protestando

I have had several questions surrounding the protests in Brazil, so I figured a quick post for those that are interested is in order.

Here is everything I know: there was a new tax put on busses, something like 9 cents. There is a perception that the World Cup is bad for the country and the tourist financial gains will only benefit the rich, and they are neglecting the poor. With this being the Confederations Cup weeks and lots of media attention already focused on Brazil, it seems like the right time to "speak up", I guess.

Today, I left work early because a protest was scheduled in Brasilia for 5pm and it is much easier and probably safer to just avoid it. Much of the major protests and riots have been happening outside of Brasilia. There were some demonstrations during the opening game last Saturday, but we weren't there so we can't speak to it. From what I gather Rio, Sao Paulo, and Belo Horizonte have been the major sites so far. Today maybe Brasilia will make the news.

As I left work I did see a young guy with a Guy Fawkes mask and a sign, I didn't have time to stop and read it, but lets be honest I couldn't even if I did. Other than that, it does not seem like the people have changed anything in their day to day lives so I remain unconcerned.

From a safety standpoint, neither Natalie or myself have felt in any danger during our stay thus far. I don't think this will change. Once the Confederations Cup has ended and the world media has exited, I believe things will quiet down. I might be wrong about that though, but I can certainly see this being true.

Some quick notes about us:

Natalie has officially enrolled for Portuguese lessons at the University of Brasilia, it starts in early July. She's excited to get started and has been working on her own to get ahead.

My project has resumed, some small snags here and there, but overall, we are finally moving forward. They have extended the timelines all the way through April of next year. I'm not sure what my involvement will be for all of the different phases but I think I can get done much sooner than that.

Healthwise, we haven't had any issues. Dogwise, they love it, Desmond has taken to a daily routine of a morning swim to get his exercise. Penny swims occasionally as well. She's a natural while he has had to work at it, but he's pretty much gotten the hang of it now.

The latest thing we miss from the USA: syrup.

We'd love to hear from any of you, drop us a note in the comments with questions, or updates that you think we should know about!

morpho menelaus

Saw this guy today. He wouldn't open his wings for me, so I've included the wikipedia article so you can read about him. He/she was as big as a small bird! 

I skimmed through the wikis on this particular species, and from what I can tell I think this is the one: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Morpho_menelaus

vizinhos macaco

I just got back from running a few errands with Betto and spending way too much on dog food. Ah, language barriers. Betto was able to talk to the shop workers and get us a discount. That’s what we get for not wanting to feed our dogs the McDonald’s equivalent of pet food. We also had to pick up some fly-preventative collars. Supposedly there is an insect-borne illness here that can be transmitted to dogs. We could get them a vaccine, but Betto doesn’t seem to be too worried about it. He says the collars are fine.

I just put Penny’s on and she’s moping about it.

We spent the weekend mostly just hanging out. On Saturday we went to an open air market by the TV Tower in the city center. There was an interesting mix of tourist-y knick-knacks and things that local people buy. We didn’t buy anything. It definitely reminded us of the Muslim bazaar in Xi’an, China, though. After that we headed over to Grenat, a café downtown. It opened at 1 pm, so we had lunch there (really good steak sandwiches on baguettes) and coffees. Yes- Brett had a mocha!

Later we came home and wanted to swim, but it wasn’t as hot up here as it was down in the center. The dogs did though (well, Penny). We also found out about a farmer’s market that is open on Saturdays just up the road from us. We will definitely be hitting that up! The next day our neighbors invited us to eat breakfast with them. They had a fruit strudel, some small strawberry cakes from the bakery, coffee, juice, green tea, pao de queijo, and some breads. We hung around eating for maybe three hours.

love these goofs.

After we left, it seemed like we’d only been gone for an hour when they invited us back down for lunch!  They had leftover meat from a prior barbeque so we had that, along with some corn and potatoes, squash and bread. A couple of their friends came over to play War (Risk, essentially) but that didn’t happen until way later. Brett played for a little while, but we had plans to go see Star Trek. After the movie we very nearly got locked into the Carrefour parking lot, but we heard a guard signaling to us the exit, thankfully.

Our monkey neighbors came to visit the other day as well. Desmond didn’t like them, but Penny really wanted to know why they wouldn’t come down and play. One of them sat around for a long time just throwing sticks down to Penny. I was sitting outside while they climbed around in the trees.. it was actually quite frightening because I’ve been told they will come down and take food if you have it out. I couldn’t see them, but I could hear them making their monkey noises above me. I don’t think they’ll come down with the dogs around though.

Tonight I’m going to go with Estella to the University of Brasilia and attempt to register for a Portuguese class. So we will see about that.. it’s essentially a 48 hour intensive course, over a certain amount of days or weeks. I haven’t figured out how long it is. I will hopefully be able to teach Brett some :)

sweet zion

looking for macacos

he came down pretty close! Penny loved it.

nova casa

Well, here we are. We moved into our permanent (hopefully) home on Saturday. The move itself was relatively painless. The new place is about 30 minutes from our old apartment, and is, essentially, its own residence. Our house is on a lot with three other houses, all owned by the same guy (Betto). The house we are in is definitely bigger than our apartment. That being said, it has two bedrooms, two bathrooms, a kitchen, mudroom/laundry room, living area, and a lot of outdoor space.

We also have a pool (lake/pond)! It’s not a natural pond, but it supposedly has its water treated every week. When we arrived with the dogs on Saturday night on our second and final trip to the place, Desmond immediately fell in. Er, ran in. I think he thought it was solid ground. To his credit, it was dark. Penny immediately followed- she loves it. Having been here for a few days, Dessy still isn’t too sure about it. He wants to get in but doesn’t really know how, so he stands on the edge and paddles his front paws in the water. Betto has a dog, Zion- a Rhodesian Ridgeback- and Dessy has already made her his friend. Penny is still working on it, but she’s big and Zion is pretty afraid (of everything).

Sweet Zion

Betto lives in one of the houses and another couple (around our age) lives in the house that is still being built. They don’t seem very worried that the house isn’t complete.. I suppose that’s a cultural difference though. Estella and Lucas are from France and Germany, respectively. Estella is Brazilian (her mom is French) and speaks Portuguese, French, and English, among others. Lucas speaks those languages as well as English. I can’t speak for Brett but I definitely feel like an uneducated American.

The weather here has been surprisingly bad for the past week or so. We are definitely not in the rainy season right now, but for the last five days it’s been nothing but cloudy with sporadic showers. Which is a bummer because our new place is beautiful and I want to take some nice pictures for you all! The sun poked out yesterday and it’s trying to do the same today- not sure how long it will last though.

"Mom, help"

Dessy in his element 

Estella joined Lucas last night (he arrived Monday) and they hosted a barbeque (not what you’re imagining if you’re from KC). Betto and his girlfriend Dany were there, along with a friend of Lucas and Estella. Our neighbor to the right joined us later on, his name is Tiago. The barbeque consisted of steak, chicken, and some sausages (they were amazing). We had one person doing the majority of the cooking, and we would each eat from the plate as the food was brought out in batches.

Betto explained to us that the people in the south don’t eat this way. In Rio and Sao Paulo, they eat more like we do in the US (all at once, each from their own plate, the meal is done in 2 hours or less). But here in the ‘north’, he said their dinners can start at 2 pm and go until 10 pm. It was a pretty cool experience, I liked the focus on relationships with your friends being the reason for literally ‘sharing a meal’ together. We also had potatoes, corn, and grilled pineapple. Not a drop of barbeque sauce was to be found.

We promised we’d show them a Kansas City barbeque sometime, but I’m not sure if it will compare to a traditional Brazilian churrascaria. It’s not like we’re Oklahoma Joe’s or anything. Although that reminds me- we should make some beans. Mom- add another bottle of sauce to our package list.

That’s all for now! Pray for sun so I can take some pictures of our place! I will leave you all with a video of the dogs in the pool (this happened at 7:30 am on the first morning we were here).

em movimento

It's moving day tomorrow!

Hopefully we will have an update for everyone after we get settled in at our new place. (And a video of the dogs in their new pool!)

In other news- I had my first dream in which I had to speak Portuguese last night. Still very basic, but I've never dreamt in another language before.

Hope everyone has a good weekend!

o que estamos fazendo aqui?

Its probably time for me to write, probably past time, actually. Here is a question and answer session that I held with myself, hopefully this helps out some?

What are you (two) doing down in Brasilia, Brazil?
Well, I think some(all) of you know that my company was able to land a project down here and I was given the task of bringing the project to fruition. The process went something like this:

Manager -> Entire consulting team: We have an opportunity in Brazil for 6 months let me know if you are interested. 

Brett -> Natalie: Want to move to Brazil for 6 months?

Natlie->Brett: YES! but we need to bring the dogs

Brett -> Manager: I'm interested but I would need to bring my wife.

Manager -> Brett: We are going with someone else

Brett -> Natalie: We didn't get it.

Fast forward almost 2 months.

Manger -> Brett: Are you still interested?

Brett -> Manager: Yes but I will be bringing my wife.

Manger -> Brett: OK.

And there you have it, we packed up and headed to Brazil. You can read about our trip on our other posts. (Start here)

So what exactly is it that you are working on?
I'll try my best to explain. I'm working with another consulting company who helped my company land the deal. As an additional duty for the other consulting company they are helping translate the Portuguese to English for me, which is nice.

We (my company and the other consulting company) are working with the organization that regulates telecommunications in Brazil. The reason the contract came about is because Brazil will be hosting the World Cup next summer (hence the World Cup banner at the top) and FIFA has asked Brazil to meet certain requirements. Some of these requirements are telecommunication based.

Just answer the question! What are you working on?

My job will be to help our customer implement a risk management and network monitoring solution. 

What??

Essentially FIFA wants Brazil to be able to anticipate problems in their telecommunications networks and then when a problem happens, have a resolute way to deal with it. 

Okay, I think I get it... so, how's it going so far?

Good question... since I've been down here, its been rough from a project perspective. The week before we arrived our project went on hold. The primary competitor and the people we beat out to win the contract have essentially sued (my lack of legal knowledge of the Brazilian goverment is going to hinder me here) stating that we cheated? to win the project. This has put a complete stop in communications with our customer and we are really unable to move forward. 

At first we heard the project would resume April 29th, but as of Monday we have heard a decision may come May 29th. The information we got did not sound too enthusiastic about the results... I am hoping that we get a decision soon because we were hoping to have a Proof of Concept (POC) system up for the Confederations Cup. As an asside the Confederations Cup is a small 8 team tournament that takes place the year before the World Cup. It is essentially the "dry run". The first game is June 15th. 

Thankfully this has absolutely nothing to do with me and is a complete legal matter. In fact, the work I have done for this project has received some high praises from my management. 

That sounds like good and bad news all mixed up. Are there any issues if the POC doesn't get completed by the Confederations Cup?

Another good question. I'm not sure. From what I have gathered the focus is really on the World Cup so as long as we can meet the project requirements in time for that, then we should be OK. I secretely dream that this legal dispute lasts for such a long time that it forces FIFA to move the World Cup to the USA. The USA is always the back up country incase something should happen to the host country. I certainly will not do anything to cause this, however.

OK, enough about work, what are your impressions of Brazil?

First impressions, the weather is perfect, every day the same, every day the right temperature. I guess they have a rainy season, but I think we will miss that. Also, Portuguese is very tough and most people don't speak English (which is not surprising). Natalie is doing a much better job of learning than I am. 

How's the traffic?

Actually not bad, we have a rental car and I drive to and from work every day. I would say 90% of traffic are cars, the other 10% being busses and work trucks, etc. Of those cars about 80% are compact cars. There are almost zero SUVs or trucks. There are both aggressive and non aggressive drivers here. I have found if you have confidence in your driving and don't hesitate you can get by just fine.

How's the food?

Decent actually. We have a grocery store right by us and have found a Walmart (mostly food focused) that we shop at. When we go out we usually go to a buffet which is perfect for us because we don't have to order off a menu. I miss breakfast food and mexican food the most. Also, they don't have peanut butter?

How's the apartment?

I think its fine. We have just enough space for everyone. We both wish the pool was opened but that doesn't seem like its going to happen before we move out. We will both be glad when the dogs can just run around outside with out us having to take them up and down the elevator. 

What do you do for fun?

Read Natalie's posts! We are still working on some of that though. Its not exactly a vacation as I'm working full time (actually around 50 hours a week) so weekends are very similar to being back home, they are used as a time to recover from the previous week and prepare for the coming week. After the Confederations Cup is over and we have moved into our new, more permanent, place we will be looking to visit other cities.

Well, I want to thank you for your time, maybe your next post won't be in another 5 weeks.

You are welcome, happy to answer these questions. I make no promises on my next post...

If you have any other questions, feel free to leave them in the comments!

parque nacional de brasília

We haven’t updated in a while, simply because we haven’t really been up to anything exciting!

As South America is rapidly approaching the “northern solstice” the daylight is decreasing each day. Speaking of winter- all of the stores down here have been putting out their sweaters and heavy coats. HAHA. It never gets below 70 here. Funny Brazilians. When Brett gets home it’s usually dark, so we have been catching up on some TV shows and going to the mall. We’ve been eating out a lot because a) the company pays for it, and b) our kitchen is super small and I don’t have my basic pantry supplies! I will eventually buy some more staples, but from what I’ve seen there isn’t a whole lot to buy (they have like four spices at the grocery store. Total).

Our next kitchen should have a bit more counter space, and in addition to an oven we will have a wood-fire oven outside! We’re going to attempt to make a real pizza (don’t get us started on the pizza here) and also do some BBQ. I’m really excited about our next place! I think that the dogs will enjoy it as well. They will have unlimited access to the outside, something I think they really miss. (We don’t miss them ringing their bell every five minutes to be let out in the backyard, though)

Two weekends ago Brett and I went out to the lake and had lunch. We went to a place called “Surf Bar” and they had a buffet (they love their buffets here). They also had a huge sushi buffet. I obviously got after that. We then walked down by the lake. Apparently on Saturday nights they set up a huge open air movie theatre. I think they were showing Ferris Bueller’s Day Off (from what we could translate on the schedule).

a nice view of the JK bridge!

all sushi!

Then we got some acai- a sorbet type dessert. It’s an interesting dish. Definitely a berry type taste, but not tart like you’d expect. It’s similar to if a banana and a blackberry had a baby. Very hard to explain. We got strawberries on ours.

This past weekend we ventured out the Brasilia’s National Park. They have a couple of swimming pools (only one in use) and some neat trails. Apparently they have Giant Anteaters, Maned Wolves, and other native species that live in the park. I realllllly wanted to see a Maned Wolf- look at how cool these are! I might have told Brett that I wanted to stumble upon a litter of puppies and take them home, Game of Thrones style.

We didn’t really see any wildlife except for some monkeys that came down to scour the pool area for scraps of food. They are cute! But to native Brazilians they are probably like giant squirrels. Oh well, we liked them. We walked through a rainforest-y trail that was probably about 1 km long. It was very quiet (no birds) and I joked that a jaguar was probably stalking us.

Brett was overdressed for our hike judging by the number of men in speedos that passed us on the trail.

anyone who watches Finding Bigfoot knows that this is clearly a 'squatch shelter

a Dharma Station. it was filled with water and probably snakes.

We are already planning to go back and pack a lunch for a weekday swim! It was super crowded on Sunday afternoon, so a weekday is probably best. So that’s what we’ve been up to! Nothing too terribly exciting! Brett is going to chime in soon and explain what he’s actually doing while we’re down here. (That was my subtle way of reminding him that he has a blog post to write)

at the "meditation" spot 

Small story about this last photo- the trilho de agua cristal (the crystal water trail) was like 5 km long and we started to walk it, but it was so hot and unshaded that we got the car and drove up there. Expecting to get to a lake (as indicated on the map), we got out of the car at about the 2.5 km mark and walked up to the "crystal water". It was really disappointing. Just a drainage area.