Updates from Brasil- (Start at the bottom for date order)

Sent: Update #7 June 30th-July 1, 2010

Hello again!

I hope everyone is having a great summer, so far. Today was a pretty quiet day here. Daniel and I walked around the block some. I have to be careful to not go too far after 2:00 or so. It gets dark here around 5:00 p.m. since it is winter. I LOVE walking around the streets here. I feel very safe. It would be like walking around New York, in the shopping district. These stores are amazing. The are decorated VERY fancy. Some are kind of strange and out-landish. But they are all very exotic and exclusive. You just know by walking past the store that everything is VERY expensive. What is interesting is men in business suites sit or stand outside of each store. I still haven't figured out why they are there. I wonder if they could be some kind of security. But there are lots of men, all over the streets in business suits. You'd think you were on Wall Street or something.

The streets are also lined with benches. But not the kind of benches back home. These are very beautiful. Some are antique, some are made of fancy wood. I saw only last night that was made of brass in the shape of swans, on the ends of the bench. I have to get pictures of some of these. I've only gotten a few. One bench looks like it came out of a church. Another looks like it came out of the Biltmore house. And they are protected by weather or theft. They are gorgeous! The benches face the store fronts. I guess it is for the men who have to go shopping with the women. :)

When I'm out and about, people figure out I'm American. They will ask me, "What city are you from". It's wild because I know they mean what "state" do I live in. I always answer with South Carolina. I can tell by their reaction that they have no idea where that is. Then I mention that I live near Atlanta Georgia, and their face lights up. I know that is a more popular area. (The Olympics were there in 1996).

When I go to a restaurant, everything is in very small portion sizes. It makes me laugh because we eat everything in bigger sizes at home. I ordered a quiche and the man said, "It is very large". I guess he was surprised I was ordering it just for myself. When the quiche came, it was NO bigger than a small burger at McDonald's. Ok, I was thinking; "This is not LARGE". Gosh, and I wonder why so many Americans are overweight. And they pour Coke from a can into a small glass, just a sip at a time. I want to pour the whole can out into a glass with ice, but they come around and only give you a small amount at a time. I wonder why they drink so slow. Hmmm? That is another way I probably drink too much. If I drank slower, maybe I would drink less. But I really like all of my drink available when I'm eating. It's crazy. ***This is when the Internet went down.***

Continued-July 1, 2010

Another thing I've notice a lot here is that everyone does a "Thumbs Up" when communicating. It is a very common gesture. If you are speaking with someone, they will give you a thumbs up sign, in agreement. Even when Brasilians are speaking with each other. I noticed while watching the soccer games that people do it on there too. It really is a universal sign.

The language here is funny. They don't pronounce certain letters the same way we do. Like the letter "R". It is pronounced more like an "H". Like their money. It says Real on the coin. But it is pronounced as Hey Eyes. And everything ends in a "chee" sound. Like football is said as foochie ball. And they have a Pizza Hut here, but they say it as Pisa Huchee. And banana split is banana splichee. It's funny. We even found a Johnny Rocket's here. I'd never eaten at a Johnny Rocket's before. They have a tv on the wall that is HUMONGOUS!! The restaurant is two stories with a balcony on the second floor for people eating up there to be able to see the tv. It had to have been 8 feet wide and 5 feet tall. It was super crazy big.

Brasil makes their own beer here called Chopp. When we eat out (which is often) Dave and his co-workers always drink the Chopp. They say it is really good.

When we enter our hotel room, we take our room key and put it in a box on the wall, right inside the door. Without the room card in this box, there is no electricity to the room. When you leave and take your key, everything turns off. I guess this is kind of a good idea. It doesn't waste electricity. But it is very hot when you return to your room and the air hasn't been on for a long time.

Me and the boys went out and about again today. I went into several clothing stores. It still amazes me how the shopping is SO big here. It would make 5th Ave and Rodeo Drive look like a Wal Mart. These stores are crazy. But what I find even more crazy are some of the styles. It looks like they are trying to bring back styles of the 80's. It really scares me. I've seen the pants like MC Hammer wore. Baggy in the front, between the crotch. Then I saw some jeans with the arrow stitched design on the front. Think of a large upside down "V" on the zipper front of the jeans. Remember those? And I've seen the baggy style slacks. Oh I hope it doesn't catch on in the US! I even saw a United Colors of Benneton store. Remember that store?

Guess what? You can't find hard candy here. Like Jolly Ranchers or even peppermints. It is unbelievable. People from here ask people from the US to bring peppermint with them. I have yet to find any type of hard, fruit flavored candy. You know what they have instead? HALLS!!! I know!! Why Halls? But they have all KINDS of halls. They have chocolate flavored Halls, they have fruit flavored Halls. The eat halls the way we eat hard candy. And it is almost impossible to find chips. The only thing I've seen, but it's hard to find, are Pringles. That is the closest thing they have. There isn't really a lot of junk food here. I know, I'm going through with-drawls!

Everyone here in the city has house dogs for pets. They are everywhere! And the dogs are VERY well cared for. They are ALL manicured and groomed like show dogs. I'm not a big dog person, but these little dogs are SOOOOO precious. All of them! I could definitely become a dog person if I lived here. If there are house cats, we don't see them. Because everyone lives in apartments and condos, you see people out walking their dogs on leashes. I saw a poodle with her hair braided. She had her other hair combed out so big that it made an afro hair style look small. Then she had a tiara. We even saw a man walking a ferret today.

We leave Saturday morning to drive back to Paneda. We'll be there through the week. Then we'll go to Rio again on either Thur or Fri. I look forward to getting back to Rio. We'll likely take a dip in the ocean. Dave and the boys went already. They said it was pretty cold.

Well, that's about all for now. I'll try to keep in touch when we get back on the road. I don't have access to a computer as much.

I can't wait to see everyone and post my pictures. There have been so many interesting things here that I can't wait to share with everyone.

I love and miss you all-and my precious little baby girls. :)
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Sent: Tue, June 29, 2010 3:20:27 PM
Subject: Update from Brazil-#6 June 29, 2010

Boa tarde, that is Portuguese for Hello.

I was incorrect earlier when I posted Buenos Tardes. That is Spanish. Portuguese is difficult to learn and understand. I want to speak Spanish so much. The Portuguese accents here in Sao Paulo and in Rio are VERY different. Much like a northern and southern accent.

I called home last night and "talked" to the girls. They didn't "say" anything back. :( Sometimes they will "Meow" on the phone when Dave calls. But Rachael said they were very confused by hearing my voice and seeing the phone.

The "BIG" thing here right now are flip flops. I can't believe it, since it is winter. But there are a lot of commercials about flip flops from a company called Havaianas. They are selling flip flops with all of the countries in the World Cup Soccer tournament. Here, they have a store. You pick out from ALL kinds of flip flops. They even have a wall decorated with flip flops representing the teams who have played. It's kind of like a wall showing all of the games that have been played. The day and time they were played. The teams who played each other, and the scores from each game. Except the wall is shown with the countries by using the flip flops. It's crazy. I'll post pictures when I get back home. Anyway, they have a "build a flip flop" area. You pick the color of the straps you want. Then you pick the color of the bottom you want. You can add metal decals to personalize your flip flops they way you want. I picked out navy straps with navy soles. Then I had a US and Brazil decal put on each shoe. It was really neat. They have a web-site if you just type in the name, Havaianas. They has some flip flops with rhinestones that cost two hundred dollars, and more!

Everything here is made with fine materials. The houses, stores, restaurants all have marble counters, sinks and table tops. The floors are made with tile. They don't have things like linoleum and fiberglass. I guess marble and tile are more common here. Even the streets are made with tiles. The big thing here is that the streets all have tiled patterns. You know you are in Brasil when you walk the streets and there are patterns in the tiles, on the walls and in the street car tunnels. It is really neat!

Everything here in measured in metrics. When we were at the grocery store, you buy everything in liters. The Coke bottles come in 1.5 or 2.5 liters. Where at home, we have only 2 liter bottles. It's really wild! And time is measured in military hours. (That is pretty easy for me.) And the days of the week are really strange. They use the words for Saturday and Sunday, but they refer to the days Monday through Friday as the first day of the week (Monday), the second day of the week (Tuesday) and so on. It is CRAZY!! I asked someone about their stores hours and asked if they would be open on Friday (in my best Portuguese) and they had NO idea what I was saying!

All of the houses, apartments and condos have a separate bathroom for each bedroom. Even our hotel is more like an apartment. One of Dave's co-workers has a house in Paneda. There are three bedrooms and a full bath for each room, including a half bath. And all apartments, houses and condo have a maid's room. It is usually only large enough for a bed and night stand, plus a full bath. Dave's co-worker has a maid's room under the house. WOW!!! It makes for cleaning A LOT of toilets!
I was thumbing through a magazine here. I was shocked at the advertisements for vacation locations. The really big one they advertise it to Cuba!!! What?! I never thought of Cuba as a resort/vacation type of area. Plus, I don't think they even let Americans into their country. But there it was!! It was like they were advertising a trip to Cuba like going to the Bahamas, or Jamaica, or any beach resort area.

Another crazy kind of thing is the elevator here in the hotel. It has a door that you open. When it closes, then the door slides across and you push the button to choose your floor. It reminds me of an elevator in a bed and breakfast that we stayed at once in Chicago. Except it has an old style accordion metal screen that you had to slide over before getting on. Then you closed the door yourself the operate the elevator.

Something I can't figure out is the spelling of Brasil. When you see it here, it is spelled with an "s" in the middle of the word. When I use spell check, it wants to change the "s" to a "z". I never realized it, nor did it occur to me, that the spelling was different.

Well, that's about all for now. I hope everyone is having a great day. I can't wait to be home, in my own bed. Other than missing the girls, we are doing great.

Love, Kathi

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Sent: Mon, June 28, 2010 8:39:49 PM
Subject: Update from Brazil-#5 June 28, 2010

Hello once again,

Today has been a quiet day. Dave has had meetings all day here at the hotel. Me and the boys have just hung out. We've watched movies and Brasil played soccer today. Brasil won and it has been like riots on the streets. The large bomb explosives were going off! There are not many English speaking channels, so the tv watching is very limited.

I wanted to mention some more things that I've noticed while being here:

All of the water faucets turn on against the wall. For example, if you take a shower, the knobs are along the long side of the wall. They are not under the shower head. And the way you turn the knobs is quite different than at home. It is hard to explain, but it takes a while to get used to. The toilets all flush funny too. Many have buttons in the top of the tank. Otherwise, there is a large metal piece you have to push in and hold on the side of the tank. They do not use much toilet paper here, so they don't flush unless you HAVE to. (Know what I mean?)

When you go to a restaurant, deli or food stand; you pay for your food, then you pick it out. It's strange because there is no way to know what they offer unless you go backwards through the line to look at the food, then go back around and pay. Sometimes you pick out your food, go pay, then go back to another area with your ticket to pick up your food. It is a very different system here. When you eat at a restaurant, the service is VERY good. But they don't come for a very long time to take your order, and it takes FOREVER to get your check. So we usually count on taking 2 hours to eat when we go out. I tried to order food service to the hotel last night. That was very interesting!! The guy at the front desk called for me, but it was very long, complicated and confusing.
When we went to the bistro the other day, they offered duck, lamb, oysters, and alligator. Hmmm? No, I didn't try that. Two men from Dave's work were with us. They both ordered Beef Stew. When it came, there were small chunks of liver in their bowl. I don't know if liver counts as beef. But the "stew" only had liver pieces and a couple of small bits of potatoes. There was no broth. (I was GLAD I didn't order that!)

I still haven't gotten used to the money. It's called something like- "Hey Eyes", phonetically. When you see their money written or printed on something, it look like this- $R3,4900. To us, that is $3.49. They use commas instead of a decimal to separate their dollars and cents. It was really confusing for awhile, but I'm used to it now. Dave said that they multiply their HeyEyes by 1.7 to convert to US money. You can usually divide their amount in half and add a little extra. If something cost $R34,000- that would be $34.00- or about $17 dollars, plus a little extra, for us.

The BIG industry here is precious gem stones. This country exports ALL around the WORLD!! Most jewelry is made here, then sold to dealers everywhere. They mine gold, diamonds, amethysts, topaz and others. We went to a jewelry factory when we were in Rio. We did a walking tour with headphones. We learned about where and how they mine for the stones and gold. We saw how the custom design jewelry. And we saw the world class jewelers. Their craft is something similar to a blacksmith. Not many people know or learn the trade, so they are very hard to find. Then we saw the glass vault that was 20 feet thick. They showed us some of the jewelry from the vault. Then we went to another area where you could actually purchase stuff. We didn't buy anything, but it was REALLY neat. We learned a lot about the country. The are of the building for the tour was over three stories. We really enjoyed that.

So much still to tell. But right now I'm gonna head back up to my room. Dave is in the restaurant with the men from work and some other men that just arrived here from the US and France. Once he's done, I'm gonna call home and "talk" with the girls. I am SOOOOO excited! I hope they will "say" something back to me. (I know! I'm the "crazy cat lady"!)

Hope everyone is doing well.

Love, Kathi

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------


Sent: Sun, June 27, 2010 4:38:47 PM
Subject: Update from Brazil-#4 June 27, 2010

Buenas Tardes,

This means "Good afternoon" in English.

Today is another beautiful day. The weather here is "perfect"!! This is my kind'a living!

We went to mass today at the Catedral de São Paulo St Paul's Cathedral (the Cathedral of Sao Paulo). This is the cathedral of the Arch Diocese. The Cardinal, Bishop and several Priests preside over mass. This was REALLY neat. I attached a photo for you to see. The church is amazing!! If you Google images, you can find more photos of the inside of the church. The mass was photographed and video taped. There was something special going on today. We didn't understand much. Dave said he could understand about 5% of what was said. I only understood Domingo (Sunday) and Amen. :) I was a WONDERFUL experience!!

I am a little worried about the Delta telling me that I will have to pay for TWO seats to return home!!! (Remember the lady on the news that they said had to pay for two seats?) Well, that will be me!! The food is VERY yummy and VERY heavy. They have a lot of pastries. The pastries will have ham and cheese. Some will be filled with just cheese. They have a lot of quiche here. They have little bite-sized round rolls with cheese made into it. I know, a lot of bread and cheese. But I've had other things too. We went to a world class Italian restaurant. The amount of olive oil and butter they use in their foods is enough to clog your arteries! :) We went to one restaurant on the beach in Rio that brings an endless supply of meat to your table. The meat is on a sword (just like a knight' sword). They come to your table with different types. If you want some, they cut it off the sword onto your plate. There are many men walking around with these swords
with all kinds of meat. They eat something here called Heart of Palm. It is eaten MANY different ways. Sometimes cut in about 3 inch slices with the top cut at an angle. Sometimes it is made into pa-tee. We went to another WONDERFUL restaurant on the water in Rio that serves pizza made with crust that is like a cracker. It's hard to explain, other than to say it like that. But they make ANY kind of pizza. With coconuts, fruit, veggies. They have whole coconuts that you walk by a vendor and buy. They open the top, and you drink the milk.

We've looked all around for a pizza place here in Sao Paulo. We went to a Pizza restaurant, and they were serving a meat buffet, no pizza. We went to an Italian restaurant, they don't even make pizza. Another pizza place was closed!! Hmmm? We are in search of some pizza here and can't seem to find any.

They LOVE chocolate here!! Every where you walk, there is some kind of chocolate place. They hand make all kinds of chocolate. And the store names are all different. One chocolate place sold chocolate at $15.00 an ounce! (We didn't get any of that!)

The gasoline is very strange. There are about 4 different kinds of gas. It is sold by the liter. Gas is $3,599 Rehais. Dave said that would be around $7-$8 a gallon. Eeek!

Most everything is closed today. I guess they may have a type of Blue Law here. There is not much going on. The big thing here is to go to the park. EVERYONE is there now. We decided it was too crowded. It would be like going to Central Park. Rio is more like Chicago, as far as size. Sao Paulo is definitely more like New York City AND Los Angeles put together!!

Tomorrow Brazil plays soccer around 3:30. Everything will be closed again. The streets become like a ghost town. It's very strange.

That's about all for now. I hope everyone is doing well and keeping cool.

I'll write again tomorrow.

Love, Kathi

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Sent: Sat, June 26, 2010 8:09:07 PM
Subject: Update from Brazil-#3

Hello again!

There is a computer in the hotel that I can use, so I am able to write and share my adventures.

Today we walked around Sao Paulo. Yesterday was the first day of winter. It was beautiful here!!! The kind of weather that you wish to have everyday.

We went to lunch at a Bistro. We sat upstairs on the porch and we overlooked the streets below. It was really cool! When I went to the ladies room, there was a dental floss dispenser. That was kinda wild. At another restaurant, they have a Listerine dispenser with small cups. So you can rinse your mouth out after dinner. Hmmm? Really different kind of things.

The cars are really interesting. There are cars like we have at home; Ford, Toyota, Honda, Chevrolet. But they are called by different names. The Honda has a City, instead of Civic. There are so many names of the cars, I can't remember them all. Then there are cars we don't have a home. Most all cars are small. It is really needed because of getting around town. Moving in and out of traffic. The motorcycles don't follow any laws. They drive right between cars and go through intersections. They are always dodging in and out of cars, parking spaces. We're always fearful that one will jump out in front of us.

They have their winter clothes out now. It's really neat to see all of the styles of clothes. I imagine that the styles they have out now-will be out in December back home. Tyra Banks says that Sao Paulo is the "fashion capital of the world". I can see why. They are very serious about their clothes here. They wear stuff that I wouldn't wear though. The ladies wear tights and long shirts with tall boots. Some ladies wear leggings with shorts and layered shirts with a sweater. They wear A LOT of jewelry. Much of it is very gaudy and large. It fits for the fashion here, just not my taste.

I did find some clothes at a store. I wear a size 46. LOL! I hope that is in metrics! I found some tops that were nice. There is fabric here that I've never seen back home. Hounds tooth is the big print this season. I see it everywhere. I imagine we'll see that this fall in the U.S. I LOVE me some hounds tooth. I actually saw some argyle too. Now I'm really liking that!

So the cars, restaurants, clothes are different. I wonder what it's like in Europe? Is the way of life very different than in the U.S.? I didn't realize so many things would be different. But it is really neat to see all of the new things. I saw a tree today that looked like it had hair! Dave says some type of parasite is growing on it, like moss, but it makes it look like a furry tree that needs to be brushed. It was SOOO cool!! I've seen other really neat plants and flowers.

Everyone here in the city lives in large high-rise buildings. They are all surrounded by large walls with big iron gates. From our hotel, you can see over the wall. The grounds of the hotel community are AMAZING!!! They look like the Biltmore gardens! So beautiful!! You would never realize from the street what was behind those walls. When we were in Rio, there were shorter apartments buildings surrounded by walls and iron fences that went around a city block. That way you could walk your dog, or go to the corner store, without leaving the protection of the gated area of your apartment/condo buildings.

Tomorrow we're gonna venture out to a park area. They have a lot of activities, including a zip line. We don't know yet if they are open, but we are gonna check it out before we go.

We found a pool on the 20th floor of our hotel. It's on the top floor, inside a solarium. It is really cool! It's like being at the top of the Empire State Building. You can see a lot of the city all around. We are not even a tall building compared to the apartment buildings around here, but there is still a very neat view of the city. We are on a higher area, so there is a lot of the city below.

Well, that's about all. I hope everyone is doing well. We look forward to seeing everyone when we get back.

Love you all! Kathi

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------


Sent: Fri, June 25, 2010 8:15:10 PM
Subject: Another Update from Brazil


Hello everyone!!

All is well here in Sao Paulo. This is a very large city. It is the second largest city in all of South America!! It is the largest in Brazil. We are staying in an area that is very affluent. The stores, homes, car dealers, restaurants are W-A-Y out of our league!!!! We slummed around and found the "poor" section of town today. It was more our speed. :)

The weather is between 20-25 degrees celcius. Dave says that is in the 70's. I'm loving that!

So far we've been to Rio de Janiero, Paneda and Sao Paulo. Rio is also very big. It is the second largest city in Brazil and the 4th largest in South America. Paneda is a very small town. I really liked that. It's like going back in time to the 70's. It is so neat.

We've been to Wal-Mart. That was very interesting. We've also been to several grocery stores. Many things are different here. People here do not use wash-clothes. (For washing your face.) It is SO weird! We went to the baby section and couldn't even find one there. We went to the automotive area, none there. We finally went to the cleaning isle and found some dusting clothes. It is beyond crazy!!

You can't find peanut butter. We've been told that it is not sold in Brazil. Hmmmm? There isn't even chocolate candy or crackers with peanut butter; like Lance crackers or Recee Cups. Crazy!!

They don't sell zip-lock bags. The only thing they sell is VERY thin plastic bags, like the kind you put your fruit in at the grocery store. And NO twist ties!

This is a litte personal, but I could not find Tampons anywhere. Apparently women only use pads. I did find a small box of 3 "tampon-like" applicators, but they were NOT the same thing!
Oh, and get this!! Milk is sold in a square box that stays on your SHELF!!!! You can refrigerate (if you want) after you open it. But it is only sold in small boxes!!! I can not get over that!!!

The napkins used at restaurants are plastic. I can't really explain it any other way. The tissues and napkins are NOT cotton. They are crinkly, hard and plastic!

Everything is expensive. They do not let ANYTHING into the country that is Made in China!!! NO-WAY!!! So, there is large import taxes on items not made in Brazil.

All of the toilets have square seats. And most bathrooms are be'days. Every toilet (in homes and hotels) have a spray nozzle next to the toilet so you can "wash" your bottom when you are done using the bathroom. They don't flush toilet paper. And the toilets circle in the opposite direction!

There are SO many things to tell you all. The way of life here is SO different here. It makes me SO thankful to live in the U.S.!

Brazil played soccer today against Portugal. It was a 0-0 game. The do not play until someone scores. Everything here closes down for the game. We've seen everything close twice while Brazil has played for the World Cup. They use a large type of firework. It is like a HUGE bomb explosion. They are illegal in the U.S. When it first happened, I thought it was a suicide bomber blowing up. It was VERY, VERY loud!! We all had soreness in our ear drums for a long time. My left ear actually feels like I have an infection. It still hurts very bad, and that was on Sunday.

We've been to the National Rain forest. We hiked a trail to a very beautiful waterfall. I was very disappointed to not see any exotic flowers or birds. :( I have seen very unique other things though. The monkeys here just blow my mind. The Sugar Loaf mountain and the mountain with the Cristo statue are also around the jungle. We saw MANY monkeys there! They are so cool!! One litterally played peek-a-boo with me. I was under a canopy and he kept peeking through a crack in the roof looking at me. Finally he came down and walked right up to me. He was precious!! He never got near me, I did not make contact. But I was very close to him/her.

Ok, many of you have probably already stopped reading. I know this is very long. There is just so much I want to tell you all. I hope everyone is doing well. We leave on July 11th. We still have another two weeks. I miss you all, and especially my baby girls. I'm so afraid Ellie Mae won't even remember me. :(

I look forward to seeing everyone when I get back!!!

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Sent: Mon, June 21, 2010 6:14:14 PM
Subject: Update

Monday June 21st

Hello,

Just a short update. We are now in Penedo Brazil. We drove about 90 miles from Rio to get here. This is where the job site is located. In a day or two, we will drive to Sao Pao. It is a larger city than Penedo.

Rio was very interesting. It is like their New York City. We went to Sugar Loaf montain by cable car. We went to the large Christ statue yesterday. It is V-E-R-Y hot here!! And it is their winter!!! I am looking forward to cooler weather in Penedo and maybe Sao Pao.


We have seen many monkeys. They are everywhere. They live in the jungle and come around people without fear. (Kind of like squirels back home.) They are so neat to watch.

I hope to update again in a couple of days. We have MANY pictures!!!

I love and miss you all!

P.S. Allen and Rachael- Please give my girlies lots of hugs and kisses for me. I miss them SOOOOO much!

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------


Sent: Sun, June 20, 2010 9:55:08 AM
Subject: We're here

Hello,

This will be short. We are here. We did make it safely. I'm using Dave's work computer and I can only use it for a minute.

We went to Sugar Loaf mountain yesterday. We are going to see the large Christ statue on the mountain today.

Everything is very different here. But it is beautiful scenery.

Love and miss you all!