Saturday

So, since we finally got our air shipments, we now have more kitchen supplies.  This morning I made another batch of muffins (with measuring cups and measuring spoons - yippeee!!!!).  They turned out quite well (although I haven't tasted one yet).  The recipe calls for sour cream, which isn't available here.  The past batches were made with plain yogurt as a sour cream substitute.  For this batch I used a recipe given to me by my portuguese teacher for making sour cream - crème de leite fresco (heavy whipped cream) and lime juice.  So, we'll see how good these muffins are.
We went shopping at Casa Santa Luzia again, trying to fill our refrigerator, now that it will be easier to cook.
After we came back, I made bread.  I have missed my homemade bread for two months, and now that we have kitchen equipment, I couldn't wait to make it.  So, I started putting the dough together, and got my KitchenAid mixer out (I gave up kneading by hand a long time ago).  When I got ready to start up the mixer, I realized that we have the mixer but not the beaters!!!!   We don't know where they are, but they are not with us!!!!   So,  I had to knead by hand!  But the bread appears to have turned out well.
In our air shipments, we had two oven thermometers, which I used for both baking projects.  It seems that no matter how you set the oven, it just keeps getting hotter and hotter.  The oven was set to approximately 350 degrees F (which is the lowest it can be set), but both times the temperature reached 450 degrees F.
We had dinner with our friends Shawn & Nancy tonight and we talked about the oven.  Nancy said her oven does the same and she has just given up on baking. I just can't give up baking, so I'm just going to have to figure out how to manage it.

We got our air shipments!!!

Finally, we got our air shipments!!! 

Charlie helped with the unpacking.

Look carefully for Charlie in the above photo!

Tidbits from Brazil

Just thought I'd show you a couple of interesting things from our Brazilian life...

This is one set of our keys.  We have two sets of keys, one set for the service door and one set for the social door.  The service door and elevator are for getting deliveries and where you come up from the garage with your shopping bags.  Also, garbage is collected from a little room on the other side of the elevator lobby (which is right outside of the service door).  The social door and elevator are for company and just generally coming and going.  Both doors go to a little lobby for the elevator which goes to all floors, including the three underground floors of the garage.  Our mail and sometimes advertisements get delivered to the social elevator lobby.

This is the service door:

With interesting locks:

This lock is for the funky looking key.

This lock is more traditional key.

This is the social door:

With the same type of key/lock setup:

By the way these photos are from inside the apartment.  You have to use the keys on the inside of the door to lock it.

Another interesting thing is that fresh milk is difficult to find.  Some days the store has several bottles and other days they don't have any.  Most of the milk is box milk that doesn't have to be refrigerated.  (For the Strysik cousins, it reminds me of staying at Grandma Strysik's.)

Anyway, we buy fresh milk even though sometimes it's hard to find.  It doesn't have the length of freshness that we're used to in Michigan.  It typically expires within a few days.  These are the milk containers here (1 Litre), oh how I miss the 2 gallon milk bottles!!  Each one of these bottles are about $3.

Some views from Michigan

Courtesy of our next-door neighbors, John & Sandy.....

Spring is in bloom at our house in Michigan!  The deer are really going to miss our garden this year.  No breaking in and eating our veggies!!!

Saturday

Saturday morning we decided to go to Parque da Cantareira.  It's about 45 minutes from here.  We parked the car and then had to pay to walk into the park.  The guy in the booth spoke English and seemed very enthusiastic to explain everything about the park to us.  We went in, and there was a map of the park and we were looking at it.  He came out of the booth and into the park to tell us that if we looked at the back of the map it was in English!!!  So we walked up the trail for a while.  It was nice, but after a while it was just seeing more trees!  We could have walked 6 miles to get to an overlook of Sao Paulo, but after a while, we decided to turn around. 
We went back to the booth and asked the guy about one trail that we couldn't find.  He showed us where it was.  It was a short trail (just over a mile), but again it was not very scenic... just trees.

This view was supposed to be a view of Sao Paulo (through the trees).  We could see Sao Paulo (barely), but it definitely doesn't show up in this photo. 

We also asked about the other entrance to the park that we passed on our way in.  He told us that that was a different park (and free to enter) - Parque de Capital-Horto Floristal.  This park was full of people, whereas in Parque da Cantareira we saw only a few people.

These are tree roots.  There are some humongous trees here.  The trunks are probably 5ft in diameter.

This guy was having a great time playing in the water.  There didn't seem to be an owner around, so I hope he has a home!

These are views from the car on the way home.

Another picture of Charlie

On a warm day, this is what Charlie likes to do:

Comments

I've had a couple of people mention that they tried to leave a comment but were unable to do so.  Here's your tip of the day.  If you're a google member (i.e. have a gmail account) you can log in and leave a comment.  If you don't want to sign up for a Google account (and I can't blame you if you don't want yet another e-mail), you can still leave a comment.  At the bottom of each posting, there is a comments link (most say "0 comments").  Click on that, and you will get a box where you can type a comment.  Under the box, there is "comment as" next to "select profile".  Under select profile, at the bottom of the list is Anonymous.  If you click on Anonymous, you will be ablet to post your comment.  We would greatly appreciate it if  you put your name in your comment, so we know who it is from.

Easter

Happy and blessed Easter to everyone!!!

We went to church today at the International school (English mass).  We were greeted by Jose who wanted to make sure we were introduced to the community.  Since we did that the first time we were at mass, we didn't have to do it again, but we spend a bit of time talking with Jose before mass.  He is from San Francsisco and his wife is Brazilian.  She goes to a portuguese speaking church most of the time, so most people don't even think he really has a wife.  Another man, Matt, joined our conversation.  He and his family are from Cincinnatti.  His wife is part of the four person choir.

After we came home, I made my third batch of muffins (again without measuring cups and spoons).  Each batch keeps getting better, so I guess I don't really need measuring cups and spoons!!

After a few phone calls to the U.S., we met our friends Shawn & Nancy and another couple, Deb & Dean, at a restuarant three blocks from our apartment for Easter dinner - Le Manjue.  An excellent dinner, as usual. 

Charlie is now very comfortably laying on Dave's lap.

Trip to Embu

Today we went to Embu with our friends Shawn & Nancy.  Embu is known as an artistic town and is about 30 minutes away.  The local artisans offer their wares at the outdoor market on Sundays.  Today, Saturday, there are still plenty of vendors on the streets and lots of stores.  There are many furniture stores with beautiful woodwork and lots of stores with artwork.  Shawn and Nancy bought two paintings today.  We might buy some but decided to wait until another trip.  Now that we've seen most of the stores we have a better idea of what is available.  Here are some photos from our trip to Embu:

When we got back I told Shawn and Nancy that they had to come up to our apartment for a few minutes.  They did (without question, thankfully) and oooh'd and aaah'd over Charlie for a few minutes.  Of course, he was acting totally adorable!  Then we gave Nancy a present - peanut butter!!!  She had mentioned previously that she can't get peanut butter here and she really misses it.  Well, we found Skippy peanut butter at Casa Santa Luzia on Thursday so we bought a jar for her.  She was so surprised and happy.  Sometimes it's the little things in life!!!



Good Friday

It is a good Good Friday here.  The weather is perfect. 
This morning we decided to go to Paranapiacaba.  All was going well until we missed a turnoff on the expressway.  Our GPS didn't tell us to stay to the right and we ended up going several miles out of the way.  The worst part was that we headed to a toll booth with no choice but to go through - for 18.50 reals - (approximately $12).  Then our GPS took us 7 miles before we got off and turned around.  But about three miles into the trip there was another exit that we could have taken to turn around - we assumed that the GPS was taking us to Paranapiacaba by a different route.  The good thing is that we didn't have to pay a toll to get back after we turned around.
We finally made it to Paranapiacaba (probably 40 minutes later than it should have been).  Originally, Paranapiacaba was owned by the British-owned Sao Paulo Railway company.  There is a replica of Big Ben there.  There's not a whole lot there, but it was still interesting to visit.  With today being a holiday, it was interesting for a lot of people today!!  The parking lot just outside of the town was packed.  We spent about an hour and a half wondering around. 
Here are some photos of our visit to Paranapiacaba:

This is a walking bridge to get to the other side of Paranapiacaba (over the railroad tracks).

The walking bridge.

A train carcass.

Big Ben replica.