Bom Dia

March 1, 2012

This. Is. The. Life.

As I write, I’m sitting in the breeze next to an open window, looking out over the city with the lake in the distance, pleasantly full of ripe cantaloupe and Brazilian café. 

We woke up today and realized we are getting fat from all the churrasco, so Josh ran his old running route this morning and we went to the gym downstairs and lifted for a while.  After a nice hot shower, we sat down to coffee that Fatima made us and thanked the Lord for amazing peace and blessings.

I will try to recap the last few days – it has been a whirlwind!

Ok but first, I have to tell you what just happened – this vacation seems surreal sometimes:  Josh is next to me on his computer and all the sudden he puts his nose up in the air and sniffs like a hound on the trail of a rabbit.  He goes, “Oh my GOSH.  Smell that….is that someone else’s lunch outside?  NO!  That’s OURS isn’t it?”  Yes, right now Fatima is in the kitchen cooking up some tasty almoco (al-mo-so/lunch) just for the two of us. J

Anyway, Monday night we had to say some sad goodbyes to our Curitiba mom and dad…and the kitties we had become so fond of.  Josh and I have never met a cat that we thought would do well in our household and with Lizzy (our small dog who we miss terribly) until we met Menininha, who tried to pack herself in my checked luggage bag the first night we stayed there.  So that was a tough goodbye.  And then off to the airport where another adventure waited, unbeknownst to us.

We finally boarded the delayed flight around 9:45pm.  We taxied. And taxied. And taxied some more, and then waited our turn as incoming flights took up the runway.  At last our plane made the turn onto the runway and with a blast we began to take off. 

Just at the very moment that the wheels must have been lifting off the ground, BAM. With a jolt, we came back down and the pilot put on the brakes full force, with smoke or fog or something coming out of the engine next to us, just on the other side of the window.  

The passengers around us murmured in Portugese as we waited in silence for an explanation.  Then a brief garbled explanation came over the speakers - in Portugese, of course, which we couldn’t make heads or tails of.  We slowly taxied back to the gate we came from and as we saw a maintenance team hurry toward the plane, the captain came on and in broken English explained, “Ladies and Gentlemen, this is your captain.  We have small problem failure with aircraft.  I think take only five minute….”

Yeah.

About an hour later, we began moving toward the runway again.  Josh and I held hands tightly and prayed over the plane and the pilots and passengers….and we took off for a smooth flight to Porto Alegre. 

Welcome home Josh!

Once in the baggage claim area, Josh grabbed my arm and said, “I 

think Marcio and Marcelo (Josh’s best friends in Brazil) are waiting for us – I think they are jumping up and down, and Brazilians don’t do that!”  A warm welcome awaited us as the brothers embraced us and took our luggage.  Then another familiar voice from behind Josh and his host brother, Bruno, appeared.  More hugs and then off to find Josh’s host dad, Pedro, with the car.  We said goodnight to the brothers and went home.  Josh and I are staying in the same room he lived in for six months of school here.  His Mom, Ana, and his other host brother, Guillerme were waiting up and they fed us and sent us to bed.

Tuesday morning Ana and Pedro, both doctors, took off work to have breakfast and lunch with us.  We talked and laughed and they took us to the mall that also has a huge supermarket inside.  You park your car under the mall, take an elevator up to the market, shop, check out, and then you take your cart back down to your car on a cart escalator.  It’s like one of those moving walkways at the airport, only it goes up and down and everyone has their grocery cart with them. 

Once they left for work, we called Marcio and Marcelo and they came to pick us up.  We went to Marcelo’s beautiful apartment, met his beautiful wife, Jackie, and then took a walk.  When we all took Marcio to his appointment later that afternoon, Marcelo took us to a really shady part of town to get the most amazing ice cream for only 1 real, which is about 50 cents.  We cooled off and then spent the rest of the afternoon, evening, and most of the night with the three of them.  We went out for an amazing churrasco meal at a churrascuria in town, and then we watched movies and talked until they took us home around 1am. 

At one point I just looked at Josh and said, “Is it what you imagined?  Is this the moment you have been waiting for since you left?” “Yes,” he said, “I feel like I’m dreaming.”

Yesterday we slept in, had café a la Fatima, and spent the afternoon with mama Ana downtown.  She treated us to lunch at Café de Paris, a typical lunch buffet with all kinds of Brazilian fare, and also to a trip on the tour bus.  We saw such beautiful sights on the tour!  The city is right next to a huge lake and you can see the water from almost everywhere.  We saw markets, historical architecture, tons of parks and trees (the cities here are so green!), and, funny enough, a bunch of tents in a park that said “Occupy.”  I asked Ana about this and she said it is the Brazilian version of Occupy Wall Street.

This is a typical sight in most Brazilian cities.
People from the slums, favelas, have carts and
collect recyclables to turn in for money.  Many
of them use horses to pull the carts.

It’s fun because Ana and Pedro understand and speak some Spanish.  The whole day, Ana and I were speaking some form of Spanish, English, and Portugese all together.  I’m calling it Spangligese.  It’s nice to be able to finally communicate!

They actually have a thing like Spanglish here for those who speak some Spanish and mostly Portugese – Portanol.  That is my saving grace.

It had been perfectly sunny all day, not a cloud in the sky.  But in the last twenty minutes of the bus ride, the sky became so dark, it seemed like nighttime.  The clouds were looking ominous and we were on the top level of an open air double decker bus… As we turned the very last corner in front of the last bus stop, the skies let loose.  It reminded me of what happened at Parque Tangua in Curitiba.  We grabbed our bright yellow tourist hats and souvenir tee shirts and tried to pack ourselves downstairs on the bus.  But not before we got soaking wet! 

We went home, dried off, and prepared for a big family churrasco.

Marcio, Marcelo, and Jackie came over around 9pm for the festivities – Pedro made churrasco Argentina-style, since that is where he is from.  First, the men pass around a caipirinha (a traditional Brazilian drink, kind of like a margarita on the rocks).  Then, the linguiza (sausage) comes out of the churrasciera – churrasco oven – and we eat that with a breadcrumb coating called farinha, until the carne is finished.  Then the feast of meats begins and you eat a bit of each type of meat as it comes hot out of the oven.  Sweet cinnamon rice with milk for dessert, sobremesa.  Gostozo!

The eating schedule here has me a little thrown off – we’ve been staying up so late that breakfast happens around 10, almoco happens around 1 or 2pm, then we have “lanchas” around 5pm, which is like a snack – usually some sort of small sandwich and some coffee, and then around 9pm, they have a small dinner.  Unless, of course, they are hosting Americans, in which case every meal will be huge and will last at least two hours.  I love vacation!

It has been such fun and so full of joy for us to be here with so many people that we love.  It seems like we have known Josh’s host family, the Narchis, and Marcelo and Marcio and Jackie forever.  And don’t forget Tequila, the family chocolate lab.  She was one of the highlights of Josh’s initial stay here and even six years later at the age of 12, she sees Josh and goes into rough-housing mode.

We love the aptly named city of Porto Alegre – the Port of Happiness. We look forward to meeting the Blumes soon, a missionary family from Texas whose blog Josh began to follow shortly after his return to the states six years ago.  And whose house, coincidentally (wink, wink – we don’t believe in coincidence!), is just a few blocks from the Narchis. 

Many more adventures to come!  Stay tuned…