books, parks, shrines and parties

Hello darlings.

I am alive, just have been busy and without computer access, which brings out the voracious reader in me that I forget about during the school year. haha. Right now reading "Woman on the Edge of Time" by Margy something. I didn't bring it with me cuz I didn't wanna finsh it on the bus cuz that's so anticlimactic, haha, so I dont remember her last name. It's a crazy weird book but it's really interesting. Her writing reminds me a lot of Margaret Atwood, not so much in style as in topics, and I love Margaret Atwood so yay.

I'm not typing this in Blogspot so I dont know what the last night I wrote was. So, here are some recent activities:

This morning we finally got my Visa situation for France figured out thank god. Big relief for me so woot for that. Thanks mom and dad, I know taht was a pain.

Yesterday we went to the Parque Iribapuera. i know I'm spelling it worng. Anyway it's a huge GORGEOUS park in the middle of São Paulo. It had been raining for a few days and yesterday the sun came out and it was warm and the sky was blue and everything was just beautiful. Getting there was an adventure because googlemaps is unreliable, haha. Here they have a thing thattells you ow to get from one point to another on public transportation instead of by car--how cool is that:?? So we get off at the metro stop it told us to and get on the bus it told us to, and I ask the guy who take the money to tell us when to get off and he was like "ummm that's definitely not this bus." Google! How could you fail me!!! So we got off and walked back to the mini terminal and asked around, finding the right bus eventually. As we were getting on a saw a tall white guy with a backpack and a book that said Brésil, aka it was in French. He was with a short little dark girl and they were asking the old man that was doing the taking money job (I'm sure they ahve a name but I don't know it) to tell them when to get off at the museum. Well the park we were going to has musuems (Musuem of contemporary art!! we didnt go though =[ =[ ) and he was pointing to a park in the guidebook, so I took over and explained to the senhor what they wanted, and told them it was all fine. After a bit of stumbling around with different languges (the girl spoke spanish too) we realized he spoke Englsih, so we chatted and got off at the stop and found the somewhat ambiguous bridge to get to the park on the other side and then parted ways. They were jsut here vacationing for 10 days and had been to Rio and were going to Florianópolis today. They liked São Paulo more than Rio apparently, but they just got lucky, being here when the weather was nice hahaha. Anyway the point of the story is on out way back we just kinda hopped on a bus that had a metro symbol, and after about 50 minutes of rush hour highway driving I asked the money-taker guy to tell us when to get off, but then he started asking Olimpia who was closer to him if it mattered which metro station it was. I couldn't hear him and she couldn't understand so a sweet little lady standing between us intervened and told us where to geo and got on the metro with us cuz she was going to the stop after ours anyway. It was just so funny--we helped people ont he way there, others helped us on the way back. Talk about full circle.

On Sunday we went to the national shrine of Our Lady of Aparecida, the patronness of Brasil. There's a story that goes with it--once upon a long time ago some fishermen found a tiny statue of Our Lady while fishing and it had been turned black by the river, so pretty much Spanish speaking latin american hass the Mestizo Guadelupe, and we have a black Aparecida. But yea, the shrine is ridiculously huge, the church was MASSIVE. Really beautiful though, really nice.
On the way back on the bus we missed the final of the confederations cup, aka Brasil vs the US. We stopped for a bit and it was US 2 and Brasil 1, and everyone watching looked like they were going to cry, as Olimpia observed. But the final score, which I only actually learned today, wwas US 2 - Brasil 3, so woot for that. =D

Ummm, Friday we went to JoAnne's project and I watched the drooling babies of teenagers who were formerly streetkids, but are now mostly in relatively stable situations. That was a bit of an adventure, they were all about 10 to 12 months old and weren't ever used to being away from mom, even for an hour, so even just the three I had were quite a handful. They were cute though. =]

I can't really think of anything else that has been happening. Heidi left for the US. =[ I feel like a kid that was pushed out of the house prematurely by her mom. hahaha. But really, Heidi took good care of us, and now we're on our own but hey we're doing well. =D So maybe it wasn't too prematurely. Haha.

Saturday the Casa had our Festa Junina which got rained on so the turnout wasn't fabulous (which is too bad cuz it doubles as a fundraiser by selling the traditional corn-based foods plus hotdogs hehee) but it was still fun.

Um yep. At some point I'll put up more pics but that won't be too soon. Love to all.