Estamos aqui! After more than 20 hours door-to-door, Helena, Zuca and I have arrived safely in our new country. After a rough start to the trip with torrential rain in Newark, the rest of our journey was as smooth and easy as we could have hoped for. Oba!
Thank you for all of the happy greetings written here and on Facebook when we arrived. It feels so good to know that you’re there cheering us on. I promised to take you along with me, so please enjoy these scenes from our first day. I’ve described each clip in detail so you can pick and choose what you’d like to see.
First, here’s the view of the Serra dos Orgaos mountains from the plane window as we’re descending into Rio de Janeiro. You can just barely see the Finger of God, a very finger-like volcanic structure in the background. Our dream is to live in these mountains one day:
Next, I decided to capture our experience waiting to get our dog Zuca cleared into the country. In order for Zuca to become a Brazilian citizen, prior to leaving for Brazil we had to get a USDA certificate of health, a physical examination by a US-certified vet, and stamped paperwork certifying all of his vaccinations. After all that bureaucracy in the US, here’s the official scene at the Office of Agriculture and Animals at the airport in Rio:
Here’s our first lunch in Rio, bought at a “kilo” restaurant. Many Brazilians will visit kilos on their lunch hour because they provide beautiful buffets with salads, fresh squeezed juices, casseroles, rice and beans, sushi, churrasco (grilled meat) and lots of sobremesas (desserts). I put this clip in for those of you who were worried about how we’d do in the land of beef!
Tomorrow I’ll provide an update on our living accommodations in Rio, but for today, I thought you’d enjoy the view from our new neighborhood. We’re living about 2 blocks from the beach between Copacabana and Ipanema. If I had any reservations about having cancelled my life in the US to move to this country (which I didn’t really), they were over after drinking fresh agua de coco (coconut water/juice) on this bench:
Here’s one last scene from the neighborhood, just a typical little fruit market where we’ll buy local fruits. When I walked in this afternoon, I was hit with the smell of maracuja (passion fruit) and mamon (papaya). We bought bananinhas (there are at least 10 different kinds of bananas growing in this country!) and couve (kale) to make a fresh juice for our breakfast tomorrow morning.
It’s hot and delicious here in our new world. We’ve been looking at each other all day with tears in our eyes, continually repeating, “We did it!” And we did.
Amamos voces!
