Brazil: Days 3 & 4

We didn't make it to the internet cafe yesterday, so I'm making up for that now.

Yesterday, we went to the beach again. I don't think I talked about all of the hagglers on the beach. You basically can't go 5 minutes without being asked to buy something. It's really annoying. At one point, I was sitting there, wearing my sunglasses, and a guy selling sunglasses came up to me, and shoved a pair in my face. If only we spoke the same language, I would've told him how stupid that was. Instead I just pointed to my sunglasses and tried to shoo him away. Another strange thing that we noticed at the beach, is that there are a lot of "standers," as we've come to call them. People who come to the beach without a towel, and just stand the whole time. Growing up in a beach town in Florida, I've spent a fair share of time at the beach, and I've never seen this before. Very strange.

After the beach, we got a quick and dirty lunch at one of the beach vendors, then we made our way back to the hotel. Rested for a bit, then caught a cab to Sugarloaf, which is probably the most recognizable landmarks of Brazil, next to the Christ the Redeemer statue. We timed it so that we would be there right around sunset, and our timing ended up being perfect. You take one tram to the first little mountain, and then a second tram to Sugarloaf. Both of these stops offer fantastic views of Rio. Breathtaking, really. This was also the place that we saw the most fellow Americans. There just aren't that many here, that we've seen. It's always nice to hear your native tongue spoken in a foreign country.








After Sugarloaf, we walked to a restaurant that is like a buffet, but they weigh your food, and charge you by the kilo. Good food, and very cheap. That's one thing that I've noticed about Rio in general, is that everything is pretty cheap.

Today, we met a tour guide around 9 am for a tour through the Tijuca Forest. He picked us up in an open-air jeep, and there were 2 other Americans (ironically from Ohio) on the tour with us. This was such a cool tour! The forest was easily 5-10 degrees cooler than the rest of the city, and we saw some beautiful sites.





We've been seeing advertisements for something called Açai, but we weren't sure what it was. So while we were on our tour, we asked our guide (who spoke perfect English), and he said we should definitely try it, and that it's delicious. Apparently, it's a fruit that they make into a smoothie and mix with Guarana syrup. So after our tour, we went to a corner diner-type of place for lunch. Got a little sandwich and a Açai to share. It was fabulous! I can't describe what it tasted like, because I've never tasted anything like it before. I liked it so much, that I got one for dinner, too, which we had at the same corner diner.

Now, we're just sitting here at the internet place, catching up on email, and enjoying our last night in Rio. Tomorrow, we're off to Buenos Aires, Argentina. We'll be there for 3 nights. I really can't wait to post pictures, because we've taken some cool ones. Like Pinky said in her comment on my last post, I didn't bring my card reader, because I didn't know if we would be able to check our internet, and if we did, I really didn't want to upload pictures to some random computer.

Brazil: Day 2

Here I am again, same internet cafe, different day. Today was very cool. We went to breakfast then caught a bus to Corcovado, which is the famous "Christ the Redeemer" statue. Amazing. We took tons of pictures, some of them are (hopefully) very cool.






**By the way, this is a "baby's perspective" picture. There will be more...**


Then we took the bus into Ipanema (we're staying in Copacabana, and Ipanema is the next beach town over), to try to find some Feijoada (kind of sounds like "fish water"...."fesh wata"), which is a famous Brazilian dish. Apparently, it's usually only served on Saturdays, though, so the place that we went to didn't have it. But, they told us about Casa de Feijoada, which serves it all the time, so we went there. It was quite a feast. And very interesting. I'll have to write more about it later.



Then we went back to the hotel to rest a bit (this was around 4 - things in Brazil take a lot more time than you think they will). And now, we're waiting to see I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry at a local movie theatre. It will be in English, with Portuguese subtitles.

I just have to quickly say that in all of our travels, Brazil is definitely the most unique place we've visited. A vast majority of people don't speak English, and really, a lot of them don't even speak Spanish. And Portuguese is very different than Spanish. Different, but also kind of similar. Some words are the same, some are completely different, and some are just pronounced differently. So we use a mix of English, Spanish, what little Portuguese we've picked up, and odd sign language-type motions. We're getting around, but with a lot of difficulty.

Well, our movie is about to start, so I'll have to end for now.

Tchau (pronounced like the Italian, "Ciao"...see, they don't even say "Adios"!!)

Hello From Brazil!

Well, as Tink mentioned in her recent post, we met up in NYC on Sunday, which was just so cool.




On Monday, we left for Brazil. Little did we know that it would be a very hectic, and very long trip. Short story...

Our plane left NYC almost an hour and a half later than scheduled. We missed our connecting flight from Sao Paolo to Rio de Janeiro, even though we were told that we wouldn´t. Thought we were going to be spending the night in Sao Paolo, but at the last minute (literally) got on one last flight to Rio, which arrived late, and left late. Our transfer that was supposed to pick us up in Rio was not there, understandably. We ended up getting a taxi to our hotel, paid for by TAM Airlines, and got to our hotel around 3 in the am. Woke up around 8:30, ate breakfast, bought some sunscreen, and went to the beach.



Saw many, many skimpy bathing suits being worn by people who should never consider wearing that little of clothing. **Edit: People that looked even scarier than I did in a bathing suit, if you can believe it.**

Drank out of a coconut.



Went back to the hotel and watched the E! Channel (that´s for you, Summer) and took a long, long nap. Ate a wonderful, cheap (by American standards) Brazilian dinner, along the lines of Tucanos in Albuquerque.



And now I´m here in an internet cafe typing this. Was so happy to have a nice, relaxing day since the last few days have been very busy. Oh, and I also have cankles now, thanks to sitting on a plane for about 9 1/2 hours.

Up, Up, and Away!

We leave this morning to go to NYC for 2 nights, where I'll be meeting my long-time internet friend Tink, plus meeting one of my best friends from high school who, ironically, is very good friends with Tink (the PCC world is a small one). Then it's off to Brazil for 5 nights, and Buenos Aires for 3 nights.

Don't worry, there will be many, many pictures when we get back.

Seeing Stars

Over the weekend, Grant and I saw the new movie, Stardust. I was skeptical, but he said he heard good reviews, so we should try it. I'm so glad we did! It was such a great movie - adventerous, funny, beautifully filmed, etc. Robert DeNiro's character is hilarious - not at all what you would expect from him. So if you get the chance, I highly recommend this movie.

Happy, Happy Birthday, Baby!

Well, today is Grant's birthday. Which is great for me, because for the next 9 months, I don't have to hear about how I'm an older woman.

He met me at work in Yellow Springs today. I made lunch reservations at the Winds Cafe, which turned out to be a fantastic dining experience!!

Grant got a ricotta cheese omelet, which was delicious, and very fresh tasting. I swear they got those eggs straight from the chicken coop when he ordered it! I had the stuffed poblano, which was stuffed with rice, ricotta cheese, dried fruit and olives. It was amazing. I'm now trying to find a recipe that's similar, but I'm having no luck. I might just have to make that a little experiment of mine sometime in the near future. For dessert, Grant got jalapeno flavored creme brulee (which is not as terrible as it sounds. It was very good!), and I got a peach crustada.

Anyways, happy birthday to my sweet husband. For his birthday gift, I think I'll take him to Brazil next week!

You just wouldn't understand unless you went there...

I found this video...actually, I've seen this video several times, as it's made its way through the PCC world. Anyways, even if you've never been to PCC, hopefully you can still appreciate this, especially if I've told you some of my stories.

The setup - it's basically just a group of guys, acting like guys in their dorm room. Then, since there are no locks on the doors, a resident advisor came in to see what all the fuss was about.

Makes You Wonder...

Last night, we had a little cul-de-sac pot luck, since this is when all the new AFIT students get here, and we have several new neighbors. (By the way, it was just this time last year that we were moving in ourselves!) Anyways, our neighbor's dog kept finding ways to get out of either the house or the backyard. They have no idea how she does it, and I suggested that they set up a camera when they're gone sometime to catch her in the act.

Which reminded me of some videos that Grant and I have seen on America's Funniest Home Videos. While I couldn't find the exact videos that I was looking for, these are still good. You just have to put up with Bob Saget's terrible voice overs.

Who says dogs are dumb?

My Opinion

...not that it really matters. We recently saw both The Illusionist (which I will abbreviate as "I") and The Prestige (which will be "P"). Why two movies came out at the same time with a similar theme, I don't know. But I do know that I preferred "P" to "I." "P" was just more of my kind of movie. While I liked "I", I thought it was pretty boring in some places. Whereas "P" kept my interest the whole time. I also love it when I'm able to figure out the twist to a movie, before the twist is actually revealed, and that happened when watching "P." Not that it was predictable by any means, I just like thinking that I might be psychic sometimes.

**By the way, this is a complete side note, but another thing happened yesterday that further proves my psychic abilities...I had a "feeling" that we would see my friend, Stephanie, at Target yesterday. No reason, I just thought we might. And we did. Oooh, scary.**

I know other people have seen both of these, so I'm interested in their opinions as well.

You asked for it....

This was me last week at 22 weeks. As you can see, it's very obvious that I'm pregnant now. Complete strangers have started coming up to me asking me things about my pregnancy. So far, no one has touched yet, and I'd like to keep it that way.

Michiganding

This past weekend, Grant was able to go down to Pensacola while I stayed up here. So, instead of just sitting at the house doing nothing, I decided to go up to Michigan for a visit with my friends.

First of all, I stopeed at the new Ikea in Canton, Michigan on the way to their house on Friday. In.cred.ible. I've never been to one before, and it was truly an experience. I got lost about 3 times. I'm not kidding.

Anyways, then it was on to beautiful Waterford to visit my surrogate family. I always have so much fun when I go visit them. I realized that it had been 5 years since I first went up to Michigan to visit, and it's been an almost yearly event ever since. Although, since I've lived here, I've been up there about 3 times.

Saturday, me, Kellie, and Angela (or "Ange") went up to Frankenmuth, which Susie has blogged about quite a few times. It's such a cute little town, and they have the world's largest Christmas store. I love Christmas stores! I've never seen anything like it before.

Here's a few pictures of Frankenmuth. Please shield your eyes from my incredible whiteness.






After Frankenmuth, we went back to the house for some great din-din and many card games.

Sunday morning it was back to Dayton for me. It was great to get away, especially while Grant was gone. He's still gone, by the way. He gets back late tonight. It's been incredibly boring here without him. Very. Plus, the baby is missing her nightly reading sessions with her Daddy.

My new indulgence

I have discovered how wonderfully delicious berries with Breyer's Natural Vanilla ice cream is. Specifically, raspberries and blackberries, smushed together Cold Stone style with the ice cream. It's heaven.

Speaking of Cold Stone, Grant and I went there after we saw the Bourne Ultimatum on Saturday. Since I'm on this new berry/ice cream kick, I ordered sweet cream ice cream with raspberries and blueberries, and it was not nearly as good as the concoction I made at home the night before.

Mission: Accomplished

A couple posts back, I mentioned that we got a great deal on nursery furniture. That was the easy part. The hard part was fitting said furniture into what will be a make-shift nursery/guest room. We're not going to make a full-out nursery while we're here. There's no point, really. We'll be moving in March/April, so all I want to do is just get the crib and changing table set up. We will still need the guest bed, so we have to be able to fit it all in a very tiny room. Well, Saturday, while Grant was helping our friends, Shaun and Jessica, move into a new house, I got to work.

I measured all of the furniture in the guest room, and figured out the best configuration for it to all fit. As I originally thought, we wouldn't be able to fit the baby's dresser in the room. No biggie - I had already thought of that. We could move the dresser into our decent-sized hall closet.

However, there was an unorganized mess for me to deal with in that closet, as well as a huge box that contains our very real looking Christmas tree in the spot where the dresser was to go.

So, it was down to the garage to figure out how I could fit the Christmas tree box there. I re-organized all of our handy-dandy shelves in the garage. Underneath the shelves, we had an old recliner that we've been meaning to get rid of, that was taking the spot where the Christmas tree box was supposed to go.

Which brings us to yesterday. Grant and I moved the recliner into the Explorer to take to Goodwill; moved the Christmas tree box down to the garage; and moved the dresser into the hall closet. Then I did some much-neeeded organization the closet. So I feel like I got quite a bit done this weekend. The only thing left is to actually arrange the furniture in the guest bedroom, to make sure that all of my measurements pan out.

Real Simple is the best!

I have a subscription to Real Simple magazine, but I find myself with limited reading time these days. So, I mainly thumb through to find recipes. I'm never disappointed. The most recent recipe I found that I've used quite a bit is for a kind of no-fry fried chicken:

3 T of pineapple juice
1 T of chile garlic sauce (I couldn't find chile garlic, so I use a sweet chile sauce)
3/4 c bread crumbs
3 T canola oil
4 chicken breasts

Preheat oven to 450. In a bowl, mix the pineapple juice and chile sauce together. In a separate bowl, combine the bread crumbs and canola oil.

Coat the chicken with the juice/sauce mixture (I just put the juice and sauce in a bowl that has a lid, put the chicken in, and shake it all up). After chicken is thoroughly coated, coat each piece with bread crumb mixture.

I put the chicken on a cookie sheet, but any sort of baking dish will do. Cook at 450 for 12-15 minutes. Chicken turns out perfect everytime!

Last night, I served the chicken with mashed potatoes and asparagus. Talk about good eats!

Etsy Madness!

Another one of my friends recently started an etsy shop, filled with super-cute, daisy-themed goodies. So, if you have time, check it out! You can find it here. Her store's only been open for less than a week and she already has a sale! How awesome is that?

Welcome Baby Heidi!

Almost 2 weeks "late," Heidi J decided to make her appearance tonight. Actually, she's not late, she's just on Heidi time. I don't really know too many details, but I pray Mr/Mrs/Baby J are all doing well.

Input

So, I'm just wondering if this is normal, or if I'm just a complete pig. I am ALWAYS hungry. Always. Don't get me wrong, just because I'm hungry doesn't mean I'm always eating. I'm really trying to watch how much weight I gain during this pregnancy, mainly because I don't want to have to lose a lot of weight afterwards. But the hunger feeling just never goes away. I try to stuff my face with fruit, yogurt, and granola bars to get me through to my next meal.

So, what's up...is this normal? Or is it just that no matter how much I want to gain the minimal, healthy pregnant weight, my body has other plans?

Two of my favorite things

are the now-cancelled TV show Arrested Development and Charlie Brown. And after reading Haley's most recent entry, I was drawn to YouTube to find more Arrested Development clips. Lo and behold, someone made a compilation of the Charlie Brown references in Arrested Development (kind of like how there's recurring Superman references in Seinfeld).

Enjoy! But I do feel compelled to say that about 2 1/2 minutes into the clip, there is a bleeped word, for those of you who have young ones who might watch the videos I post.

Grant and Kelly - Bargain Hunters

Seriously, I love finding good deals on things. Craig's List has become my new best friend. Recently, I found a great deal on a Pottery Barn sofa sleeper ($375!!), Grant found a lawn mower for $50, and last week I found a crib, changing table, and dresser set for $250! I'll post pictures later. Well, probably not of the lawn mower, because...it's a lawn mower. But the couch and nursery furniture are definitely picture worthy. If you haven't used Craig's List before, you're missing out.

Then this past weekend, I heard there was a book sale in Yellow Springs. So, after we picked up the nursery furniture, we headed to Yellow Springs to check out what they had. If you know anything about this little town, you know it's a hippie/gay/new age hot spot, so we weren't sure what kind of books would be there. We were pleasantly surprised! We've been wanting to get 1,000 Places To See Before You Die. I found a copy which looked brand new for only $5 (it normally sells for about $20).

I'm sure for Grant's sake, my love for finding great deals balances out my love for shopping.

Following the Trend

We found out Friday that we are having a girl! Apparently, there's something in the water, because almost every person I know who's pregnant is having a girl. I only know of one person who's having a boy.

We're very excited, and the ultrasound was the most amazing experience!! She was very cooperative, and a little immodest - the tech didn't have any problems determining her gender.

So, here she is...