Porto Alegre is the biggest city in Southern Brazil, also known as the land of the Gaúchos ( South American "cowboys"), a people known for their agricultural and horse breeding skills, their history of wars and excellent militants, their acclaimed academics and their chimarrão (pronounced, "she-ma-how") or, "erva-mate". This is my home base for the next one to two months while I study Portuguese and begin to uncover the secrets of yerba mate.

It was pouring with rain when I stepped out of the Porto Alegre airport at 08:30 on the morning of a Tuesday, 18 March . There was a time; 10am - 11am, a date; 18 March and a place; PUCRS university hospital, which I had noted into my lil' red book a week earlier (while still in Cape Town) from a facebook chat with Marcos, a friend of a friend who offered me a couch in his diggs until I found my own place to stay in Porto Alegre. I didn't have a cellphone, but I had faith that Marcos would stick to the plan, and I had nothing to lose, well, except my luggage I suppose, if I were to land up on the wrong side of town - unlikely: the first bus I took was correct, but the second one was the wrong one and I had to hop out somewhere in the city and wait for another one, which took me to my stop. I found the hospital and made quick work of getting some students involved in helping me find a particular student lounge where Marcos had told me to wait. Quite wet, though not cold I found it and a while later Marcos found me. Marcos shares a flat with Lorenzo and I would stay with them for the following two weeks to come.

My first job was to find a Portuguese course and a place of my own to stay, ideally close to where I would take the classes . With the help of Marcos and his cellphone, by the close of that first day I already had a few appointments with course providers and a few scheduled viewings of low budget accommodation. There was a lot of walking and bussing back-and-forth through the city these past two weeks, but eventually I managed to negotiate 5 weeks in the smallest room I'll ever have slept in, in a central trendy/bohemian part of the city with shared bathroom and kitchen (good for speaking Portuguese) in a small three-story residence for students and people from outside Porto Alegre here for work short-term. I secured a private Portuguese course with a multilingual (Portuguese/English/Spanish) teacher in her 60's, who is very hip, works off of her ipad and takes her students out to bars for "language socials". Both the move-in and the start of the course are on Monday, 31 March. 

With the administration out of the way, I wasted no time in hunting for some new experiences with local chimarrão (yerba mate) culture . My strategy for doing this was simply talk to everybody I met about yerba mate, and they loved it. In fact, some would not stop talking about it. My lil' red book is already filling up with brands I need to try and small yerba mate towns I should visit. The more memorable yerba mate discussions I have had so far were; under a real live yerba mate tree (Ilex Paraguariensis) with Tiago, a biologist at the Porto Alegre Botanical Gardens - about the beneficial properties of the leaf; with Carla and Vinicius at a "language social" in a bohemian bar - about a local beer brewed from yerba mate by a famous craft brewery; and with Karen and Carihna at a German beer bar on a street corner on the stoep under some trees - about how the locals like to go to the fresh food market to buy fresh erva-mate and have the trader make a custom mix for them from ervas of varying intensity profiles and leaf coarseness. 
 
The best session of mate I have had so far was a churrasco (braai) prepared by the churrasgeiro (braaier), who fired up the party with a perfect mate . Deliciously tender meat was cut into strips immediately as it came off of the braai and was offered to the guests from a large breadboard. All the men around the braai took turns to offer meat to the ladies who were still drinking mate inside in the lounge. By that point we had moved onto Polar and Antarctica Sub-zero.

Porto Alegre is one of the FIFA World Cup 2014 host cities and is the home city to two of South America's top football clubs, Grêmio (former club of Ronaldinho) and SC Internacional. Marcos is SC Inter and Lorenzo, his flat-mate is Grêmio. It was Lorenzo who managed to win the race in converting me by taking me to two provincial-league Grêmio matches at their brand new 65 000 seater stadium, both of which they won, 3-0 and 2-1. 

Although everything has been brilliant so far, tomorrow (31 March), after two weeks couch-surfing I will finally move into my own place and begin doing what I have come here to do.

Thanks for reading. Feel free to use the space below if you have any questions or comments.