Crazy fun Birthday weekend....

Saturday morning started off pretty lazy. We went to the neighborhood cafe for breakfast eats and coffee, before we headed out for some shopping.

Interesting thing here....a cappuccino is not what you'd expect.  It is a wonderful espressso with steamed milk but with the bottom of the cup filled with chocolate, which you then have to stir into you drink.  It is delicious!

After breakfast we went to the market that we had gone to earlier when we had first arrived.  We went in and out of shops for a while just looking for things to bring home with us.  Oddly enough there were tons of jewelry stores and Halloween shops.  This was my favorite of the Halloween decorations that was on display...totally disgusting...it is a head hanging by a hook over a bucket where the blood flows down like a fountain.  Something to freak the kids out I guess...yikes!

That evening went out for an amazing birthday celebration.  We went to dinner at Terraço Itália, an Italian restaurant that it on the top floors of the what was once the tallest building in Sao Paulo.  I don't have pictures to show of the view, but it was amazing to sit right next to the window an look out over the city at night.  Click on this link to get a feel of the place:  http://www.terracoitalia.com.br/index.asp.  It was like stepping back in time with the old fashioned chandeliers and the pianists playing Nate King Cole and Frank Sinatra songs in each room.

Then we went with our friends to a night club called Boogie! Flash back to the the 1970's, 80's and some of the 90's on the disco on the dance floor. It was so much fun.  I knew when we arrived and they were playing Depeche Mode that this was going to be a fun night.  http://www.boogie.com.br/  And KB, you would be proud.  I sang Bon Jovi's "Livin on a Prayer" at the top of my lungs when the DJ played it. :)

Sunday we went to a soccer game.  Palmeiras v Cruziero. 

We were Team Palmeiras and sadly, while we dominated in the first half with 2 points, we lost our goalie in the second half and Cruziero managed to get 3 goals.  It was a somber ride home on the metro that night with the other disappointed fans, but we had a blast at the game.

What a great weekend!  :)  And the birthday adventures continue.....tee hee!

Congratulations to Ben!

Last week Ben's call center launched with much success! Here is a pic of some of the work stations and the signage in the call center.

To kick off the day, they had a team breakfast before the center started taking their first calls.

Here are some of the agents....

At the end of the day, I met up with Ben and some of the Sitel projects managers for dinner at this amazing place.  From the entrance it wasn't much to see, but once you entered it opened up into a fantastic multi-level patio with a fun vibe.  http://www.casadoespeto.com.br/

The best part was the kebab extravaganza that was the meal.  Basically, servers would come by with all kind of different meat on kebabs and you would just grab whatever you felt like eating.  In addition to grilled meats, they had bread, veggies, garlic and the like served on sticks as well.  The grand finale was the freash fruits and candies on skewers dipped in chocolate.  Yum!

Congrats again to Ben for a successful launch!  It was great to finally see all of his hard work and long hours pay off. :)

Follow the Cow - "Siga la vaca"

These are terrible pics. Sorry about that.

We went to dinner in a very popular part of town, St. Cecilia. It was packed with hip and trendy young people. Many fun restaurants that all featured kebobs & karaoke of course! We landed at a "Siga la vaca" or Follow the Cow!

Siga la vaca has 5 different rooms, being 3 karaoke rooms, balcony and living room. Sadly, we didn't hit the stage. It was packed and we were WAY too full by the time we finished dinner which was an event in itself. I don't have a pic of it, but you could order a huge beer tower to be brought to your table so you could basically serve yourself during your visit. It was cool.

We had a crazy amount of food. Meat and veggies were brought out to us on our own grill that stayed at the table.

In addition, we had other kebobs, polenta, fries, and a myriad of sauces. It was quite the spread and covered 3 tables I think.

Holy cow, Ben! This is us outsdie the restaurant.

Our friend Randy. Forgot to mention, all that food wasn't just for us. We had Randy along to help. He works for the company that Ben is coordinating a project with here for Dell.

What a fun night!! Yummy good!