Happy Birthday Dad, Rio life

happy birthday dad. we love you

Happy Birthday Dad.  You are the best.   We miss you a lot and are celebrating your life hard today.  Our first week in Rio has been fun. It has been great to see our friends Earl and Samantha in a new place. They have really helped us get started in a new country with a new language and took us to our first Capoeira Roda which was amazing.  Sam was the best one there.

barra beach shoot

As expected, our living situation is very different from our previous one. We are on the 24th floor of a condo building in Barra da Tijuca, looking out over the water and many more condo buildings.

our view on a windy day. see the kites?

We are slowly adjusting to this new lifestyle – so different from Costa Rican farm life in Atenas. I bought a surfboard two days ago and have been surfing 3 times already though the water is pretty chilly with no wetsuit. Yesterday we went to the largest mall on the continent and visited at least 5 of the 500+ stores. Haley got a real live Brazilian bikini (which she may or may not be brave enough to wear) and we also got a portuguese dictionary to help us along with our portuguese.

3 things here. me with my new prancha da surf, the movie star hiding from the camera, our building (furthest one you can see)

Other notes:

We have a maid, Valeria, who is very nice.  Not sure Portuguese tutoring is in her job description but she’s being a really good sport, and laughing at us a lot.  She cooks breakfast and lunch, makes our bed, irons our clothes and more.  It’s been a little tough to get used to and feel comfortable having some wait on you like that.  Especially when we are already guests in the house.

It has been cloudy for the last 2 days (ever since we got our beach umbrella).

We are doing lots of portuguese lessons every day and they are really helping us.  We highly recommend Rosetta Stone.  Valeria congratulated Haley on her first full sentence yesterday.  Pretty good since when we arrived 5 days ago literally all we could say was obrigado (thank you) and tudo bem (all is well).

Restaurants on the beach where we live are very expensive. Entrees cost $25-50 normally.  Actually everything where we live is really expensive. But that is life in Rio.

The fruit is delicious and there are lots of farmer’s markets around.

Overall, we are living it up and trying to live as those in Rio do.  Brazil is treating us very well so far.