Paula's Impressions

Well we've now been in Brazil for two and half full days and I have three pages of words that I'm beginning to get the hang of. I can now say "Good morning, Thank You and You're Welcome." I also know my colors- of course I had a little head start there since many of my paints have Portuguese names. Anyway, this morning I have to admit I took somewhat sadistic pleasure listening to the weather forecast for Mansfield on Randall's iPod. They were calling for a temps around 21° "F" there. It was probably already pushing 21° "C" here. What a difference a single letter makes.

We've been taking it fairly easy the past couple days, just adjusting to the time and culture change. Although Randall has been working on computers a good bit of time and I've been helping Kathy with projects around the house. Once Tom puts up a shelf in her kitchen, I'll be painting a border for her.

Today our new friend Sagraes took us to a nearby park. I made a comment about the beautiful orange and black butterflies and Sagraes said his favorite were the blue ones. I didn't think much of it until he suddenly pointed up at what at first I thought was a small bird but instead it turned out to be a Blue Imperial. Oh my goodness it was so gorgeous. I'd only seen little ones at the zoo in Cleveland and I had always wanted to see one in the wild. Now I had! Not just one either, so far today I've seen four! I think they're teasing me though because none of them have settled down long enough for me to get a picture, yet. But now I that I know they're here, I'm on a mission to capture one "on film", even though my camera is digital. But I did get a few pictures of monkeys. They're cute little stripy tailed gibbons.

After the park we headed into Nova Lima. It's a quaint looking city that really drove in the fact that we were "not in Kansas anymore." All the buildings have a distinct Latin look with red tiled roofs and brightly colored adobe walls. The shops didn't have any doors. I guess at night they just pull down a garage door and lock it for security. The roads are very narrow and extremely steep with cars often parked on both sides. Cars and motorcyclists zip around big trucks and buses at break neck speeds and people just walk out in the road. It was nuts and Sagraes said this was nothing compared to Rio de Janeiro. Yikes!

So far except for the mosquitos who detected my new blood and took an unnatural liking to it from the first night, Brazil is agreeing with me. Ciao!

(Sorry, I'm having a bit of problems getting pictures up. Will have more soon! -Randall)