On this Valentine's Day, show your love for Free Software!

Only at Google -- I cooked Feijoada for my entire office :)

On December 10th, we had our yearly Christmas party here in Zurich: most of the employees get together for that. At the party, I had the opportunity to have a chat with Nelson Mattos, a Brazilian from Porto Alegre, who nowadays is the VP of Engineering for EMEA, at Google.

In that occasion, we were talking how nice it would be to have a Brazil Day at the restaurant in Zurich, and that it would be nice to have all those people, from all over the world (Zurich office is *very* multicultural) to experience Brazilian food. Nelson agreed with me, and said we should try that.

Well, he is a busy guy, and I never really thought it would happen, but then I got suprised by an email from him, around 3 weeks ago, saying he spoke to the restaurant manager, and the executive chef, and they agreed to make it happen.

We then started collecting recipes among the 9 Brazilians that work here in Zurich, and agreed on a menu. As usual, Milliways (the restaurant at Google Zurich) prepares 3 different meals: one meat based -- being porc, beef or chicken, one fish based, and one vegetarian option. Besides that, we usually have 2 or 3 different appetizers. So the agreed menu was: Feijoada and all the proper side dishes, Moqueca also accompanied by the proper side dishes and a palm heart cake for vegetarians. The starters were Coxinhas, Pão de Queijo and Casquinha de Siri. The dessert was Coconut Cake.

In total, I dedicated around 10 hours of work to this meal. So did Nelson. He was the "chef" responsible for the Moqueca, and I was responsible for the Feijoada. We shared the appetizers between us and the other kitchen staff members.

The big day was today, lunch time. I got to the restaurant yesterday to prepare the ingredients, and make sure there was nothing missing. So did Nelson.

Today I was there around 6:30am to start cooking, after having a nightmare which made me wake up at 5:30am: a huge line of people, complaining and hungry, and I was desperate at the kitchen cooking, cooking...and the meal wasn't ready in time. When I got there, I saw all over the place banners saying "Fernanda and Nelson are cooking for you today! Brazil Day at Milliways!".

I put the Feijoada to cook at 7am, and then moved on to the Coxinhas, which is a lot of manual labor. The dough for the Coxinhas was taking F O R E V E R to get right, and I started to get scared by the fact that I had to hand make 250 of those. But in the end, everything worked fine and we managed.

I also brought some yellow-green stuff to decorate the restaurant, and asked the Brazilians working here in Zurich to send me pictures of their hometown or state: I printed those, and their pictures, and with help of one of them and the restaurant manager, they spread all the flags, hats, pictures, Carmem Miranda banners, around Milliways. It looked like a little piece of Brazil for today. I also found a DVD which displays images from Rio de Janeiro, and we kept playing it in loop using one of the projectors.

Unlike in my dream, everything was ready in time for lunch to be served at 12. I never cooked for so many people. The Google Zurich office has a few hundred people, the most I've done in the past was for 50!

Samba playing, food on the counter, everything ready, me and Nelson started serving all Google employees. And so we did until 1pm, when exhausted, I went to my desk and slept for 1,5 hours. I had meetings nearly until 7pm today, and wanted to be awake -- in the end, I am still an Engineer, even though I was playing the Guest Chef for a day.

Lessons learned today:
Cooking is a very tiring activity, but lots of fun. The staff working on our restaurants deserve a big thank you for doing that every single day of the week, 3 times per day.

Even though Google Zurich is not as small as it was 4 years ago when I started, I still love it. Where in the whole earth, have you seen a VP of a big corporation serving meals to his/her employees? Only at Google. Where on earth would you see a company simply allow 2 employees (from Engineering department) play "Chef for a Day" and cook for an entire office? Only at Google!

This is why I work for this company, because like Google, only Google.

My wedding day

Last night I had the most weird dream ever.

It was my wedding day, and my mom and this other woman were dressing me up. My dress was horrible, and there was all those pieces that had to be worn individually. I was crying so much. I was desperate. Sad, very sad.

Time goes by, the dressing drama is still happening, and I was feeling each time more suffocated with the whole situation. I run away, and leave all the people behind. My mom was yelling at me saying I was crazy. I woke up.

Didn't see my "future husband" on my dream. I woke up feeling relief.

My last vacation in a nutshell

So, last week I came back from vacation. I was traveling for two weeks, starting in Ibiza, where I had some good parties, nice moments with friends, sun, sea and all good things.

After that I came back to Zurich, where I met my father, my uncle and my cousing, who came visiting from Brazil. We took my car and went in a road trip, starting in Paris, where I had the nice opportunity to meet Luiz, a friend of mine who I haven't seen in the past years. I also used the time my relatives went to the tower to get a haircut and new hair color ;)

After that, we headed to Bruges, in Belgium, which turned to be a very nice surprise. We walked around the city as usual, and then went to a pub that had more than 100 kinds of beers. We didn't manage to try more than 20.

From Bruges, we went to Cologne, which unfortunately has not much than the Cathedral to see. The city was almost completely destroyed by the II World War, and seems to have been rebuilt in a not interesting architectural style. Oh well...

Next was Berlin, which is still my favorite town in Europe. beautiful, historical, cultural, friendly people, Berlin is a place where I would live, I think. I had a great time at Hanne am Zoo, which is a soccer themed pub. We met the owner, gave him an Internacional shirt, took pictures, and had lots of beers. Now the Internacional shirt is part of the bar's decoration. In the last night there I met Torsten, and we had a nice chat while having beers and watching Bayern München X Haifa. There was also this crazy bar called KLO by the side of our hotel. Crazy decoration, very friendly staff.

Prague was the last "tourist" activity. I have to say that I was a bit tired of the walking thing, so I didn't really make the best of ouf the town. It has potential, I have to say. The architecture is insane. There is no spot in town that you don't think is crazy beautiful, and their old town is dated of the 15th century. I had the impression people were not as friendly as the Berliners, but well, maybe that was just my impression.

After Prague, I went to Munich, where I met part of the Ibiza crew, and some other people for a good time at the Oktoberfest. They only sell beers in glasses of 1 liter. The music is awful, but who cares after few liters of beer? It was a lot of fun. I spent two nights in Munich, then took the train back to Zurich Sunday at 8:25am.

After missing a connection in Munich still, I got in the train, and had to change trains in Lindau, which was the final destination. Half drunk hangover nanda sleeps in the train, and when she wakes up, she is in a town she never heard of. Yay! Where did Lindau go? Aparently, the trian I took split in two at some point, and the wagon where I was siting went to this other place, around 200Km away from my original route.

I made it to Zurich around 7pm, which probably should make it to the Records book, since I think I made the longest possible route to get from Munich to Zurich.

Of course there are pictures: here!

Você vai me seguir...

Você vai me seguir aonde quer que eu vá
Você vai me servir, você vai se curvar
Você vai resistir, mas vai se acostumar
Você vai me agredir, você vai me adorar
Você vai me sorrir, você vai se enfeitar
E vem me seduzir
Me possuir, me infernizar
Você vai me trair, você vem me beijar
Você vai me cegar e eu vou consentir
Você vai conseguir enfim me apunhalar
Você vai me velar, chorar, vai me cobrir
e me ninar...

You sent me flying

Lent you outsidaz and my new Badu
While you were thinking I didn't have a clue
Tough to sort files with your voice in my head
So then I bribed you downstairs with a malboro red
So now I feel so small discovering you knew
How much more torture would you have put me through?
You probably saw me laughing at all your jokes
Or how I did not mind when you stole all my smokes

And although my pride is not easily disturbed
You sent me flying when you kicked me to the kerb
With you battered jeans and your beastie tee
Now I can't work like this with you next to me

And although he is nothing in the scheme of my years
It just serves to blugdeon my futile tears
And I'm not use to this, I observe, I don't chase
So now I'm stuck with consequences, thrust in my face
And the melodramas of my day delivery blows
That surpass your rejection it just goes to show
A simple attraction that reflects right back to me
So I'm not as into you as I appear to be

And although my pride's not easily disturbed
You sent me flying when you kicked me to the kerb
With you battered jeans and your beastie tee
Now I can't work like this with you next to me

His message was brutal but the delivery was kind
Maybe if I get this down I'll get it off my mind
It serves to condition me and smoothen mi kinks
Despite my frustation for the way that he thinks
And I knew the truth, when it came, would be to that effect
At least you're attracted to me which I did not expect
Didn't think you get my number down and such
But I never hated myself for my age so much

And although my pride's not easily disturbed
You sent me flying when you kicked me to the kerb
With you battered jeans and your beastie tee
Now I can't work like this with you next to me

The world on my shoulders

In the past weeks I felt like the world was siting on my shoulders. And believe me, the world is heavy!

I had way too many different things to deal with, and spent a lot of energy to make small moves. I think those days are over.

Today I have a big presentation at my work, that I have been preparing for the past month or so. This was one of the heavy things I was carrying on.

I always try to get the best possible done, and whenever I am doing something new that I don't have comparison parameters, I get the feeling I am not doing enough. So I redo things over and over again, just to get to the conclusion it doesn't look much different than the first time. And people around me think the result is great. But I don't agree.

Today is also the first FSFE Fellowship meeting in Zurich after I got elected vice-president, I'm going there straight from my presentation in the afternoon.

Besides work, everything is nice. I am feeling like a new version of myself: waking up early, having fun, going regularly to the gym. Life is good, heart is calm, friends are great!