Brasil!!!

Finally! The kids and I got to go to Brazil with Mike! Mike has been working in a small city, Lins, about 5 hours out of Sao Paulo, for almost 7 years now. He has estimated that he has been in Brazil for over 300 days total. We kinda felt left out... I mean, he has a whole other family there! Just kidding. Still, I wanted to see what it was like and meet his friends from Brazil and see the cruddy little hotel room he always stayed in...
The first week of our trip, Mike worked in Lins while the kids and I vacationed at the nice Blue Tree Resort he stays at when he's there. They have a wonderful breakfast, the rooms are very clean and spacious and everyone was helpful and kind even when I mimed what we needed. Nao falo Portugues...
We loved the pool! Actually, there are multiple pools, all connected, that all start out at a hot spring. The water was warm, just perfect for the kids. There were waterfalls, slides, and kiddy spray toys... So fun! Here is small section of the pool. This is the "big kid" end of the kiddie pool. The other side has spray toys and lots of shallow water for the kids to run around in, jump into or practice swimming.

Jonah finally got up the nerve to do the "froggie slide"! Jack actually did this one too a couple of times but would NOT go down the alligator slide because of those scary teeth.

Paige LOVED the curly slide. Mike taught her how to go down on her tummy, face first. She was quite proud of this ability!

Jonah learned to swim without his floaties, although he still likes to wear them for security sometimes. Here is a little video where Jonah is swimming!

Swimming! from Julie Tull on Vimeo.

Here the boys are, trying their first "coco." I think all you do is drill a hole in a coconut and stick in a straw and drink. We ordered ours at the pool bar and I didn't see how the hole was made. Jonah LOVED it. Mike and I hardly got any at all. Paigey didn't care. It was not her thing...

In the evenings, we went out with Mike's work friends. I don't have pictures of Silvio and Louise here (even though they are the reason the kids and I came to Brazil! You will see pictures of their wedding soon!).

Here is Alexandre, along with buddy Jonah at the Choppao. We went to the Choppao at least 3 times while we were in Lins. There are 2 restaurants to go to for dinner; The Choppao and the pizza place. We went to the pizza place once.

This picture was taken outside a churrascaria, a traditional Brazilian barbecue place. When we drove in for lunch, Jack saw the horse statue. During the whole meal, all I heard was "Jack on horse. Get on horse. Want to ride da horse". When we finally finished and walked over to the horse, Jack freaked. "No ride da horse. No on! No! No"!

Here is Karina, showing the kiddos a video of her dog that she had on her phone. This picture doesn't show it well, but you know Super Nanny? She looks just like her. And she was really good with the kids too!

Paige, Jonah and Jack all got to try on Alexandre's motorcycle helmet. Paige and Jonah were all smiles, but to Jack this was serious. The boy loves his "Jack-dos" (that is what he calls motorcycles).
After a week of Lins, we headed to Sao Paulo for Silvio and Louise's wedding! So fun!

This is obviously Silvio and Louise getting married. I liked the colorful church! I could say that the ceremony was nice, but I really don't know. I didn't understand much of it! And then I missed the ending when Jack decided it was time to poo in his underwear. Nice.

The reception was a great big loud party. Everybody dances. Not just those few brave ones or those in the wedding party... And they dance all night long while holding a drink in their hand. I don't know how they do this. I am not coordinated enough to even hold a cup in my hand while dancing, let alone drink something out of it that impairs my coordination.

Here is Jonah hugging Talita, another work friend of Mike's.
Louise and our slightly bashful Paige. I don't think there are any shy Brazilians...

A couple hours into the party, costume stuff was passed around. Mike saw this at the other Brazilian wedding he had been to, so we're assuming it is pretty traditional.

Some party entertainment... There was real entertainment (two samba drum bands competed , and the constant dancing and music), but this entertained me as well. Jack loved these votives that were on the coffee table next to the dance floor. After he blew them out the first time, one of the men (who you'll see in the video) would have Jack bring him the candles and he would light them again. There was a lot of lighting. Jack would blow out those candles so quickly! But then I recorded him and he seemed to have a little trouble... Note the drool on the table.

Blowing Out A Candle from Julie Tull on Vimeo.

Here is Jonah and Pedro Monte, a guy who used to work with Mike. Fun guy.

Silvio and Louise. Note drinks in hands.

More entertainment. Watch Jonah's eyes!

Light Glasses from Julie Tull on Vimeo.

Mike with Silvio. Even though Silvio lives in Brazil, he is one of Mike's closest friends. It was really important for Mike to have us all go to Silvio and Louise's wedding. And they were so happy that Mike and the kids and I could be there for thier special day. We were so happy to be there! I was so afraid of feeling like a fifth wheel here, not knowing many people and not being able to speak Portugese, but I felt more than welcomed. People were so friendly!

We left the party early at about 1 am. In Brazil, the reception lasts all night. Sometimes they even serve breakfast to those who are still there in the morning.

Here are our party animals the morning after...

The morning after the reception, we drove about 6 hours to Ubatuba, a beautiful city on the coast, with the rainforest nestled right up to it. When we got there, we were welcomed in Ubatuba style- with rain. The nickname the Brazilian's have given Ubatuba is "Ubachuva". "Chuva" means rain. We had some beautiful days there though. I think it was just the 1st afternoon/evening and the last full day and the morning we left that the rain was dumping down. Seriously dumping.

We got to do a little hike in the Alantic rainforest!

I know this picture is blurry, but it's all we have of our littlest hiker on this day. He LOVED this hike!

We loved all of the different shades of green and just the lushness of the rainforest. So beautiful.

And we loved "our" beach, the one right outside the hotel. The waves were very calm and the water was shallow for quite a ways. Paige was always getting Mike to take her way out into deeper water and Jack was so happy to play in the shallow water. Jonah, as usual, played mostly in the sand, digging, scraping, mounding, building...that's Jonah!

This is a video of our family on the road out of our hotel in Ubatuba. Boy am I thankful for the roads in our country! There were so many roads that made me feel ill in Brazil. I dreaded this one out of our hotel. By the time we got to the main road, my stomache would just be in knots. The kids seemed to enjoy it though. Oh, and you should see the speedbumps (speedjumps) there! The roads are so bad that the speedbumps have to be that much worse. They were, as Paige would say, ginormous! You could easily lose the bottom of your car if you weren't careful. We did see a few mufflers close to some speedbumps. And they were not well marked, so sometimes Mike didn't see them until it was too late to really slow down.

The Road to Mar e Praia from Julie Tull on Vimeo.

On the rainy day before we left Ubatuba, we decided to go to Projeto Tamar. They rehabilitate sea turtles and then release them back into the wild. We were hoping that the exhibits were inside, but no. We just got wet! I am so glad that our kids are troopers!

The big turtles seemed to love Jack. I remember the same thing when Jonah was this size. Although with him, it was an alligator at the zoo who was eyeing him.

Looking good!

We loved Ubatuba. The rainforest, the beautiful calm beach, the safe feel. I did have a few issues with our hotel that I was glad to leave....I didn't think it was very clean and hated it when the kids or Mike would use the "community" blankets or would undress completely while sitting on the floor or on one of those dirty blankets! Jonah teased me about this by rubbing his little tush on the bedding. Mike licked the blanket. Eew! And for the whole time we were there (a week), I don't think the cleaning lady cleaned on or around the toilet and I could smell pee from the bed. And we were all dirty and stinky because the hot water was not working. And everything was wet and stinky and some things were starting to mildew...But for the most part (really!) it was sad to leave this place after a week. So, we headed off on our 3 to 4 hour drive to Rio de Janiero, which ended up being a nine and a half hour drive! We were stuck in traffic for three of those hours in Rio de Janiero.

We got to Rio de Janiero in the pouring down rain. It rained all night and then the whole next day. Lots of rain. This definitely put us in a bit of a predicament. What can you do in a place when it rains when all there is to do is outside stuff? Not much really. We walked around in the rain and even went to a mall (not my idea of a good time), but we had to do something! When the sun did come out, everyone in Rio de Janiero went to the big tourist places.

I think we stood in line for one and a half hours to get tickets to get on the 1st cable car (there were two cars) to go up the Pao de Acucar (The famous sugar loaf mountain). We expected to just get there and go up and then head to the beach for the rest of the morning. Nope. We got there before 10 am and we didn't get out until 3pm! But it was worth it. Totally beautiful. And I am so thankful to be a North American woman, dressed in casual clothes. Most of the Brazilian women wore high heels. Seriously. Even with shorts!

Here you can see much of the line to get to Sugar Loaf mountain. It isn't really a mountain though. Just a giant rock.



While we were waiting for the second car, we spotted a monkey. See the cute little guy behind Jonah?

Here are a couple of pictures from the cable car rides and the views from the top. This rocks sits out a ways and from it you actually look back at Rio and the beaches. It was quite an amazing view. Here is a family picture we had someone take with Copacabana in the background. Our hotel was right off Copacaban beach. Notice the lady on the left side of the picture. Cut-off shorts and high heels.

A picture of Copacabana.

Looking out the other side to the city center. We never went out to the city center, except driving through in the rain at night when we arrive, but really that's not the point of going to Rio...

This picture looks all the way down to where our first cable car started. The beach is praia vermelha (red beach).

A picture looking back up, on the way down...

Another family picture. This time from the station between the two cable cars, with Sugar Loaf in the back ground.
A picture of just me!!! This doesn't happen that often, it is generally the kids or scenery. That's the city center side in the back ground

Mike with Copacabana in the background.

After visiting Pao de Acucar, we went to the beach for a little while, but the wind was blowing pretty strong and the day was coming to an quick end (it is spring there), so we didn't stay too long. On the way back to our hotel we bought some biscoitos, a popular (cheap) snack sold on the beaches in Rio. There are vendors contatinly walking the beaches that sell you everything, mostly food and drinks, but you could probably buy a car if you stayed long enough. These guys just keep coming by. We just took our biscoitos and ate them in our room.



For our final night in Brazil, we went to another Churrascaria. Brazilian barbeque is so good, and it is rodizio style, where the servers bring the different meats (or sometimes cheese, or even pineapple) to your table and cut pieces off for you. Then they take the meat back to the fire and cook the outside a litle more. It is a great experience, but it is easy to eat too much. There is also a salad bar to start, and of course we had to have ice cream and papaya cream (wow, papaya cream is really good!) to finish as it was our last night. We got one of the servers to take a picture with Paige and Jonah. He even let Jonah hold his knife...

Our last day started with another trip to the beach. This time the sun was really out and the people really started to come out. It was a little crazy. Rio is nice, but the beaches in Ubatuba were better, cleaner, and less crowded. The sand in Rio was "softer" though, so that was a plus. We played for a couple of hours at the beach; Jonah in the sand mostly, Mike and Paige in the water mostly, and Jack and I somewhere in the middle. Jack didn't like the water in Rio much because the waves were crashing to close to shore and were bigger, but this morning he did start to feel a little comfortable and had a good time. A great ending for him.
You see as the people are starting to show up. Remeber this is the off season...



Here we are walking on the Copacabana boardwalk on our way back to the hotel.


Mike took this picture from our hotel window. We really liked how the beach lines up perfect with the reflection of another area of the beach.

After we checked out, we had 6 hours until our flight left, so we headed up Corcovado hill to go see the Cristo Redentor (Crist the Redeemer) statue. We really thought (and had heard) that we could basically drive up to the top, park and walk to see it up close. Remember, the rain though...Yep, if we thought the 1.5 hour wait for the Sugar loaf mountain was bad, this was horrible. It took about 1.5 hours to drive close to the top, because there were so many people trying to do the same thing and basically only a handful of parking spots at the top (people were actually parking on the road, making the road only one lane wide in spots and just walking). When we got there we actually lucked out and got a spot pretty quickly, but then quickly found out there was still an hour line to buy tickets (it is a national park), and then another hour line to take a shuttle the 2.5 km's to the top, you could walk this, but we were quickly running out of time and energy. So anyway, we didn't make it. As we headed back down we took this picture looking up.


Then about 1 mile down, there was a really cool spot that looked out over the whole city again, but also back at the Crist statue. We wish we had been able to see it up close, but really I think this view is better. You can see millions of pictures of it up close, just seach the internet. It was just amazing to see just a large statue standing on the top of this hill looking out over the city! Our pictures don't do it justice.


Finally, on the way back down we made one wrong turn and ended up driving right through a favala (poor housing). It was really sad to see this up close, but it is a serious reality in Brazil and especially in Rio were between 20-25% of the population (over 14 million total people) live in Favela's. We took this picture looking back up at the Favala we drove through.

I think this post is long enough. It was really long trip though, and was hard to decide what to share and what to leave out. We were in Brazil for 17 days. We had a really great trip. I am sure we will be back to Brazil again, so much more of the country to see.