Big city and food

One of the amazing things about living in a city like Sao Paulo is the variety of foods that we can get everywhere, any hour. In our street there are 12 restaurants and 3 coffee shops. My favorite is Franz Café.

Yesterday we decided to go and visit the Mercado Municipal de Sao Paulo.

The construction of the build date from 1928 and the built area is around 12.600 m2. (I don’t know how many square feet this is). The build has an exquisite design and well as the glass walls. It is really amazing. (I will post the pictures pretty soon).

After 71 years, the build was a wreck and they invested a total of US$ 160 million for the renovation. Ever since, the renovation was finished, the “Mercadao” is one of the hottest spots in the city, for produces, sea food, spices, nuts, cheeses, fresh pasta, wine and so many other things.

We arrived with no agenda, just a walk and maybe some shopping, but I could never imagine what I would found and the prices are unbelievable.

We found the most amazing Brazilian peaches (they are a little greener and a little bitter than the other peaches), strawberries sweeter than sugar, pineapple with low acidity and last but not least sun dried tomatoes that are not in oil (a huge upgrade in a salad with little calories).

But one of the most amazing stores for me, was one of the spices store. There were plastic bags with cinnamon sticks, curry, paprika, ground pepper, cardamom, and so many other things. And what a wonderful smell, all those spices together. I will go back there a lot.

Paulo and I are really good eaters, so we couldn’t leave without a taste of a pastel. Pastel is a deep fried pastry with any filling that you can imagine. My favorites are cheese, pizza or palmito.

I will come back with our day trip to Embu das Artes.

~ Kisses and hugs~

Back in the Big City

We are finally back in São Paulo. We arrived on Wednesday evening.

The moving company arrived on Monday morning and they started to pack. They finished on Tuesday by lunch time and by 5:00 pm the truck was all loaded with all of our things. We separated a few boxes to be delivered in our tiny apartment next week.

Yesterday was a national holiday, so we could relax and hang out all day. Because we were so tired.

The sad news is that Paulo dropped our laptop on the airport floor and it broke the screen. I have a sliver of whole screen that I am using. We are taking off in a few minutes to take to the store and see if they can fix it.

As soon as I have my computer back, I will post a few pictures of the renovation of the house, my parents visit and some of the pictures that I pretend to take in São Paulo today.

~Kisses and Hugs~

My parents visit

I may have mentioned that my relationship with my parents is in the rough side ever since I got married. Today I am mature enough to say, that they didn’t have any problems with my husband, but they would have problems with anyone that could take me away from them and from their plans for me. I didn’t think like this, 7 years ago.

But 7 years later……. I was caught by surprise when my mom called me on Sept 14^th, and she told me that if they find cheap tickets, they would come and visit me on the following weekend. There is no need to say that I panicked. In my twisted mind I couldn’t see this news as a simple visit. I was in the middle of the chaos with the moving and the renovation. And she never came to my house in almost 7 years that I got married. My brain was spinning…until I planned everything and I could see that my house would be as perfect as it would be in the middle of the renovation.

A lot of chamomile tea later, I planned every task that I have to do before they arrive, from groceries shopping to starched napkins and some Emily Post reading in how to be the perfect hostess. I think they should include a chapter in how to be the perfect hostess in the middle of a moving and renovation, but…. They didn’t have this chapter in my book. I planned everything, from the late nigh snack for them when they arrived, breakfast menu, Sunday’s lunch menu and the turistic places I want them to see.

I was so stressed out the days before, but it was worth. Everything was in place when they arrive and their visit was smooth as well.

I post the few pictures that I took while they were here.

I didn’t take a lot of pictures, because I was surprised how nice was to have them as my guests and how much we have to catch up… It looks like most of the wounds are healed. And I am really looking forward to go and visit them again.

My niece will be 1 year old in November; maybe I will go and see them again.

Kisses and Hugs

The renovation

My first house renovations assignment was to buy all the supplies, so they could start to work on Wednesday morning. As so I did, and on Wednesday the start to work.

I will post later some pictures, so you will see what was happening here. Those people couldn’t care less about safety issues and they didn’t wear any safety equipments. This is an issue that drove me nuts during all the time they were here. I asked and begged for them to use them, but they refused. When you live in a place like Brazil, this kind of issues are never issues. They really don’t care.

The renovation and the painting were scheduled to finish in three weeks.

To my surprise, it rained only 1 day and because of this rain, we could see that there were 2 leaking points in the roof and they fixed right away. So the renovation finished in 15 days as opposed 21 days planned. YUPPPII!!!!!!!! The painting on the other hand lasted the whole 21 days and 1 morning.

And finally on September 29^th, we closed a deal with a moving company and we scheduled our moving days for October 8^th and 9^th.

Please come back for the moving report as well the moving pictures.

Kisses and Hugs

Paulo´s arrival

Paulo was supposed to take the same flight that I took to come to Bahia at 4:30 am on Sept.7^th. The Guarulhos Airport is one hour drive from our tiny apartment in São Paulo. He had to leave the apartment by 2:00 am. When I went to bed on Thursday night, I thought about to turn on my alarm clock for 2 in the morning to check up on him. But he is always calling me a control freak, so I let it go…. And of course, he overslept and he woke up at 3:50 and he lost his flight. He drove to the airport, and he got a flight at 7:50 am that cost an arm and a leg more that the flight that he lost. But he got here whole and safe, and this is all that matters. We enjoyed our day on Friday and didn’t talk or made anything about the house or the moving process.

On the other hand, Saturday and Sunday we worked around the clock to get things done. We chose the contractors, we cleaned up a lot of old boxes with papers, and we got budgets from the suppliers for the house renovation. When we realized it was Sunday night and it was time for Paulo to leave again.

But after this weekend, my new job as a renovation boss would start on Monday morning.

Kisses and Hugs

Back in Bahia

Well we are well into the last quarter of the year and it seems that when my blog is concerned, this year, it has been a hand written diary that I stop by sometimes to type.

I am back in São Paulo and I will publish my entire diary while I was away in Bahia. I am still in Bahia and I will be back in São Paulo on October 10^th. Then I will post some pictures.

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I left São Paulo in a late night flight (4:30 am) on August 25^th, and I arrived in Salvador by 7:00 am. As soon as I got in Salvador, I could feel the warm breeze that came from outside. I rented a car and drove to a nice bakery/coffee shop/mini-market to have some breakfast and to buy a few things. As soon as I came inside, I met my ex-manager at F (the automaker that is in really huge trouble right now). He greeted me, asked about Paulo and even offered me a job at F in São Bernardo do Campo (one of the F facilities in Brazil). I know he is a gossip kind of person, so by Monday, everyone would know I was here.

When I arrived at my subdivision, there was a new security guy at the gate and I didn’t have the subdivision sticker with me. Guess what??? He didn’t allow me to go inside, until one of the gardeners arrived and recognize me. Can you believe??? I was so angry with the system LOL.

I parked my little car at my gate and a whole bunch of neighbors came to greet me and welcome me. (This is one of the things I will miss the most about Bahia).

After I chatted with them for more than half hour I finally made inside of the house.

As Murphy’s Law is always right, my housekeeper didn’t show up this week. As you are well aware, our house is less that 3 miles from the beach, so there were some beach dust all over the place…. But I was so tired that I changed the linens in my bed and my bath towels, took a shower and slept for 3 ½ hours.

When I woke up, I went to try all the utilities at the house, and to my surprise, everything was ok, except the cable TV. So I called them and made an appointment for Monday, so they could fix whatever was broke. As a result, I was with no TV until Monday….. What am I suppose to do with all this free time that I had??? So I rented a lot of movies, and watched them all.

By Monday morning, I started my quest to find a team to paint the house and to reframe the roof of our house.

I called a lot of contractors and they all presented their costs. By the weekend I had all the numbers with me. I already had returned my car, so I was with my hands tied up, until Paulo’s arrival one week later.

During the week that I had the rental car, I ran a lot of errands and I met a lot of friends for lunch to catch up.

I was really looking forward to Paulo’s arrival on Sept.7^th, the Independence Holiday.

Kisses and Hugs