I wasn't anticipating good weather for Saturday, but often it can be a pleasant surprise when you receive something you don't expect. This was the case this day as well. The rain clouds that filled the sky when I awoke at around 10:00, the latest I have slept in until in almost four months, were gone by 11:00. The only ones left were fast moving cotton looking compilations of condensed evaporated water. I had planned on blogging at 11:00, but I didn't want to waste the opportunity of the perfect weather, since it can change in an instant here for the worse as well as the better.
I decided to collect my thoughts for Friday's blog while getting some sun by the pool. I made my way to the patio and spread my towel on the stone. I soaked in the rays while mentally outlining how the lengthily blog post would flow. I was still enjoying the sun after about an hour, so I went inside and got a book to read while lying out. Even though reading isn’t the most comfortable task to do while trying to obtain maximum body exposure to the sunlight, I made do and continued doing this for another two hours. At that point I felt exhausted. It was only 2:00. I had only been up for four hours, but it felt like I hadn't slept in weeks. The sun has the ability to drain the energy out of someone.
About halfway through my tanning session, Uncle Mark came out in his bathing suit to take a well deserved break. Saturday was his day of rest, and he still had to go to Santa Maria, a neighboring assembly about an hour away, to preach later that night. He got to the pool deck and noticed that his floaty had a leak. In fact, he noticed that the cheaply made material was totally flat. It hadn't taken much for some of the kids to puncture the raft one day while they were playing in the pool, but Uncle Mark was not happy. He yelled for William to get the pump, and William and Caroline both searched the house looking for it. After several minutes without locating the device, he began to yell for it some more. At this point the amount of airflow that was leaving his lungs in the direction of the children and the time spent waiting for the pump to be found could have both been used to fill an entire armada of chair-shaped floats and set them sail for Spain across the Atlantic. Needless to say, the pump was found, the float was filled and Uncle Mark enjoyed a nice relaxing day floating in the pool with his finger over the tear in the seam.
I blogged later that afternoon. Aunt Lori went shopping for some much needed groceries while William took time to study his new English/Portuguese parallel Bible that his parents had given him. Caroline kept to herself most of the day, until I told her that we would be going out that night when the parents drove to Santa Maria. They had no idea how far the other assembly was, or how long the meeting was going to be. Aunt Lori had suggested that we stay home rather than having a Portuguese preamble to the lengthy Sunday that was before us. I decided it would be good to take the kids out for the evening, so I took the keys to Uncle Mark's car for a night on the town with Caroline and William.
After the kinds and I cleaned the house we headed out the door toward Midway Mall, the largest Mall in Natal. I wanted to do some souvenir shopping and Caroline wanted to get some credit on her cell phone so she could text message her cousins and friends. We hit the food court as soon as we arrived. The kids each got a Subway sandwich, which actual looked just like the picture. Caroline has been impressed ever since she first went to the Midway Subway that they actually "fan the meat". I wandered around the food court until I found the sushi that I had been craving for so long. It was an a-la-carte sushi place, with several kinds laid out sorted by price. I tried one of each of the 15 varieties they offered and wound up paying a sum equal to $7.50 in the states. This was some of the best sushi I had ever had for a price that it would cost to get 6 pieces of California Roll back at home. Delicious!
After dinner we went for desert. There were four ice cream places to choose from. The kids decided to go for the one that seemed most American, since we were not even close to being fans of the Brazilian subspecies of ice cream. Brazilian ice cream is like a really bad mutt of a dog. If ice cream in the United States or Canada could be considered the golden retriever of frozen milk products, then the Brazilian counterpart would be more like a deformed Mexican hairless. Hollywood Ice Cream wasn't as good as the gelado place we had went to before, but it was pretty decent. We each got a medium and hit the stores as soon as we finished. The mall seemed to be laid out in sections. Clothing took up most of the second floor, electronics took up about a quarter of the first floor, shoes another quarter, drug shops another and so on. I couldn't find any souvenir shops, so as soon as I got some needed fuses, Caroline got her cell phone credit and William spent his not so hard earned Raies on a compass we were heading back for home. The entire way home William would shout our updated direction constantly from the back seat. Good to see he was putting his compass to use.
I worked on some personal projects when I got home. William helped me for a while and got bored, so he retired for the evening to watch some Dukes of Hazard. Caroline listened to music for a while, and they gladly obliged when I sent them to bed at around 10:30. Their parents got home around 11:00. Uncle Mark had wound up being the only speaker there, while a man from the Santa Maria assembly named Alial had translated the English to Portuguese. Luis and Lillia had taken many of the Planalto Christians to the meeting that night, which was a birthday celebration for the church. They had rented a bus so they could fit more than the five or ten that could have went if they had just taken Luis's and Lori's cars.
I went to bed around 11:30 that night. Uncle Mark and Aunt Lori were going back to Santa Maria in the morning so Uncle Mark could do ministry. I was going to go to the Planalto, and the kids wanted to stay with me so they could see their friends. Seeing as this wasn't a problem for me, I agreed to take them. I checked my e-mails and the weather before heading to bed. Sunday's forecast looked to be sunny and hot, which was usually the case except for my first weekend in Brazil. This forecast meant that the hall would transform into a larger scale Easy-Bake Oven. It was very hot that night, and I found it difficult to get to sleep. This was partly because of the heat and partly because there was a soccer game going on in the stadium behind our house. When I finally did drift off, I had an uninterrupted sleep. Uninterrupted if you don't count the fireworks that went off at about 1:30 AM. I don't think these people have any concept of time here in Brazil...
I decided to collect my thoughts for Friday's blog while getting some sun by the pool. I made my way to the patio and spread my towel on the stone. I soaked in the rays while mentally outlining how the lengthily blog post would flow. I was still enjoying the sun after about an hour, so I went inside and got a book to read while lying out. Even though reading isn’t the most comfortable task to do while trying to obtain maximum body exposure to the sunlight, I made do and continued doing this for another two hours. At that point I felt exhausted. It was only 2:00. I had only been up for four hours, but it felt like I hadn't slept in weeks. The sun has the ability to drain the energy out of someone.
About halfway through my tanning session, Uncle Mark came out in his bathing suit to take a well deserved break. Saturday was his day of rest, and he still had to go to Santa Maria, a neighboring assembly about an hour away, to preach later that night. He got to the pool deck and noticed that his floaty had a leak. In fact, he noticed that the cheaply made material was totally flat. It hadn't taken much for some of the kids to puncture the raft one day while they were playing in the pool, but Uncle Mark was not happy. He yelled for William to get the pump, and William and Caroline both searched the house looking for it. After several minutes without locating the device, he began to yell for it some more. At this point the amount of airflow that was leaving his lungs in the direction of the children and the time spent waiting for the pump to be found could have both been used to fill an entire armada of chair-shaped floats and set them sail for Spain across the Atlantic. Needless to say, the pump was found, the float was filled and Uncle Mark enjoyed a nice relaxing day floating in the pool with his finger over the tear in the seam.
I blogged later that afternoon. Aunt Lori went shopping for some much needed groceries while William took time to study his new English/Portuguese parallel Bible that his parents had given him. Caroline kept to herself most of the day, until I told her that we would be going out that night when the parents drove to Santa Maria. They had no idea how far the other assembly was, or how long the meeting was going to be. Aunt Lori had suggested that we stay home rather than having a Portuguese preamble to the lengthy Sunday that was before us. I decided it would be good to take the kids out for the evening, so I took the keys to Uncle Mark's car for a night on the town with Caroline and William.
After the kinds and I cleaned the house we headed out the door toward Midway Mall, the largest Mall in Natal. I wanted to do some souvenir shopping and Caroline wanted to get some credit on her cell phone so she could text message her cousins and friends. We hit the food court as soon as we arrived. The kids each got a Subway sandwich, which actual looked just like the picture. Caroline has been impressed ever since she first went to the Midway Subway that they actually "fan the meat". I wandered around the food court until I found the sushi that I had been craving for so long. It was an a-la-carte sushi place, with several kinds laid out sorted by price. I tried one of each of the 15 varieties they offered and wound up paying a sum equal to $7.50 in the states. This was some of the best sushi I had ever had for a price that it would cost to get 6 pieces of California Roll back at home. Delicious!
After dinner we went for desert. There were four ice cream places to choose from. The kids decided to go for the one that seemed most American, since we were not even close to being fans of the Brazilian subspecies of ice cream. Brazilian ice cream is like a really bad mutt of a dog. If ice cream in the United States or Canada could be considered the golden retriever of frozen milk products, then the Brazilian counterpart would be more like a deformed Mexican hairless. Hollywood Ice Cream wasn't as good as the gelado place we had went to before, but it was pretty decent. We each got a medium and hit the stores as soon as we finished. The mall seemed to be laid out in sections. Clothing took up most of the second floor, electronics took up about a quarter of the first floor, shoes another quarter, drug shops another and so on. I couldn't find any souvenir shops, so as soon as I got some needed fuses, Caroline got her cell phone credit and William spent his not so hard earned Raies on a compass we were heading back for home. The entire way home William would shout our updated direction constantly from the back seat. Good to see he was putting his compass to use.
I worked on some personal projects when I got home. William helped me for a while and got bored, so he retired for the evening to watch some Dukes of Hazard. Caroline listened to music for a while, and they gladly obliged when I sent them to bed at around 10:30. Their parents got home around 11:00. Uncle Mark had wound up being the only speaker there, while a man from the Santa Maria assembly named Alial had translated the English to Portuguese. Luis and Lillia had taken many of the Planalto Christians to the meeting that night, which was a birthday celebration for the church. They had rented a bus so they could fit more than the five or ten that could have went if they had just taken Luis's and Lori's cars.
I went to bed around 11:30 that night. Uncle Mark and Aunt Lori were going back to Santa Maria in the morning so Uncle Mark could do ministry. I was going to go to the Planalto, and the kids wanted to stay with me so they could see their friends. Seeing as this wasn't a problem for me, I agreed to take them. I checked my e-mails and the weather before heading to bed. Sunday's forecast looked to be sunny and hot, which was usually the case except for my first weekend in Brazil. This forecast meant that the hall would transform into a larger scale Easy-Bake Oven. It was very hot that night, and I found it difficult to get to sleep. This was partly because of the heat and partly because there was a soccer game going on in the stadium behind our house. When I finally did drift off, I had an uninterrupted sleep. Uninterrupted if you don't count the fireworks that went off at about 1:30 AM. I don't think these people have any concept of time here in Brazil...
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The Pool Looks Cool and Inviting on a Hot and Sunny Saturday
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