Last Days in Brazil

Brazil day 11
Sunday 11-29-15

I found out last night that the closest LDS Chapel to Itai, where we are staying, is 2 hours away- so it was not possible for us to attend church today. I am humbled by how blessed I am to have a church building just a 15 minute walk from my apartment in Harlem and 30 minute subway ride to the temple! I am also thankful that mom and I got to attend the temple yesterday! Sometimes you cant attend church – Heavenly Father understands. While I think that it is very important to attend Sunday meetings I also believe that our Father in Heaven is more concerned about the intents and desires of our hearts!

This morning we went to the store to pick up a few things for lunch. 

Adriana’s mom wanted to try some American food. So Mom and Adriana made a really yummy shepherds pie type dish. Kind of American right….? Well its something that my mom would make- so we will say yes! 

Mom chillin in the hammock 

We brought lunch over to Adriana’s moms house and I got to play a card game with the kids. 

After we visited for a while we packed up all of our bags and the car and Adriana said goodbye to her mother and some of her family that she will not see again for a while. Goodbyes are hard. Especially when its family and those you really love and don’t know when you will get to see them again.

Today I saw the coolest thing! Just before we hit the road we were waiting for Adriana’s sister and she said, “while we wait lets have a drink” We walked over to the neighbors house where he had a little stand and large juicing machine set up. 

It was a sugar cane juicer. I watched him stick whole stocks of sugar cane into the machine and saw the juice come out of it. I took a video of it! It was too cool! He also added one little lime to it and then served it to us in cups with ice. OH MY GOODNESS!!! It was SO SO good! Why have I never had this before in my life? Why don’t we have it in the US?! 

Ok maybe the second question answered the first- but STILL! People! if you have never had sugar cane drink before you must try it! And it should be fresh! Like what we had today! 

Adriana said that sometimes they also add other things like fresh pineapple. Hopefully we can try that too before we go home!

We stopped by Adriana’s sisters house so she could say goodbye.

Then on our way out of town we stopped by to see the lake. 

Mom, Adriana and I drove about 5 hours to Campinas, which is where another one of Adriana’s sisters live. There was a LOT of rain during about 30 minutes to an hour of the drive. That was not very fun, I appreciate the rain cooling off the hot a little – but driving in the pounding rain I don’t like so much.

Adriana’s sister Rejane has twin boys: Renan and Vinicius. Fhillipe (Adriana’s nephew - the one who just had the birthday is also here. We are staying with them tonight. 

We went to the store with the boys and got some pizza and food to share and visited together while we ate.

This is all of us in the elevator after walking home from the store (in the rain). 

Can you tell that we are excited for our pizza!?



Brazil Day 12
Monday 11-30-15

Adriana and Rejane went to the market to get food to make and the twins took mom and I around the city center. We went to the market and saw a beautiful cathedral and walked through some shops. The boys were so sweet! I am sure that walking around, going into random fabric stores and little gifts shops, are probably not their ideal idea of an exciting day - but they were so kind about it! 

Inside the Cathedral 

We stopped and got some fruit drinks in the market 

(Mom found her maiden name in a fish tank in the market)

Another really pretty cathedral we saw on our walk

After a couple hours we went back home and the girls had made a really yummy lunch for us! Home made Brazilian food! SO YUMMY! 

Today mom and I got an apartment to stay at for the next 2 nights - we were of course welcomed to stay at Adriana's sister home - but we wanted to give them more space. Luckily the apartment we got is literally 2 blocks away from them! So it's perfect! The girl we are renting from is currently in the US so we have her little one bedroom apartment to ourselves. It's just a place to sleep! So we are good!






Brazil Day 13
Tuesday 12-1-15

AHHHHHH! It is December! When did that happen!?

I have seen a lot of Christmas decorations in stores especially – which before thanksgiving I was willing to excuse here in Brazil- cause they don’t have Thanksgiving here! So I was ok with them skipping over it.

Even still it does not feel like December! Probably because it is in the 80s and humid! NOT MAD! Not mad at all!


I am not too too happy about going back to cold weather - Common! look at those palm trees! 

This morning Adriana Mom and I went to the local Public Library 

 

and the Museum of Contemporary art:

Mom and Adriana of course had to get a photo with the cool motorcycle

I think they both miss their husbands ;)

Then Mom Fhillipe and I went to a HUGE park. 

Think Central Park in NYC – it was big and had some fun things to see:

- exercise machines (They have these all over Brazil in public places for anyone to use. They are fun)

-there were LOADS of cats all over the park 

-There were random things like this tractor

-And Play-ground train:  

There were also real train tracks running through the whole park. Unfortunately the train only runs on the weekends and holidays.

-We took a walk along the train tracks: 

- Before We left to go to the park Adriana turned to Fillipe and said, "You are the man! so take care of them!" He said to her, "I will! but if there is danger, I am running away!" He is a funny kid! As we were walking along the tracks all of a sudden these workers appeared and I looked back and saw them following us: 

I looked back at them and I said, "It's like the walking dead!" Even though we couldn't really communicate with one another much Filippe knew what the Walking Dead is! We laughed and pretended to be scared and I said, "now don't run away and leave us!" 

We were ready to head to another place, got in the car and as we drove along the park we realized that there was still more to see – like this GIANT boat. 

Haha. So we parked again and got to see some more cool things. 

-peacocks


-Elephants

-Pandas

-A Giant Snake

(this one is for Skyler Wagstaff!)

They also had a museum in the park, but it is only open on the weekends. So we just walked by it. 

I read about another museum that is close by that is about old trains and I thought it would be cool to see, Unfortunately they are only open and giving rides on the weekends – so we go to see the station and some of the trains from the platform but not up close.



Our next stop was the Campinas LDS Temple! I knew before hand that the temple was closed for maintenance, but I still wanted to stop by and see it and take some pictures.

After the temple we went back home and then mom and I decided to go wander around the city for a while. 

Oh! One thing that I don't think I have really talked about is all of the graffiti and street art that is all over the city streets in Brazil 

There is some Really cool Street Art that we have seen here! Mom loves it!

We saw LOADS of shops and we walked back by the church that we saw with the boys yesterday.

 Today there was a children’s group singing out front. So that was really fun!



It was also really interesting that when the shops started closing the street vendors all came out! They laid down blankets in front of the closed stores and set up their own little shops selling things.



My FAVORITE is that the food vendors came out too! We found a woman who had a tapioca cart! and also a man who was selling skewers of meat. SO SO GOOD!






We went back home and had dinner and took photos together 

Brazil Day 14 - Saying Goodbye 
12-2-15


Today we went and did some last minute shopping to find some little gifts for the family. 

And got some more yummy food! 

We got everything packed and loaded into the car.


Have I talked much about driving in Brazil? The drivers here are kinda crazy…the Motorcyclists here are INSANE and most have a death wish. But we have made it safe!

I think that living in the city has given me a different kind of awareness and driving in less than desirable circumstances doesn’t scare me.

We followed a friend to the airport and I felt like I was trying to follow a bat outta hell. He drove so fast. The little Fiat that I was driving really had no get up and go, so it was hard to keep up. Plus I would get stuck at a toll booth and they would speed ahead and I would say to mom, “ok! Pull out the GPS there is no way I will catch up with them now!

We made back to the car rental place. We had to take some crazy route that was pretty out of the way to find a gas station so that we could fill up the car before returning it. We went and filled up the car and then went back to the car rental place. When we got back I realized that the car was in fact NOT filled up all the way. It wasn’t missing a LOT of gas – but I couldn’t believe that we went clear out of the way and it still wasn’t full.

We met back up with Adriana at the airport and got our bags all checked in. My flight was leaving an hour after Adriana’s and Moms – so I got to hang out with them in their terminal before they boarded. 

There were shops that were themed around the 2016 Rio Olympics! As I looked around I just got more and more excited at the thought of coming back to Brazil next year to see the summer Olympic games. I would really love to make that happen!

This was TURLY an unforgettable trip! I am SO THANKFUL that I had this time with my mom! 

LOVE YOU MOM! Thank you for the Amazing time! I had SO MUCH FUN with you! oxoxo