Festa Junina

The month of June is a really fun time here in Brasil thanks to the Festa Junina. It's a traditional party popular throughout the country, especially the northeast, and pays homage to three Saints that have holidays this month. It involves dressing up in character as cowboys/country-folk, dancing quadrilha (think square dancing), having a bonfire, and eating traditional foods. Since it's actually winter down here and most places are cold, traditional food includes hot things like quentão, a warmed wine or cachaça with ginger, cinnamon, and orange rind, many foods made of corn like canjica or corn bread, and lots of sweets and desserts. 

To make sure everything was ready for our festa, the girls had a pre-party get together to make the proper decorations- a fake fire since it's already hot enough here and bandeiras, little colored flags cut from tissue paper and hung from a string. Besides the decorations, we had typical country music playing during the night. 

Almost everyone showed up in a costume, and since everyone brought a typical food (I confess- I made Ghiradelli brownies from the States that were the first thing gone), we had tons and tons of food. 

Table full of food

The hostess and me in costume

After we all stuffed ourselves on various cakes, vatapá, rice, pão de queijo, and salgados, we gathered around to start the quadrilha. Everyone partnered up and followed the directions shouted from the leader. We had some familiar do-si-do moments along with some new moves-  for example, "chuva" where you raise your hands above your head to imitate rain falling. We danced around the roof laughing our heads off for several songs, and I have to say that the Americanos impressed the Brasileiros with our moves :)

I know it's blurry, but 

that is Jay dancing in the middle!

All of us on the roof

We were unfortunately kicked off the roof after our hoedown by the building manager (party pooper!!!) and moved the party down to her apartment. Of course the fun continued despite the manager, and we played another traditional game inside, BINGO! Almost everyone ended up winning by the time we finished, and we all got cute little presents to take home. 

I won!! 

This was a super fun and very memorable experience for us both. The atmosphere was part carnival-part hoedown, and you know you can't go wrong with that!!