fim de semana!

We had both been anxiously awaiting Friday. Friday was the day that we were having wifi installed in the apartment! The installer was to come any time between noon and six pm, so I waited for him. All day. He never showed up. Well, technically he did, we found out later. But he had shown up after six pm and the guards at our complex didn’t allow him access.

The worst part was that we found out that the next available appointment was next Thursday! Really disappointing. More so for me, because Brett gets the take the phone to work and has access to his email all day long. I, on the other hand, type these posts, drink coffee, and walk the dogs. Or read. I’ve read four five books since we arrived. I can actually accomplish a lot when deprived of access to the outside world! Who am I kidding; I have a “rough” life down here.

Anyway, we were excited to spend the weekend enjoying the city. It gets dark early here (around six) but the sun also rises earlier. On Friday night we went for a drive into the city center. We saw all of the ministry buildings (they look like dorms), the national flag, the president’s residence and place of business (two separate places), the cathedral, the national theatre, and drove across a neat bridge that spans the lake. Brett has found out a lot about the city from his coworkers, so he was able to pass that intel on to me. Apparently the butterfly-shaped lake was originally man made! That doesn’t really surprise me, but I would have never guessed that on my own.

On Saturday morning we drove into the city near Brett’s office building to go to a McDonald’s that we knew had wifi. We got breakfast there and used their internet connection for about an hour. I had the pao de queijo (cheese bread) and Brett had a tostado (a ham & cheese sandwich on toasted bread). Brett had orange juice and I had a small latte. It’s really comforting to see that a small sized coffee down here is actually a small size (280 ml).

There was some sort of birthday party happening for Brasilia this weekend. Across the street from McDonald’s in a large green space was a big stage and speakers were blaring out music at nine in the morning. We thought about going but decided to opt out after Brett’s coworkers told us that it was an easy way to lose your wallet and could be quite dangerous (you’re welcome, Moms!).

After McDonald’s, we wanted to stop by the WalMart that we’d seen on one of our drives. Our apartment complex has a tennis court, and we wanted to maybe pick up some cheap rackets so we could play together. No such luck. Plenty of soccer balls, but no tennis rackets. The only ones we could find were at the mall and they were $90. Pass.

We also tried another shopping area near our apartment that is within driving distance. No such luck there, but we did find a bookstore. We picked up a Portuguese-English dictionary and a book of traveler’s phrases. I also perused their imported section. They had one hardcover copy of The Marriage Plot by Jeffry Eugenides, which has been on my to-read list for a while now. After I paid I realized that it cost about US$40! Mental note: don’t buy imported books. We managed to get some cash from an ATM and could finally relax for the rest of the day.

That evening, we walked to a nearby restaurant, Churrascaria Pampas. We had no idea what to expect. It looked semi-fancy from the outside, but there never seemed to be anyone there. So, either it was expensive.. or terrible. We figured we would find out. It ended up being a Brazilian steakhouse (surprise surprise). We tried almost everything (well, Brett did). Along with the meat, they also brought around what seemed to be grilled bread and also fried cheese. We also got tater tots with our meal? It was interesting, to say the least. Our favorite Portuguese phrase so far is “Nao falo Portugese.”  It comes in handy, but hopefully after a few weeks or so we won’t have to use it nearly as often.

it doesn't matter if you put it to red or green, they still serve you

my plate

brett's plate

After our meal, we walked over to the mall and tried to check out the movies. The line was so long that it didn’t seem worth it. The next day, we ended up going back over to McDonald’s with my laptop so that we could post a few of these blog posts. After that, we had to take the rental car back to the airport and catch a taxi home. We then headed back over to the mall and grabbed lunch at an Asian-fusion type food court place. It was all right, but we had movie tickets and rushed over to see Oblivion (en ingles!). It turns out that when we used the automatic ticket machine, we had bought student tickets by accident. Luckily we both still carry our KU student IDs just for this purpose. We got in.

It was really nice to sit and watch something in English that wasn’t CNN for once. Also, we were able to learn what some swear words were in Portuguese by reading the subtitles. Good ol’ Tom Cruise. We are really looking forward to seeing ‘Homem de Ferro 3” next week!