Sunny Brazil: Belo Horizonte

Belo Horizonte (or Schöne Aussicht in German, or Beautiful Horizon in English) is the capital of the Minas Gerais state in Brazil. As it’s a quite big name and we’re lazy, we normally just called it “BH”. It's my beloved city, where I grew up and lived for the longest time (Mitza here)! 

Well, BH is a young city; it was planned and built in 1897 to be the capital of the state. Over 2,5 million people live in here. The also called “big BH” includes other cities in the surrounding area and the population then rises to 4,8 million inhabitants. UNO considers BH the city with the best quality of life in the entire Latin America. We belo-horizontinos are usually quite happy living here, but we also say that the only problem is the lack of ocean, otherwise it would be just perfect. When compared to other big cities, such as London or São Paulo, BH is still “small”, because life here is still quieter, the people are not so stressed, not so indifferent and also, the distances are not as problematic as in London that it takes you forever to go from one point to the other.

As you can see in the map bellow, BH is located in the Southeast part of Brazil. Although it seems like it’s quite close to Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo, those cities are already far away: 440 Km and 580 Km. You have to think that Brazil is probably the size of Europe and my state (Minas Gerais) is probably the size of Germany. Therefore, it’s always a longer trip when we want to travel to the coast!

Enough with boring numbers! What are we famous for? Mountains, food, hospitality (yes, we are very friendly people!) and accent (yes, we do speak like we’re singing!).

The topography of the entire city is mainly with mountains, some parts with higher hills than others. A little bit hard to ride a bike, depending where you want to go! The Serra do Curral (mountains) dominates the view in almost every post card. From up there, BH can be seen as a concrete jungle with hundreds of tall buildings, probably more than in the entire Germany. They exist thanks to the less and less space to live in the city center and the search for a more peaceful living without robbers.

Belo Horizonte and Serra do Curral

The food not only in BH, but in Minas Gerais is very unique, and by “food” I include here the habits that come with it, such as drinking coffee or beer. The pão de queijo (cheese breads, for those who have visited us and I made this while living in Germany), cheese, several types of cakes, cookies, food with lots of meat and beans (like the famous feijão tropeiro) which Sven normally looks and makes a bad face not being brave enough to try it. We also have all sorts of food made with corn: sweet corn cake, pamonha, curau, polenta etc.They’re all very yammy! (I can already imagine my husband’s bad face reading about it)! J Especially outside of BH, the hostess have the habits of offering a cup of coffee with cheese for the visitors; and in the really small villages, some people might get a bit offended if the visitor refuses to eat and drink what they offer. So make sure to eat and drink as much as you can when you’re travelling around here!

                                  Pão de Queijo                                                         Feijão Tropeiro

                                       

       Bolo de Milho                                                         Polenta Frita

                                     

Pamonha

  Curau 

 Also, as we don’t have an ocean and “nothing better to do”, we go to pubs quite regularly to drink beer and eat Brazilian tapas (tira-gosto) or barbecue (churrasco) with our friends. That is a very strong tradition! BH is very known for its bars: it’s the city with the highest number of pubs per citizen than any other big city in the country. Because of that, it was created a few years ago a yearly pub competition called Comida di Buteco, in which a certain ingredient it’s given and the pubs compete between themselves with their “tira-gosto” that include that ingredient. People then vote for the best pub.

All in all, BH is a green city with trees everywhere (something I really miss living in London…) of the famous Pampulha area (next post) and its modern architecture style buildings (some of Oscar Niemeyer’s most famous projects were built in here) of pubs that bring friends together, of beautiful and friendly people that welcome all its visitors and try to make their holidays the best possible ones!! Below, some more pictures of Belo Horizonte:

With Lilian and Daniel up in the mountains and the city in the back

Liberty Square

Also at the Liberty Square

Pope Square and the city in the back

Central Metro Station

Parque Municipal

Praça Sete de Setembro

Savassi Area

Pampulha Lake and São Francisco de Assis Church (a preview of the next post)

Sunday Market at the Afonso Pena Avenue ("Feira Hippie")

To all our friends, I hope you enjoyed this post and that I could make you curious enough to schedule a trip to Belo Horizonte soon!!

Queues

As Mitza was telling me again and again that it is NOT okay to spend my weekends in front of the TV playing Xbox (And because it is the last weekend this exhibition is on), I decided to go out and visit the Royal Academy of Arts, to see Building the Revolution: Soviet Art and Architecture 1915-1935. Checked the price and opening hours before I left and completely ignored the button "Order your tickets here" - Fail!

The Academy is located between Green Park and Picadilly station, so even on weekends quite busy. So when I entered I saw first the model of a tower that was planned to build in St. Petersburg (The original would have been 400m high and would have moved!), but also the queue in front of the ticket desk.

So as a man of quick decisions, I jumped on the 88 to have a look at Westminster Abbey - but they were already closed... So I just took a picture for Mitza as a proof that I really have been there and that I am not just making up a story to get her off my back...

Then I remembered that I read the day before that there is a new restaurant opening in Canary Wharf that sounded promising. (Sorry folks, in the end I am always stuck with food...) Quick check on my mobile (How could mankind survive 40.000 years without mobile internet - and sorry Chris that I ever made fun of you in regards this topic) revealed that they have already two restaurants in London, one in the City (closed on Saturdays) and one in Marylbone, Westminster. I know, you are already courious to find out why I am making such a fuzz about it, I am talking about the Relais de Venise - anyone a clue what this means? It was founded 1959 in Paris and has branches in London and NewYork now. Their concept is to provide you with no choice - or as I called it "With Sven's dream when he is going out with Mitza" - Sorry Honey! You get a fixed menue for £21 consisting of a starter salad with walnuts (and a dressing that was a little bit mustardy for my taste - if that word even exists) and a few slices of baguette, which I hope it was not transported in some French guy's armpit. The main dish then is a steak with their secret sauce (delivered in two tranches to get  it to the table hot) and french fries that are imported from France, so logistical valuable food. But this approach must be procurement's dream!

So back on the 88, a short walked and I was there at 18:10 (Official opening hour 18:30). But lucky for me I had something to do: I could go into the queue that was already around the corner. But luckily I got in with the first group of guests. I do not want to bore you, so if you want to see how it looks like just have a look at their page. The meat was great, really soft, also the fries were good.

Reasons it will not go there again:

• As the Guardian stated too: I am feeling to old to queue to get some food
• When I want to eat a steak I want a big piece of meat and not twice several thin slices
• I want to have the sauce separate and not poured over my meat, even if it is some secret recipe from France - although the guys beside almost licked their plates clean...
• I don't want to feel pressured to leave because the next customers are already waiting in the door

Below a picture of the queue when I left. Obviously I could not take one before, because I would have lost my place in it!

Some more observations: Londoner seem to go to restaurants regardless the age of their kids (The suckling beside me seemed to be still moist...) and there is nothing better to keep a toddler quiet than an electronic device like an tablet or Nintendo DS. It seems I am getting old... 

A good post is like a cheese...

...and needs some time to mature! Therefore I just now found time to update it with the visit of my former Henderson - colleagues. They arrived on Saturday, the 10th December. Unfortunately the transfer from the airport and the whole check-in took so long that we postponed the planned bust tour to the next day. Instead we went to Soho to eat a proper fish and chips and experience some Christmas mood. And as you can see to drink some weird stuff...

We then took train to Southbank to visit the "German" Christmas market there, and to jump onto the London Eye. Bloody expensive (Almost 19 quid!), but a nice view. Afterwards, we walked back to the other river side. A few girls asked me to take some pictures of them, and my colleagues started to make fun of the fact they asked me - funny enough it turned out they were German too and understood every word!

But once again me with the London Eye in the background:

As my posts are always about food we then went to Old Spitalfields Market to eat at Fire & Stone, a restaurant they make a different style of pizzas. Due to pre-Christmas season it was very crowded, but the waiter asked, as I am a regular customer, for my number to call me when a table would be free, so we had time to pour down some more beers and to get into the right mood to use our funny hats!

Next day we took the bus tour around London and ended up at Harrods:

If you have money to spend, perfect place to go - a floor just full of handbags, all priced in the 4-digit area. They also have monkeys (1299,- GBP if I remember right)

and other weird animals that look funny - by the way, I am talking about the thing in the middle!

Afterwards, Pub again (How fast some people adapt...)

and then Burger again (Look for Hache in this blog)!

Unfortunately this picture was taken before dinner - afterwards my hands could hardly reach the table anymore! One the way back I thought I am extra smart and take the Overground from Camden, but of course on Sundays it was closed. Nevertheless, was a funny weekend and it was great to see you people again!

A happy Christmas from Mitza & Sven!

As we both have been a little bit lazy the last weeks (but I promise there will be some pictures from the visit of my ex-colleagues), just small season greetings with the smallest Christmas tree of the world!

Craziness or just laziness?

Doing some shopping in Westfield Stratford (Normally our weekly prayer at the altar of consumption, as one user of Foursquare puts it, this time on my own), I came across some lazy guys who drove up right to the bar! :)

By the way, Foursquare is a neat tool to tell people that don't care where you are right now! 

27.11.2011 - Another stroll in the park

Just one week later, weather still going strong, we decided to explore another part of green in the city, this time the infamous Hyde Park. Unfortunately a lot of pictures are on Mitza's mobile which has no possibility to transfer them to a PC, therefore this will be just quick and dirty...

What I don't understand, Brits are so obsessed with Grade I or II listings, conservation and planning permissions, and then sometimes there are buildings that ruin the whole view. I wonder who gave the permission (or better said how expensive the permission was...) to build some concrete dice directly at the border of the park?

Crossing the park from north to south we soon arrived at the Royal Albert hall, the saucer in the background. Pictures from the monument you just see partly will be added after Mitza's return!

As we were close to the museum street we decided to go to the Science Museum, which is admission free as most museums in London. Although quite interesting and with a lot of effort to make the exhibitions interactive, I found it in some parts quite old fashioned. Showing 7 different engines from ships doesn't make it any more interesting, although the models were quite impressive.

Here the interactive parts: The first two are showing a simulator where you fly a WWII fighter and can make any kinds of maneuvers. (Watched just a few minutes, got sick from just watching and no one tried an Immelmann!)

 Here you can see DJane MFPS with her latest device, some synthesizer from the seventies.

And now to the models:

They also had a cross section of a 747, which was really huge and interesting to see why the air cargo containers have this weird shape!

On the way back to the station (Which is quite an underground walk) we decided to have a look at one of the many ice rinks and eat a waffel. The waffel was one of the most disgusting I ever had (Fried!), but the surrounding helped to get into the right mood for the advent season.

20.11.2011 - A stroll in the park

As my wife is good in bullying me around (even if she is far far away), it is again my duty to catch up with the blog and give you some news about our life. As I am not as good as Mitza in preparing these maps where we have been, it will be more of a Bravo Foto Lovestory (For all non-German readers - never mind, you have not missed anything). Additionally, no food stories, as my cousin complained we are just writing about eating - I wonder if any of my friends was surprised that the blog would take this direction...?

So we went out on Sunday to enjoy the nice weather and do some serious sightseeing, as I have been several times to London, but always without the chance to visit the famous landmarks. But as we not have learned our lesson from the restaurant opening hours (see post about the trip to Bath in August) we of course did not look up opening hours before. This meant: Westminster Abbey closed the whole day for service and House of Parliament shut down, too...

Nevertheless we took some pictures of the surrounding architecture to give you an impression of the area:

Something else you will start to see at the end of October are small red paper flowers at the coats and jackets of people, the so called "Poppy". This is a charity for the military service. In connection with the remembrance  of all soldiers that have served in the Royal Army there is also a temporary memorial for the soldiers that lost their lives so far, which gives a quite impressive picture that we can hardly show with one picture, but nevertheless we try. What you see here is a small wooden cross for each victim.

We then decided to take a walk through Green Park to Buckingham Palace. The autumn was in full effect and  the squirrels were used to tourists.

 By the way, from the two above the lower picture shows the squirrel... :D

After a short walk we reached Buckingham Palace, and the Queen was at home (according to the flag) and had some oriental visitors (according to the other flags).

Below is Green Park Station, or to be more precise the building above the station, where I arrive each day to go to work. 

Of course we could not miss to make a famous "tourist in a red telephone cell" - picture. The state of these leads me to the assumption that they are really just for tourist to take pictures and drunken guys to pee...

We then walked up to Bond Street, which is the most expensive retail street in London. Below is a picture from the window of Faberge, the Russian jeweller famous for the eggs, that opened a store in London recently. Cute little furniture, no price tag. 

 Just around the corner is the building where I work. No, I am neither selling hand bags nor do I get a discount!

A finally some nice cars that are really useful in London's jammed streets. There even was a price tag on, the Bugatti was just £1.6m - birthday present anyone?

And if I get a Bentley, why in this colour? This was almost as bad as the mint green Porsche I saw a few days later...