New Home

My poor little blog. It's not getting any attention. I miss you guys! I miss you, little blog!

Everything's going swimmingly in my new life, and I really, really like this city. The only problem is that we still don't have internet in our apartment complex! That means I depend on my cell phone for internet or Alexandre's phone as a wireless router when he's home. Hopefully (hopefully!) we'll get internet next week, like the company keeps promising.

When we first moved, I told you how Alexandre's mom was helping us with the decorating and everything. Well we did make things nice and liveable, but then I kind of lost interest. It was causing me to have to avoid arguments with the MIL too much because she was overstepping her bounds and being judgmental Apartment stuff is expensive, and I figure if I've gone this long without things like a decorative mirror in my bedroom, I don't need to buy them now. So I figured I'd share some pictures with you all now, since I don't think we'll be doing much more decorating:

Our custom-made couch and the TV we lugged back from the US

The front side of the couch (Gatinha loves it as much as I do), and our little table. We originally bought it to use as a table for the balcony, but "real" dinner tables are like, 5x the price, and that little guy works just fine. Hard to break and easy to clean -- that's my kind of table! You can also see the barbecue on the balcony. The trash can with the charcoal is inside because it was raining.

Our compact little kitchen/laundry area (at least all those dishes and clothes are clean, right?)

Our great Target comforter that matches the beautifully painted brown wall

My classroom / Alexandre's study room

My little white board for my students. :) In our old apartment, I had one on the wall, which was much better. The only problem is that it destroys the wall.

Yay yay! I love waking up here. I love being out and about in the city. I love coming home to this place. I wish I could show you more of the complex and stuff, but I've put some up before, and any other pictures would just be too revealing and I like to tell myself that it's not totally obvious where I'm living.

Instead, I'll show you some nature shots from around the city:

We went for a walk in a park, and I was so excited to stumble upon an anhiga, which has quite a few names in both English and Portuguese but which is also known as a biguatinga or carará:

Such an interesting bird! Like a big cousin to my tropical cormorant friends back in Caipirópolis. It (well, I think this one was a she) manages to be dopey and graceful at the same time.

But yes. I'm really enjoying things here. I'm slowly starting to make friends with some of the many young people in the apartment complex and at the gym, as well as with a couple of other Americans I've met. There's also a crazy demand for English classes, so that keeps me busy and makes me feel needed and valued as a teacher.

Oh, and one final piece of good news was that I got to meet blog buddy Tiffany today! Alexandre and I had lunch with her, her husband, and their friends during their trip to visit Tiffany's husband's family here in Brazil. She was so lively and personable and the 6 of us had a wonderful lunch. It was too bad I only got one day with her! Keep checking her blog this week for pictures.

Once we get internet in the apartment, I'll go back to posting regularly again. In the meantime, I hope everything's going well with you, too.