24 March, 2009

Sao Paulo Love

Here is a great article about our city!
Anyone want to come visit?

When in Rome


21 March, 2009

Fazenda Santo Antonio da Bela Vista

In my former life (read: last year) field trips consisted of yellow buses, exhaust fumes, rowdy children, hovering parents, and smelly lunches. No longer. There are definitely frustrating parts of teaching here, but field trips is not one of them! Traveling to Fazenda Santo Antonio da Bela Vista was hands down the best field trip experience I've had in my seven years of teaching. To start with we travel on buses like these:

These buses are air conditioned, plush, and spacious.
We also travel with these:These are monitors. Monitors are people hired to supervise and entertain groups of children. Monitors are very popular in Brasil-you find them in restaurants, hotels, stores, shopping malls, and on field trips! The company we work with organizes the buses, the schedule, the groups and supervise and entertain the children during the trip. For anyone who has ever organized a field trip (it is usually us teachers) you understand how helpful this is! Additionally, having the monitors negates the need for parent chaperones. As a parent, I sympathize how nice it is to spend the day with your child on a trip-but as a teacher, more people=more chaos. Traveling with just the students and just the monitors is so. much. better.
The coffee farm was great! It was beautiful and really interesting to see how coffee is traditionally harvested and roasted. Coffee was once the cornerstone of Brasil's economy so the trip was an important part of our students' understanding of Brasilian history.
Two other parts of this field trip that were totally unique to Brasil:
Bodyguards traveling with studentsand
Not one, but two stops by the police just to check that we had all the appropriate documentation for our students. These stops were about a half an hour each and made us arrive back to school very late!

Our day ended with a great lunch. Traditionally lunch is the biggest meal of the day in Brazil and a field trip is no exception. We (students included) were given a choice of spaghetti and meatballs, beans and rice, chicken, and salad. Notice the real silverware (knives!) and tablecloth on the table? I love how meals are treated like an event EVERY day-not a pit stop.
I really had a great day with the students-they learned quite a bit and I walked away with plenty of freshly roasted coffee. A total success!

19 March, 2009

We are happy to announce...

that after 7 months and 26 days in Brasil we finally have television!

Just in time to head home in a few months...

17 March, 2009

Noah Speaks!

I tried and tried to upload the video I had of Sophie nonchalantly explaining her picture in Portuguese, but I just couldn't make it happen. I did, however, manage to get this video of Noah impromptu (or, do this for Mommy and I'll read you TWO more books before bed!) video tonight. This just proves that children pick up languages faster than adults! It's right before bed, so he gets a little tired by the end!

10 March, 2009

Sunday in Sao Paulo

This video is from our living room window. Most Sundays, usually between 4 and 7, we hear some variation of this. Sao Paulo's football team is pretty good so we hear it quite a bit. I didn't grab the camera in time for "GGGGGGOOOOOOOOAAAAAAALLLLLLLLL!" but you get the idea!


Needless to say, with this kind of motivation, both Noah and Sophie playing football three days a week already!

08 March, 2009

Sometimes we have to leave Portal!

I love where we live. I'll be the first to admit that living at Portal do Morumbi is about as good as it gets. We have 4 pools, a restaurant, a gym, activities for the kids, tons of green space, 3 playgrounds, trails, etc...in a nutshell, we're spoiled rotten. Many weekends we haven't left Portal except to wander to the fruit market across the street and the grocery store, also across the street. There's no need to leave-sometimes, especially on warm sunny weekends, it is easy to stay put ordering cool drinks by the pool. Yesterday, however, we pushed ourselves out of our comfort zone in a big way.

It started for me with a run at USP. I headed out early with a group of other teachers, but ran alone with thousands of other runners and bikers. Afterwards, two other teachers and I headed to a yoga class conducted nearly exclusively in Portuguese. The instructor speaks English, but since we are the only gringos in the class she reserves her English for corrections and adjustments to poses. I felt like I got a great work out and practiced my Portuguese at the same time! When I returned from class we quickly fed the kids lunch and headed out to the IMAX theater on the other side of the city. It took us awhile to find the theater, but once we did we weren't disappointed-the kids loved the 3-D glasses, popcorn, Guarana (sweet drink), and we ALL got a Portuguese lesson. Our day concluded with a quick stop at PUC-THE place to buy little girl's (and some boys too) clothes in Brasil. I resisted the urge for seven long months, but finally gave in. I left with 2 outfits for Sophie and a new sunga for Noah! He wore his other one out, and doesn't like to wear "regular" bathing suits any more! Look out in June!

We had a great day! It is stressful to leave Portal and our comfort zone-very few people speak English in Sao Paulo-but every time we do it it gets just a little easier!
Sophie modeling her new clothes!

07 March, 2009

Sophie's New Look...

After months of fighting Sophie to comb her curls (that at times bordered on dreadlocks), she got her first haircut yesterday. She really loved the whole thing, especially the complimentary manicure. I can see we are going to have fun in a few years. Thankfully, today I see that despite the cut, she still has her curls!



04 March, 2009

Noah's Five Minutes of Fame

This time it is Noah who make an appearance on Graded's main page....look for the less than eager boy in a Batman costume. The costumes were for the preprimary school's Carnaval parade last week!

I have a feeling another will post will be coming shortly...I'm off to my first yoga class taught in Portuguese!

01 March, 2009

Carnaval Recap

I was a big fan of "Opposite Day" growing up-you know, a random day of the week was assigned the title "Opposite Day" and consequently we (highly intelligent first, second, and third graders) did the opposite of what we would have ordinarily done. Our Carnaval 2009 was like one giant opposite day. Brasilian after Brasilian (and the expats as well) headed to Rio, the beach, even Buenos Aires, but us? No-we headed to Campos do Jordao in the mountains. It was a great decision. We left Wednesday morning (after Carnaval was technically over) and made the 2.5 hour trip in 2.5 hours-that alone is a major accomplishment in this massive city. On a holiday? Amazing.
The hotel we stayed at was gorgeous and the grounds were filled with flowers and lavender. The hotel had a gigantic play room for kids (complete with a trampoline and ball pit), climbing structures, pool, and great common areas. The leaves had already started to change a bit and there was definitely a fall chill in the air. We broke out the sweaters and jeans and our swimsuits and shorts stayed packed. It was such a welcome change!
On Thursday we headed up to Parque Lenz where Noah and Sophie rode a zip line and played on the indoor playground. We hiked to a great view of the mountains and a waterfall. The weather was a bit wet, but it was still a great time.
On Friday we visited the adorable town of Capivari where we rode a train (more like a trolley) through the town of Campos do Jordao. It was a bit slow, but the kids were content with their Swiss chocolate lollipops. We went to the Baden Baden Brewery for dinner and enjoyed Capivari a little more.
This trip was great-I'd venture to say it has been my favorite so far. Less crowded and better weather than Rio. Cleaner and more kid friendly than Paraty. Just plain great.
There is much more to say, but it is Sunday night (after a full day of poolside lounging) and we have to work the ENTIRE month of March so I better rest up. Can you believe it? Four straight 5 day weeks? Hopefully these pictures will fill in the gaps!Our hotel
Noah on the "sky bike"
Sophie on the zip line
We made it to the top!

Noah was an awesome hiker-he led the way the entire time!

It almost felt like fall there...

The streets of Capivari

Someone totally loved the Swiss chocolate!

Our wonderful friends Peter and Leca-they joined us with their adorable baby Julia

At the Baden Baden Brewery in Capivari