Weekend Fun

We had a very packed weekend planned.  We are in Belo Horizonte all week so we wanted to get out of the city on the weekend.  On Saturday, Jefferson met us at the hotel at 8am to take us to Ouro Preto.  It is a beautiful town 1h30 away.  Jefferson grew up there so he knows all the little corners only locals know.  I am so grateful he came.  Before we head into town , he took us to a gorgeous natural park called Cachoeira Andreinhas 30 minutes away.  The place was huge, with amazing views.  Since showing you is much better than telling you, here are some pictures of the place

                                                                  Panoramic view

At the first lookout point, with Andrea and Mike

There is so much iron in the ground that everything looks red (my kind of place :))

With the girls!

Sangita

With Sangita!

Mike showing off his yoga skills

The CSC Brazil 13 team! (Missing Sunghwan)

I'm not sure why, maybe it was because of the views, or the altitude, but we took tons of jumping pictures!

More jumping pictures 

The whole team jumping :)

 We even went into a cave to get to a waterfall.  It was beautiful.

The waterfall

Carolyn, Jared and Vinod

After the park, we went into town.  Ouro Preto is a beautiful place with tiny streets and hills everywhere (again). I don't think I've ever walked uphill as much as I have on this trip.

Main plaza in Ouro Preto

Ouro Preto

Ouro Preto Again

More Hills

Ouro Preto

They had those little statues looking out the window on a couple of buildings

we visited the old royal palace and the place they used to make money, before going to the market where they sold a lot of souvenirs.

Royal Palace

I wouldn't mind a R$500,000 Bill!

Royal palace

In front of the royal palace

After shopping, we went into a coffee shop and there was a guy singing french songs :) "non, je n'ai pa change" and "la vie en rose..." (Who would have thought...).  While waiting for the others at a bar, a teenage girl walked up to us and tried to explain that she has there with her school and her assignment was to take a picture with Americans! Between our broken Portuguese and her broken English, it took us a while to understand what she was saying.  We later found out from her teacher that they all come from a very small town near Ouro Preto and it was their first time seeing foreigners, ever :)

Looking through my Portuguese book trying to figure out how to tell the girl that we are here on a work assignment.  

This is her, with 2 americans :)

On the way back, we stopped by a really pretty church

On Sunday, a bus was ready for us at 9 to take us to Joanne's house.  She is the founder of casa de jardim (One of the NGOs we are working with) and she invited the whole CSC team to spend the day there, cook some of our national dishes and hike.  Since it was pretty hard to find Lebanese spices, I decided to make Guacamole (when in doubt, always go with guacamole).  The whole day was amazing.  Joanne and her husband Arubio are extremely hospitable and their house is gorgeous.
When we got there, Joanne and Arubio took us for a 2h hike. There was a lot of (you know it) uphill and rock scrambling, but the views were breathtaking.

Team stopped for a picture and a view of Belo Horizonte on the way to Joanne's house

Joanne's house! Isn't it gorgeous?

Hanging out before the hike

As we were leaving the house, Arubio gave us some flowers to eat.  They were pretty good, specially when you get to the end.  It had a kick to it.

Heading out!

The views!

Again, lots of uphill! But it was great

We're finally at the top

Trio Picture!

After the hike, we went back to the house and started cooking.  Every team member brought something,

from appetizers, to main dishes, to desserts, to wine.  We then just sat in the sun on her porch, enjoying the beautiful day.

Back at the house, the team started cooking

Sangita and Arubio making Indian meatballs

The great spread

Everybody relaxing on the porch

Joshua just sat on my lap to show me how to play angry birds,  Does he remind you of anyone???  :)

Jared was pretending to be a fish and Joshua was trying to catch him. I don't know who was having more fun :)

Our hosts!

This weekend was amazing.  Thanks again to Joanne and Arubio!


Nada
#ibmcsc Brazil

Business as Usual and Sangita's birthday

Working with the client has been great.  It is just so different from what I am used to.  First of all, my team is composed of 2 technical people (myself and Michael) and 2 HR people (Vinod and John).  It is really interesting to see how different people in different organizations at IBM resolve problems.  We could not be more different, which is great because I feel we can all learn a lot from each other.  From a technical perspective, the approach is usually "you see a problem, you think about it for a minute then you do your first attempt for a solution.  It doesn't work, you make another iteration, and so on...".  The HR guys have a different process: "You see a problem, you analyze it, you think about all possibilities, compare them against each other, make sure you have all the information you need and then write up a solution".  I have been in development my whole career, so this is really out of my comfort zone, and I love it :)

Pudin (Flan).  Vinod has tried that at every single kilo we have gone to :)

Team walking back from lunch

Team pic :)

Busted :)

Hard at work

Hard at work

Meeting with Breno and Mauro, from the project management office

John's favorite time of the day! Macchiato time!

After talking to a few people, we have a much better understanding on how the company functions and what is being asked from us. The work day went by really fast and before we know it, it was time for dinner.
Today is Sangita's birthday so we decided  to surprise her with cake.  Inderpal, who was our team facilitator for the 3 pre-work month joined in on skype.  It was really sweet of him to do that, specially that it was already pretty late for him in London.
We also learned the words to "Happy birthday" in portugese :) The weird part is that for the Portuguese version, you don't just repeat "happy birthday" 4 times.. It is 4 different sentences.

The team waiting for Sangita to come to the lobby

Surprise!!!

Cakes!

In Brazil, it's tradition for the birthday girl to cut the first piece of cake and give it to someone else, which is a little different from the Lebanese tradition where there birthday girl has to have the first piece

Talking to Inderpal!

With the birthday girl

Team birthday picture

Sangita's birthday dinner was one of the best nights so far.  We went to a nice restaurant for some food and caipirinha.  Did I mention I love caipirinhas??? It is a traditional brazilian drink made with cachaca (Sugar cane rum), and lime (they usually add sugar too but I order mine sem açúcar).  We had such an amazing time! I this we were the loudest table, not only in the restaurant, but on the whole block :)

They gave us an ipad with the menu, which is a terrible idea, because the connection was slow and it took forever to load :) But the good thing about this is that there were food pictures, and since this was our first time going out without Daniel to translate the menu for us, it worked out pretty well

This was so good: Chicken wrapped in bacon with Mole sauce :)

Me and my twin :) We were born on the same day, same year! 

Really fun night! :)

Friday was our first checkpoint meeting.  We decided to have a checkpoint meeting every friday with the client to make sure we are working on what they need us to work one and that our deliverables are on point (using the lean / agile techniques here :))
We spent all morning putting the presentation together, in Portugese and English! The meeting went well.  John did a great job presenting.

John presenting.. Ficaci? Ficala?

Guilherme translating for us

It got serious, with charts and drawings...

After the meeting, we went for some pao de quiejo and mango juice.

After work, Guilherme took Mike, John, Vinod and I out for drinks.  We went to this really nice bar by the hotel called: Dalva Botequim Musical.  it's a very small place and all the tables are on the sidewalk.  They also had a live band playing slow samba.  It was really nice.  I tried the "passion fruit" caipirhinia (Maracouja)(Only one).  I think it's my favorite flavor so far.

At the bar

At the bar

This was so good! Beef with yuka just soaking in butter.  My body is saying "what are you doing to me!!!"

:)

The band playing samba

On the way back, we stopped by the mall to check out a jacket for Vinod.  And wow, am i glad I overpacked! Clothes prices are RIDICULOUS! We might have been looking in the wrong place but the stores we went to were extreemly expensive. I guess I won't be doing any shopping here!

We saw this on our walk home from the bar.  They had some metal pieces on a string.  And when you put a light on it, the shadow looks like Michael Jackson  (Or at least we think it's Michael Jackson).  I wish we had a picture of the actual metal part, because it looks nothing like the shadow.

Nada

#ibmcsc Brazil