update

The "charmed" life of living in a hotel for a month is drawing to a close, as we finally have the keys to our house! This is both faaabulous, and terrifying, as the move into our house also signifies my move out of the comfortable neighborhood in the large city of Campinas, into the much smaller, less walking distance town of Jaguariuna. And internet will be nonexistant for me for at least the next two weeks.

As I mentioned before, Jared is a genius and found a way to bring our local voIP (internet-y, like Vonage but cheaper) phone from Atlanta and plugged it our internet connection here in the hotel, and I've been able to have much less culture shock with the morning calls to my mom and chats with my girlfriends. What a blessing! But with 2 weeks to go until baby makes her entrance (although I'm guessing more like 3) I'll have no contact with the outside world. And venturing into town by myself, although fun, is a tad more complicated with the language barrier. I did it yesterday, and I seem to make a scene everywhere I go. People keep trying to talk to me, I tell them I don't speak Portuguese and then I get swarmed with well-meaning types. Yesterday I met the nicest Polish lady at one store and then a hoarde of teenagers that searched a local bazzar for a birthday gift for me to give Jared's 20-something coworker. None of them spoke English, by the way - it was my masterful use of the Portuguese language that ruled out in the end - Eu precisso de.... presente... anniversario... vinte anniversario... mulher???" Although it was confusing, a pretty picture frame was found and even wrapped by nice teen and all is good.

This is a shot of the front of the house:



The house is fun though - and ginormous. The first floor has 2 master bedrooms, 2 regular bedrooms, 2 half bathrooms and 3 full bathrooms - one including a jacuzzi and a waterfall, if you can believe that. Oh, and a dining room and the kitchen. All tile, so when Jared and I speak to each other even in the same room, the reverb is so thick I can't understand what the other is saying. We're going to have to invest in sound proofing for sure! I'm kind of interested in seeing how awesome I sound with my violin in there - it's like singing in the shower!

Jared's job is just as agrivating as any other, but he seems to be coping well. He's busy trying to get us all legal and such, and finding ways to cheer up my days. He found me a doctor that speaks enough English to understand me most of the time and we checkef out another hospital Yesterday that we hear has some of the better anesthesiologists (sp?) in the area. I likes those bits of advice!

A week from today, Grandma Paget flies into Sao Paulo to help with the impending entrance of baby. She'll be here for 3 weeks, and I'm hoping baby DOES show up soon after Mom's arrival, because I sure could use the help. I'm due October 3rd, and the baby has begun to go a tad lower in my belly, but I have an inkling that she'll be a little later than the 3rd. With the move being tomorrow, and her crib being all set up in her new bedroom, we're closer to being ready for her.

Wish us luck.... things are getting close to being quite nuts around here, stay tuned!

preparing to nest...

Hallelujah! Things are starting to move around here. We're getting more and more legal here - just spent all morning getting fingerprinted and notifying the police we're here, we have a rental car so we can get around this crazy town (although we get lost a few times a day), found a doctor - a woman who speaks Eglish AND has an office within 3 blocks of our new home, and speaking of home - I got to actually SEE it today! The rental contract has been taking forever, and we're hoping and praying to get the keys officially tomorrow. And good golly it is gorgeous!! Filthy and messy (it has been uninhabited for a few months now) but huge, with lots of rooms and space for potential. Oh, and the biggest jacuzzi tub I've ever seen - WITH a waterfall. That was a big selling point for me, I must say:)

I'm now at 37 weeks and ready to pop. I feel pretty huge, although people still don't believe I'm in my 9th month. I'm getting a lot of sympathy from Jared though, that helps! So what does a couple decide to do for a wild and crazy weekend when the mom-to-be is within weeks of delivering her first bebe? Last weekend, we hopped on an 8 hour bus ride to visit Jared's old mission on the other side of the state of Sao Paulo. The drive was positively miserable, but the visit was fabulous. We saw a couple Jared baptised 10 years ago! They had pictures of him as a hearty young missionary, and could barely recognize him now. They stuffed us with food and filled me with stories of Jared 10 years ago. Completely wonderful and worth the drive, although I doubt we will be hopping on a bus any time soon!

We'll hopefully get to start nesting in our new home very soon and I'll throw some pictures up of just how ginormous it all is. It will most likely be empty for the most part, but it just means there's more space for Baby Paget and I to dance around in. Have a loverly day!

Our town

A whole week! I've survived a whooole week in Brazil! Of course most of the week has been spent in my hotel room as Jared is hard at work all day, but I'm resting for the insanity that is to come in about a month. I'm a few days away from being at the 9 month mark and goood golly am I pooped! One more month to go.... AK!

For your viewing pleasure, Jared found me some pictures of Jaguariuna, the town we'll be living in. It's quite quaint and small, and it seems a heck of a lot easier to drive in than Campinas - the bigger city we're staying in now. Cross your fingers that the house rental things come through soon - I don't know how much more room service food I can handle!!

First Time?

It's about time that I get my say in things. I can't leave everything to the wife.

Although it's only been about 4 months total, this has been an unreal experience. When I was in school I studied international business. We talked over different scenarios to help us to understand different cultures. We did case studies to help us understand different business situations. We did thousands of little things to prepare us for life in the "business world". And now here I am.

I'm an American working in Brazil for a Singapore based company. My boss is a former business owner from Singapore. His boss is the VP of the company- who apparently has dedicated everything to this company. She travels 95% of her life. My boss is in Brazil for a "business trip" that lasts 90 days at a time, with two weeks home.

The primary business language in our office is Portuguese. I have to be completely bi-lingual though- as my boss doesn't speak the local language. English is spoken only when necessary. The cultural differences between the Singaporean and Brazilians is unreal. Americans are somewhere in the middle- which often leaves me right in that spot. I try to translate the Brazilian "we'll get it done whenever" to the Singaporan "DO IT NOW" and vice versa. This is a truely global experience.

Case in point: I arrived this morning expecting a PO that was promised me by my brazilian counterpart at our customer yesterday. In fact he told me the 4 times I called him yesterday that he was working on it right then and i'd have it FOR SURE in a half hour, 2 hrs, before 6 and before tomorrow morning. The PO wasn't in my inbox this morning. What I did have waiting for me first thing this morning was a phone call with Singapore and China about some equipment damaged in transit to Brazil. 45mins of my working our details with China for replacements. 1/2 the phonecall was in Chinese, half english.

I wanted International Business. Now I have it. All this time my poor wife sits bored out of her skull in a hotel- waiting for the realtor to get around to finishing up the rental contract for our house. She'll get to it sometime. Yesterday when I called she told me she was working on it. I'm beginning to believe that doesn't really mean what I think it means in Brazil...