April 2011 Archives

Le Petit Bistro

Published by pedro 19 April 2011 - 16:29 in blog,hobbies,life,Piracanga,Travelling —

Last Thursday I had the great pleasure to take my dear wife to a restaurant. And not any restaurant, but a french one. And not anywhere, but in Piracanga, at the end of the world that is this time on the coast of sunny Brazil. Yes, we didn’t even had to go out of the small eco-village that we live in for a month in order to fully enjoy the french cuisine.

This was possible due to the french couple Didier and Sandrine, that organized a “Petit Bistro” in their “Casa Piracanga”. They come here several times a year and they stay about 2-3 weeks, therefore such an event is not to be missed.

When we got to their place (just to be clear, we walked for exactly 3 minutes from our house, enjoying on the way an almost full moon) we found the tables arranged and some of the people already there, ready to eat the smelly goodies of the french guys.

I found my way to the kitchen trying to catch the cooks in action, but the starters were already done. The plates were set and ready, just a few more people were missing.

Before starting to eat we were served with a drink made of bad quality white wine (Didier told us) and very sweet maracuja (passion fruit) liquor. The result was similar with Porto wine, more tasty, pretty good in the given circumstances.

The guests slowly appeared, therefore the starters were served. A delicious tarte with some kind of melted cheese, tomatoes, herbs and olives:

Besides that we’ve got a mini fruit-vegetable salad, with a tasty sauce and some raisins:

The starter came with a white and cold wine (called Petit Bistro, of course). Everybody was drooling waiting for the main dish – fish made in the oven – dorado to be more precisely:

The taste was excellent considering we didn’t have any fish for quite some time. The same white wine made this course smooth even if we were quite full. This is because we usually eat at dinner just a shake that we made out of fresh fruits with a bit of milk, mixed in the blender. Well, the french DINNER wasn’t over yet

And how could we go to a french restaurant without eating cheese? This time Didier and Sandrine picked up a ROLA of “Petit Brie”, served on a slice of home-made bread with raisins, together of course with a glass of red wine, Petit Bistro as well:

When we were about to say that’s it, we saw more plates coming This time it was the real desert (even though I knew that french usually eat cheese instead of desert).

We received a small glass of mousse au chocolate, made by Sandrine herself, extremely good. Not too sweet, not too heavy, just perfect to enjoy together with some home made yoghourt (with a bit of maracuja on top) and a jam pancake:

We can only thank Didier and Sandrine for a delicious meal. We are looking forward to the next Petit Bistro that will take place this Friday

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For almost one year

Published by Eugenia 17 April 2011 - 20:29 in blog,Nadia,Piracanga —

… we are 3

The last 2 months, the 10th and 11th for Nadia, have passed really fast. The first because of all the preparation before leaving and the second one adapting after arriving

For Nadia these two months meant a lot, as she:
- visited her father who was working in Timisoara
- where she met her cousins: Radu, Ale, Ana and Mihai
- saw again her grandparents: Maia, Taia, Buni and Bunul, her aunts and uncles,
- said good-bye to her good friend, Vlad, to her “god-mother” Ioana and to a bunch of friends: Ema, Edi, Ada, Sofia and Marc,
- travelled over 10.000 km by plane and
- arrived on the other hemisphere of the Earth where
- she meets almost everyday Sasha, her new (boy)friend with whom
- she swims, almost everyday as well, in the river and in the ocean.

Also in the past two months she:
- yells every day, from all her longs: MAMA (mom), TATA (dad)
- points her finger to things that she wants or she considers interesting
- waives her hand to people when saying good-bye (and not only), just like Queen Elisabeth of Great Britain
- claps her hands and calls us to see what she learned
- wonders until she starts coughing when she sees Nestor, the community dog,
- runs baby-style with “3 legs” all over the house and especially on the beach
- then she stays “on all fours”, puts her head on the sand and she starts looking between her legs until a wave comes and gets her so wet that she doesn’t know what’s wrong
- says TIII-TAA to almost any thing around her
- learned what’s the catch with the space beneath the table/couch/chair/bench and she doesn’t hit her head anymore,
- started to have fun while seeing her grandparents Maia and Taia in the_box_aka_the_computer
- walks on the bench holding herself on the table with the style and speed of the crab (sideways)
- from time to time she stops to make some kicks with her right foot, meaning that she bends and straightens quickly the foot
- eats during lunch pretty often what we eat
- has the two big upper teeth and she chafes with them everything she catches
- reads out loud, on acute sounds, like a soprana, the story of Pedro the millipede and Pufuleţ the chicken that was lost in the big farm
- rediscovered her feet, especially her toes using them to sing us every night before going to sleep
- discovered the moon and she’s in a continuous wonder when she sees it
- stays with us in bed half an hour in the morning, running “100(c)m fences”, with us as fences
- then she looks for our belly-button and starts “farting” on our belly with her mouth
- then she leans back like a statue and starts laughing when she falls on us
- she shoots out her mouth as a protest if she doesn’t get different objects from the house that we consider to be dangerous
- eats much better with her hand and now she’s in the phase when she feeds us with the little spoon.

Our conclusion is that Nadia is learning a lot of new things every day, she’s as smiley and happy and she talks more and more, just like her mother

We love you our princess and we thank you for choosing us as your parents in this life!

You can see below a few pictures from two days ago, when she turned 11 months old. Enjoy

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Dobrestii.ro in 2 languages

Published by pedro - 17:02 in blog,events,hobbies,Photos —

Dear all,

Since we arrived in Brazil we mostly wrote in Romanian and this happened especially for our parents, that are reading our site and don’t know English. Now we added two flags in the top right corner of each post, so that everybody can enjoy our adventures We’ll start translating some of the earlier posts, so come back in the next few weeks to check them out!

Therefore if you see an article that is in Romanian, click on the British flag in the top right corner and you’ll see the English version.

Kisses to all of you!
Pedro, Eugenia & Nadia

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Strong sensations at the ocean’s shore

Published by Eugenia 12 April 2011 - 12:50 in blog,life,Piracanga —

During the three weeks since we arrived in Piracanga, my weight “suffered”. I don’t know exactly how many extra kilos I’ve put on because I don’t have a weighter , but I feel there are many.
What have I done about it in these three weeks? Maybe the easiest thing in the world: I wailed that I put on some weight.

It’s good though that I avoided the justifications. I could have blamed the bahian traditional food (Piracanga is situated in Bahia region of Brazil): rice with beans, smashed bananas or several types of potatoes, or even on the location change, right?

Sunday night I realized that all this wailing isn’t helping me at all. Therefore I proposed myself to DO something. Therefore, Monday morning at 07:00 I put on my swimming suit, I kissed my husband and my child and I went running on the beach.

I was never a fan of running. When I had to choose other sports I played tennis, I swam or I “danced sportively”

But now and here, running seemed like a good idea. The view is sensational; the gorgeous ocean on one side and the mangrove forest on the other side. I know people that would like to give the streets they’re running on for a beach like this one. It would be a pity not to take advantage of it.

Having no training I took it easy. Easy it’s a way to put it because I chose, without wanting or knowing, the hardest way. Being high-tide, the sand on the beach was very soft and fine and my feet kept … in it. So I ran in total for about 20 minutes in series of 7-8 minutes with walking pauses of 2-3 minutes in between.

The sensations have been very nice and intense.
- I lived a part of what other people who are doing this for a while are describing, like Master Disconfort (Romanian) or Paul (Romanian), Nicolae’s friend
- I had time to be just myself and my mind where a lot of thoughts were running around. This happened until the eyes really saw the ocean and its beauty sent my mind “walking around”
- I felt that my entire body was working to take down the extra kilos and to bring back the state of good in myself.
- I screamed out the things that kept gathering in my restless mind. God, how good it felt when I screamed with my entire body!

After coming back to the start point (Nestor – the dog who was sleeping on the beach) I threw myself in the ocean’s waves and stood there until my breath got back to its initial rhythm.

Then, because the river was still big, still from high-tide, I crossed over with “barsa”, putting my arms to work as barsa only works if somebody is pulling the rope.

I got home running as “Moaca” was crying so loud after me that I heard her from three houses away. This got me nervous because I wanted that she is OK with her father and she won’t miss me during the 50 minutes I was away from home. Well, it wasn’t like that . But I hope that tomorrow the situation will change with regards to her and she will have fun at the house with her dad.

Now I start to feel how the muscular fever is installing in my whole body, but this will not stop me to maybe get on the beach and run tomorrow at 6:30.

“Have a strong wind!” I said to myself just like some dear people from home, from Romania would do.

P.S. Tomorrow I promise to take my photo camera for your enjoyment. Here they are.

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