Last night we stayed overnight at the country house, which is called a chacara or little farm, in Portuguese.  It´s something like a hobby farm or country estate in our culture, except that you don´t come here to work.  There´s a caretaker and his family to take care of everything you need. 

I woke up a little after noon, which is about normal when we´re at the country house.  I came out to the living room to find the table set for breakfast, with hard rolls, requeijaõ, a coconut cake, a pudim (like a flan), and a thermos of cafezinho.  Angela and Edmo had things to do in the city today, so I know they left early and probably won´t be back all day.  Dante loves to sleep in even later than me, so I´m alone to do whatever I want for awhile. 

It´s cool for here, probably about 70 degrees, and it´s been raining all morning.  I´m sure everyone else thinks this is terrible weather, but I´m comfortable in my tank top and I´m thankful for the opportunity to ease into the hot weather.  The rain is fresh and relaxing. 

Requeijaõ is something like a cream cheese with the texture of yogurt or sour cream.  It comes in a jar like a jam, but it´s not sweet either.  It´s light and creamy, and you spread it on bread.  It´s one of the foods from Brazil that I´ve missed the most. 

Geral, the caretaker, just came in to talk to me.  He´s great for my Portuguese because he doesn´t speak English.  I just learned that what I thought was pudim (but didn´t want to be the first to cut into) is actually cheese that Geral made yesterday.  He raises cows here for himself when he´s not taking care of the grounds and buildings, and yesterday he made fresh butter from the cream and cheese from the milk.  It´s delicious!

Cafezinho means little cup of coffee, and it´s the way Brazilians drink coffee.  They boil about a pint of water with 3 tablespoons of sugar and pour it through a filter with 3 tablespoons of finely ground coffee.  It´s a very strong sweet coffee and they drink it all day in little expresso cups.  I´ve been drinking coffee like this, even in Duluth, for about 5 years now, so it seems normal to me, but it´s a uniquely Brazilian custom.

The country house has always been one of my favorite places here.  On my first trip here in 1999, I told Angela that I would want to live here if I were in Goiania.  The first time I came here, it reminded me of Ishnala, a lovely restaurant on Mirror Lake in the Wisconsin Dells.  I can still feel the resemblance. 

The grounds encompass about 5 acres, accessed from a gravel road, about a half hour from home in the city.  There´s a wall or fence around the entire grounds, and a brick driveway.  From the driveway, you walk through a brick archway and then along a winding sidewalk made of concrete and decorated with tile, and lined with many varieties of tropical flowers.  In Mom´s neighborhood in Glen Ellyn, they would have spent millions of dollars on just the landscaping here. 

The country house is shared among all of Edmo´s family, but his oldest brother has his own house and pool on the grounds, and his nephew, the son of one of his sisters, is building his own house on another part of the property.  The caretaker lives in yet another house.

The main house is brick, with tile floors throughout the house.  There is a lot of built-in seating, also made of tile and covered with cushions.  There are several bedrooms, most of which have beds for sleeping a large number of people, like a bunkhouse.  The front door leads out to a covered porch and then a tiled walkway out to a covered veranda next to a large swimming pool.  There´s enough space for parties with more than 100 people.