December 24th, Rio de Janeiro
Silent night, holy night.
All is calm, all is bright .
At 1 o’clock Ingrid’s family invited us to Christmas lunch at the restaurant Porcao Rio’s, situates in the Flamingo area with a spectacular view to the Sugar Loaf Mountain. I am thankful that I got to spend Christmas at such a nice place, with such nice people.
The restaurant was a rodizio restaurant, meaning a Brazilian style steakhouse restaurant. One pays a fixed price and the waiters bring samples of food to each customer at several times throughout the meal, until you signify that you have had enough.
After we had fetched vegetables and different salads from the buffet, the passadores came to our table with knives and a skewer, with various cuts of beef, lamb, pork and even chicken hearts! None of us dared to taste the hearts though. After all it was Christmas Eve…
After having eaten what seemed as a triple and very tasteful lunch, Santa (who came from Norway this year), brought her gifts to the hot and sunny flat in Leblon. And among other things, Santa brought books, Lego and a pink ballerina tutu this year. They all turned out to be a huge success…
Our small dinner expedition later that night was not quite as successful. Of course we should have checked before going out on a Christmas Eve. And of course all the restaurants and bars were closed. But where did all the people come from…? Aha! They came out from a church. I guess we should have seen that coming… 😉
Even the hotel bar was closed and at the hotel restaurant, they had a private closed Christmas party. So Ingrid, Olivier and me ended up in their hotel room, with beer, peanuts and pringles from the mini bar. None of us were really that hungry anyway, after having a huge lunch. Solving world mysteries together and calling it an early silent night was really not too bad a way to spend Christmas Eve. In Rio. 🙂