After a long travel day yesterday, we finally arrived in Porto Alegre, via Sao Paulo. MK and I came in from Chicago, but Annette, traveling from Vancouver went through Chicago as well so the three of us made our way to our hotel where we rested and then checked in with the rest of the group. This weekend is going to be a social time, getting to know each other and getting an understanding of the work ahead of us for the next month. It was great to finally see people in person that we had been meeting with virtually for the past 7 weeks.
Daniel and Fernanda, our program hosts from Pyxera Global, took us out for a great evening of traditional Brazilian food, drink and music. It's is going to be a protein rich month of deliciously seasoned meat if our first night is a good indication! This is the group - I'll introduce everyone over time.
The drinks are a lot of fun - we started caipirinhas, which, if you haven't had them, are like a mojito, except the base liquor is cachaca, a sugar cane based South American liquor. While mass market cachaca can be a little boring and bitter tasting, there are a ton of artisanal labels and we sampled a bunch of them. You not only get great flavor profiles from the different ingredients blended in with the sugar cane, but the different types of wooden casks used to store the cachaca during the aging progress definitely influences the taste. As we sampled different varieties, we would cleanse our palettes in between with little bits of a local cheese, dipped in honey.
All the while we were enjoying each others company and conversation, a great local brazilian trio composed of a guitar, drum box and flute player was playing cool chill music that set a great mood.
Great way to kick off the Team Guaiba meet up!
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