Even the animals are beautiful: People here adorn their little dogs with bows, not unlike the ones Eri wore as a baby, as well as little jewel stickers on the dogs' ears, like earrings, and between the dogs' eyes, like a Bindi, presumably to represent marital status.
Everything is slow: After two and a half months, the plumber is still coming back again next week to fix one of our bathroom sinks. It took two weeks for the locksmith to change out and add more locks, probably because he did just one per day, each of which took half a day. And, we still don't have our household goods. Sigh.
Most things are inefficient: Per consulate rules, we had to upgrade one of our apartment's external doors. Our "custom door" was delivered by two guys with backpacks and a saw. Unfortunately it was unpainted, which meant two more guys came to stain it and then sat for half a day and literally watched the paint dry before adding a second coat. They did multitask by drinking crappy instant coffee with me and helping me practice my portuguese.
People are so nice: One of my big pre-move worries was we'd have trouble making friends. I thought for sure we'd be thought of as those stinky foreigners in the computer lab, probably because Americans are so impatient with foreigners. However, we love the celebrity status we have here. We already have lots of friends, who invite as over and out-and-about and even drive us around town as we wait for our car (yep, still).
Brazilians love the United States: Whenever people find out we're Americans, they immediately tell us the list of U.S. cities they've visited (usually New York, Miami and San Francisco) and ask us if we've ever been to an amazing restaurant called The Cheesecake Factory.
Accents: Geoff and I take a language class for foreigners at the university. Interestingly, I think I understand better when a non-native speaks portuguese than when natives speak. Their accents are also very distinct, i.e. we can easily identify the Germans, Italians, etc., which explains how people know we're English speakers when we talk in portuguese.
Everyone is always on strike: That's all.
We had such hopes for you guys in terms of things working more quickly in Brazil. Like, surely the rest of the world CAN'T possibly be as slow and inefficient as Chile. Well, guess that's not the case according to your most recent post. You know, Scott and I were driving at one point and we saw three Chileans watching another Chilean work. Scott said "you know what those three guys need, another guy watching them stand there". It's. So. True. I don't understand how some countries function. And moreover, we do understand the frustration associated with the 'please just put my stuff on a truck and bring it to my door' mentality. The good news is, it will get better, you will get used to you, and then after you get used to it you'll wonder why everyone in the states is in such a damn hurry ALL THE TIME.
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