A Seaman Story

Wednesday, July 24th: Day 1

Our trip to Belo Horizonte started early with a 5:30am Uber pickup at our AirBnB to take us to the airport for our 8:00am flight. We got there early enough to grab some coffee and Oliver enjoyed a Brigadeiro flavored frappucino (sans coffee, of course).

When we arrived in Belo, our hotel room wasn't ready yet, so we headed over to the Pátio Savassi Shopping Mall to scrounge up some late breakfast/early lunch and walked around the shops killing time until we could go take a nap at the hotel.

After a quick rest, we headed to see the Palácio de Liberdade to see the old governor's mansion, but it was closing soon, so we walked around the beautiful grounds instead. Isa told us the story of the woman whose house was on the grounds of the palace before it was built and was forced to leave so they could build the grand house for the governors of Minas Gerais. She put a curse on the house and said any governors who resided there would not finish their terms, which came to be true!

We walked down the Praça da Liberdade and into a nearby museum for a quick look before we headed for a quick snack of cheese bread (pao de queijo...which we ate a lot of on our trip) and then another delicious dinner at Moema Bar & Cozinha. We told the waiter the funny story about Zoë getting an alcoholic beverage at a different restaurant and he assured us that Oliver's cocktail wouldn't have alcohol. The waiter dropped it off in front of Oliver and walked away just long enough for Oliver to take one sip and he came back to whisk it away because it accidentally had alcohol, too. Oliver would like me to note, that there were no apology drinks this time. ;)

Thursday, July 25th: Day 2

We started a little slowly on day 2 as we needed a little bit of rest. The kids enjoyed some pool time while Chris and I both ran on the treadmills in the hotel gym.

When we were ready to head out, Isa came and picked us up and we went to the Mercado Novo for shopping and lunch. It was such a cool indoor market with lots of fun shops. Our favorite was probably the "Made in Beagá" store for all sorts of Belo Horizonte gifts. We ate a yummy lunch and continued to shop.

After the market, we headed to go see the Sanctuário Arquidiocesano São Francisco de Assis church. When Isa came to Tacoma in 2019 she brought us a beautiful figure of the church that sits on our dresser and I wanted to see it in person! It was beautiful at night, but closed so we didn't get a peak inside.

A spontaneous stop at the Parque Guanabara funfair across the street for a bathroom break lead us to two rides that were a fun time. We found that our family was quite interesting to people there with our redheads and our English. There were many kids staring at us as we talked. :)

Believe it or not, we weren't done for the day. After the FunFair we headed to a mall to shop for some Atlético Mineiro gear for the upcoming futebol match on Sunday. We spent a lot of time picking out just the right jerseys and trinkets. Oliver helped deflate the ball he purchased to bring home as a momento. :)

Friday, July 26th: Day 3

On Friday we headed out to the Inhotim museum, one of the largest outdoor museums and botanical gardens in the world. It was really an incredible park with such a great combination of art exhibits and beautiful gardens. Oliver even said he loved it, which is a pretty good stamp of approval. We spent quite a few hours walking around and admiring the art, getting lost on the paths and, at the end of our visit, we spied some toucans and a parrot flying back and forth across the ponds. I could have spent at least another full day walking around and enjoying the museum.

The plants were all huge!

A celebrity! This bird stars in the Wild Wonders show at the Point Defiance Zoo were also at Inhotim! We were excited to see it in the wild! (It's a seriema.)

A beautiful outdoor garden.

In the back of the car together, just like old times.

Saturday, July 27th: Day 4

We had the absolute pleasure of visiting Isa's mom's house on Saturday and also to meet her aunt, cousin and grandmother. Cecilia had a beautiful table set up for us outside her home and spoiled us rotten with delicious food and company.

Oliver LOVED the cheese bread (and ate the majority of this basket which was, once, full).

Isa's mother (Cecilia) and grandmother taught us how to make cappelletti from scratch. This was Zoë's desired activity while we were in Brazil. It was quite a production with Cecilia making the pasta in the kitchen and a crew packing the stuffing in and shaping in the dining room.

We also looked over the Shutterfly book I made for Isa before she left our house with her adventures in Washington and our family.

I loved capturing this quiet moment. Oliver still has stars in his eyes for Isa, even five years later.

We played a lot of this unnamed card game while with Isa (and then brought it with us to Ecuador!) and Isa's aunt, Ana, seemed particularly charmed by Oliver while we played.

Oliver also had card tricks to share.

Day 5

On day five we had a packed schedule (well, that wasn't out of the ordinary for our trip!). We started with breakfast at our Holiday Inn (the breakfast here was AMAZING...SO many treats and breads to try and something different EVERY day!).

This was about 1/3 of the amount of food out for breakfast every morning (note, this a two-sided counter...there's just as much food on the other side!).

We headed out to a city named Ouro Preto, about an hour and a half away from Belo. Ouro Preto was the capital of Brazil from 1720-2897. It is a mining village known for it's gold. Oliver was VERY excited to visit because of his need to purchase GEMS from Brazil (that was his one desire while on vacation).

Pao de Queijo! Surprise!

We found a rock store immediately and Oliver had a HARD time figuring out what he wanted to buy. The employee at the shop was (predictably) charmed by Oliver's interest in everything at the shop and became his personal assistant as he was walking around the store, pointing out all of the special things she had. He struggled with finding something sufficiently shiny but still in his budget. ;) He did come away with quite a pile in the end!