Caxias do Sul

This little city of 427,000 is situated in the state's mountainous Serra Gaúcha region and was established by Italian immigrants. It is surprisingly abundant in luscious green trees, which flock across the hilly, paved streets. An interesting cultural behaviour I noted was no one stopped at the traffic lights at night time because of the likelihood of being robbed from some poor fellow from the favela (Brazilian slums). Note: Brazilians also don’t put toilet paper into the toilet bowl in case of blocking up the tiny sewage pipes, that’s why they have little bins beside the toilet seat.

In the city centre, São Pelegrino church stands tall and erect. Not only is it the church of my friend's dream wedding, it also holds important masterworks by painter Aldo Locatelli and has enormous bronze, sculpted front doors produced in Italy depicting a mass of human bodies. Outside it is modern and minimalist, inside it is filled with amazing warmth from the colours of the frescos on the walls and ceiling.

São Pelegrino is not the only church to be found in Caxias do Sul, quite the contrary. The city also has its own version of the Jesus statue high on the hilltop in Rio de Janeiro, although their own saviour high on the Caxiense hilltop is just of Jesus' head upon a long escalating neck. His eyes are closed and his hair looks more like a hijab than hair, in fact his entire snake-like appearance makes him look alarmingly like Voldemort from the Harry Potter series.

One great inheritance from the Italians is the Caxiense lust for food. While visiting my friend, she took me to a graduation party. We skipped the actual ceremony and headed straight to the dinner, pre-paid for all the graduate's friends and family. I tried sagu de vinhu (red wine Tapioca pudding, Tapioca being starch from the cassava root), polenta (fried boiled cornmeal), abóbora moranga (a long type of pumpkin, shaped almost like a giant peanut which can actually hang around your neck, although it's a tad heavy) and the local favourite: chicken heart.

After eating, we went to a different location for the dancing part of the celebrations. Everyone was dressed to impress, which meant me once again having to search high and low for someone with the same feet size, to borrow her high heels. Half way through the evening, all the graduates gathered in the centre of the party hall decorated like a school dance, wearing amusing hats and feather boas (almost as if they were dressed for a hens night...) and danced to ‘their’ song, while everyone else watched and cheered. When the song finished, once again everyone resumed dancing. There was a stage to one side, where a male and female singer rotated singing along to the live band. The music was mostly southern style samba or songs that everyone, except me of course, knew the words to. I had never been to a graduation party quite like it before.