Hello everyone!
I am new to the blogging arena but wanted to give it a try! As you can tell by the name of the blog I am an American living in wonderful Brazil! Perhaps I am a little late on writing since day one of my arrival here...by about 5 months or so. Hey, I got busy with getting my life together.
Lets start it off by how I got here in the first place. Well about 17 years ago in 1999 I met a wonderful girl attending college in America. We were just friends for a few years and didn't pay much attention to each other. That changed in early 2003 when we stated dating and married late that same year just before the New Year. We moved to a few other places throughout America for my job and decided when it was time to retire we were moving to Brazil. We lived in S. Carolina, Arizona, New Mexico and Florida. I however traveled a lot and visited many other locations in the world leaving my family where ever we lived at that particular time.
Now its time to enjoy life, be around family and settle down in our forever home. A home where we will live more than 2-3 years at a time! Since our marriage we have moved 7 times together and along the way we added two more into the mix. Our children, they make friends / routines and we move. So this is going to be great, all under one roof every day for the rest of our lives. Breakfast and dinner each day together, this has never happened before. We are very excited to get our life going in Goiania, Brazil!
So lets talk about our new city and what it has to offer. Goiania, Brazil is pretty much dead center the middle of the country. Beautiful city with lots of parks and nice residential neighborhoods. Depending on where you look for total population it averages from 1.5 to 2 million. It's the capital of Goias and is the largest city in the state. Since my first visit here in 2004 the city has developed into a modern city with many amenities that include shopping, entertainment, restaurants, etc. It has anything and everything you need! The city is surrounded by little cities and tons of farming. That's right, we are in the agriculture belt of Brazil. So once you leave the city its beautiful scenery as you travel around! This also means fresh produce and meat in all the grocery stores. There is many one day drive locations for a weekend get away that include: Brasilia (capital of Brazil), Caldas Novas (hot springs), Pirenopolis (VW bugs & waterfalls) and many other awesome locations. Or take a plane to Sao Paulo, tickets are very reasonable here unlike America. Well enough about the city!
Fast forward to January 2016, We as a family arrive in Brazil. Well technically not true, we arrived in May 2015 when we came down for my sister in-laws wedding and unfortunately I had to return to finish working my job until December. The family lived with my in-laws during this time-frame. This gave the kids a chance to start school and my wife finally started a career she could continue for many years to come. In the mean time I lived in a 20 foot pull behind camper for roughly 6 months in Albuquerque, New Mexico. This experience can be saved for another blog entry, lets just say it was a great way to save money but it was not very pleasant living and made me appreciate what I have now immensely. So they returned in December to see me finish my career and travel across the country to visit the family for the holidays.
We spent the last few weeks in America visiting family, shopping and enjoying food that is not available in our new home country. It was our last hooray for being in the cold weather and doing winter stuff like sled riding, snowballs and whatever else there is to do when its unbearably cold outside. Remember, Brazil is the opposite in terms of the yearly seasons and winter time down here is like summer time in Pennsylvania. It's funny to see Brazilians wearing boots and coats when its only 60 degrees out.
Then we were off to Brazil the end of January 2016! Flew out of JFK to Bogota and then onto Sao Paulo for a long layover. In all my times traveling through this city I have never had a short time waiting for a connecting flight. Usually 6-8 hours of wondering around the airport and always hitting up Red Lobster. One thing I have never had a problem with was customs. They seem to pick one family out of the bunch or that one family who gathers their stuff up and separates themselves to go through the line separately. I have seen people carrying TV's still in the box from Best Buy through the nothing to declare line. So its pretty relaxed unless you are that one family they pick out!
Next we take a short flight of about 1.5 hours to Goiania. I say short because of the 9-11 hour flight we just took to arrive in Brazil depending on where you fly out of. Miami is the shortest and JFK is the longest but well worth it!. Once we arrive its a mad scramble to get off the plane to get to the family that awaits us. Mind you Brazilians have no bubble and will invade your personal space to get ahead of you. This is my least favorite part about Brazilians. Very warm people but they will run you over to get ahead. Once off the plane its a short walk across the tarmac to the luggage area which gives you another chance to get very familiar with your fellow passengers in the tight space. The good news is that a brand new terminal just opened a few weeks ago and everything has been modernized and upgraded. I can't wait to see the new airport in the near future.
Once in the luggage area we can usually see the grandparents and the kids go out the gate to them. Sometimes the wife goes with them while I wait for the luggage depending on how much we brought with us. Its always a big deal, usually 2 cars to gather us up and room for luggage. Cars here are small, not like the huge vehicles we have in America. Luckily we only live 10-15 minutes from the airport. Usually a nice meal awaits us and lots of family is here to greet us!
This trip was a little different though. We were not visiting for vacation or an extended stay...this was our coming home. Time to get all our stuff put together, unpacking, utilities, taxes, etc. The daily life things to have a home in a foreign country for me. Mind you my wife has a huge advantage of being from here and being here the past several months but remember she was gone for over 15 years. So as they say she was Americanized and was dealing with adjustment too. I also had to become legal to stay here as a permanent citizen. So paperwork and many different ways to accomplish this.
Well that's how we got here! Several months later and I am very thankful it all came together and we are living abroad. Sure there has been some trying times and believe me I'm still dealing with a few things. One of my issues that continues is the language barrier. I can do simple things usually without out help and understand a lot of the language but get a little shy around family. They are usually my biggest critics and most of the time I choose to just listen and not try to talk. I may not say the word just right but its close enough for them to know what I said. This results in me getting immediately corrected which is not much fun. I say let me talk like a kindergarten and build up my confidence / vocabulary. Well hopefully it gets better!
For instance I went grocery shopping today and got a bunch of stuff. Usually not a problem but when I went to pay for 12 one liter bottles of beer the lady kept asking me for something. I had no idea what she wanted so I returned the beer to the shelf and did not purchase. Fun times!
Well more to come and thanks for reading! I will try to put a blog out each week!
Thanks!
I am new to the blogging arena but wanted to give it a try! As you can tell by the name of the blog I am an American living in wonderful Brazil! Perhaps I am a little late on writing since day one of my arrival here...by about 5 months or so. Hey, I got busy with getting my life together.
Lets start it off by how I got here in the first place. Well about 17 years ago in 1999 I met a wonderful girl attending college in America. We were just friends for a few years and didn't pay much attention to each other. That changed in early 2003 when we stated dating and married late that same year just before the New Year. We moved to a few other places throughout America for my job and decided when it was time to retire we were moving to Brazil. We lived in S. Carolina, Arizona, New Mexico and Florida. I however traveled a lot and visited many other locations in the world leaving my family where ever we lived at that particular time.
Now its time to enjoy life, be around family and settle down in our forever home. A home where we will live more than 2-3 years at a time! Since our marriage we have moved 7 times together and along the way we added two more into the mix. Our children, they make friends / routines and we move. So this is going to be great, all under one roof every day for the rest of our lives. Breakfast and dinner each day together, this has never happened before. We are very excited to get our life going in Goiania, Brazil!
So lets talk about our new city and what it has to offer. Goiania, Brazil is pretty much dead center the middle of the country. Beautiful city with lots of parks and nice residential neighborhoods. Depending on where you look for total population it averages from 1.5 to 2 million. It's the capital of Goias and is the largest city in the state. Since my first visit here in 2004 the city has developed into a modern city with many amenities that include shopping, entertainment, restaurants, etc. It has anything and everything you need! The city is surrounded by little cities and tons of farming. That's right, we are in the agriculture belt of Brazil. So once you leave the city its beautiful scenery as you travel around! This also means fresh produce and meat in all the grocery stores. There is many one day drive locations for a weekend get away that include: Brasilia (capital of Brazil), Caldas Novas (hot springs), Pirenopolis (VW bugs & waterfalls) and many other awesome locations. Or take a plane to Sao Paulo, tickets are very reasonable here unlike America. Well enough about the city!
Fast forward to January 2016, We as a family arrive in Brazil. Well technically not true, we arrived in May 2015 when we came down for my sister in-laws wedding and unfortunately I had to return to finish working my job until December. The family lived with my in-laws during this time-frame. This gave the kids a chance to start school and my wife finally started a career she could continue for many years to come. In the mean time I lived in a 20 foot pull behind camper for roughly 6 months in Albuquerque, New Mexico. This experience can be saved for another blog entry, lets just say it was a great way to save money but it was not very pleasant living and made me appreciate what I have now immensely. So they returned in December to see me finish my career and travel across the country to visit the family for the holidays.
We spent the last few weeks in America visiting family, shopping and enjoying food that is not available in our new home country. It was our last hooray for being in the cold weather and doing winter stuff like sled riding, snowballs and whatever else there is to do when its unbearably cold outside. Remember, Brazil is the opposite in terms of the yearly seasons and winter time down here is like summer time in Pennsylvania. It's funny to see Brazilians wearing boots and coats when its only 60 degrees out.
Then we were off to Brazil the end of January 2016! Flew out of JFK to Bogota and then onto Sao Paulo for a long layover. In all my times traveling through this city I have never had a short time waiting for a connecting flight. Usually 6-8 hours of wondering around the airport and always hitting up Red Lobster. One thing I have never had a problem with was customs. They seem to pick one family out of the bunch or that one family who gathers their stuff up and separates themselves to go through the line separately. I have seen people carrying TV's still in the box from Best Buy through the nothing to declare line. So its pretty relaxed unless you are that one family they pick out!
Next we take a short flight of about 1.5 hours to Goiania. I say short because of the 9-11 hour flight we just took to arrive in Brazil depending on where you fly out of. Miami is the shortest and JFK is the longest but well worth it!. Once we arrive its a mad scramble to get off the plane to get to the family that awaits us. Mind you Brazilians have no bubble and will invade your personal space to get ahead of you. This is my least favorite part about Brazilians. Very warm people but they will run you over to get ahead. Once off the plane its a short walk across the tarmac to the luggage area which gives you another chance to get very familiar with your fellow passengers in the tight space. The good news is that a brand new terminal just opened a few weeks ago and everything has been modernized and upgraded. I can't wait to see the new airport in the near future.
Once in the luggage area we can usually see the grandparents and the kids go out the gate to them. Sometimes the wife goes with them while I wait for the luggage depending on how much we brought with us. Its always a big deal, usually 2 cars to gather us up and room for luggage. Cars here are small, not like the huge vehicles we have in America. Luckily we only live 10-15 minutes from the airport. Usually a nice meal awaits us and lots of family is here to greet us!
This trip was a little different though. We were not visiting for vacation or an extended stay...this was our coming home. Time to get all our stuff put together, unpacking, utilities, taxes, etc. The daily life things to have a home in a foreign country for me. Mind you my wife has a huge advantage of being from here and being here the past several months but remember she was gone for over 15 years. So as they say she was Americanized and was dealing with adjustment too. I also had to become legal to stay here as a permanent citizen. So paperwork and many different ways to accomplish this.
Well that's how we got here! Several months later and I am very thankful it all came together and we are living abroad. Sure there has been some trying times and believe me I'm still dealing with a few things. One of my issues that continues is the language barrier. I can do simple things usually without out help and understand a lot of the language but get a little shy around family. They are usually my biggest critics and most of the time I choose to just listen and not try to talk. I may not say the word just right but its close enough for them to know what I said. This results in me getting immediately corrected which is not much fun. I say let me talk like a kindergarten and build up my confidence / vocabulary. Well hopefully it gets better!
For instance I went grocery shopping today and got a bunch of stuff. Usually not a problem but when I went to pay for 12 one liter bottles of beer the lady kept asking me for something. I had no idea what she wanted so I returned the beer to the shelf and did not purchase. Fun times!
Well more to come and thanks for reading! I will try to put a blog out each week!
Thanks!
