Kevin

I THINK we bought a house

Tuesday, October 3, 2006 2:08:46 PM

Wednesday, September 27, 2006

Bob and I were supposed to buy the condo today, but we decided we needed more information before jumping in. We wandered around town, doing a last-minute sweep to make sure there weren’t any other penthouses that we should be buying instead. It seemed that wherever we went, we could see the Saint Germain building looking down on us, begging us to invest in a home there.

We stopped at a Catholic bookstore to make a few purchases while we were in the area.

At the edge of downtown, a young man came up and introduced himself to us in English. People here are crazy to speak English, and the innate Brazilian friendliness makes it easy for them to walk up to strange looking gringos to say, “Welcome to Brazil!” Maybe if Bob and I would speak Portuguese to each other, people would look past our outlandish Gringo "national costumes" and assume that we were just typical Brazilians. But it’s much more fun to imagine that we are both Kevin Costner, with fans running up to greet us.
We stopped downtown, where we each ate a blender-full of açai juice, in a frozen semi-liquid state. The magical Amazon fruit endowed us with the superhuman strength we needed to walk clear across town.

We ended up at the cemetery, resisting the urge to stop at our favorite açai ice cream place. But we couldn’t resist the urge to stop in at the Lebanese deli.

The second most common flag that you see in town is the Lebanese flag.
From there we walked toward a third-rate condo where there was a penthouse for sale…

across the street from the Faculdade Latino Americana…

right underneath the Damasco high-rise where we had wanted to buy a condo a few weeks earlier. We stopped for a pitcher of passion fruit juice before continuing on our way. We would have had a bowlful of cupuaçu, but we were still walking off the açai.
We ended up looking for penthouses in Cidade Jardim, and stopped in at Marcelo’s tattoo studio,

just as Heidi arrived in the neighborhood.

She gave us a lift to our edge of town, and we walked towards home, only to be addressed in English by a taxi driver. What the heck. We’d have him take us the last kilometer or two home, since it was getting dark.

Thursday, September 28, 2006
Alexandra and her dishrag-pacifier are a daily sight here at home. She likes to rearrange things in our room.

Miriam, the friendly woman who weeks ago invited us in as we photographed her home, has been in touch with us recently. She came by at 9:00 this morning to show us more home lots for sale, and to take us to the farm on the edge of town where her mother lives.

After lunch, Brian took Bob and me to the popsicle place, where a little bird had decided to admire the arts and crafts that were on display.

Brian went with us to see our real estate agent, Aelson. Aelson arranged for Brian to go with me to check out the condo.

Brian was impressed with the construction, and gave it the thumbs up. The third building has the same floor plan as our new home.

Brian, Bob and I went for a drive, ending up at Julio’s pizza.

For the first time in two months, I got to use my Inter-American Driver’s License, and drove the car home.
At least by that time all the political campaign caravans were off the streets.

Friday, September 29, 2006

Miriam came by in the morning to take us downtown to have a lawyer look at the contract we were asked to sign to buy the condo. The lawyer had morning sickness and didn’t come in to work, so Miriam took us around town in a final effort to locate an alternate penthouse for us. There was a cavernous penthouse downtown, but the supervisor didn’t have the key, and the price was more than we were willing to pay. Who needs seven bathrooms, anyway?
Miriam took us to the other side of downtown to try to get more info about the cavern condo. Downtown had become a circus, with last-minute campaigning… rallies
everywhere… fireworks, pamphlets, the works.

Once I was back home, I e.mailed the condo contract to the lawyer in São Paulo who’s handling our immigration matters, but she asked us to take it to someone local.
At lunch Alexandra (a.k.a. Lexi)demonstrated her dextrous ability in using a table knife to feed herself eggplant.

There’s always time to photograph Alexandra outsmarting the strawberries.

I told Aelson we were on our way in to sign the real estate contract, and Brian took Bob and me from place to place looking for someone kind of like a lawyer who could look at the THREE PAGE document (the third page was only for signature’s). Here I had thought Brazil was the world champion for bureaucracy, and I was surprised by the simple document. We finally got someone from the “cartorio” place to say there were no other liens on the property, and it was a clean document, so we met Aelson. He took Bob and me downtown, where we signed the document, agreeing to do the money transfer on Monday… knowing that with the presidential election on Sunday, the dollar could go way up or way down before Monday.

Brian took Bob and me to a "lanchonete", where the waiter keeps a checklist of charges in the napkin dispenser to record exactly what we've had to eat and drink.

Saturday, September 30, 2006

Bob and I like to walk around town… mile after mile… so today we decided to go to our “new” neighborhood and have a look around.

We located a little park plaza, or “praça” near by, and spent quality time clogging the supermarket aisles, along with hundreds of our neighbors. A perceptive man recognized we were speakers of English, and came up to welcome us to Brazil.
The way back to Brian and Shirlee’s always winds just enough to take us past a bakery with great cornbread… So we were reminded of the house we had bought in West Seattle just so we could be close to the Salvadoran Bakery.
When we got home, Heidi and the girls were already there.

After they had gone, Hener called to ask if he could bring jabuticaba over…

confirming our belief that living in Brazil is just one big extended party, lasting a lifetime.

Sunday, October 01, 2006 ELECTION DAY

The bars are closed today, and no one is allowed to get drunk until the polls close at 5 p.m. There are expected to be 125 million voters at the polls today. By comparison, only 105 million voters voted in the 2004 presidential election in the United States. Under Brazilian law, every citizen between the ages of 18 and 70 is required to vote, and those who are 16 and 17 years of age may vote if they choose. Those over 70 may vote if they choose. Voters may choose to vote for NO ONE or for WHOEVER WINS.
Heidi’s mother-in-law and step-dad-in-law dropped by for a visit. It was a quiet day, overall. Just when Bob and I were about to go on a walk, it rained switchblades.

Not literally, but there is a Portuguese expression that says, “I won’t give up, even if it rains switchblades.” The rain let up enough for us to go for a walk along the airport before sunset.

Monday, October 2, 2006

After lunch, Heidi took Bob and me to the real estate office. There was a torrential downpour… A month’s worth of Seattle rain in thirty minutes.

Aelson delayed our trip to the head office downtown. When the rain let up, we got in the Fusca and went on our way. Rain seems to do odd things to the traffic lights in Anápolis, and there was one neighborhood where “Tapir Stream” had overflowed its banks.
Once Bob and I got to the mezzanine office of the owner and president of Carmo Imoveis, I called my credit union to initiate the money transfer. But, the routing number I had was about 17 digits shy of what was needed. Oh well. All the banks in Brazil were on strike, anyway.
At least the dollar hadn’t crashed. President Lula didn’t get a majority in the first round of elections, so there will be a runoff in four weeks. The dollar is stable.
So now how do we get money into the country? We had already signed the contract. So I called Shirlee, and got info on the person who gets money into the country for the mission. I called him, and arranged to send him personal checks. Aelson took us to the post office, and we sent the checks via Sedex. Hey. If this works out, we just saved $3,000 by getting a better exchange rate.

We walked to the popsicle place. I had one araticum and one murici. Since we have moved to town and become customers, the business has thrived. They are even expanding and opening an ice cream place next door.

My popsicle spree was cut short when our friend Hener showed up and picked us up for our Portuguese-English language lesson. He took us to his home, where he served us pão de queijo, cashew fruit juice, and cornmeal cake. Yum. Triple yum.
Brian called, and offered to pick us up. We drove around town before returning home.

Tuesday, October 3, 2006

Will our house payment money be deposited today?
It doesn't look like it. All the banks are still on strike.

Heidi, Bianca and Lexi came by this morning.
Bob and I got a ride with Heidi to the praça for something to do, and found ourselves at a loss, now that we think we've bought a condo. But Bob knew just what to do. Hey, let's look at furniture!

On the way home we stopped at a store with some delicacies we hadn't encountered before... chocolate coated balloons, and my favorite kind of cornbread... in cookie form... With fennel!

Then Bob posed for a picture in front of the "handsome gringo" graffiti.

We stopped for popsicles, fully expecting that the new wing of the building will be named after us.

We were invited over to Heidi's house tonight for crêpes.

The delicious palmito crêpes were followed by delicious fruit crêpes. After spending the evening with the whole Brazilian side of the family, I decided that Bob and I had chosen the right country to move to.