Feeling Human Again

I'm finally starting to feel human again after a week of nasty infection. Ryan apparently caught what I have. He went to the doctor today and they gave him antibiotics as well. Luckily, it seems as though we caught his a lot earlier than mine, so he won't get as sick.

We had our first Halloween in the house tonight. We had at least 40-50 kids stop by. When did they stop saying "Trick or Treat"? It seemed like everyone just came to the door and took candy. It did seem like the parents made them say thank you though. Our first visitors were Snow White and a Power Ranger. Toooo cute.

Brazil Update - Monday

Brazil --

And now for the update. I will share as much as I can about my trip without getting bogged down in the gory details.

After spending a few days in Tampa, my colleagues and I left for Brazil last Saturday afternoon. After nearly 24 hours in the air or airports we arrived in Porto Allegre. Exhausted and dirty, we showered and cast out for food. Unfortunately, everything is closed in Brazil on Sunday and we couldn't find the mall/restaurant our front desk told us about. After finally finding food, we all passed out pretty early to get ready for our big adventure.

We spent Monday at the corporate office learning from our Brazillian and Chilian counterparts. It felt like I was at the United Nations. We had headsets on and had continous translation from the back of the room. Very cool.

Monday night we went out to a traditional Brazillian barbeque. The waiters bring out huge skewers of meat and slice you pieces until you can't move. Because so few preservatives are used, everything was incredibly salty. I tried my most unusual food of the trip here: chicken heart. Verdict? It won't become a staple of my diet.

Tuesday

On Tuesday we visited our mill south of Porto Allegre. Watched barbed wire and nails being made was very cool. The biggest difference between Brazillian mills and American is that in Brazil the mill is very much the center of life. The mill looks more like a campus than a mill and often includes a social club, a medical center and sports fields. Often, the mill will offer free medical services to the surrounding communities. It's a very different way of life in Brazil. It broke my heart to see families living in one-room shacks with aluminum roofing. It truly is still a developing nation.

Dinner was at a Italian restaurant. In every restaurant we went to, food was served in rounds and dinner always lasted at least 3 hours. First was the bread course, then appetizers, then more appetizers, then the main course, then dessert and finally, cordials and dessert wine. Yeesh. Give me my 45 minute dinner any day.

Wednesday - before the illness

Hehe… our laptop kept dying, so my blogging was truncated yesterday. Ehem … to continue …

Wednesday was another day at the mill. It was a cool mill because they made specialty products like stainless steel and molds. This picture is of my colleague, Trisha and I, about to set out for our tour. After the tour we set off for the airport. My favorite example of the difference between our cultures was when our first flight was very delayed. Would we miss our flight? We wondered to our Brazilian cohort. “Likely” she replied … completely unconcerned. We didn’t, but we didn’t get into our hotel until 1:30 am with directions to be ready at 8 am the next morning. I started to get a sore throat on the flight.

Thursday

Thursday morning I woke up to this beautiful view from my room. This, by the way, is as close as I got the beautiful beaches of Recife. We were all completely exhausted for our mill tour on Thursday. I was in full-blown head cold by this point and spent most of the tour looking for a chair. I skipped out on dinner that night and only joined the rest of the crew after dinner for a little conversation.

Friday - last day

Friday was our one day to see Brazil on the trip. We went on a 3 hour city tour of Recife. This picture was taken in Olinda, overlooking the city of Recife. The city was beautiful, but much poorer than Porto Allegre. Our tour guide had his own agenda. Apparently, he got a cut of everything we bought at certain boutiques … so our tour was very directed. It was fun, but not enough time spent actually seeing the country of Brazil.

Then … back to the airport. Our first flight took us from Recife back to Porto Allegre. We got into the airport at 9 pm and figured we had plenty of time to get to our midnight flight to Atlanta. We went to check in for our flight and found out that our flight had been moved to 8 am the next morning. I was not staying another night in Brazil, sick and away from Ryan. We ran for the 10 o’clock flight and were the last people on the flight at 5 minutes till 10pm. Unfortunately, one of our colleagues was not so lucky.

I finally got into Newark at 10 am Saturday morning and was greeted by my wonderful husband. He got to put up with sick wife for the weekend as I slept nearly the whole weekend away trying to get better. To no avail. I had to call in sick on Monday. I barely made it to work Tuesday when my boss and the company nurse told me to go to the doctor and go home. As it turns out, I have an infection in my left ear, throat, and sinuses. I wasn’t being a baby after all. Yesterday I was blogging from the couch, my new home. I made it back to work today and am finally feeling human again today. Thank you antibiotics.

And that’s Brazil.

A Ball

Last night was the Navy Ball in Atlantic City. We had a GREAT time. I am bummed that this picture ended up blurry because it is the epitomy of the evening. We got dressed up, danced the night away and lost some money playing video poker. It was a perfect rainy October evening. The bed in our room was like sleeping on a rock ... so we're spending the rest of the day couch luge-ing.

Faire

The second day of Pennsylvania we spent at the Rennaissance Faire. It was fun as always. I really enjoy the humor and pagentry of the faires. During the final joust of the day, this guy was trading insults with a guy in the audience. It's about as different as it could be from the Amish country the day before ... but just as fun and interesting.

Amish Country

Last weekend Ryan and I went to Pennsylvania to visit the Amish Country and to go to the Rennaissance Faire. We had a really nice time. Amish country was cool because it was like going back in time about 100 years. Everywhere you went were people tilling their farms with horses and traveling in buggies. It's certainly not a lifestyle I would choose, but there is something appealing about the simplicity of it all. People essentially spend their time growing the food they need, taking care of their home and family and spending time with their neighbors. Several of the women we saw were starting to bald because they wear their hair in a tight bun at the back of their head. The culture doesn't make a lot of sense to me (i.e., why can they use diesel fuel to power appliances but not electricity?). It was an interesting day though.

Traveling next week

Next Tuesday I'm off to Cartersville GA to visit one of our mills that is doing a very intense supervisor training program. I'm looking forward to it, especcially since I'll fly into Atlanta and be able to visit with Becks at her apartment. I'm back in NJ then for a week and then off to Tampa and Brazil ... so posting over the next couple of weeks will probably be light.

Self Check Out - Aaarrgghh!

Ryan and I learned a valuable lesson this morning when we went shopping at Acme. We did regular shopping and since the checkers were all pretty busy, we decided to go through self check out. Big ... big mistake. Not only does the annoying woman annouce the price of everything you purchased, she also gets very testy if you try to move your bags back into the cart. We had to have the self check out monitoring employee help us at least 3 times because our items were not heavy enough to register the weight and the women kept asking us to "Please return item to bagging area." Lesson learned: only use self check out at Home Depot and when you have 2 things to buy. Otherwise, wait in the line.

Traffic

Thursday morning, 7:07 am: I leave for work. Halfway there I remember that I need to stop at Dunkin Donuts to pick up breakfast for a training class.
Thursday morning, 7:58 am: Arrive at work. Good day.
Thursday evening, 5:20 pm: Leave my office, hop on the Turnpike.
Thursday evening, 5:30 pm: On the turnpike ... stopped. Find out on the radio that the turnpike is closed 5 miles down the road.
Thursday evening, 6:05 pm: Back at work after I find my way off of the turnpike.
Thursday evening, 7:30 pm: Ryan calls wondering where I am. Still on the road. Miraculously only 7 miles from home.
Thursday evening, 7:59 pm: Finally pull into the driveway. Total travel time: 2 hours, 40 minutes.
Friday morning, 6:37 am: Leave for work.
Friday morning, 7:15 am: Pick up Adriana, a colleague from Corporate at her hotel.
Friday morning, 7:30 am: Arrive at work. Good day.
Friday evening, 4:00 pm: Drop Adriana back at her hotel. Hop on turnpike.
Friday evening, 4:10 pm: Not again! Turnpike is once again backed up.
Friday evening, 5:40 pm: Pull into driveway. Total travel time: 1 hour, 40 minutes.

2 days normal travel time: 3 hours
Last 2 days travel time: 5 hours, 50 minutes

Traffic sucks.

The car is better

And it only took $613.54 to make it better. Now the radio doesn't work though. Apparently when a battery is replaced you have to reset the radio with a code. Ry took it back to the dealership and apparently got the code, but still no dice. We're still minus one radio. Always a circus.

Not kidding!

And here's the proof of our ridiculous cats.

Freaking Fantabulous

After a lovely company picnic in Sayreville, Ryan and I were driving home to nap, make snacks and get ready for a college football party. Haa, ha, hahahahahahaha! For those of you have been in New Jersey, we were heading south on the NJ Turnpike and about 9 miles from home, the car battery light came on. Within 1 minute the car started seriously overheating. We pulled over on the side of the road (complete with people whizzing by at 80 miles per hour). We coaxed the car off the turnpike (go half a mile, let the car rest for 5 minutes, go half a mile, let the car rest for 5 minutes, go ... well you get the picture). We pulled into a gas station with the coolant attempting to escape the car hood. Luckily, we have USAA roadside assistance. The last time our vehicle broke down, we called, and half an hour later the surfer truck driver showed up and we went about our business. This time .... this time we waited for 3 HOURS for the tow truck guy to show. Needless to say, we aren't going to the party, which started an hour and half ago. I guess with a 12 year old car, we're gonna have hiccups, but this was not a pleasant roadside assistance experience.

Really, a tragedy

I just got finished watching Oprah's show from yesterday. She reported from New Orleans/Mississippi/Houston and other places that were affected by or are housing refugees. The images and stories she showed made my heart hurt. I don't know if or how a response could have reached these areas more quickly, but it is a human travesty that people lived in filth and terror for days in the New Orleans Superdome. What I do know is that this cannot happen again. If it were me, I would be gone from New Orleans to somewhere that wasn't below sea level. I hope that the city is rebuilt further from the coast so something of this magnitude cannot happen again.

Another great weekend

We spent the weekend in Illinois. SOOO much fun. On Friday we went to see Lance's new love shack, complete with Illini room. We saw the best football game on Saturday (I know ... Illini football fun?!). After a depressing first 3 quarters, our guys kicked it in gear and kicked some serious Rutgers butt. Ha ... ha ... hahahahahahahahaha. Not too much rubbing it in today, of course. The rest of the weekend was fun times with friends and relatives. Even Kimmy was in town from Tokyo last weekend. She looks great with red hair, although she's a bit too thin, even for Kimmy.

My overall realization this weekend was how much I miss central Illinois. We had a great time and can't wait to go back. Ry may go back for Homecoming weekend while I'm in Brazil. Mmm, Brazil.

Finally, Curtains!

We couldn't have curtains up in the living room before the kittens got declawed because ... well ... because they wouldn't be curtains anymore. Mom made us these lovely curtains when she was here in July and we finally got them up! I love our new curtains!.

Kitty Face!

Yeah, not a great picture, but very typical of of Elf.

Kitten Updates

After the weekend of HUGE cats, we came home to our relatively small kittens. Here's Elf in his typical pose after chasing after some imaginary bugs. They may still be small, but they've grown so much since we got them!