Quite a bit goes on here without a lot of people realizing it.

Uhm, I'll start off with Porto Alegre em Cena, the annual theatre festival which is held in September. Tickets are cheap, on price about 2 pounds sterling, but they tend to go very fast. The plays are shown at theatres, cultural centres or even in the streets. Em Cena usually has a mixture of national and international theatre companies, including Europe and Britain and has a very high standard of professional or amateur actors preforming all manner of the theatrical arts.

Feira do Livro, the annual Book Fair runs over three weeks in November in Praça da Alfandega spreading over to the port right in the city centre. This is an excellent opportunity to sit in the beer tent and recite Coleridge's "Ancient Mariner" while quaffing a few cold beers. You get some funny looks (I know from experience). Seriously though, the book fair is a very special literary occassion attracting authors and critics from all over Brazil and sometimes abroad. A few years ago I met and obtained a signed copy from Gilbert Shelton, the author/cartoonist of "The Freak Brothers" comic books (you see, great literary classics!). Most of the book stores and publishers of PoA set up a stand and the books can be bought for bargain prices. I bought a few very good novels in English there over the years at a very cheap price (normally, imported paperbacks are expensive). It's a great event for people watching also as most of the population of PoA, of all social classes attend at sometime during the event. Book launches and autograph sessions are daily, I'll be there next year I hope with my "Contos Folclóricos de País de Gales". The only downer I find is that there is one bar that has the monopoly on selling beer at the beer tent (which has lots of different food bars), therefore you only have one choice of beer (and it's one of the crappy commercial beers) and at their fixed (inflated) prices.

Semana Farroupilha, or Farroupilha week is actually about three weeks in September culminating in the Gaúcho horse parade on the 20th Sept. This is a celebration of the Farroupilha Revolution, the Gaúchos set up a huge encampment in Parque Harmonia (Maurício Sirotsky), they construct a mini town consisting of wooden huts, called "Piquets", all joined to form streets , each piquet is owned either privately, by a family or group of friends, or by a company. Some are very simple piquets and others much more elaborate. The piquets are basically for barbecues and partying. The public can wander around and sometimes get invited to the piquets. There are lots of food and drink stalls and a market with Gaúcho and touristy products. If it rains it can get rather muddy with the passing of many people and horses.