We survived Alaska!

Among all the business of moving this summer, we are definitely carving out some vacation time. I'm totally not stressed unless I start to think about the fact that I'm COMPLETELY unprepared for my new job, but oh well...that's how first years at new jobs are. Right? This is the beauty of being a 5th year teacher...I'm inexplicably less nervous than usual. I figure I'll make it work somehow. I'm sure I'll be kicking myself once we get there for being so relaxed about it, but oh well.

Wow, off topic already! This post is supposed to be dedicated to our recent cruise to Alaska and Canada. None of us had ever been on a cruise, and we all decided that we aren't too sure we ever want to cruise again. However, the Alaska part was fantastic! We had lots of fun, and got to be very cold in the summer. It was all great until Wednesday when Brian got sick, but here was the fun part of the trip (warning, lots of pictures):

We flew to Seattle and spent the morning checking out the famous Fish Market and the Space Needle. We knew we would fall in love with this city, because we love to sit around and drink coffee and read all day. We were right. Love at first sight. Brian almost didn't get on the boat.

Space Needle, from our hotel window

Fish Market...awesome food and gooooorgeous flowers! 

At the top of the Space Needle, after our 5 mile walk around town

On the boat, pulling away from Seattle. Noooo!

First formal night at sea...we got a little antsy during at sea days. Ready to get to Alaska! But we loved our waiters, Hambali and Asep. 

Ketchikan, Alaska. Site of the bridge to nowhere that never happened. Wow, it's cold and rainy!

Sorry this is sideways. Saxman native totem village. This one was begging to have  his finger pulled. Classy.

Rainforest hike in Ketchikan. We saw a bear cub!

Petting and feeding Rudolph

We found Sarah in the gift shop!

Tracy Arm Fjord cruising. Unbelievably beautiful.

It's a glacier!

Mendenhall Glacier in Juneau, Alaska

More Mendenhall Glacier. We were captivated by the floating chunks of blue ice.

Our boat, obscuring the view of Juneau

Drinking Alaskan beer at a Mexican restaurant in Juneau. What??

The day I'm sure you all heard me worry about in advance. It actually turned out to be the best day of the trip. 8 mile glacier hike in Skagway, Alaska. This is when the train was pulling away, and I wanted to run after it as soon as our guides said "shoe chains will be necessary for walking on the glacier."

Oh, here are the shoe chains! Little did I know that we were walking straight up a STEEP hill of ice on the glacier. Covered in loose rocks and boulders. I didn't even fall once!

Us at the top of Laughton Glacier, where we had lunch. Yes, we actually are standing on the glacier. It's covered by a thin layer of dirt and lots of loose rocks, so it doesn't look like it.

Our awesome guides who made it a fantastic trip

It gets fuzzy here, because Brian was sick at this point. But, we took a quick trip into Victoria, British Columbia, Canada, and it was GORGEOUS. We now have Canadian stamps in our passports.

Waterfront in Victoria. It was very, very English-y.

Parliament Building lit up at night

Hope you enjoyed the quick tour of our trip! We are going to put the rest of the pictures on Flickr, so let me know if you're interested in more. We have amazing desktop background pictures for the rest of our lives.

46 Days

I'm so incredibly sorry that we haven't kept the blog up very well. Finishing out the school year made things REALLY busy, but I promise to post more often now that we are 46 DAYS away from getting on a plane to Brazil.

A lot of things have happened since the last post. So, in my typical fashion, I give you a list...

1. Our apartment in Campinas is all set. We have the address (if you're interested, I'll send it to you...you can play around on Google Street View!) and a few pictures of the place. The nice girl who is living there now has given us lots of information and pictures! It sounds like a fantastic neighborhood, with lots of great stuff within walking distance. Also, Brian's family went down and took lots of pictures of the neighborhood. Here are a few for your viewing pleasure...

Our building (we are actually on the back side)

The beautiful park right in front of our building! 

 One of the 2.5 bathrooms

 Living room--these pics are from when the current resident just moved in, so we will definitely have a little more furniture and decorations eventually. And we are totally replacing that couch right away! :)

 Not really sure what's up with the fence over the balcony

 Beautiful kitchen. Please note the dish drying rack. We are going to have some seriously pruny hands! :)

 Washer and dryer off to the side by the kitchen. Very normal setup.

Master bedroom (there are 3 bedrooms total). We should also hopefully have more furniture in there...

 

2. Wait, I forgot I was doing a list. Okay, number 2! I am completely done teaching at Peachtree Elementary, and I just moved out of my classroom on Wednesday. Very very weird. I'm mostly just going to miss my 2nd grade coworkers. If my new coworkers are half as supportive and (most importantly) hilarious as these ladies, I'll be okay. And besides, they're going to skype me and also hang out with me every summer...right? right???

 

3. I have finally gotten all of my paperwork in order to be legal in Brazil! I have my CPF (like a social security card/taxpayer card) and my work visa was just approved!!! I pick it up on June 21st. Someday, maybe I'll pursue the crazy path to a permanent visa. Hmm.

 

4. We are packing and organizing and packing and organizing, and it's never going to get done, oh my goodness!! Okay, thanks for letting me freak out. As you can see, I can't really talk about packing and getting organized without having a conniption. So please don't bring it up.

 

5. We had dinner this week with the new instrumental music teacher at EAC (our school in Brazil). He is starting a faculty band, and I am super psyched to be a dork and play my flute again.

6. We are taking a couple big trips in the next 46 days. Before the big one to Brazil, of course. Next week, we are going on a cruise to Alaska with my mom, her boyfriend, my brother, and sister-in-law. Oh yeah, and Brian too. They are making me go on an 8 mile hike to a glacier. Then, I heard talk about going on a glacier. I might die. I will miss you all.

Also, we are going to Wisconsin with my dad and his girlfriend at the end of June. I haven't seen my grandma since our wedding, so I can't wait for this. Also, I am going to get to show Brian Milwaukee for the first time. And we might get to go to Summerfest!

 

Well, I think that's it for now. If you don't hear from us for awhile, it's because we are buried in boxes. Or, I am stuck on a glacier. Either way, please rescue me!

Things I am excited about!

Alright, so sorry that we haven't posted in awhile. Let's face it, life is not quite interesting enough to blog about yet, but maybe it will be in the near future! Also, Brian promises me that he will post sometime soon. Hmmmm, we'll see if that happens.

Before I get to the subject of this post, let's have a little status update about what's new with the impending move. My work visa paperwork has been sent to Brasilia, so now we wait. I can't even imagine how complicated it will be to get a permanent visa (which I intend to pursue while we're there...I've heard it will be quite the headache). Next week, is my spring break (HURRAY!), so I have to get a bunch of documentation in order to get my CPF (tax card).

I also got some pretty big news on the work front last week. My position at EAC has changed from ELL teacher to 4th grade classroom teacher. I was excited about ELL, but I'm getting pretty excited about 4th grade too. I think I'm going to love working with kids who are a little bit older and more independent. The only difficult thing about this new position is that I am now going to have to bring a lot more classroom stuff with me. I'm going to skype with my principal next week, so hopefully I can get a better idea of what I should bring and what I can leave behind. We are planning on spending most of our spring break organizing, throwing away, and packing things up in our apartment. I want to do the same thing to my classroom in the next couple of weeks.

Okay, now to the point. My last post was a whiny "what I'm desperately going to miss!" post about what I'll miss from home. I think I could probably add quite a few more things to that list. However, I want to counter that negative post by listing what I'm looking forward to in Brazil! I'm sure there are tons of things that I don't even know about yet that I'll love, but here's what I know so far:

• Family: I will miss my family and friends from home terribly. But I am so fortunate to have an amazing family in Campinas too. Most of Brian's Brazilian family lives there, and we are so excited to get to spend time with them and be near them. They are the warmest, kindest people. When we visited in 2004, I couldn't really speak a word of Portuguese, but they treated me like family anyway.
• EAC: Our new school seems awesome. The administrators seem fabulous, and everyone has been really welcoming so far. I know it will be a lot of work, but I figure nothing can be more intense than teaching in Gwinnett.
• Friendly and fun people: Yes, this is a stereotype. But seriously, Brazilians are generally kind people. They work hard, and they know how to relax and have serious fun. I love that everyone greets each other with a kiss on the cheek. I think I'm going to learn a lot about balance down there.
• Portuguese: This is super exciting to me and terrifying at the same time. I am going to miss English so so badly. But, I love the portuguese language. I hope it loves me back. I have been studying it with Rosetta Stone and watching our novela (soap opera) every night. I can understand basic conversations pretty well. Speaking is a WHOLE lot harder, and my accent is pretty obnoxious. I am a perfectionist, so I'm trying to get past a fear of making mistakes. Luckily, my job will be in English, but I am convinced that learning Portuguese will be the key to my happiness there. It will allow me to be independent, which is huge. That being said, I don't expect this to happen overnight. I'm preparing myself to be patient and progress gradually. Luckily, I have Brian to help me out until I can function well in public by myself! :)
• FRESH SQUEEZED JUICE! Seriously, I miss this so badly from when we were there. You can get fresh squeezed juice of almost any kind (strawberry, pineapple, grape, mango, mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm!) with or without sugar. You can even get it at McDonalds. It's so good.
• Food in general is less processed and better for you. Of course, there are plenty of things that are bad for you, but there is an abundance of fresh fruit, veggies, rice, beans....yum. Oh, and pastel. So delicious.  Most people get fresh bread from a bakery (usually within walking distance).
• Transportation:  This might be a pain, but we're not going to have a car. At least at first. Public transportation is pretty good though, so we should have no problems getting to work and most other places we need to go.
• Weather: I've been told (please don't let it be a lie!) that the weather rarely dips below 60 degrees Fahrenheit in the dead of winter, and it doesn't usually get above 90 in the summer. Of course, most people don't have AC or heaters, so it can be a little uncomfortable if it hits those "extremes." Also, no hurricanes, earthquakes, and almost no tornadoes. I would like to never see ice again.
• Traveling: I'm just so excited to get to see more of Brazil and South America in general. When we went before, we visited Rio (twice), Sao Paulo, and Minas Gerais (Ouro Preto mostly). It is easy and relatively inexpensive to hop on a nice coach bus to major cities in Brazil, so we will definitely be seeing some more beautiful places.
• Help around the house: It is really normal for middle-class Brazilians to have a maid come a couple times a week to help clean and cook. It seems really strange for Americans, since only pretty rich people have cleaning help here. But, I think we're going to go with it. Because living with a boy is messy and gross (that's my excuse).

Well, I could keep going on and on. I'm going to stop and continue another time since this post is getting pretty long. I also would love to write sometime soon about the crazy questions people have asked me since they found out we're moving to Brazil. I know it's just genuine curiosity, but I have realized that even the most educated Americans don't seem to know almost anything about other countries in the world. I can't blame them I guess...I didn't know anything about Brazil before meeting Brian. But seriously...if I hear, "Do you speak Spanish?" one more time...ah well.

If you got this far, I'm impressed. Thanks for reading!

Happy almost Carnaval! And a random list of things I'm gonna miss...

55 more days of school! Wait, this post is not supposed to be about my not-so-boring daily life. It's a random post intended to get my mind off of that craziness.

First up, it's almost Carnaval in Brazil! The whole country takes a few days off to celebrate, and New Orleans has nothing on the brasileiros. Luckily, we'll get to watch the parades and samba schools on TV this year, but we're already dreaming about where we might be a part of it next year. Oh the fun.

Oh yeah, that is totally gonna be me next year. If I can just keep this gym routine up!

Also, Brian came across this guy while reading the Brazilian news online today...

This guy is John Carioca. He is the "mascot" for North Americans visiting Rio for Carnaval. He is supposed to be there to help tourists and pass out Carnaval information in English, but uhhhhh....I think they're making fun of us! I mean, look at those Tevas! And that dorky hat! My half-brasileiro husband laughed for minutes on end at this photo. Until I reminded him that he is also half-gringo.

On a different note, I have started to follow a few blogs of Americans living in Brazil. It's really interesting and helpful to read about the experiences of people who have gone through what I'm going to go through. Reading these blogs have gotten me really excited, because I'm pretty sure I'm going to love it. I feel so lucky to be in such a great situation. Awesome job where I get to speak English, the best Brazilian family you could ever ask for, and the chance to learn and experience new things every day.

 

However, I'm starting to think about a few of the things I'm going to miss. Besides, of course, my family. You know, the shallow things. I promise to counteract this negative post very soon with a list of things I'm very much looking forward to about Brazil. I don't want to sound complain-y and like I expect everything to be the same as the US to be happy.

But for now, here are the random things I am learning that I'll be without in Brazil that I'm kinda going to miss:

• PEANUT BUTTER! Okay, you can get it, but it's expensive. I think I can learn to make it.
• Blueberries. Apparently, they only grow in colder climates. I should also add here that there are bajillions of amazing fruits available in Brazil that you can't get here. So I'm sure I'll be good on the fruit front.
• Dishwashers. Nooooo! I'm way too lazy to wash all my dishes by hand!
• Target. Yeah okay, big "box stores" are the American devil. Whatever. I LOVE Target.
• Hershey's. I don't remember seeing anything but Nestle down there. Ehhh.
• Top Chef, the Daily Show, Netflix, and all other access to dumb American TV. Well, maybe I'll be better without it. Or maybe I can find some kind of cable package so I can still see some of it!

In other news, I just sent off my Brazilian work contract so that the work visa process can keep moving forward. So far, it's been a fairly painless process.

Alright, back to real life! If anyone wants to come over to watch Carnaval between Friday and Tuesday, let us know. Happy almost Friday!

Getting ready...

Well, it's been quite awhile since we last posted. I'd like to write more often from now on, so we can document the craziness that is preparing to move abroad.

 These are the things that are currently happening....

1. I am dealing with the (thankfully very nice) Brazilian Consulate in Atlanta to get my paperwork in order for a work visa. I'd love to get a permanent visa, but it seems like way too much of a headache right now. We are considering getting married again in Brasil so that it will be easier to get one. Until then, we are swingin' singles in Brasil, hahaha.

2. Brian is preparing like crazy to teach English. He is reading all the books he'll have to teach next year. I'm a little envious that he knows so much about what his position will be so he can prepare. Mine is pretty up in the air. I just found out that I will most likely be teaching 3rd, 4th, and 5th graders, and that they will be mostly (if not all) recent arrivals from Korea. I just ordered a book on Korean culture so I can learn at least a little bit about my future students. Pretty crazy, huh? I am super excited to teach the older kids, though. I think it will be fun and a very nice change from the babies.

3. Back in January, we subscribed to the main Brazilian channel (TV Globo). Soap operas (novelas) are huge there, and they play at prime time 6 nights a week. They are much much higher quality than American soaps. We have gotten totally addicted to one called Incensato Coração (insensitive heart), and I think it's helping to train my Portuguese ear. I have to pause it a LOT to ask for translation from Brian. Thank God for DVR. Not sure we'll have that luxury in Brasil. Also, I'm working through Rosetta Stone to help with the language. Not sure I'll really start to get it until I move there and have to use it though. I'll also be taking Portuguese classes at a language school once we get there. I'm truly hoping it won't be too difficult.

Next up, we have to start decluttering our apartment and deciding what needs to go with us, what needs to be stored, and what needs to be thrown away or given away. Same goes for my classroom. It's going to be a huge undertaking.

Despite all this craziness, I am SO excited for this new adventure. I'm sure all these headaches will be more than worth it when we get there.

Welcome

Hello! We have thought about starting a blog for awhile, but didn't really think we had a lot of interesting things to share. Now that we just got teaching jobs in Brazil, we want to have a way to document our new adventure and stay in touch with our family and friends in the U.S. We leave on July 20, 2011, and we couldn't be more excited.

Here is the website of our new school, Escola Americana de Campinas:

www.eac.com.br

And some pictures of our visit to the school in 2004:

 We are currently trying to work out the details of getting into the country, and Brian is trying to figure out how to teach AP English. On that note, I'm trying to figure out how to teach English as a Second Language to students who speak NO English. Should be interesting!