Sao Paulo has definitely been an adventure. Life is good. Nivea is loving her internship and I am learning to enjoy my school a little better. I still haven't found an academic calender, but I think I'm aware of all holidays until the end of the semester. I informed one of my professors yesterday that he didn't need to come to class this Thursday or next Tuesday. I think he would have heard about the Holiday before showing up, but you never can be too sure. Do I have any idea what the holiday is for? No, but I am thrilled to be able to go to Rio de Janeiro and soak up some rain and hopefully some sun as well this weekend. Pics to follow.

I really need to add a picture of Nivea getting on the bus in the mornings. It's such a funny experience that, I'm praying, will be unique to this time of our lives. The doors open and bodies that were pressed against the door are suddenly free to bulge out a bit. You the kind of get your feet on the bus in between other people's and let the doors smash you against the crowd. I'm sure others who have traveled have seen this, but it has been a very new experience for me. The weirdest part is after that, everyone is almost silent. Here we are in Brazil, in a tiny space packed full of the loudest people on earth, and almost nobody talks. Nivea still talks of course, which is great because I get to practice my Portuguese on the friends she makes. It's amazing how natural it is for her to talk to people and make friends. It is truly a gift.

Last night was fun. After all my years of rebelling against learning the piano I have officially become a piano teacher. Ha. This kid and his brother in ward want to learn. Carlos and Clayton. We had our first lesson last night. It's amazing how some kids that grow up without opportunity can be so excited to learn something that privileged kids dread and hate so much. It was cool to see how interested he was.

Hopefully we will take some fun pics soon.

Picnic in the bus

We were going to have a picnic in one of the most beautiful places in Sao Paulo, Ibiapuera Park. 

We planed that I would meet Mike at his school around 3pm and go from there to our romantic picnic. 

Both of us were feeling like getting way from the craziness of this city. Great idea and perfect plan. 

While waiting for him at his school I looked outside and it was pouring rain. I told myself, "I hope Mike got my message and did not go outside to look for me." After a long time trying to find each other, our phones weren't working very well, I finally found Mike at the library writing me a email to let me know that he was giving up the search. It was sad because I saw that he was soaking wet. It was funny looking though because his hair is longer right now than it's ever been. He looked like a sad wet baby chicken. Ha. He went to check our meeting place in the park. The picture is of mike sitting on a step in the bus eating an apple. We decided to have our picnic on the bus. Not as fun, but definitely a more memorable day. 

Since I haven't written for a while, I will give you an update on some of the things we have done over the past month. We had a holiday last weekend for the official Brazilian Saint, Nossa Senhora Aparecida. We went to Belo Horizonte to visit my family and friends. One of the places we visited was Congonhas, a historic city in Brazil. There is a very famous Catholic church there that was built in the late 1700's. Mike said that part of the city felt just like Europe. It gives me the desire to visit Europe because I really like old cities like that. There are dozens of statues around the church. Twelve are of old testament prophets and then there are many wood statues in structures leading  up to the church that show the last few days of Christ's life. The amazing thing about them is that they were carved in the early 1800's by a man called "the little cripple." The artist had leprosy and would carve by having his hammer and chisel strapped to his hands which at that point had no fingers. He couldn't stand either and would climb the ladders on his knees in order to do his carvings. Here is a Wikipedia link if you want to see better pics of the art. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aleijadinho. It's very inspiring to see. Even my 14 year old nephew Igor was very impressed and that is not the type of activity he normally likes. 

Cool Baroque Era church in Congonhas

Nivea playing in her first box fort. Told you it was awesome babe.

Going #2 on the subway. That's normal here.

 Igor and Me

Rain made the water all muddy. We still had fun in pool in the same park.

Death to the Mosquitos

Great week this week. I tried very hard to do something interesting because I knew it was my turn to write. Alas, I failed. Luckily though, I have Nivea, and she does lot of interesting things.

One of the nights this week we were very stressed about how late we have been getting to bed lately. Nivea had to wake up early the next day at it was already a lot later than our bed time. When we finally got to sleep, some demon-possesed mosquitos found their way into our room for the first time since we have been in Brazil. After an hour of brushing them of our faces, unable to sleep, I finally decided to be a martyr and let the little buggers feast so Nivea could get some sleep. I thought there was only one or two in the room. After about 15 minutes of little pricks and itches on my blanketless body, I felt Nivea jump up out of bed. She turned on the light and through squinted eyes I could see that hers were already wide open, scanning the room. The first of the fell beasts to die by her hand were the slow ones that had already eaten, leaving nickel-sized spots of my blood on the white tile floor, walls, and ceiling (there were 6 or 7). She then proceeded to kill about ten more mosquitos that had gotten in before we closed the windows. That's Nivea for you. If there is a problem to be solved she will get it done. Even if it is at 1 am.

Nivea has some other great stories, but I will let her tell the rest if she wants. She has made this time so far in Brazil so much better than it would have been without her. My classes are going well. I have enjoyed it so far. I'm actually very excited for the next two months of classes (Classes only go 2 months here). Work is great. We have a new campaign starting on Monday that I will be helping with. Honeycomb hangers, the revolutionary new way to hang a picture! Ha sounds dumb but I actually like it a lot. Watch for it and Hugalopes in the coming weeks. Here is a youtube channel I'm putting everything on www.youtube.com/user/infomercialsinctv if you want to see some of what the company I work for does.

I promise I will do something way interesting in the next two weeks so I have something awesome to write about. I thought about joining a giant group people on strike banging drums and singing by my bus stop downtown today for just that reason, but they all had matching T-shirts and I didn't want to feel left out. Don't worry though, something cool will come up. Just gotta keep my eyes open.

I will add some more pics in a bit!

Mike is finally back from the wedding and I never missed someone so much... My bed isn't empty anymore.
I love my job and I enjoy working at Aberje. It is a great place to be! I have the opportunity to meet important professionals from everywhere that you can think of. The last one that I met is from china but spoke perfect English because she grew up speaking with her Australian dad.
My bus takes, depending on the traffic, about 35 to 55 minutes to get at work. Most of the time, it is crazy crowed and I confess that I am scared of the summer time heat!!!!
On the 7th was Brazilian Independence Day and we had the chance to go to the Sao Paulo parade. After many years watching the parade on the internet, I had the change to watch it live. It was so beautiful and touching. The horses were my favorite part.
Last weekend, Mike and I went to the Jardim Botanico with Manu (she is a friend from my mission) and Thomas her husband. We had so much fun especially Mike who loved the seeing the monkeys out there in nature. We also saw toucans flying around and many other birds. It was a beautiful and peaceful day.
Mike and I were coming back from somewhere and suddenly I heard him saying: "Look babe, there is Nossa Senhora... I talk about her every day and now I finally get to meet her." The catholics would be proud of Mike's reverence to the Brazilian saint. People here say “Nossa Senhora”, like you would say “Oh my goodness,” and we happened to be passing a church dedicated to her. He was so cute that I needed to take a picture of him and his excitement.

At the Brazilian Independence day parade



Nivea being artistic

First time apart :(



Manuela and Tom introduced us to a Jardim Botanico, a park with monkeys in it!

Nossa Senhora!!!!

Today we were talking and mike started saying in Portuguese: “olha a ‘agua mineiral… olha olha olha a ‘agua…. Olha a agua”(look mineral water, look water). I asked, “Where did you learn that angel? He replied, “in my bus. There is a guy who comes in selling water. I like that guy.” I thought that it was funny and the same time impressive because even I can’t understand what those guys selling water are saying and Mike now imitated them perfectly. I think that I found a new job for mike.
 

First Post! BY MIKE

Hey everybody!!!!!

For my very first ever blog post I will be giving you a quick update on what we have done so far in Brazil! Our first stop was in the city of Belo Horizonte where we spent time with Nivea's family. It was amazing. I especially loved walking through a bamboo forest - Mangabeira Park - and feeding all these weird creatures I had never seen before (pics below... or above... or however a blog works). The futebol game was also awesome! I went to see Atletico (Ronaldinho) play in their home stadium. Those people are crazy for soccer. It was unreal. You know when you see those crowds at soccer games from Europe or Latin America who are out on the street in a cloud of smoke from the fireworks crowding around the player's bus? Yep, that was me. I was in that crowd.

School here in Sao Paulo is great. My campus is a 12 story building downtown. I take a single 40 minute bus ride to get there every morning. My classmates are European or American mostly. I'm a tiny bit scared of the Russians and Germans but I hide it for the most part (I'm joking here for random German and Russian viewers that wouldn't know my humor. I should probably learn how to make this private.) My favorite thing about my school so far is this little bakery about a block away. Every morning, whether I ate at home already or not, I get this huge hot pocket thing that is stuffed full of ground beef. It's only 1 US dollar! I ask them what it is called every time I go in, but I can never remember. I justify spending the money because  I'm exercising again and Nivea wants me to get buff so I can intimidate hooligans that might want to rob this beautiful American man (FYI in Portuguese men can also be beautiful).

That's about it. I'm not sure who will read this or how you will respond to it. If you know how and you have questions feel free to ask! Emails; Facebook also work great.

Quai Chi (Spelling?)

Cool park in Belo

FGV Sao Paulo

Bamboo is cool. Nivea wouldn't let me climb any though. You can't believe how much maturity it took to resist.

the fam!