Counting Down the Days

It's been some time since I've posted here, it's partly because I've been busy, but also because things are coming to a close here in Rio and sitting with one leg in my living room in Vancouver and with one arm in a box in Rio, it's hard to describe what's going on in my mind. While I was back in Vancouver for a visit, I wrote about how living abroad has changed me, not necessarily for the better or the worse, but perhaps I have more tolerance toward the little annoyances of life and feel connected to a wider circle of people around the world. I'm not sure if that comes across, but here was my train of thought.

I was sitting on the sidewalk in front of our house yesterday with all the neighbors and their kids at peace with my re-found Sesame Street feeling again. The 5 o'clock Friday afternoon sidewalk chit chat was in full swing when suddenly the owner of the Brittania Restaurant Equipment business across the street brought out his leaf-blower and started to blow the dust off the sidewalk. One of my neighbors frowned in disbelief complaining about the noise and the interruption to our perfect neighborly gathering. I started to laugh, not at her, but at myself. A year and a half ago, that would have been me. Now, I tolerate the noise and am grateful that at least this "blower" is not spraying pesticides like the "daily dose" of questionable chemicals we got smoked with back in Rio.

As I find myself being reabsorbed by my seemingly unchanged life in Vancouver, my day is peppered with little moments that remind me that I've been changed by living abroad. I don't get completely outraged by finding a Starbucks cup on the sidewalk when I think of the sofas stuck in the mud when the tide goes out in Rio's Guanabara Bay or the bagfuls of bottle caps I collected when I went to the beach. I can't get over how driving and crossing streets on foot in Vancouver is like a strange courtesy competition; "oh, no, please, after you.", "No, no, you were here first, please, after you, please go first.", "oh dear, no, I insist, you look like you might be in a bigger hurry that me, please go ahead.", "Thank you, you are so kind." Very much unlike Rio's aggressive "Get the F*** out of my way, you slow meaningless speed-bump."

Living abroad hasn't just given me a sense of how everything can be done differently it seems, but it has widened my sense of interconnectedness not only with Brazil, but also with the expats I've met. One friend described how weird it was when she was at a popular park back home in Colorado. There were tons of parents and kids around, but no one was talking to each other. Not weird, I thought, seems like the usual park scenario to me. But she reminded me that in Rio, if you overhear a parent speak in English to their kid, you go over and become instant friends and have them over for pizza that night! So true!

Now that I'm back in the city of Sun and Surf, I'm not spending too much time thinking about the little differences, but more about how much I'm going to miss the people I've met here and especially the family I got spend time with. So as I pack, I reminisce and I'm grateful for this short year and a half I spent here even if at times it felt like an eternity.

Finally a Beautiful Stamp!

If you're close to my age or older you might remember when your house was filled with books, recipe books, phone books, comic books, address books, cameras with rolls of film, photo albums, agendas, letters, postcards, boxes of maps, travel brochures, dictionaries, stacks of records, cassette tapes, VHS tapes, CD towers, telephones plugged into the wall, rows of National Geographic magazines, and stacks of newspapers. But now, our phones, and tablets have rid us all those things, and sometimes I seriously miss them, though not the clutter. Well, as you know, if there's one thing I want to keep circling around it's letters, postcards and stamps.

Sitting down in a coffee shop or at my kitchen table with the kid, I close my eyes and wait to see inside my mind who is coming to join me. Sometimes, it's a pile of kids from back in the hood, other times it's my mother or my oldest friend. Some of my letters are long with doodles, or inspired by something funny I find out there in the city like a ridiculous advertisement. Some are postcards I've made myself or bought in the rare places where stationary exists in Rio.
I've always thought that the stamp is like the cherry on top of your banana split message. It's the last beautiful thing you get to lick on to salute the official send off of your postcard, "Good luck! Hope you make it there!" Boringly for the last year and a half, the post offices have only given me the same three stamps, none of which are particularly interesting. Until, last week. I was traveling to a "get-me-out-of-this-soccer-crazed-city" retreat to the mountains, bringing my posting supplies with me knowing someone would probably come "sit with me" in the countryside. And they did. My stack of cards and letters in hand, I walked into town to scope out the post office, a one-person operation in a tiny room and no line-up. Imagine my delight when the post-lady handed me this beautiful stamp!

Finally, a real maraschino cherry!

My writing table in the mountains with the "Buriti" trees.

I say Soccer, You Say Football, and the Games Begin.

It's a bit of a teeter-totter of emotions, the month of June. The first exodus of expats out of Brazil happened just before the World Cup started, and as my friends were packing to go home I was happy for them, and jealous and annoyed. And the first day I sat in the park with the kid without our friends, I felt a bit of self-pity for myself, like the kid who slams into the ground when the friend jumps off the teeter-totter without notice. And the next day the World Cup started.

As I rode my bike home with the kid sitting in the back, the traffic was intensifying, and the sidewalks were emptying. The underground parking lot of our tower was full at 3 in the afternoon as our neighbors, all sporting their yellow soccer jerseys, were busy carrying up groceries and cases of beers for the Brazil vs Croatia opening game. In the surrounding towers we could hear people cheering, blowing horns and letting off fireworks in anticipation. We headed off to our friends' tower with our Brazilian flag and some snacks. Luckily they had booked their flight home the next day, so we could share with them the opening game. The game started, streets below were deserted and the neighborhood quiet, until Brazil scored. And the towers echoed thousands of people shouting, goooooooooooooooal at the same time, followed by a series of random firework explosions. What a thrill!

 

Neymar on the tube with our friends cheering him on!

Following the opening game, we've heard fans from all over the world shout out their football pride. One drunken Argentinian who was camping in a trailer van in front of our tower was singing his national anthem at the top of his lungs early one Sunday morning while I could hear a woman in a tower behind us yelling back at him "Bosnia"!! The television will be on most afternoons and nights for the next month and I look forward to the next Brazil game, as I suspect the atmosphere is going to get very intense.

Amidst all the excitement we missed "Dia dos Namorados", Valentine's Day, but remembered Canadian Father's Day.  And when I phoned my dad back in Vancouver, guess where my mom said he was? Watching a soccer game at a beer house with my brother. Perfect!

Figurinas, Shrimp, Flowers, Beer, Beach and Friends

I don't have to throw a surf board very far to hit someone, Brazilian or not who hasn't had a bad Rio day quite recently. Those days pop up randomly and tackling them often feel like you're wrestling a slimy octopus in a plastic kiddy pool filled with baby oil. But once in a while, you get to have a super Rio day from the moment you wake up in the morning until you go to bed, and you forget the baby oil cephalopod wrestling days. Yesterday was that kind of day.

First we, the kid, my husband and my sister-in-law, went to "Posh Peninsula", a swanky part of Barra which has an open air mall to exchange World Cup "figurinas" (soccer stickers) with other collectors. There were 20 moms and dads seated at different tables with their kids' sticker albums, lists of missing figurinas and stacks of stickers to trade. The only kids there were too busy throwing "bang snaps", (those little fireworks that you throw on the ground that make loud noises) or babbling in their strollers. Secretly, us parents, were happy they were out of our hair so we could concentrate on finding that darn illusive number 111 Spanish soccer player to complete the team page in our sticker book. I mean, our kid's sticker book.

This is serious business people!

The kid is messing up the piles, and I look insane while my sister-in-law keeps score.

Scary Sprinkle World Cup Cake

Installed our patriotic polyester flag on the jeep.

We left Posh Penninsula to have lunch at the scary, decrepit fish market where I heard there was some nice fish to be had.  And there was some nice fish we had, though the ambiance was lacking in a big way, unless you like the view of the back lane, bright orange table clothes on tables with uneven legs and pitiful child beggars selling hand towels.

Waiting for the fish

This sign, for some reason was my favorite part of the fish market

Sketchy back area

This is supposed to be for TWO people!!

Yummy shrimp and giant fish

This fish is called " Namorado" which means Boyfriend Fish!

Flowers from the flower shop

After our very filling lunch and pointing out piles of slimy octopi and calamari to the boy, we picked up some wine in the deli where I struck up a conversation with a woman in English, (small but essential part of a good Rio day) and as I stepped out, my husband handed me a bouquet of flowers!

Once home, the flowers in a make-shift vase,  I got changed into appropriate beach wear and took off on my bike to meet some friends who had started a "Kiosk Krawl" at one end of the beach. Basically, Barra beach is delineated with numbered lifeguard stations and in between each station there are kiosks, basically what we would call concession stands in Vancouver. The "krawlers" started at station 1 at 1pm and by 10pm, we reached my place at station 5. That's about 15 kiosks. I lost track. I drank a lot of beer on the sidewalk, an open beer in my hand on the sidewalk, my Canadian friends!!! Let me repeat, I walked down the beach from kiosk to kiosk with a beer in my hand, and nobody gave us a dirty look and no cop came along to pour it out.

I arrive, and the Krawl is in full swing.

Wendy with the "Kitty"

Gena who is not getting her husband fired by drinking with her husband's boss. -inside joke.

No Krawl can be a success without someone thinking someone didn't pay for their beer. Notice angry lady in pink top.

The sun sets around 5

As soon as the sun sets, my photos get blurry, or is it me, or the beer????

Sarah and I

And there you have it. This was a super Rio Day. My boy, my man, my sister-in-law, my friends, scary fish market, shrimps, flowers, the beach, and the sunset. I was in bed by 10 and not hung-over the next day.

The Pink Plated Ceiling of the Nova Capela

If you haven't tried the "bolinhas de bacalhau" (cod fish balls) at the Nova Capela Restaurant in Lapa, then you're missing something special. I first went there with Tom from eatrio.net, one of the many yummy spots on his food tour and I had to go again. There's a weird vibe on the street out front, the vibe you get when the Sunday morning early birds collide with the Saturday all-night partiers, and the facade of the restaurant is hardly noticeable, but as soon as you walk in, it's like arriving in the dining room of the "Brazilian great-aunt-you-didn't-know-you-had." The combination of the pink spots on the ceiling, the ornate tiles on the walls and the pleather seat covers make it a place to you want to linger in and order big plates of food; especially the "piggy homestyle with fried vegetables".

I can't stop looking at the spots on the ceiling!

Ah, pleather, the perfect hot weather material

I told you so.

The perfect bolinha de bacalhau!

We left Nova Capela satisfied and drove to the MAM, the Rio Museum of Modern Art which I have wanted to visit since the first time I came to Rio years ago but never had the chance to go. Well, in true Rio style, it's wise to always plan to break the plan. As we approached the parking lot entrance we saw a long line-up of cars encroaching on the street and didn't even hesitate to pass it and head back toward home. No museum is worth waiting in this kind of line-up where questionable men call out loudly for you to park your car in impossible spaces for questionable amounts of money.

On the way home, we made a pit stop at the Instituto Moreira Salles in Gavea which I heard was worth a visit by the International Club Rio de Janeiro, an expat club I belong to. Founded in 1992 by ambassador and banker Walther Moreira Salles, the non-profit institute for the promotion and development of cultural programs in photography, literature, iconography and music is now what was once the Moreira family home. Designed in 1948 by architect Olavo Redig de Campo, the modern house is surrounded by lush gardens which were designed by famed landscape designer Roberto Burle Marx. Giant Mezosoic-like bamboo and towering trees with gnarly trunks shade the grounds and hide this "hidden treasure" from the uglier, neighboring towers. Instantly I was thrown into an episode of "Mad Men"; images of smartly dressed people and rooms filled with ashtrays, teak cocktail carts, and phones that sit on desks and can't be carried around sprung into my mind.

There was a man talking on his cell phone that wouldn't get out of the shot, so I hid him behind the tree!

Pond and tilework

Poolside

Photography exhibit

Being a dork with a VW van

Peach from the "peach tree of India"

The thing about going to place like this with a kid is that I start to envy the childless couples who quietly sit in the coffee shop or in the gardens after slowly lingering over the interesting photography exhibits and I wish I could spend more time in the gift shop perusing the coffee table books without the kid taking all the postcards off the wall. So if you have kids, just be prepared to whip through pretty quickly unless your children enjoy 1950's architecture and like to discuss literature while slowly sipping on an espresso. It was worth a visit anyhow, anything to break up the trip back to Barra.

Behind the Scene on our Family Adventures.

Lately I've been posting about our family adventures in Rio, and yes, it seems that we can't even last one weekend without some kind of exploring. We try to stay home. Geraldo tries to get household repairs done and I have fun with the kid in the pool and the playground downstairs, but a day later we're itching to get out of our apartment. I guess that's our "family thing". Some families like to renovate, cut grass, bbq, lounge around with cats, take dogs for walks in the rain, go for hikes or sails around a lake and we like to get in the car and go see.

On our last adventure we went to check out Madureira park which was really great, but what I failed to mention was a bunch of other interesting (maybe only to us) things. Things like when Geraldo slowed down past the abandoned university where he studied engineering and how sad it was to see the weeds growing out of window sills and gutters. It went bankrupt. It was weird to see. Maybe it's because I'm used to being in a city where if things are not being used, the very next day trees get cordoned off and in one quick swoop everything is torn to the ground and carted away to make space for a condo. In Rio, I've noticed, if businesses, factories, warehouses or houses close down, they stay there to collect tagging, feral cats and weeds for a long time.

Geraldo behind the Madureira park fountain.

After our visit to the park, we were looking around for a place to eat lunch. Even after a year and a half in Brazil we are still on "Canadian time" meaning we eat lunch at noon, and dinner at 6pm while the rest of the population eats lunch at 1 or 2pm and dinner well after 7pm which means most of the time, if the restaurants are open, we get the whole place to ourselves!!! Unfortunately, that day we had so much fun exploring we fell into "Brazilian time". Lucky to find a restaurant that was open when everything else is closed on Sundays, we pulled up to an "all-you-can-eat" buffet restaurant and took a chance. The place was packed! It was like walking into a Chinese restaurant back home; where families go to eat with their grandmas, and grandpas, and cousins, and in-laws, brothers and sisters and aunts and uncles etc..., but the tables were super close together, everyone was talking really loudly over the "pagode" music which was blaring in the background.

We took out plates up to the giant buffet, squeezing back behind occupied chairs doing our best not to spill the food on our plates as we balanced our meals over other people's heads. As we sat down, I couldn't help but notice, perhaps snobbishly, what people chose for their meals. It just blows my mind to see how so many Brazilians eat badly;  their plates over-filled with meat, deep fried cheese balls, or fish balls, or chicken balls, or french fries all swallowed down with cans of soda pop. Piles of white and brown food. Even though I was pretty impressed by the salad bar, which yes, included a whole lot of mayonnaised salads and the desserts, there was choice to eat color. Oh, well.

We headed home, on the big highway, paid the toll, saw the new "World Cup" flags hanging on the center-line posts and tried to guess which country was which with the kid. We arrived home just in time for "Brazilian time" coffee and cake, a 4-5pm daily ritual with my in-laws. That and a game of play-doh/dinosaur/destruction with the kid. And that is behind the scene of our adventure to Madureira park.

An Imperial Weekend Getaway!

Remember the evenings when you could linger over a meal for hours, starting with a cocktail, and then moving on to a few appetizers, then onto another course and another, a few more cocktails or perhaps a few glasses of wine, some conversation that loops and winds its way between mouthfuls? Bites slowly savored, tastes lingering in the mouth with your eyes closed, a coffee, a playful effort to make space for dessert, and all the while the conversation continues to twists itself between the plates and the glasses without interruption except for the polite questions of a waiter?

No "bags of toys", no crayons, no kid's meals, no child on your lap or asleep in a crooked position on two chairs pulled together to make a bed, no kid singing the alphabet, no blowing  of hot noodles or scraping of green things off a pizza and no spilling of juice.

That was my Mother's Day present; an adult getaway to Petropolis with my husband and two of my favorite friends, Meg and Dhavide visiting from Toronto. And it was wonderful! Only a few hours out of Rio by car, Petropolis, nicknamed the Imperial City because the Emperor Don Pedro II built his summer palace there to escape the sweltering summer heat of Rio, is a mountain town worth visiting for a weekend. Especially without the kids. We rented a room at the "Monte Imperial b&b" which turned out to feel exactly like staying in a damp Westcoast cabin back home; old, damp wavy paged romance novels, a wood burning fireplace and itchy blankets provided. It was great! Do beware that almost everything in Petropolis is named "imperial" and don't expect it all to feel or look "imperial".

On the Saturday, we visited several of the tourist attractions including the Emperor's Palace, the Cathedral, and the Bohemia brewery in between heavy showers. We ended up at the Solar de Imperio, a b&b which actually was a bit imperial for lunch where the terrible service resulted in our lingering 4 hour lunch which turned out to be quite delicious and enjoyable! The raw cod salad with arugula and a poached egg was my favorite.

Don Pedro II' s palace

 Sao Pedro de Alcantara Cathedral

The next day we walked through the municipal park where we got gawked by so many monkeys, it started to feel uncomfortable but delighted my friends. We visited Santos Dumont's charming chalet and had lunch at the "house of 7 mistakes" which we couldn't figure out by the looks of it.

Meg with a giant fern.

The house of 7 mistakes

Meg looks freakishly small in this shot, but it's an optical illusion I swear!

Mother's Day lunch- look no high chair!

I felt guilty for about 2 minutes to spend Mother's Day lunch without the kid, but it passed. It was just so wonderful to spend time with my husband and my friends wandering, talking, drinking, eating and enjoying adult time. Nothing tops off a weekend getaway without your typical Rio traffic jam which we passed with silly car games. It truly was an Imperial Weekend Getaway!

Sunday Morning at the Parque de Madureira

I've always wanted to check out the Parque de Madureira since I heard Eduardo Paes, the mayor of Rio de Janeiro speak on TedTalk (2012) about cities, and specifically his idea about finding and opening green spaces-(2:56min) If you're driving around in this city of 6.5 million people, it becomes instantly obvious that even though the urban jungle is surrounded by lush jungl-ey mountains and lined with beaches, accessible parks and other usable green spaces are rare and overcrowded. (900 families were displaced to make space for the park) So I was curious to see this new park smack dab in the middle of the dense suburban neighborhood of Madureira.

Sunday is the best day to maneuver around the city, especially if you're having to rely on your GPS which badly blurts out the often-very-long names of the Rio streets in a weird drunk robot accent. We brought the kid's bike, some water and a camera and off we went. If was easy enough to find once off of the Linha Amarella highway and we were instantly impressed.

Madureira park is a long, 103 thousand meter square, rectangular park fenced along a train track, the landscape design is modern with winding paths, grassy areas, fountains, benches, and every outdoor activity a park could offer: basketball courts, soccer pitches, an amazing skate park, a water fountain for kids to play in, areas for exercise and weight lifting, a playground, outdoor ping pong tables, kiosks, outdoor amphitheaters, and even an internet house. It celebrates it's two year anniversary this June.

Madureira graffitti

Live music in the park

These musicians were having fun!

Teachers protesting.

The "Piraque" factory across the tracks

The kid on a very still earless horse.

An all women's samba group! They were so good!

This little blind girl stole the show!

I'm trying to dance with the kid!

The Environmental Education Center

These boys were having a ton of fun posing for their dad who was taking photos.

The skate park was awesome and full of real kids and adult kids.

Internet access

Two little girls in a pod with their pads.

Interview with Batman on the grass

This last shot of Batman being interviewed made me laugh on my way out of the park. I recommend this visit to any of my friends in Rio, but be sure to go on a breezy or "cooler" day because most of the 800 native trees have not matured yet and don't offer a lot of shade. I was super impressed by how many people were taking full advantage of all the amenities, it was secure and well-kept. Bring your kids' bikes, skateboards or soccer balls or not, you can always rent those funny "family bikes"! Madureira Park certainly highlights the Field of Dreams movie phrase, "If you build it, they will come".