Halloween in Brazil

This American holiday, called "Halloween" in Portuguese, is celebrated here, though with much less fanfare, i.e., no copious amounts of delicious little candy bars next to the Christmas lights in Target, no trick-or-treating, no packs of sexy nurses or school girls bar-hopping, no razor blades in apples, etc. 

Kids at Eri's school changed into their costumes at the end of the day for an outdoor dance party while the teachers handed out suckers. The boys were super heros or something bloody, the girls were witches (except our little ladybug Eri) and Geoff wore a mask that stole the show.

Our First Visitors: The Hughes

Our first house guests: Scott, Molly and baby boy in utero! 

Their arrival was highly anticipated and their departure was sad. They were in the process of moving from Santiago, Chile, where we visited them in August (see post appropriately titled "Chile") back to Kansas City, where our lifelong friendship began, when they stopped in Florianopolis for a week to see us. We loved showing them around and showing them off to our friends here. More pix to follow.

Eri burst through the security area at the Florianopolis airport and ran
to Scolly emerging from bagage claim. 

It was cute how she flung herself into Molly's arms,
but we were really happy she didn't get shot by the policia.

The beaches here look pretty much like the ones in Kansas City.

Showing off. Molly had work to do, much to Eri's dismay,
so she upped her distraction game.

Lunch at the beach.

"Voo livre" (paragliding) was awesome. Here I am on final descent while
the instructor is encouraging me to open my eyes
so I don't miss how fast we're approaching the ground. Yep, I know.

Eri running to give me a hug after I landed alive.

Portuguese to English translation:
"Run straight off this cliff and hope for the best."

Scott's super smooth landing.

On the river.

Looks like a native.

Victor, Eri and Scott. Spinning is universally fun for
children and universally tiring for adults.

Two hemispheres of friendship.

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."