From Brazil

The Trip...
... went really well, in spite of our six hour sojourn in the Dulles airport in Washington D.C. . Thanks to the moving walkways and escalators between the Main Terminal and Terminal B, the boys were entertained for over an hour of those six. :) The flight itself went well and I'm glad that instead of being over 9h long as it would have been from Chicago, it was a bit over 8 hours.

The Arrival...
... was OK, I had some trouble juggling the 4 large suitcases, 1 booster seat, 1 carseat, 1 stroller, 2 boys (plus 3 smaller pieces of carry-on luggage), but in the end Kelvin went ahead pushing "his" carry-on bag (in fact the bag containing our laptop and other electronics), I followed with the cart piled high with luggage and car seats, and Linton came last, pushing his own stroller, since he refused to seat on it (had he sat down, an airport employee would have helped me to go through customs -- unlike in the U.S. mothers with children do receive help in airports, not only disabled and elderly people -- I have travelled several times alone and I was told everytime in the U.S. that NO ONE could help me push strollers, carts, etc... at least no airport or airline employees, isn't that outrageous???**). Consequently, when we left the security area and Linton saw his grandparents and a huge crowd of people awaiting the other passengers, he just wanted to go back, so I had to force him to go ahead (at this point an airport employee was helping me push the cart) and he had a meltdown and was crying piteously while grandma was trying to take photos of the newly arrived grandkids.

First Impressions...
... The transition is getting seamless for me at this point since this is my 9th trip to Brazil in my 11 years abroad. There's only one thing that gets me everytime and which is the hardest (and almost only) thing I have trouble adapting to: not flushing the toilet paper. Plumbing here is not able to support that. Yeah, I know, it sounds groze to have to toss it in the garbage, but public restrooms here are generally very clean (much cleaner than any rest/service area bathroom in the U.S.) because there's one or more cleaning people around at all times. I spend several days doing it anyway and when I finally get the hang of it it's time to go back to the U.S.

Going to the American Consulate...
... Surprised me very much. I have written in this blog before (item #49) that "Being an expatriate is not easy, but I enjoy every minute of it (except those spent in the American Consulate)," but I guess that this last time was almost an exception. They have now an easier system in place for those renewing a visa that expired within the last 12 months or less, so I wasn't even interviewed and only had to stay in line to hand in my documents, get fingerprinted, and pay for the postage for the passport to be returned. Considering that this will likely be my last consulate visit on a student visa, I was quite happy with how it went.

The First Full Day...
... (Friday night-Saturday, today for me, but technically "yesterday") was nice because we got to spend time with our best friends here and their children. On Friday, after we arrived and loaded our luggage into the cars (they are quite small here, so my parents came in two cars with my uncle so they could carry all our luggage), we drove to by my aunt's house where I opened the suitcases to get several things I had brought to various people out. Then my mom came back home with my uncle and the boys while my dad took me to the consulate. We got back home after 6 p.m. so I had so many things to do that I didn't get to go online until 24h later -- now. Our finds returned to São Paulo this evening and we're getting ready to leave in the morning to Curitiba, the city most of my family is from. Our trips to Brazil always involve quite of bit of traveling here and the boys are already used to this. I probably won't be able to blog much from there, but I'll try at least once or twice. Reading blogs will be hard too because my first conference starts on the 23rd and I have yet to write my paper (I do know what I'm going to be talking about, but I have to finish writing and to prepare the power point presentation).

So I hope to be around, but we'll see what happens. There are so many things I wanted to post, but being here is quite intense and it feels like a waste of time to be online much.

** In addition, in Brazil there are special lines EVERYWHERE, from banks to supermarkets, to pregnant women, nursing mothers, mothers with young children, as well as the elderly and disabled. And if there's a single line, you get to get ahead of everyone. Mothers (even mothers-to-be) get much more respect here!!!