Frickin' Finally

Mr. Potato Head, Baby Natalie, Mickey and the gang finally were released from captivity along with pretty much everything else we own. As the boxes were opened, their joyous cheers were audible. Oh wait, that was me.
Yep, last week the movers arrived with our household goods. Everything was packed up in California at the end of May. What happened in June, July, August and half of September? As far as I can tell, a workers' strike at the arrival port in Brazil and sheer incompetence. Quite frustratingly, our household goods sat one hour from here for a month prior to delivery. I nearly went to the loading dock myself, but they still had our car, too.
We are now happily unpacking and Eri, who asked almost daily where the movers were, is feasting on Cheerios and Goldfish crackers once again and we're using non-plastic cutlery and sleeping on beds that don't inflate. Yay.
I took some pix of the chaos, but they're not so interesting. Photos to follow when the dust settles (and is swept up and Swiffered sufficiently.) Meanwhile, here are a few from the last couple weeks.

At school.
Learning Portuguese and to be sure-footed.

A little light reading.

FYI, she washed her hands in between pictures two and three.

I never knew Brazil had so many kayak-able rivers.
Turns out Geoff had a pretty good idea this was the case.

Looks like he's do pretty well on Eri's playground toy pictured above.

Conquered another one!

Tidbits

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.

Lost In Translation (But Really Cute)

Eri had her first ever school play! And we had no idea what was going on. Especially when the children dressed as barnyard animals took center stage. 

One thing we know for sure, Eri was adorable singing and dancing with her amigas. 

(See below, far right (the white one).)

Day-to-day

Playing futebol at our apartment complex. Eri
sees the "shirts" and "skins"  teams and now immediately whips
off her top every time to get the game going.

Making the most of a layover. 

We love our balcony, which looks out to the ocean,
so we've improvised a dinner table until our furniture arrives. That's
netting that envelops our entire apartment to prevent anyone
from taking a tumble out. Most Brazilians aren't quite as zealous with the net,
but their idea blends nicely with my American parental paranoia. 

School lunch. Apparently universally not delicious.

On a walk, narrated by Eri.
"Can you believe she only used to be able to poo her diapers and
now she's smarter than most people we know?" astutely says her dad.

Eri at swim lessons. Swim cap is required. Thank goodness
Brazilian girls don't wear string bikinis this young, though the same can't
be said for the boys and their banana hammocks.

We found Brazil's version of Pinkberry, suspiciously
with a pink berry logo. Either way, we love you, Gurts.

First day of school

Eri started at a preschool just a few blocks from our house. She is the only English-speaker there, but doesn't seem to mind. Her teachers say she chatters away in English all day and has no trouble following directions and participating in activities. 

Wearing her uniform (we were hoping for something in plaid,
but oh well) and ladybug backpack.

Vamos!

New friends. When we arrived on the first day, all Eri's classmates ran up to greet her.
Her response: "My name is Eri. I speak Eng-lis."

Chile

While waiting for our household goods to arrive (yep, still) and for school to start, we took a much-anticipated trip to Chile to see our Kansas City friends Scott and Molly, who are wrapping up a two-year stint in Santiago. 

In our week-and-a-half visit, we did pretty much one of everything (rafting, skiing, spa day, massages, wine tour, city tour, shopping, etc.) but the highlight was the Scolly reunion. Our wonderful hosts spoiled Eri and showed us a fantastic time -- they of course know all the must-see places and the best restaurants. We got a good feel for the area, people and culture, thanks to them. 

Our impression of Santiago is a good one. It is very different than Brazil, the most obvious distinction being the language. Despite what the whole world thinks, Spanish and Portuguese aren't the same. Because the pronunciation is so different between the two, we actually had better success communicating in english. Understanding Spanish wasn't a problem, though. (I studied Spanish for years and lived in Spain for six months in college, but my Portuguese has smothered any of those abilities.) Chilean food was not awesome: hot dogs topped with mayo and avocado, beef sandwiches topped with green beans, or for a "healthy choice," as described in all seriousness by one of our tour guides, a slab of beef topped with french fries and a runny egg. So we ate lots of Peruvian food. The people and culture are warm and friendly, like Brazilians, but not nearly as attractive, but geez, who is?

Trivia: Chile and Ecuador are the only countries in
South America that don't border Brazil.

Valparaiso: We took a two-day side trip to the bohemian coastal town "Valpo."

Valpo from our hotel. Even at this height, it still smells like patchouli. 

Our hotel was built into the side of a mountain; the bedroom and bathroom walls are
exposed rock. All the furniture and decor was "up-cycled." We took long showers, though,
 surely off-setting anything green from this laborious, artistic little boutique hotel. 

City walking tour. The majority of the homes and business in the heart of the city
are covered in brightly colored paint, ranging from graffiti to impressive murals.
And, thanks to the insanely large feral dog population, the majority of the streets are
covered in poo. One of us really had a knack for pushing the stroller though it. It was me.

Winter in August. 

 Santiago

Saturday morning at the market.
Molly's shopping cart and Geoff's little precious.

Scott and Geoff at Valle Navado, just an hour outside Santiago.

The hop-on, hop-off city bus tour. Riding on the open roof was one of the
biggest thrills in Eri's 2 1/2 years.

That's that Andes through all that haze. We took short
showers so as not to contribute further to this.

Biking tour through the Maipo Valley wine region.

Look at all mommy's juice, Eri.

So silly.

Dancing! Would it be weird to wear this to Carnival? 

Snacks with "Maw-lee."

Scott and Geoff on the Maipo River. Brye, Molly and Eri on the shore.

Though currently childless, Scott and Molly are two of the best parents we know.

Optical illusion: Is Eri walking on the ceiling or is
Scott standing on his head?

Traveling light.

Exhausted and headed home.

One month in

Well, we love it here.

As Geoff likes to say almost daily,  "It's pretty awesome."

We have been living in Brazil for one month and although we know homesickness will likely set in at some point, we're having a lot of fun right now and really enjoying all the new-ness of this experience. I think we've successfully embraced that it's not like home here, which is good because this would've been a long way to move to experience more of the same.

We've had some frustration (actually, just getting an apartment), some confusion (I used the male bathroom, which is doubly confusing because I do know the words for male and female) and made some etiquette faux pas (three people told us it's not OK to use the main elevator for suitcases, but rather the service elevator), but our first month has been good. Really good.

Some observations:

People: Brazilians are incredibly warm and friendly. And they love children. Eri is showered with candies, treats and juice when we're out. People here love that we speak Portuguese and engage us in conversation at length. We literally leave stores, restaurants, etc. with hugs from the staff. Other people we encounter, more often than not, give us their emails and phone numbers. We've made friends and people are extremely patient with our speaking skills, which are good, but still elicit laughs, though not in a condescending way by any means.

Safety: Florianopolis seems to be a very safe city. We chose an apartment with security and are cautious when and where we go out and about, but have not had any issues. The one asterisk is the driving here. Cars do not yield to pedestrians - ever. It's actually really scary trying to cross a street. Other than that, I never feel afraid, and go out by myself or with just Eri all the time.

Food: The city has a strong Italian and German influence, so we've eaten a lot of pizza. We've tried other typical Brazilian dishes, which are good. Eri and I love pao de quiejo, which are little balls of bread with cheese in the middle, and cochinas, which are breaded chicken blobs that look like big Hershey kisses. We live a block away from a farm-direct market, so we eat lots of fresh fruit, veggies, chicken, fish, bread and eggs. Love it. Smoothies are incredibly popular here and our favorite is acai with banana. Milk is boxed and sits on a shelf until opened, but doesn't really taste much different. Packaged snacks, like pretzels and, to Eri's dismay, Goldfish crackers aren't common. People stop at little kiosks and snack on an empanada in the afternoons. Brazilian beer is cheaper than water, but tastes the same. Geoff and I love caipirinas, which here are like margaritas are in Mexico.

Expense: Some things are incredibly expensive, mostly goods like clothes, shoes, toys and household items, like bath towels or dishes. Services and labor, though, are considerably cheaper here than in the states, like domestic employees and handymen, childcare, pedicures (whew), etc.

Day-to-day: We've spent a lot of time out-and-about to explore, practice speaking and because we don't have any furniture other than a table and chairs and a couple beds. The weather is usually in the mid-70s, so we walk around, go to the parks, and run up and down the trail that separates the downtown bustle from the ocean. (The jogging stroller is a real head-turner, but I don't mind because I'm gawking in return at the super hot women in full spandex bodysuits. I don't think Geoff notices them though.) We've taken the city bus to explore other parts of the island while we wait for our car to arrive. We've had a lot of together-ness (in a good way!) and are mostly just using this time to get settled and be comfortable here.

Riding the onibus. Standing
like the other big kids.

"Goooooal!" Playing a little futebol in the
living room one rainy day.

Seeing the sights.

Playing at the park like the Brazilians.

A bbq called, called churrasco in Portuguese,
at our apartment with new friends.

We gesture a lot to help get our point across.
Although Eri only knows a few Portuguese words and phrases,
she definitely understands there's a language difference here. She constantly
asks me, "Mama, what's she saying," or to translate her English to Portuguese
to someone: "Mama, you tell him ___."