and couldn't go back to sleep (Let's not talk about what time it was in Birmingham).

Just for the record, I am claiming the stupid foreigner pass-card when it comes to spelling anything in Portuguese. After some fantastic coffee this morning, Mark, Michelle and I headed out to do some grocery shopping. We stopped and picked up Tchiago (O.T. which stands for Old Tchiago - apparently this is how Mark differentiates him from all the other Tchiagos).

We headed downtown to the Central Market where we had Tropeiro for lunch. It is rice with ground pork with some seasoning on the side along with some crispy pork bits mixed in which is then topped with a fried egg.

After lunch, we went to different little shops/stands in the market to buy some ingredients for dinner with the team and cooking class for Tuesday night. It was so much fun to get fresh produce from someone who only sells produce, cheese from someone who only sells cheese; you get the point. Michelle bought fresh Parmesan cheese from a man who cut it right off this huge round block of cheese. My Parmesan cheese always comes prepackaged at home. We bought a lot of fruits and vegetables. Mark and Tchiago were gracious enough to carry it all.

After the Central Market, we went to "Extra" to finish the days grocery shopping. Extra is like our Wal-Mart in the U.S. or Big C in Thailand.

After taking Tchiago home, we carried the groceries up the three flights to Mark and Michelle's apartment.

I took a little nap and then Michelle and I began preparation for dinner for the team. As others arrived they jumped into help. Michelle took care of the salad and Junia was her assistant. (By the way, Michelle's salad was wonderful.) I was in charge of the Fettuccine Alfredo and Diana was my assistant. Vivi was our pasta taster to make sure it was just right. We had to make three batches of the recipe because I have never made that much at one time before. We would have had more help but the kitchen is too small.

Tonight, I met most of their team. Raul and Vivi, the Dempsy family- Demps / Kristy / Meg / Duncan / Kate, Alan and his fiancée - Junia, Diana, Tatiana, Fabiana and of course Mark and Michelle Hamby. I loved getting to meet everyone and hanging out around the table talking. What a great team!

By the way, the best way I can describe some of the streets here is that they look like the streets of San Francisco. They are straight up. Mark does a great job driving them in a car with a manual (stick) transmission.