You are currently browsing the category archive for the ‘Brazil’ category.
This was a week of good-byes as both Sarah and Jimmy headed back to the US after being in Brazil for months.
Sarah was the first to leave, on Thursday, so she really needed to make some final purchases of gifts for folks back home. She, and I, had both liked the artwork we had seen at the weekly “Brique da Redenção” or brick market, if you navigate to Expositores, then to Artesanto, and finally to Box 117 you will see Daniel at his exhibit. The past Sunday we had made plans to go, before the mall, and the all day rain more than dampened them as the market was completely shut. Thankfully, we had stopped and talked to the artist on a previous visit and Sarah had his card with his blog, email, and phone. Since his English is quite good she was able to call him and arrange to come to his workshop to make her purchases and asked me if I wanted to go along. I figured why not, as the weather may not cooperate on other weekends as well so I should go when I had the chance.
Thankfully on of the guys from the office here, Rodrigo, offered to give us a ride there. If he hadn’t we probably never would have made it since the directions given by Google Maps weren’t exactly right, and even with the right directions we wound up almost getting lost. Eventually we found his place, on a fairly residential street with a school nearby, his workshop is in the garage which is under the house and is somewhat hidden by the painted gate that greets all of his visitors.
I had hoped to get one of what he called “bikeosauroses” when we saw him at the market, listed as sauros on his blog. As often is the case with artwork, he didn’t have them any more. He said he might be able to make another but is was becoming hard to figure out how to describe the one I had liked the most as we didn’t have the blog in front of us. Instead, I looked around at what he had and wound up with a borborleta (butterfly) that can be hung on the wall of illuminated by attaching to a lamp and a couple of his signature piece, the gecko.
I also was very interested in a fairly large sphere (caotictopus on his blog), as my place in Chicago is in need of some larger and more dimensional artwork. He was kind of surprised that I would want it given that it was a bit heavy and he knew that I had to fly it home with me, and I assured him that I didn’t think it would be an issue. As I hadn’t expected to spend that much money, I didn’t have enough cash with me to purchase all of the items, and I asked him to add a holder for a candle inside the sphere similar to what he had in a companion piece that I was not buying. So we arranged for Rodrigo and I to come back on Friday to pick of the final piece and we did just that. I also needed help getting everything to my apartment that evening, especially since I forgot to take the other pieces home each of the past two days.
The rest of the week was pretty uneventful.
I had planned on attending a coding dojo Wednesday evening in the office, but since it was open to non-ThoughtWorkers eight folks who signed up didn’t speak any English, so Greg and I had to take a pass. It wasn’t the worst turn of events as that was Sarah’s last night so a number of folks were going out to Z Café in Padre Chagas for dinner and drinks and we were able to join them.
Friday there was a separate outing for Jimmy’s last night that I didn’t go to as it looked to be more at a bar than a restaurant and I really am just not that into the bar scene anymore. Instead I grabbed dinner with Fernando from the office at Press Café, where I had eaten before so knew that they had a good menu and that I could get a decent glass of wine.
There was one good thing with Jimmy leaving, well for me at least. He had purchased a real coffee pot when he got here and offered it to me, even though he knew I had my little individual metal French Press, since there was no need to take it back to the US. I of course accepted my inheritance as I was getting a bit tired of having grounds swimming in every cup of coffee I made since the grind here is a bit too fine to work correctly in a French Press.
Even though I had already been chewing on my ground infused coffee, I nearly immediately made a pot and I don’t think a day has gone by that I haven’t indulged in one.
The rest of the weekend was a bit lonely as I had to get used to not having as many folks around to do things with, but it gave me the time to catch up on my blog (as you may have noticed by the number of times I have posted in the past week) and on some other of those tasks that one just keeps putting off when there are better things to do, and of course they are the kind of tasks that pretty much anything is better than doing.
Tchau,
Wendy
We are almost up to the present, at least as far as Brazil posts go. I figure once I get caught up here I can start to tackle the many adventurous days in Greece.
Going from fall to spring to summer and then to winter in the matter of a month is quite an interesting experience, and one that I would not highly recommend as it is likely, that like me, by the end you will be feeling a bit under the weather (pun absolutely intended). Especially given that this type of transition also involves spending hours on airplanes with their dry, recycled air and changing time zones more than once.
To recap, I left Brazil in fall on June 12th arriving in Chicago the next morning and in spring. A few days later I headed to Greece, still spring though quite a bit warmer as it had gotten to 40 (yes that’s in C) that day. While in Greece, spring turned into summer and that was the season du jour when I arrived back in Chicago on July 1st. Then there was a short jaunt to California, little change in seasons and time but more airplane air. Finally I headed back to Brazil on July 11th leaving summer to wind up in winter the next day.
And what makes things even worse is that the heating and insulation here are just not that good, so even if it is around 10 C outside it can be quite chilly inside, so much in fact that in our office folks have been having to leave their coats on and wear gloves. Now considering that we all work on computers all day long you can only imagine the challenge of working wearing gloves.
I can sort of understand the lack of infrastructure for heat since it is really only cold for a few weeks each year. What makes less sense to me, at least in new buildings being built is the lack of the use of insulation. This is the same thinking that one sees in central and southern California where buildings are built without any insulation since it doesn’t get that cold. Somehow the fact that insulation can keep it cooler in the summer, which here can reach 40 C, is either not realized or just ignored.
On top of this, many of the building don’t have ventilation systems, so to keep the air moving, the windows are left open. Imagine needing to use the restroom when it is less than 10 and there is a breeze coming in from outside.
At least in my apartment I can choose to keep the windows shut, well generally. There was one day that I couldn’t figure out why the bedroom area was just not heating up the way it normally did when I had the heater on full blast in the living area. It wasn’t until I suffered through a chilly night of unrest and awoke to more traffic sounds than usual that I realized that the maid had not only opened the bedroom window when she had cleaned the day before, she left it wide open. It was hard to notice this the night before as both the blinds and the drapes had been drawn tight. Thankfully it wasn’t a rainy night or my room might have gotten wet in addition to cold despite the shutters.
I felt bad, as I didn’t want to get her in trouble, but I had to say something to the folks at the front desk to make sure that it doesn’t happen again. I don’t care if she opens it while she is cleaning, but please close it before leaving, especially since some nights I don’t get home from work until around 10:30 at night by which time the temperature has dropped close to the overnight low.
Over the weekend, a few of us went to one of the malls where I thought about buying a few more warm clothing items, or maybe a pair of fingerless gloves. In the end I didn’t buy anything as I really don’t need more warm stuff in general, and clothes here are actually quite expensive.
Work wise, things are going well. I am getting back into the groove of things, running sessions and thinking about the long term plans for training and career development for the office.
I have also started attending Portuguese lessons in the office. We are planning on having someone on site twice a week for an hour each time to get us a bit more of a working knowledge of the language. I wish we would have started this three months ago, but at least now it has become a reality.
Tchau,
Wendy
With the abundance of BBQ in Brazil, which if you have been following my posts you are quite aware of, it should be of no surprise to you that I had yet one more chance to enjoy one of these feasts during the last week before my holiday. This time it was back to the BBQ pits that are adjacent to the futebol fields where TWers often head for pick up games on weekday evenings. And this time there was actually an occasion for holding this event, some folks from one of the clients were visiting from the US.
Since I still have not become brave enough to try my skills, which I know lack severely, at futebol I was destined to hang out in the BBQ pit area during the game. This turned out to be a very good thing, as Luis, who was preparing the BBQ that evening, was more than willing to run it as a BBQ 101 session to teach us gringoes the tricks of the trade.
First there is the fire. And this is not a simple charcoal grill we are igniting, it needs to burn long and steady to cook the meat just right. So, you start with an old wine or similar bottle and wrap it in newspaper which has been tightly rolled the idea being that when this is surrounded by coals and lit you will get a convection current and a very hot flame.
Once the bottle has been prepared it is set inside the BBQ pit and surrounded by charcoal, here again don’t think of the 4th of July and Kingsford briquettes, this is a mix of something like that and what looks like actual pieces of wood that have been treated is some way to burn very hot.
And now you move to the meat, that’s right you get this fire stuff ready and leave it, that is you don’t light it until all of the meat is ready.
The main work with the meat is the skewering which differs for the type of meat. This night we had 4 types, the first thing to hit the skewers was the sausage which is traditionally placed on the double skewer with each link being pierced twice. At some BBQs there are a number of different sausages, some of which have a good kick to them which is surprising given the general lack of spice in the food here, however this night we only had one.
With that simple task behind them, the chefs moved on to the entrecôt which is not traditionally used in a BBQ since it is not always the best cut of beef. This needed to be sliced to get it into a form where it could be placed on the spear. Think of how you slice a tenderloin when you stuff it making a compact thick piece of meat into a larger thinner one.
It was then time to move on to the good stuff, the picanha, of course what makes it so good is, as with many things, the fat content. Note that this cut, as well as the entrocot, are placed on a skewer that looks more like a narrow sword than the skewers used for meat in the US.
Through all of this skewering one must use a note of caution to check the length of the skewer versus the depth of the BBQ pit occasionally, as you want to make sure that the meat will not be up against the wall or hanging out of the front and thus not cook properly.
The final meat for the evening was a slab of ribs, which was a bit of a challenge to skewer given the bones, but worth the effort.
Things are almost ready to cook now, there is just one step left, the salting. This night we used a simple method where dry salt, sort of like rock salt, is sprinkled generously (maybe sprinkled isn’t the right term) over all of the cuts of meat other than the sausages, actually I don’t recall if the ribs were salted, probably since there was no other seasoning or rub present.
The other two options for salting are to add the salt to water and sprinkle the meat with that mixture or to marinate the meat in the salt for hours before skewering. Given that folks had purchased the meat on the way to the BBQ pits, the last method was not an option.
Now for the final two steps, the grilling and of course the eating. And these are in a way combined, as at a BBQ you don’t wait for everything to be done to eat, you just eat things as they are ready. So given that you pretty much start cooking everything at the same time, the first thing off the grill is the cheese and it is wonderful. 
Often it is a smokey provolone that is enhanced by the smoke of the BBQ and the pieces are melting and dripping as you pop them in your mouth.
There is a bit of liberty taken with the cooking and serving order, in that generally things are placed on the fire in locations or an order which saves the best for last. So knowing this you would think we would all wise up and wait for the end to eat as we know what’s coming. However, by the time all this prep is done it is generally getting late and we are generally hungry so we dive into the first things available with a furry meaning that we are often stuffed before the spoils are ready. Here again we often choose poorly as we still wind up finding some room for these best pieces and thus, as with many buffet type meals, we wind up eating way too much food.
Of course if you ever go to a Brazilian BBQ restaurant keep this in mind as from what I have heard they will do the same thing there to try to keep from having to serve too much of the good stuff.
Tchau,
Wendy
As you may recall, a couple of weeks before I headed back to the US some us had planned a trip to the local wine country which we had to cancel at the last minute due to our one Portuguese speaking friend being unable to go. Since we had already planned on the trip to Rio the next weekend that left us the last weekend before my vacation to try again.
This time we had a few more Brazilians interested, including the wife of the guy from our office who had the party the night before we were supposed to go the first time and offered to organize things for us. She did a great job of finding us not only a driver, but pre-selected three places to visit and a stop for lunch (food included in the price) for only $140 per person. This was actually bargained down from $155 per person since we had seven people going with us.
Given that what she forwarded to us in email was in Portuguese, and the translation engines didn’t help much this time, we weren’t sure if we were joining others or if we would be alone. A couple of thing that made us curious about this was the choice to leave ay 7 am, as we had suggested leaving at 9 and that we had to meet the driver downtown rather than being able to arrange a pick up at our hotel. The fact that it mentioned the train as an optional extra made us wonder a bit more whether there would be a stop at the train for those interested picking them up again later. Turned out it was just us and no train stop. Perfect.
So we met at 7 am for our departure, well 4 of us were there at 7 with Sarah just making after oversleeping. Jimmy had already texted both Sarah and I saying he had decided not to go. Then we waited, and waited, and waited, and tried to call the other two with no luck. So shortly after 7:30, and some quick price negotiations given the smaller group, we piled into the van and headed out of town. We did a quick stop on the way for some water and snacks and then continued on to our first vineyard.
Along the way I observed a number of instances of fiscalização electrônica which are essentially electronic speed bumps or more specifically a cross between a speed bumb and a red light camera. It is always interesting to me when living in a country other than where I was born to see how various infrastructure things are prioritized. While I can see how this type of system is quite useful in a location where traffic laws are generally treated as suggestions, it seems to me as if other things such as modern insulation and heating, for example, would be of a higher priority. I am not saying that concentrating on this is right or wrong, as I don’t have the background with which to make that type of a determination, I am just noting that these types of things often get me thinking about the different ways that societies move forward.
For part of the morning, as we neared our destination, we were enveloped in a thick fog, making me very glad that I was not driving. Since we were in a hilly area, we would pop in and out of the fog backs depending on our elevation. To give you an idea of the lack of visibility I have included this photo from just after we arrived at our first stop. If I recall correctly, there where times during the drive that you couldn’t even see this far.
Salton, established in 1910, was our first stop. Who would have known that Brazil has been making wines for 100 years.
We had a wonderful tour where we learned the history of Salton as well as learned (or re-learned in my case how wine is made). Our guide kept apologizing for his English, which was actually quite good, and he was very knowledgeable. He answered many of our questions that were over and above his normal tour speech, including letting us know that Salton normally does not export their wines, and are instead working in increasing the knowledge of Brazilians about wine. It did sound like they export on a case by case basis, but I doubt I will find anything in the US anytime soon, which is actually quite sad since as you will see from my tasting notes later, they actually had some good products. The fact that they have been around for 100 years means that they will be celebrating later this year, and that might make another trip to the region worth the effort.
The tour began with a look at some wine related artwork that was incorporated throughout the property. Not only was it quite pleasing to look at, it turns out that the figures depicted are actually of workers in the winery. Our guide was not yet in any of the works as he had only been working there a short time having come from the winery where we were heading to next.
We then saw the large production, fermentation, and bottling areas before proceeding to the climate controlled barrel room where the reds where aging nicely. The area in front of the storage room is available for private functions, too bad it’s too long of a drive for one of our monthly meetings as it would be a much better locale than the smokey bar we were at for our last meeting.
Proceeding into the awards room, we saw that it was filled with certificates from all over the world, including this one from France, so I guess they must be doing something right!
Our final stop before heading out onto the wonderfully manicured grounds was the original fermentation room with very large barrels made of a wood that was not good for the wine and thus had to be coated to prevent contamination. A far cry from the concerns of today of the percentage of French versus American oak.
The grounds were amazing. Not only were there the terraced fields one would expect, there was also a sundial on the façade of the building crowned with a statue of Dionysus, the god of wine, as well as fountains an manicured lawns.
It was then off to the tasting room where we all decided to upgrade and pay the extra to taste the premium wines, generally I feel it is worth doing this but I can rightfully be called a wine snob so for some it may not be worth the price. In this case, we were able to get one of the fees back when after tasting Sarah and I combined our purchases to get to the total amount that was required for the rebate.
What we tasted was surprisingly good, since while Argentina and Chile are known for their wines, Brazil is still an up and comer in this industry. There were a few that we didn’t like, but you find that everywhere. I was very impressed with their top end sparkling wine Èvidence and actually bought a bottle to bring back to the US to share hopefully during a trip to Ravinia. I also bought a Licorso Intenso which was a very unique dessert wine and a Virtude Chardonnay which we weren’t actually able to taste due to limited stock but promises to be good based on our sampling of their mid-range Chardonnay. Sadly since I am writing this after having been home and now being back in Brazil I don’t have my tasting notes with me so I can’t really share any more information.
Given the length of the first tour, it was now time for lunch, so we hopped back into our van and drove through some spectacular vineyard areas across some rather narrow and bumpy roads. We were unfortunately driving too fast to get any good snaps of the vineyards or the local life we observed along the way.
Lunch itself was served in a buffet at the table style with many options, and they were very accommodating for Sarah’s restricted diet making a special plate of pasta for her, she was also able to eat some of the items already included. One of my favorite dishes was the tortellini soup, probably because the broth was warm and a bit salty and I had been feeling a cold coming on (the old chicken soup remedy).
The next winery, Casa Valduga was right next door to the restaurant. The deal there was not quite as good as we had to pay for the tour and the tasting, we got a nice glass to use which we got to keep, but were a bit disappointed as we had been led to believe that our tour from Porto Alegre included the base tours. We also had an issue with our stupid US credit cards not having the chips in them, so we had to pay cash for the tour, later when I bought a bottle of wine mine worked so they must have had different machines.
The tour was good from an information level, though this time it was in Portuguese with a short translation for Sarah and myself. At Salton we had a private tour and here we were part of a large group so we had to go with the flow. Just as at Salton, they started with an overview movie, the difference being that with the private tour they were able to show an English version and here Sarah and I pretty much had to guess what they were saying based on the images. After the introduction they did show us a good portion of their “guarded” sparkling cellars and explained the riddling technique which was invented by Veuve Cliquot.
As it had turned into quite a nice day, when we stepped outside onto a terrace to view the vineyards we had spectacular views while being kissed with sunshine.
Despite our guide giving us tastes of many wines that we did not taste as part of the tour, I only bought one bottle as the prices did not seem to give me what I felt was a good value. That said, it might be a nice place to return to in the future as they have a hotel on site and offer wine tasting classes to their guests, I am not sure if they have an English option, but it might be worth investigating.
As it was now getting late in the day, our last stop, Dom Cândido, did not include a tour, which was OK as in one day there is only so much you can glean from multiple cellars. Instead we were able to taste their offerings for free and buy if we wished. Generally I feel obligated to buy at least one bottle wherever I taste, and here it was hard as the stuff just was not that good. The first thing we tasted was a Muscatel which was OK but I have had much better so I finally settled on a bottle of Gamay since you don’t find that everywhere and sometimes a chilled red is nice.
Now, quite tired we piled back into our van and headed to Porto Alegre. It was an OK trip, taking longer that we would have liked of course, and our driver didn’t seem to know how to leave the heat on so we were quite cold at times, but we made it. And at the very end our driver came through for us by offering Sarah and I a ride back to Bela Vista in the van that was much less costly than grabbing a cab.
Tchau,
Wendy
I returned to Brazil on Monday after a wonderful vacation in Greece and a short but sweet trip to visit my brother and sister-in-law and their 3 little girls.
Now that I am back I will once again be publishing regularly, there will be something every Wednesday, and for quite some time a lot of things in between there as I catch up on the last few days in Brazil before my holiday and share many wonderful stories of Greece. So you will likely want to check in regularly or maybe consider finally subscribing so that you get an email whenever I post something (it is simple to do, just enter your email address in the box at the top left of my page and click the “Sign Me Up” button).
To get things started let me share some thoughts on being back here after a month away.
I must admit, while I was in the US, in the middle of what seems to be shaking out as a gorgeous summer, I was not completely thrilled with getting on a plane and heading to winter again. It had been very nice to see my friends and family and to get some work done in my condo. Plus there were some things that just didn’t happen, for instance despite trying hard I was unable to get out sailing (hopefully when I return in September there will be one or two nice days and I can tick that off of the list then).
In addition, I was getting very tired or packing and unpacking, and packing and unpacking, and packing…. not to mention spending time on airplanes. So sadly before I left home one of the highlights in my mind was that I would at least be in the same place for a couple of months. And because of some of the loneliness episodes that I had the last time I was here, despite having a great time in many many ways, I packed a few more things to lug along to keep me busy.
Thankfully, in the first two days back I am finding out why I really do like being here despite the things that I have given up to do so. When I walked into the office there were greetings and smiles galore and as I started to talk to folks they want to find out all about Greece and seem genuinely glad that I am back.
And then there is also the work, preparing and running training sessions is a great opportunity for me. Not only do I enjoy doing it, it also allows me to work on some skills that will help me do my normal assignments, writing code for our customers, that much better.
That’s about it for now, as I don’t have any photos from the past two days. Don’t worry though, there will be many in the next few weeks as I share my many tales of Greece and continue to explore Porto Alegre and other locations of Brazil.
Tchau,
Wendy
I left Brazil a few days back for a brief stay in the US and am now off to Greece tonight for a vacation.
I was hoping to get the stories of our wine tasting trip and the lesson in how to BBQ out before leaving and that just didn’t happen. Don’t fret, the material will still be there for the writing when I return on July 1st. Until then, the page has been left intentionally blank.
Tchau,
Wendy
As I mentioned in my teaser post, Rio (pronounced He – Oh here, as the “r” is spoken so far back in the throat that it pretty much sounds like an “h” – somehow I missed this one in my post a few weeks back were I talked about language) was fantastic. We left work a bit early on Friday to catch early evening flights, mine was at 6:02 arriving in Rio at 8:04. After claiming our luggage we grabbed a cab to our hotels and freshened up a bit before meeting up with others for dinner. Sarah and I were staying at the same place, the Copacabana Rio Hotel, which was pretty decent in my mind and nicely located at the end of Copacabana near Ipanema.
While freshening up, Sarah and I both independently grabbed the mini-bottle of sparkling from our mini-bars for a pre-dinner drink. It was awful (and came complete with a straw), neither of us was able to finish ours. Soon enough we hooked up with folks on other flights and arranged to meet in front of the Marriott across from Copacabana. Immediately it was obvious that we had changed climates, as it was around 10 PM and still 23 C outside, nice.
After getting the whole group in one place, we headed off trying to find Fagulha Pizza Bar and Grill. We wandered in a circle for a bit and eventually found our goal, and it was well worth it. Brazil seems to have a passion for buffets and variations on buffets. Anyone who has eaten at a Brazilian restaurant where waiters bring huge skewers of meat to you table should be able to picture this quite well. This night we found a new variation on this, a pizza buffet. Not the kind where pizzas stand for hours under warming lights waiting for the right consumer. Here, the pizza was fresh and brought to the tables just like the meat on the skewers. I think this is a concept that could catch on in the US. In addition to the pizza buffet they also had the standard walk up and fill you plate option which a couple of folks opted for. Being a pizza place they had a decent wine list, including a Malbec in the half bottle size and I was able to get the taste of the awful sparkling out of my mouth.
Before moving to our next destination had dessert, usually this is nothing special to think of, here again we ventured into something very Brazilian, dessert pizza. Basically take a thin pizza crust (think southern Italy and southern France thin) and add chocolate possible with some fruit as well, or frosting, or bananas coated in brown sugar or something similar and voila, you have dessert pizza. I think this is also something that could catch on in the US.
At this point the night was young, at least by Rio’s standards, as it was only a few minutes past midnight. So we grabbed a couple of cabs and headed to the Lapa neighborhood to one of the most famous night clubs in Rio, Scenarium, some people say that it has become so popular that it is not the best place to go any more, I must say that didn’t bother me, it was quite fun and we didn’t leave until a bit after 3, which is not normally my style, so score one for Scenarium.
After taking advantage of the included breakfast buffet, as late as possible given the time we ended the night before, Sarah and I headed out towards Ipanema
beach figuring we would meet up with the others later. After walking a while in the gorgeous sunshine we actually ran into Jimmy. And he had already been in touch with Udit, so we headed towards the water to wait for Udit and just chill a bit. I hadn’t planned on swimming on this outing so had to accept just wading in a bit getting my feet wet, the water was quite nice.
As we were hanging out there, quite a commotion arose and we realized that there were some folks swimming who needed help and they were getting it. Quite quickly a number of members of the life saving team were paddling furiously towards those in need of help. It was hard to keep track of things as they developed so we had to patch pieces of the story together.
First one woman was brought to shore who looked quite tired and was immediately helped by what I assume were her friends.
A bit after that, someone was waving a red flag a bit off shore, and shortly thereafter we found out the reason. It was a member of the life saving team flagging in a rescue helicopter from which another team member jumped and then to which he escorted the man in trouble to be taken to the beach in the rescue basket (note in the photos below it is one of the rescuers alone in the basket, not the man who was in trouble). It as pretty amazing how close to people on the beach the helicopter was able to maneuver during the operation.
During the rescue, a boat came in a dropped a net, at first I thought it was a fishing boat, Udit suggested that it was a net to make sure folks didn’t get pushed further from shore, in the end I think he figured it out. Apparently, there can be up to 200 of these rescues on a busy weekend, so I guess they are well trained.
After a lot of debating, well more like indecision, the four of us (Jimmy, Sarah, Udit, and myself) decided to head to Sugarloaf Mountain (Pão de Açúcar) and take the cable car for what promised to be some fantastic view of the area.
There are actually two cable cars, one to a mid-point landing where one can relax, shop, eat, etc. and even embark on a helicopter ride. While waiting to buy tickets and again on the ride to the plateau we heard from some other members of our group and decided to wait for them at this mid-point and proceed to the top together.
In addition to folks getting some food and water, Sarah and I each bought a pair of Havaianas, or Brazilian flip flops which seem to be for sale just about everywhere in Rio.
The views from the mid-point gave us a feel for just how big Rio is and how it is nestled among many hills with so many bays that it is no wonder it is famous for its beaches.
As with any coastal city, it has its share of harbors full of boats and what seemed to be a fairly active
sailboat racing community as there was quite a large flotilla visible for most of the day which had all the indications of being boats on a race course. Of course this also served as a reminder that I will be missing the entire racing season this year, well, I might be able to pick up a race or two on my break in June/July.
The second is much higher and affords even better views. From the top you could get a view of both Copacabana (near beach) an Ipanema (in the distance). While I don’t think I can pinpoint the exact location of our hotel in the photo, suffice it to say we were 2 blocks from the Copacabana beach and about 10 blocks from the Ipanema beach, so essentially close to the end of the point that you see, a bit more towards the Copacabana side.
In addition to a more complete view of the entire area, there was a trail that ran down and around in a wooded area that afforded a bit of a break from the sun.
On the way back down, a few folks stopped for the helicopter ride which I passed on in order to save at least a little money towards Greece. We were also considering hang gliding the next day, so I was keeping my options open for that instead.
After a short rest in the hotel we met up for some drinks and snacks before checking out a concert we had seen them setting up for on the Copacabana beach. It wasn’t quite the size of the Rolling Stones appearance but it was quite popular with a reasonably sized spill over crowd in the street. It turns out that we had stumbled on a Concerto Especial – Praia de Copacabana by Orquestra Simphònica Brasileira. After much searching online upon returning to Porto Alegre, I was able to find the program to share with you. There were printed versions floating around that evening, however we were unable to obtain any and that made the search that much more difficult.
| 29 de maio, sábado, 20h Praia de Copacabana PREFEITURA DO RIO E O GLOBO APRESENTAM: AQUARIUS – ‘A MÚSICA DOS GRANDES MESTRES’ Celebrando os 70 anos da Orquestra Sinfônica Brasileira ROBERTO MINCZUK, regência GABRIELA PACE, soprano EDINÉA DE OLIVEIRA, mezzo-soprano ATALLA AYAN, tenor SÁVIO SPERANDIO, baixo |
|
| Shostakovich | Abertura Festiva |
| Haendel | Aleluia (Messias) |
| Vivaldi | Quatro Estações – Primavera – 1º movimento |
| Bach | Aria (da Suíte Orquestral nº 3) Jesus, Alegria dos Homens |
| Mozart | Sinfonia nº 40 – 1º movimento La ci darem la mano (de Don Giovanni) Lacrimosa (Réquiem) |
| Berlioz | Sinfonia Fantástica – O Baile – 2º movimento |
| Verdi | La Donna è Mobile (de Rigoleto) |
| Bizet | Abertura de Carmen |
| Puccini | O Mio Babbino Caro |
| Wagner | Cavalgada das Valquírias |
| C. Gomes | Protofonia (de O Guarani) |
| Tchaikovsky | Pas de deux (de O Quebra Nozes) |
| Villa-Lobos | Melodia Sentimental Trenzinho do Caipira |
| Stravinsky | O Pássaro de Fogo – Final |
| Beethoven | Sinfonia nº 9 – Ode à Alegria – Movimento Final |
As the finale started, we decided to head out to find a place to eat given that it might be hard to keep track of each other as the crowd dispersed and nearby restaurants would likely get overwhelmed very soon. After walking a few blocks to again do our own version of crowd control we stumbled upon a Mediterranean restaurant which was a good find as the food was good and this is a good option when you have a vegetarian and a vegan with you.
After the late night the night before, Sarah and I headed back to our hotel leaving the guys to head out for some night life. Before parting though we made a plan for the next day, meet at Ipanema in the morning, starting at the separation between Copacabana and Ipanema, walk along the beach looking for the fist place renting chairs, grab some and text the others to let them know you are there.
It worked like a charm, Sarah and I arrived first after a short detour through the Hippie market (for Portuguese speakers) where I bought a beach bag to replace the hotel plastic laundry bag I had stuffed my beach stuff in. Upon arriving at the beach, a bit away from the junction we headed back towards Copacabana, we noticed things were getting more crowded the closer we got so we stopped a bit early and rented some chairs. Thankfully we also noticed that the chair vendors had numbers on their booths so it was quite easy to direct the rest of the folks to our location.
As the day progressed everyone eventually showed up and we took turns swimming and taking breaks to find food.
We spent a lot of time on the beach that day, so much in fact that we had to ponder the question of where to find a public bathroom more than once. It is truly bizarre, miles and miles of beach and not a restroom or port-a-potty in site. It turns out that there are facilities at each life guard station where one can pay R$1, a price worth paying. However, even this seems inadequate as each station only had one stall, so there was a bit of a line, and we were there during off-season.
Other than for the aforementioned bathroom, once you are on the beach there is really no reason to go anywhere, other than maybe for a swim. Vendors walk passed regularly selling anything from sunblock to various food items and beverages. And if you don’t like what they have you can venture up to the carts right next to the street to find a few more options.
My favorite was the toasted cheese, no this was not a grilled cheese sandwich, it was a piece of white cheese sprinkled with oregano that the vendor had on a stick and toasted on a little grill that he propped in the sand while we worked. We also walked to the stands for some caipirinhas, a local drink of fame.
Before the day ended I also bought a new swim suit from one of the vendors walking passed. Kind of a bizarre thing to buy without trying it on, yet it seemed like one of those when in Brazil do as the Brazilians do sort of times, though in actuality they probably don’t buy the suits on the beach.
After hours of sun and a bit of sunburn we decided to venture on as the sun was starting to dip below the buildings. Our plan to head up to the Christo Redempter statue was foiled since not only was it covered in scaffolding (we knew this ahead of time) the tram to get to the top was also closed. So we changed direction and headed to yet another beach to catch the sunset, some drinks, and dinner.
After a dinner of Sushi and other Japanese fare we planned to meet again in the Ipanema neighborhood for drinks. There we found a nice outside table where we sat for a couple of hours simply relaxing. Again Sarah and I headed to the hotel as the guys headed on for what turned out to be an all nighter culminating in watching the sunrise. Though I don’t think it could have been that great of a sunrise as the next day dawned windy and wet with a temperature more than 5 C less than the day before.
At breakfast Sarah and I decided to head to the Cathedral. When we pulled up we were both wondering why we had decided on this as neither of us had envisioned the modern site that greeted us, and then we wandered inside. It was quite amazing to see the light that had broken through the overcast sky steam through the plethora of stained glass windows.
Given that we still had a bit of time before we needed to head back to our hotel and eventually to the airport we looked in our guide book for something else in the neighborhood and discovered a tram that left from near the Cathedral and wound it’s way through the hills of the neighboring area. It turned out to be pretty cool, starting off by crossing the roads below on an 18th century aquaduct. It was a bit of a rickety ride across yet pretty cool. Come to think of it the entire tram ride was a bit rickety, it just adds to the excitement.
After crossing we wound through streets, up and down hills, and saw some interesting architecture and art.
On the people side we had some interesting passengers. Shortly after we started out we were joined by a young man you was quite the acrobat. He started out just skating the rails as show in the picture and by the end was doing hand stands holding on to the hand rails on the outside of the car. At the midpoint of the trip we were joined by many children apparently on their way home from school as the tram becomes a school bus when there is room.
There were also just some views of life in the town and a view of a castle off in the distance.
We had wanted to tour a favela that morning and were not able to since the tour was sold out before we tried to sign up. It might have been a good thing in the end given how the weather turned out and we can always come back another time, it is only a 2 hour flight from Porto Alegre. We did have a view of one from the top of our hotel.
So that was Rio. All in all a great weekend with two lovely days of temps around 30 with lots of sun and lots of good food. There are many places to see in Brazil, yet I can see going back again, it’s kind of like Goa in India, not somewhere that you only go once.
Of course I can’t complete this post without some notes on my thoughts of the Olympics being hosted in Rio, and no this is not me being a sore loser since Chicago didn’t get them, I had mixed feelings about that happening.
In general I think it is great that 2016 will be the first Olympics in South America. That said, Rio might disappoint some Olympic viewers who are used to more western accommodations when attending the games. And if folks are not used to being approached continuously with people selling their wares that may also lead to some discomfort as can the views of poverty that are not hidden away. First and foremost, as with just about any Olympic city there is going to be a traffic issue. We were there during off season and sat at times in traffic that was moving quite slowly. There is a subway but it is not extensive and I don’t know what the plans are for expanding it before the games begin. I wish them well, and I am almost interested in trying to attend the games to see what they do, yet I might have to rely on TV coverage and hope that it is close to accurate.
Tchau,
Wendy
As I mentioned at the end of my last post, this past weekend a group of us headed to Rio for some rest and relaxation, and most importantly some sunshine. The short story is it was fantastic!
Unfortunately I won’t have time to share all of the pictures and the details of our time there right now, so check back in the next day or so for the details. Suffice it to say, there was more than enough surf, sand, and sunshine to make for a great mini-vacation before my actual vacation to Greece in a couple of weeks.
Tchau,
Wendy
I found it interesting, one evening when I was cutting paper and taping stuff to index cards in preparation for a training session that I was leading in the upcoming days to reflect on learning and the timing of things we learn. And how, as Robert Fulghum stated a few years back, we really learned just about everything we need around the age of 5.
For starters, as I mentioned in a previous post our Brazilian office is located on the PUCRS campus in Porto Alegre. We have a couple of large workrooms and some conference space on the 7th floor of the Computer Sciences building.
The campus is quite beautiful with lots of greenery and a very interesting grandiose sculpture and fountain just passed the front gate.
Since I don’t have any photos that correspond directly to the rest of this post, I am just going to scatter the campus ones throughout to hopefully keep things visually interesting. I have included photos of both the greenery and the buildings as well as some shots of the fountain.
I believe I previously mentioned how the washing machines here can be quite frustrating to operate and how most of use believe that one of them is actually broken. I tried to be a good citizen and help my fellow travelers by mentioning this to our office manager so she could call the hotel and advise them of the situation in Portuguese. A few of the staff there speak some English, enough to get most of what we need accomplished, and this was just not in that category. So she called them and they wouldn’t believe her that the machine was broken and instead agreed to give me lessons on how to use it. Yes, it is in Portuguese, but there are pictures next to the words that mean you can pretty much figure out what the buttons mean. Anyhow, I agreed to be taught, kind of that kindergarten them of being humble.
Interestingly enough, when the women from the desk went to show me the operations she started speaking with one of the cleaning people and she told her that the machine was broken. Of course I smiled and chuckled, and it just proves that even when you know you are right, sometimes it does make sense to just go along for the ride and let the other person discover what you already know.
Last week went by quite fast as I started running training sessions for people in the office who have been working here for several months and this meant fitting them around their project schedules. Thus I would have a session from 8-10 one night followed by another from 8-10 the next morning. In addition to that I still have a few modules of content to flesh out.
All in all it turned out to be a bit of a rough weekend. I was extremely tired from the week so I went right home from work instead of going out to dinner with
folks. It was relaxing, yet some loneliness set in and kind of stuck there for two days. Calling my friend Barb at home helped, thank goodness for Skype, yet I was still just missing my friends and my stuff.
And it didn’t get any better when I held my weekly battle with the washing machine again on Saturday. While they had admitted that the one was not working a few days earlier, I had no way of knowing whether or not it was fixed so opted to use the one that had a better track record. Of course, having slept in, someone had beaten me to it so I had to wait for their stuff to finish before starting my load. While I was waiting the staff wandered in and figured I must be having problems, when in fact I wasn’t, so I wound up trying to explain why I wasn’t using the other washer, and that didn’t go very well.
All in all it left me feeling as if they were treating me as stupid just because I don’t speak Portuguese. Yes, I wish I knew more of it, and I don’t. That doesn’t mean I am dumb, it just means it is hard for me to communicate here. I can’t really put my finger on exactly what they did that made it seem as if they thought the former, it might have been insisting on showing me how to push the washer buttons while pointing to the recently written out English instructions. Yep, that was probably the biggest contributer. And it left me, I’ll just go right out and say it, “p***ed off”.
So please, take this lesson away, when dealing with a non-native speaker in your own country, realize that they are likely just as educated as you, and also very frustrated by the fact that they are having a hard time communicating. It is not easy to learn a new language, even when you are immersed in it every day, and especially when folks around you seem to want you to speak perfectly before trying to understand you.
Just as you would with someone at the tender age of 4 or 5, give the person support and be ready to give them space if they seem frustrated. They are likely just overwhelmed and need your support.
By Saturday night I wasn’t feeling much better and wasn’t sure if I wanted to go out to a co-worker’s birthday party. Another co-worker convinced me to go
and it was probably a good thing. Although I should have gone home after the official party which I got to around 10 pm. I am not sure exactly when it started since the invite didn’t actually include a time, which is really not surprising to me after having been here as long as I have. The clock just isn’t quite as central to things here as in the US, it seems a bit more central than it was in India, however, only a bit. It has been really hard to get folks used to a training class that starts at the time it is scheduled, and getting people to RSVP with any kind of advanced notice is equally grueling.
Anyway, back to Saturday night, I knew folks would be arriving at various times, and not wanting to be the only English speaker there I had a couple folks call me as they headed out so that I could arrive around the same time. That actually worked quite well. Of course, then I had to figure out what to drink. I wound up with a gin martini (with Tangueray, ok, not great) and olives (with pits – sorry dad, no blue cheese). I am not sure how much if an Vermouth was in it, so I sipped it very slowly as I had already had some wine with dinner. And I would have stuck with wine if they had been selling it by the glass, though given my experience with wine here, maybe it was a good thing that they weren’t.
That said, the birthday boy’s wife was drinking a local sparkling wine and asked me if I wanted to try it, and surprise of all surprises, it wasn’t half bad, so after my martini I switched to that. And that is where I should have let the evening end, instead I opted to go with folks to the night club after we left the bar. OK, I’ll admit it, I’m too old to enjoy going to a club at 2 am that is smokey and there is no space to move, yet you are supposed to be “dancing”, if you call getting stepped on by someone is heels while you try to avoid stepping on someone else with your heels dancing. No, I’m not bitter, I just didn’t last long, mostly I was tired and I had a hard time breathing with the smoke that had nowhere to go given we were in a windowless room. Maybe this is another pre grade school lesson, know your bedtime and respect it. Of course the time will have changed since those days of being shorter than everyone other than your younger sibling(s), but there is something to be said for listening to your body and trying to get enough sleep, even on the weekend.
And another early life lesson that I often reflect on here, seat belts. Well, maybe not so early life for me given that I do recall standing in the back seat next to my brother for some road trips, but as it is said in Anything Goes, “Times have changed“. I am confounded as to here, as in India, how folks just don’t seem to see the importance of seat belts. Those of you who were on my mailing lists back in the India days recall my talking about how we often had to beg and plead when renting a car for the weekend to make sure it had working seat belts. Here, they seem to be operational about 50% of the time, at least in the back seat of cabs. The ones in the front seem to work, though not all the drivers use them. There is one driver that we get regularly who just loops the belt as lightly as possible as he can over his lap before approaching the check point that we pass each day on the way to work. Most of the other drivers slip the belt on for this and off again later. Not sure which is worse, both are bucking the system, and the second group is only protected for a small amount of time at a well known check point.
Sunday had promised to be an adventurous day of heading out to wine country and given the weather we had it would have been spectacular. However, we only had one Portuguese speaker slated to go with us and when she had to cancel last minute we had to postpone the trip. Hopefully we will be able to reschedule for the weekend before I return to the U.S. At least I finally have found two reds at the grocery store which are not fruity, so I can enjoy some wine with dinner.
Where the theme of learning comes to bear most is in what I am here to do, and that is to facilitate training for the ThoughtWorkers being hired into this very
new office. Doing that has gotten me to reflect on the things we are teaching and how they too are really things we learned at an early age. Of course there are new twists and applications otherwise there wouldn’t be anything to teach. Given that we are a consulting company, while we focus on technology at the end of the day we are providing solutions for clients and that means we are consulting, a lot of what we teach focuses on consulting. Here again it is wrapped in other concepts, all of the things we need to do to build software. Yet, in the end, it all builds on creating and nurturing relationships. This is otherwise known as playing well with others and is something we each do, unless we are living in a cave, everyday of our lives.
There is one thing that makes it harder here, and that is consulting in a second language. It is tough enough to be on your best behavior when at a client site when you and the client speak the same native language. When you are a non-native speaker avoiding the simple mistakes such as misspelling words in an email is much harder and requires constant vigilance. Add to that avoiding talking about inappropriate subjects, something else we all learned early on, where the subject list can vary by culture and you have a very tough assignment. And the list goes on and on.
I may have mentioned that one of my Brazilian co-workers was headed to Paris for his honeymoon and asked me for recommendations. So a couple weeks back I dusted off an old email that I had sent to someone else for their trip to Paris (this was quite a feat as the email was in our old crusty system – Lotus Notes – run away) and polished it a bit with some updates. He returned to work this week raving about Maille mustard and Veuve Cliquot. It feels good to have been able to show somebody something that you like so much and have them appreciate it, not the same kind of things that we shared with each other in kindergarten, but still a show and tell when it comes down to it.
I finally wore the Inter shirt that I mentioned in my last post to the office on Tuesday. Luck would have it that the first folks I ran into post training session, where I think people might have been too focused to care what I was wearing, were Gremio fans. One even had the nerve to send me an IM asking if all of my clothes were dirty. Of course I replied that the opposite was true, only the best ones were clean!
Up next, a weekend in Rio!
Tchau,
Wendy
Or actually your d’s, t’s, e’s, ….
Now that I have been in Brazil for a little more than a month, I felt that it was time to write a bit ab0ut the Portuguese language, more precisely about Brazilian Portuguese.
I figured that it would be a little bit easier for me to learn Portuguese as an adult than it would be for some others since I am already an intermediate French speaker, which I also learned as an adult. Thus the part of my brain that is used to learn languages, the part that shuts off if we don’t exercise it by the time we are in the middle years of grade school, has been turned back on. It may not have the capacity to process a full stream of information but at least there is a trickle of activity.
In some ways I was right, and I will get to a bit more on that later, yet the lack of time ahead of the trip and the lack of time once I have been here to really study the language has been the biggest hindrance. I really feel badly that I was unable to at least learn a basic travel vocabulary before I arrived, as I really feel much more comfortable in a location if I can communicate at least somewhat in the native tongue. And I feel that I am being disrespectful of the place I am visiting to have not found the time to do this beforehand. Note to self, I must remember that in about a month I will be in Greece, another location with another language that I don’t know, so I must learn some basics before I fly there.
That said, I am making some very slow progress in building a minimal vocabulary. And I am basically able to communicate to navigate around with my minimal set of words and lots of pantomiming and pointing.
What I didn’t expect was to find as many similarities between French and Portuguese as I have found. I guess I shouldn’t be surprised since they are both romance languages. And I had seen a number of similar words during the little bit of investigating I did before leaving the U.S. For example, the numbers 11 (onze), 14 (quatorze), and 15 (quinze) are spelled exactly the same and 12 (douze – doze), 13 (treize – treze), and 20 (vingt – vinte) are similar.
Of course, the similarities end with the spellings. The pronunciations are as different as those between English and Portuguese. Some of the things that I struggle with daily are
- “d” is sort of pronounced ch, I think it is really more dch and find that quite hard, for example
- bom dia (good morning/day) pretty much sounds like “bom chia” with the m sort of swallowed as many ending French consonants
- Lucas de Oliveira (the name of the street where I live) pretty much sounds like Luca(s) ch’Olivera or Luca(s) ch’wallivera
- “t” seems to pretty much be similar to “d” in that it becomes a “ch” (at least when it is in the middle of a word), for example
- continuar (which actually means what you think it does) comes out as con-chin-u-eh
- vinte comes out as vahnch
- “e” at the end of a word is pronounced, sort of like the vowel of “le” in Alleluia when singing, for example
- onze is basically onz-eh
- quinze is basically kin-zeh
I have less trouble understanding the locals when they use Portuguese pronunciations for English words
- they almost always pronounce the “ed” at the end of the word, for example
- worked becomes wor-ked
- helped becomes hel-ped
- they also pronounce t as “ch” in English words, for example, when folks were flying to San Francisco for the project they talked about their connection in Char-loache (Charlotte)
Related to this is an observation that a few of us were discussing over the weekend. It seems as if we have a much easier time understanding English spoken with Portuguese “mistakes”, or for that matter any other accent that someone visiting the U.S. has, than folks here have understanding our incorrect Portuguese. Likely this is because we have been exposed to more people attempting to speak English that the Brazilians have been exposed to people attempting to speak Portuguese. And that also likely extends to when I massacre French in France yet they usually understand what I am saying.
Of course that doesn’t make it any less frustrating when trying to get home after work and the cab driver just doesn’t seem to recognize the street name, and if they do eventually recognize it they seem to pronounce it differently than the driver the night before did, and the driver the night before that…. Thankfully the hotel where we stay is named Bela Vista and this is pronounced pretty much as one expects and even if the hotel itself is not that known the whole area near there seems to be known as Bela Vista. And if that doesn’t work, there is another hotel a few doors down, The Blue Tree – can you guess how to pronounce that – that just about every cab driver seems to know. The only trick with using that is getting them to stop a few doors early with lots of pointing and a few “las” and “aquis”.
Another somewhat bizarre thing that I have noticed is that I often find myself slipping into French instead of English when I am trying to use Portuguese. For example I’ll say oui instead of sim, or through in a d’accord every so often. When talking to some co-workers I discovered that this isn’t all that strange, and it relates to my thoughts above about having reawaken a part of my brain. It turns out that once you learned a second language as an adult, when studying the third and subsequent ones you are indeed using a different part of the brain than when speaking a language you learned when you are young. And while you are exercising that part of the brain to learn the third language, it is much easier for it to jump in with words from your second language than for the other part to jump in with words from your native tongue.
In addition to thinking about languages, and actually spending some time trying to learn some new Portuguese as well as practice my French, I did do a few things of interest over this past weekend.
Friday night most of us from the States as well as two folk from the Brazil office went out to dinner to try one of the restaurants we had noticed the week before and wanted to check out. It turned out that we stumbled upon an excellent pizza place that featured Uruguayan beer (which I didn’t really take to as it was quite light) and a traditional Uruguayan sauce on the pizza which tasted just fine though I can’t say that I noticed anything distinct about it. I had a four cheese pizza, complete with gorgonzola, ymm, and eventually ordered a bottle of wine to share which was quite nice.
I basically laid low on Saturday, though I did get to both the grocery store and the mall where I bought a few cap sleeve T’s to wear under jackets and sweaters as well as two new dresses and some much needed new tights. I also spent some time browsing in the music section of the book store where I made some purchases of some local tracks as I like to do when I travel to new places. I don’t know if the stuff that I bought is at all popular. It seemed like a good mix and I enjoyed what I heard at the listening stations in the store. After I listen to the whole CDs I’ll let you know more about what I actually bought.
Saturday night Sarah and I finally went to see “Alice” in 3D. It was good, not as good as “Avatar” and it was nice to hear English for length of the movie. Though there was a moment after we paid and entered the complex that we thought we had accidently wound up at the dubbed showing instead of the sub-titled one. We both breathed a sigh of relief when the movie finally started and the first, and remaining for that matter, words were in English.
On Sunday I wrestled with the washers again, this time however I got there early enough to get the better one and to have a dryer available once my clothes were washed.
Finally it was time to play tourist again and I headed out on a city tour with 2 local co-workers, Barbara and Caio and Caio’s girlfriend. Mostly I got some ideas of some places that I would like to go back to since the bus didn’t really slow down to make it easy to take photos, and only stopped for about a minute at the cathedral.
One of the first places we passed was the planetarium, which I want to check out and see if it is worth going to a program at.
Throughout the tour we passed a number of colorful buildings, many or which the color is due to the fact that the exterior is covered with mosaic like tiles, less patterns than a mosaic piece of art, yet tiled none-the-less.
There were also some interesting window treatments. Shutters are on just about every building here a and provide many interesting photo ops. The one below is unusual as they are usually closed. For instance there are the large metal vertical shutters on my hotel room windows, and just about every day I open them to get the light into the room in the morning, and just about every night when I come back the person cleaning has shut them. Sometimes I open them again at night to not feel so boxed in.
In addition we drove passed some sculptures and statues,
the oldest street, a fruit market, a mural,
a juxtaposition of old and new, a gutted building,a cool structure next to the fire station
and, the BBQ store (I might have to use that extra baggage allowance I get after all to take some of this fine outdoor cookware home).
The weather for the tour was a bit cooler than other days (it was about 15) and quite a bit cooler than the day before where it was an absolutely gorgeous 27. Of course even when it was 27 many people were walking around not only in long sleeves, but in multiple layers of long sleeves and/or with coats. Thankfully the weekend was nice, as starting Monday evening it has been raining pretty much non-stop and yesterday this was accompanied by some howling wind that was driving the rain against (and in some cases through) the windows. I guess it is a sign that fall is really in full swing – although despite the weather and the lack of long hours of daylight it is hard for my to comprehend that it isn’t spring.
The rainy weather meant that when we had another BBQ, like the one the first week that I was here, we spent the whole time inside the kitchen and cooking pit area rather than sitting outside next to the pool.
Finally, no post can be complete without an Inter reference, yes the tour went passed the stadium, it also passed that other location which was not deemed 
photo worthy. And as part of my shopping, this was actually post movie shopping, I picked up an Inter mug to use in the office and an Inter hoodie.
Tchau,
Wendy
Wait, there is one more thing that I just have to sneak in. As I was talking to my folks Monday morning on Skype my U.S. cell phone rang and it showed up as a “private” number which I found odd as the only number that generally shows up that way is my parents. So I ignored the call and didn’t think much more of it right away. When I finished my Skype call, I checked my email and there was a message in my inbox from the US Embassy in Buenos Aires stating that some cab driver had turned in some of my forms of identification over the weekend. At first I was suspicious that this was some sort of spam, and so I researched the phone number they gave and the return address and it was indeed legit, plus the fact that they gave some detailed info about 4 things that had been in my wallet added to the believability of it all.
The mail said that I could stop in and pick these things up any time. Clearly that wasn’t going to work as it would be easier to get a new license when I get back to Chicago than to fly back to Argentina. So I replied asking if they could send the documents to either the Embassy here or in Chicago, and even better they are sending them directly to my condo in Chi-town were they should arrive a week or so before I do. The whole thing is pretty surreal. From the fact that the driver took the time to turn the items in, to the fact that the Embassy took the time to look up my email address (and I think phone as well as my guess is that is who was calling), to the fact that they are willing to send the items directly to my house.
Now it is really time to go,
Tchau
WendyI's Blog 
