The minimalist UAB

Our first shipment of stuff came yesterday. After living out of our suitcases for 3 months (93 days, but who's counting?), it was awesome to have a little bit more of our life here with us. And let me emphasize the "little" bit.
On the day we packed our stuff out of Arlington, I had lost my voice and was running a fever. I did the absolute minimum and then curled up on the couch to sleep. Frustratingly, the packers left a cupboard of stuff that should have been packed and packed a cupboard that shouldn't have been. But I was feeling so crappy that I didn't really care much. I had done everything I could, and it was good enough.
These past three months, I've been trying to remember what I'd packed in which shipment, and I couldn't remember anything. Turns out, I brought my sewing machine, thread, but no fabric. Instead of packing all my kitchen stuff, I packed knives, a Tupperware cupcake holder, and some mixing bowls. That's it. I packed all our chocolate chips, in an attempt to avoid their melting on the slow boat to Brazil. I needn't have feared-- they melted on their air flight and apparent 3-month sojourn in either Miami or Brasilia. (There is something to be said for moving to the frigid north of China in the beginning of spring. Nothing melted or froze as far as I know.)
I brought the baby's clothes for the first 3 months or more, so that's all good. The baby's swing arrived, but not the hardware to put it together. I brought wipes but not the huge box of diapers that will be too small once our next shipment arrives. We brought some toys for the girls, but instead of packing all of them, we packed one random box (tiny box) and a Fisher Price fire station.
The girls are thrilled with their toys. Kevin is a happy camper now he has his bike and his computer. And my consolation is that I was sick when I packed, so I didn't really know what I was doing. It's going to be a long few months.
See, we've put ourselves in an interesting situation. When we arrived in January, although we requested to live in a house with a yard (where families usually live in Brasilia), the only housing available was apartments in the city. So we live in a lovely 4-bedroom apartment. Seriously, it's very nice. It has a huge living/dining area with a gorgeous view out the ginormous windows:

The grocery store is within walking distance, which really helps us now that our car hasn't arrived yet. There is a good bakery in one direction, and a nice park for the girls in another. 

But the thing is, we probably make it to the park about 2 or 3 times a week. The rest of the time, the girls play inside. Naomi takes a big old afternoon nap, so we're definitely home and definitely inside all afternoon every day. And I don't see us making more trips to the park after the baby is born. Even though it's a great apartment, it feels like we're stuck inside all day, missing out on the beautiful weather we have here in Brazil. 

So we're appealing our housing assignment. It feels really ungrateful to do so, but we've been living in apartments for the last 3 years, and it's sad to raise children entirely indoors like this. The problem is, there just aren't any houses available until families start moving this summer. It looks like July or August would be the soonest we would move-- if our appeal is approved.

And since we're planning on moving, we don't want to accept our HHE shipment when it arrives in what might be around May. We'd accept it after we move into our house. I know that's the best plan, since I don't want to deal with people dragging my piano up 4 flights of stairs (because our elevator is tiny), only to turn around and drag it back down a few months later. 

It's going to mean living without our stuff-- without much more of our stuff than I realized-- for quite a while. We're still up in the air about if and when we would move to a house. 

So how are we settling in? It's hard to say. Some days, like yesterday, I feel like we're doing great, making friends, finding things to do, and getting out to do them. Then some days, like today, I'm pretty bummed about living in a temporary place for six months with hardly any of our stuff that would make it feel so much more like home.

Antipodes

We just lived in Virginia for 8 months, and I spent most of my first three decades of life living in the USA. But now that I'm here in Brazil, I can't help comparing it to our experience in China. I guess they both fit into the "foreign country" category in my brain, so it works.
First of all, there are some similarities.
I think.
There must be, right?
Never mind. Brazil is nothing like China. They're practically as far away from each other as you can get. (I just looked it up: the antipode of Brasilia is just off the coast of the Philippines; the antipode of Shenyang is off the coast of Argentina. But I know if I was the one digging the hole, I'd probably wind up digging from Shenyang to Brasilia and calling it close enough.)

1. The first thing is that Brasilia is CLEAN! Now, I'm not talking about garbage on the street or anything. But the air here is crystal clear! It smells good. When it rains I'm pretty sure it's mostly water, not mostly grayish acid rain.There are trees and plants growing everywhere-- and the trees have been here for decades, not days. I swear, in Shenyang, every row of trees still had sticks propping it up from when they planted it the year before. Now, if they could only leave them planted for a few years. The potential is there.
2. For Shenyang, most of my wardrobe preparation consisted of buying sweaters, stroller blankets, and warm baby things. This time, I spent most of my time finding my sweaters new homes, making sure I had a maternity swimming suit, and trying to buy shorts and t-shirts in October in the US. Not as easy as it sounds.
   Ironically, our apartment, both here and in Shenyang, is shaped like a freight train. There are giant sun-facing windows in both, making them into little solar ovens. I never did wear all those sweaters I bought for Shenyang, but here in Brasilia, I can just open the windows. Or if there's no breeze, I can just turn on the AC. I tried both in Shenyang, but there's something about the frigid winter air that will really do a number on your AC unit. They frown on using it in the winter. Our neighbors had ice chunks come out of theirs.
3. Pastries. Chinese people like really bland cookies and cakes. They're mildly sweet and quite spongy (the cakes, not the people). We did find some sesame-seed waffle cone cookies at a little neighborhood bakery that we really liked, but there wasn't much to get excited about. I've found a little bakery here in Brasilia, though, Torteria di Lorenza (okay, so it's Italian... but it's in Brasilia, so it counts) that is FANTASTIC. Everything we've tried has been rich, delectable, chocolatey blessedness. Kevin got me this plate for Valentine's Day: 
   Those mice are chocolate-covered cake, and instead of tasting like a Hostess snack, the chocolate is good, and the cake is fairly dense with cloves or something to spice it up.
   Sometimes I think my Portuguese is good enough to communicate with people here. When I ordered the mice, I asked carefully for the "ratinhos." Ha-teen-yos. She was super confused for a while as I pointed but didn't resort to charades. "Oh, ratinhos!" That's what I said! but apparently it goes, "Ha-cheen-yoos." I will figure this out someday.
   They also had a fabulously rich chocolate milkshake and Kevin got a huge cake-version of a Ferrero Rocher. The bakery is about a 10-minute walk from our apartment, which is both awesome and frightening at the same time.
4. The traffic. Before we arrived, and now that we're here, we hear a lot of Americans warning about the crazy traffic. I was honestly more scared driving in Miami than here. Brasilia's traffic is fascinating. In the city's master plan, they decided that instead of having a bunch of T-intersections and 4-way junctions, they'd just have a conglomeration of on-ramps, off-ramps, roundabouts, and U-turns. It works, and it works well. It's just VERY different-- from anything I've ever seen before. There are stop-signs, which are optional. I've gotten used to just ignoring them completely-- which should terrify everyone when I plan a return trip to the USA. Mwoo ha ha ha! But seriously, the signs are usually places where we'd usually put a Yield sign, and so that's how they work. It's not that crazy, really. 
5. People here smile at my kids and tell me (presumably) how cute they are. People in China would smile at my kids and tell me (definitely) how cute they are. There were just more of them (Chinese people, not kids).
   I guess that's the same, after all.

Seventh time's a charm

So the internet guys came again on Monday. Kevin was home for President's Day, and he'd even set out a plate of cinnamon rolls and orange rolls that I'd made that morning. Prepared with excellent Portuguese (or at least conversational) and buttery sweets, we were going to win this time!
The porteiro called up to tell us they were here. Kevin waited, and waited, and waited. He went downstairs to talk to them, but the porteiro told him they'd already left. Um... okay.
Then yesterday a guy came in the afternoon. It has been a different person (or people) each of the 6 times, and this is the first one who patiently talked with me to make sure I understood what he was saying. It wasn't wonderful news; he couldn't install it that afternoon because he had to go on the roof, and the porteiros wouldn't let him up in the rain-- BUT he would personally come back tomorrow morning (today) and install it then, as long as weather permitted.
Not only did he talk to me patiently, but he took initiative and made the follow-up appointment himself. The other 5 times, the guys would come (or not) and then just go, leaving us to call the company again to make another appointment. This guy made the return appointment, and then-- wonder of wonders-- he came, he installed the cable, and he made sure it worked! All is marvelous.
Now I can go back to wasting my days, frittering away the day minute by minute, reading worthless status updates, quizzes, and articles my friends post on facebook.
Just kidding.
We've really enjoyed the benefits that come from having a tech-free life, and while it will be great to have email, skype, and online shopping, I'm going to try to limit it to 1 hour a day. I'm not sure what I'll do the rest of the day, especially before any of our stuff comes, but I'll figure it out!

Getting acculturated

We've been here a month, and the question I get the most is, "So, how are you guys settling in?" Well, we live in our apartment now, out of the same suitcases we've been enjoying since before Thanksgiving. Our car is (possibly) en route to us, but it should take another couple months. Hopefully it will get here before the World Cup does, because we can probably count on, oh, nothing being processed through customs during those couple months. Meanwhile, I can walk around our neighborhood and explore what there is to find. This is especially fun being 7 months pregnant and pushing a double stroller filled with little girls who are definitely big enough to walk on their own. But I'm building my muscles, right!
Sometimes we take a taxi to the embassy and hang out there. There's a fun park, a kiddie pool, a commissary and wireless internet to take advantage of. We get to eat lunch with Kevin, and the one time Naomi decided to take her nap on the grass by the pool, we spent the whole day there and had a blast.
We finally got our CPF cards last Thursday, which are our official ID cards issued by Brazil. Now that we have those in hand, they will ship our things from the US. We can get cell phones. And we can get cable and internet... in our own home! I hear there are these things called the "Olympics" going on right now. While I realize it's just a bunch of people slipping and sliding around on the ice and snow, it's really something I'd like to watch. And if you read my last post, I was saying how nice it was to be without the internet in my house. If you read carefully, what I meant was it was nice to live in real-life, accomplishing real things, and getting a lot done. But it's majorly inconvenient, and it gets a bit lonely without being able to contact anyone or call on skype.
So once our CPF cards came in, we set up an appointment for cable and internet installation, sometime between 12 and 6 that day. At 5:55, the guy shows up. He looks around at our apartment and says, "Well, I don't have time to install anything today." Then he left. The next time, a guy came, pulled wires out of random sockets, got our doorman to come in and hold stuff while he did something on the roof. He was in and out of our apartment to get tools, to go on the roof, to get our doorman, and eventually... I realized he'd left. Okaaaay.... So the third time we made an appointment, no one showed up. That was fun, waiting at home all day. Then today was the fourth time. Two guys showed up at like 3 PM, holding cell phones but nothing else, no tools or anything for installing cables. I don't really understand everything in Portuguese, but they were too early for something or someone who was late, so they wouldn't be able to do anything. Aha, but this time I was prepared! Kevin gave me the number of one of his IT friends to call and explain the situation and help me communicate better. I waddled back to my room, got the number, and brought it back to them at the front door. The cell phones were put away in pockets by now, and they said they'd call from the car. I tried to insist they call from my apartment, but they refused and left, not taking the number with them, of course.
I cried. This isn't news, because I'm pregnant and I cry all the time. But I went back to my room to call Kevin, and cried to him on the phone. While I was talking, I had little fingers jabbing into my eyes, because Penny followed me into my room and was wiping away my tears. She gave me a big hug and proved once again to be one of the sweetest people on Earth.
Right now we're borrowing a friend's satellite hotspot, an internet thingie that uses a sim card and just connects like a cell phone. We owe them big time!
And the internet people are set to come again on Monday.
I'm not holding my breath.