Dia do Trabalho

So, I have been reading that Labor Day is an international holiday. Pretty much the rest of the world (I am referring to the non-USA nations) apparently celebrates it on May 1st though. I have no idea how it ended up being in September in the US (May 1st is too close to Easter and Memorial Day maybe? Who knows!) But anyway, yesterday was a holiday here. And maybe more importantly, yesterday I was able to wear my skinny jeans. Yes, after losing 10 pounds, I was able to slip back into my jeans-that-used-to-fit-but-had-gotten-to-be-where-they-created-a- muffin-top-effect-now-that-I-was-a-few-pounds-heavier-but-I-was-holding-on-to-them-anyway-with-hopes-of-returning-to-my-less-fluffy-state. I still have about 6 more pounds to get to my target weight, but my skinny jeans are major progress! And this is way more exciting than anything we could have done yesterday with our day off, right? ;)

Being that it fell on a Thursday ("it" referring to the holiday, not the day I was able to wear my skinny jeans), I had big hopes of being able to turn it into a four day weekend. But the hubby had meetings today, so no fun travel plans developed for this weekend. (I am trying to keep the pouty-lip to a minimum: which is easier now that my skinny jeans fit again.) But, since we didn't travel, we were able to attend the huge Fiat party (CNH is part of the Fiat Group) that gets thrown every year at the big soccer stadium in town!

Since there were about 50,000 people in attendance (Fiat has a lot of companies located here in Belo Horizonte!), everyone told us it was much better to take one of the many, many buses they had running instead of dealing with the traffic ourselves. We found the bus that was stopping nearest us and hopped on.

Yep, we were the only ones on the bus! About halfway there, another couple got on too. So the huge tour bus drove 4 of us to the party. We arrived about 4:00.

.

A huge stage was set up and the field was covered with wood to keep us from tearing up the grass. By 7:00 pm, the entire field was packed with people and all the seats in the back 3/4 of the stadium were pretty much full. It was crazy how many people were there!

Marco and I hanging out with our gigantic paper hands they were giving out.

This picture was taken about 4:30 - long before it actually got packed down there.

They had dancing girls to entertain us before the concert started. Notice the boys in orange on the right side of the stage-they came out to dance for us too (and even took their shirts off at one point.) Whew! Something for everyone, I'll tell ya! ;)

They had two pretty big-name bands come and play: Capital Inicial, a Brasilian rock band, and Victor & Leo, a popular sertaneja (Brasilian country music) pair. A famous actor, Marcos Frota, emceed the event. I didn't actually know who any of these people were or know any of the bands' songs. I really need to work on my Brasilian pop culture knowledge!

.

The big event of the night though was when they gave away a brand new Fiat Punto and a new Fiat Palio. It would have been more exciting if we had won . . . but yea for Fiat being so good to their employees! It was a really neat event.

.

In other news, it got down in the 60's last night, and I nearly froze my behind off despite planning ahead and wearing jeans (you know, the skinny ones) and 3/4 length sleeves. I remember coming here last year in July and laughing at how the Brasilians were wearing coats at night when the temperature would drop below 70 F. Last night, I was thinking that I sure am glad I brought my heavy coat to Brasil. I brought it in case we ever travel to Chile or somewhere cold, but, um, my blood is getting quite used to the warm weather. The down jacket may be just right come about June!