"Hey lady, is your book about France or Holland? Because, because it’s red. Red and white and blue and those are the colors of the flags. The flags of France and Holland. Except France is up and down and Holland’s flag has the stripes lying on top of each other? I like Holland. You like France? Well that's okay. Lady? You’re really pretty. And nice. And your eyes are like gray, kind of green. They’re gray, aren’t they? Lady, you’re pretty. And me? I’m smart? And you like my, my smile? My smile is big, uh, yup, I smile a lot!!! Hahaha! Yeah…and I'm cute, too, huh? I’m cute! Wow…wow…lady, lady, are you trying to sleep? Have you finished your book yet? You look kind of German. Or maybe European. Where were you born? Can you buy me some candies? Okay, that’s fine. Is this your stop? Okay lady, bye now…"
You can see him, can't you? Missing his two front teeth, big smile, slight stutter...and the girl who was his assistant not even attempting to contain her laughter as this gentle soul made friends with as many people as he could on the bus...
Tuesday, April 29, 2008
Sunday, April 27, 2008
Almost forgot....
Psalm 130:6
Is foighní m’anam ag feitheamh leis an Tiarna, ná lucht faire leis an maidin. Bíonn lucht faire ag faire leis an maidin...
The best part of the day?
BBC has free language pages.
I am learning Irish Gaelic and French...
Childhood dreams being realized!
Is foighní m’anam ag feitheamh leis an Tiarna, ná lucht faire leis an maidin. Bíonn lucht faire ag faire leis an maidin...
The best part of the day?
BBC has free language pages.
I am learning Irish Gaelic and French...
Childhood dreams being realized!
One of those days
Perfect really.
Blue skies.
Overcoming irrational fears to attend a church service that inspired and renewed me.
Seeing the love of God in action.
Reading books and studying and naps in the sun.
Baptisms.
Pizza.
Weights off the shoulders and spirit.
Yup. A good day. This is what Sundays are supposed to be like...
Blue skies.
Overcoming irrational fears to attend a church service that inspired and renewed me.
Seeing the love of God in action.
Reading books and studying and naps in the sun.
Baptisms.
Pizza.
Weights off the shoulders and spirit.
Yup. A good day. This is what Sundays are supposed to be like...
Thursday, April 24, 2008
Weaknesses
This poem (which may or may not be published on the website yet) recently won me US$100. Not enough for a washing machine. But enough for these three books, a pair of sexy, sexy dancing heels, and 2 bus fares. Which, while I still will have to wash my clothes by hand, has the advantage of making me one very, very tall washerwoman with some intelligent subject matter to ponder while taking a scrub brush to my jeans. This is how I rationalize my serious weakness for anything with a bit of clever leather and a heel in a size 39...and my even more serious weakness for books of all languages and ages and states of being. I restrained myself today. For which my pocketbook and my bookshelves are extremely grateful. (In defense? The shoes were on sale and there was a promotional discount on one of the books...defensible, no?)
The books are:
-a real, live Portuguese dictionary. The bilingual ones aren't cutting it anymore, and this little student edition was 10% the cost of the real thing.
-Predictably Irracional, which I read about in a magazine down here and have found fascinating reading. The subject matter falls somewhere in the hazy spheres between psychology, behavioral studies, marketing research and economics.
-A Concise History of Brasil. Because my knowledge of that subject is woefully, woefully lacking. And concise is a good place to start. All the other history books were about the royal court in Rio de Janeiro in the early 1800's or wild-west-type renegades, neither of which felt appropriate for winter reading.
(Not on this list, but purchased this week, was a book of Biblical stories by famous and not-so-famous authors. I'd say about 2/3 of the book is represented by South American or Spanish-speaking authors and the other 1/3 spans the rest of the continents and language groups (Russian, English, French). There are some fantastic stories in this collection. Note: Mark Twain, "The Diary of Adam and Eve," Honoré de Balzac, “Jesus Christ in Flanders,” and Leopoldo Lugones, “The Rain of Fire." Excellent. Excellent.)
I broke the shoes in while talking on the phone with a friend, dancing invisible samba in my living room and then propping myself, in pyjamas, up into the hammock, with these 3-inch tall pieces of magic still on my feet. As is evidenced by this photo:
Now all I need is a pair of ballet slippers. To throw into my bag so that when I can't take being 6 feet tall anymore, I don't have to walk around barefoot.
The books are:
-a real, live Portuguese dictionary. The bilingual ones aren't cutting it anymore, and this little student edition was 10% the cost of the real thing.
-Predictably Irracional, which I read about in a magazine down here and have found fascinating reading. The subject matter falls somewhere in the hazy spheres between psychology, behavioral studies, marketing research and economics.
-A Concise History of Brasil. Because my knowledge of that subject is woefully, woefully lacking. And concise is a good place to start. All the other history books were about the royal court in Rio de Janeiro in the early 1800's or wild-west-type renegades, neither of which felt appropriate for winter reading.
(Not on this list, but purchased this week, was a book of Biblical stories by famous and not-so-famous authors. I'd say about 2/3 of the book is represented by South American or Spanish-speaking authors and the other 1/3 spans the rest of the continents and language groups (Russian, English, French). There are some fantastic stories in this collection. Note: Mark Twain, "The Diary of Adam and Eve," Honoré de Balzac, “Jesus Christ in Flanders,” and Leopoldo Lugones, “The Rain of Fire." Excellent. Excellent.)
I broke the shoes in while talking on the phone with a friend, dancing invisible samba in my living room and then propping myself, in pyjamas, up into the hammock, with these 3-inch tall pieces of magic still on my feet. As is evidenced by this photo:
Now all I need is a pair of ballet slippers. To throw into my bag so that when I can't take being 6 feet tall anymore, I don't have to walk around barefoot.
Wednesday, April 23, 2008
Feriado
Remember this day?
Today was Saint George's day, for those of you that were celebrating the life and death of this (improbably historical) martyr. Being a state holiday as he is apparently the patron saint of Rio, everything was closed. Except for the second floor of the Faculdade de Letras at the Federal University, where about 60 foreigners were straggling in to take a Portuguese test. It's called the CELPE-Bras and is the only formal recognition of proficiency in Portuguese.
I manage to arrive without incident even though almost no buses are running (some random university staff member in a VW van took pity on us and dropped us off at the door). And would you believe that my Federal Police friends are ALL there, with the exception of cult girl?!?
So that was fun. The test was not particularly long, but I had a lot of scribbled out words on the page...it's harder to write in a foreign language in pen without a dictionary than I thought! Anyhow, tomorrow's the oral part, and we won't receive the results until July...
Kind of glad it is over. Now I can study French if I want to and not feel guilty!
Today was Saint George's day, for those of you that were celebrating the life and death of this (improbably historical) martyr. Being a state holiday as he is apparently the patron saint of Rio, everything was closed. Except for the second floor of the Faculdade de Letras at the Federal University, where about 60 foreigners were straggling in to take a Portuguese test. It's called the CELPE-Bras and is the only formal recognition of proficiency in Portuguese.
I manage to arrive without incident even though almost no buses are running (some random university staff member in a VW van took pity on us and dropped us off at the door). And would you believe that my Federal Police friends are ALL there, with the exception of cult girl?!?
So that was fun. The test was not particularly long, but I had a lot of scribbled out words on the page...it's harder to write in a foreign language in pen without a dictionary than I thought! Anyhow, tomorrow's the oral part, and we won't receive the results until July...
Kind of glad it is over. Now I can study French if I want to and not feel guilty!
Monday, April 21, 2008
It is Tiradentes day...
To answer some of the previous comments:
The cookies? Horrendous. Maybe it was my butter, or my sugar, or a gas oven that is temperamental, but the cookies tasted like the scraped off bottoms of really bad sugar cookies that have been sitting in a tin for about six weeks. Mixed with sand. Plus they looked like giant slug poops, which didn’t help anything.
My hair? I keep on forgetting to take my camera around. Soon, my friends, soon I'll show the curls in all their glory. For now though, you can get an idea of the length from the morning picture in one of the recent posts.
The men issues? I thought I already WAS crazy?
***
Sunday afternoon was spent alone. But to be fair? I slept from 12:00-1:00 and from 2:00-5:56 pm. And then I got ready for church again. So it wasn’t too sad. And then after church I went to L’s house with R and we got a pizza and his parents treated me like their long-lost daughter and it was beautiful and made me remember how much I miss company and people to say goodnight to, but also loud voices in the morning and someone to fight with over the bathroom. We spent the night, and I crashed on the sofa and while it wasn’t the most comfortable bed in the world, on Sunday night it was the best place in the world I could have been outside of perhaps snuggling with my little sister in a queen size bed and about 15 blankets.
Monday was a holiday, which I took without the slightest bit of guilt. None whatsoever. I got up when I got up and ate breakfast with Tia D and laughed with Tio D and then L drove us home. I’d made plans with a new friend who !surprise! called ME to see if I wanted to hang with her (usually I’m the one who makes the plans) and we ended up at my favorite not-so-secret place in the city, as evidenced by the fact that we had to wait for a table. But it was totally worth the wait. My friend brought a friend and we spent the morning and afternoon talking about politics and Brazilian culture and things we miss from home, theology and careers and men and razors…we walked through fake caverns and a scummy aquarium, wandered along the big lake where I ran into a friend from IBMEC (there is NOWHERE in this city I can go without being recognized!)…traipsed our way down to the best bookstore in the city, because it is open 24 hours a day. I bought a book and my friend ran into an acquaintance of hers from the beach (NO ONE, it seems, can walk around anonymous anymore). I got beach lady’s phone number, because she speaks French and English and German and Portuguese and is a translator. I need someone to practice my French with. Preferably over a chocolate mousse or crème brulee. (As evidenced by the fact that I don’t know if brulee has an accent or not).
Hungry now, again, we retreat to friend’s apartment in Leblon, which is empty of furniture and food but with a little creativity we roast an orange pepper and make pasta with pepper, black pepper and salt and olive oil. 4 ingredients if you count the spices. The pizza we got later that evening was better. But the chocolate coffee mousse that we ate after everything else convinced me that if I had just (just!) a couple thousand dollars more every month, the first thing I would do is move to Leblon, on the corner of the bookstore and the store with the mousse. And I would make myself walk miles every day, along the beach, so that I wouldn’t get fat on Guanabara pizza with fresh basil and the butteriest mozzarella in existence outside of Italy. Or the chocolate mousse. Or the lime pie. Or the…did I mention there was chocolate mousse?
I’m blissful right now.
And feeling a little vindicated, somehow, by the food and the holiday. It’s like God was saying, “Jenna, you were complaining that I’ve been rough on you and not tangible enough. How do hugs, a Brazilian family, great conversations with new friends, future career prospects and chocolate mousse sound to you? Do you *feel* loved now?”
Oh. I. Do.
Thank you.
The cookies? Horrendous. Maybe it was my butter, or my sugar, or a gas oven that is temperamental, but the cookies tasted like the scraped off bottoms of really bad sugar cookies that have been sitting in a tin for about six weeks. Mixed with sand. Plus they looked like giant slug poops, which didn’t help anything.
My hair? I keep on forgetting to take my camera around. Soon, my friends, soon I'll show the curls in all their glory. For now though, you can get an idea of the length from the morning picture in one of the recent posts.
The men issues? I thought I already WAS crazy?
***
Sunday afternoon was spent alone. But to be fair? I slept from 12:00-1:00 and from 2:00-5:56 pm. And then I got ready for church again. So it wasn’t too sad. And then after church I went to L’s house with R and we got a pizza and his parents treated me like their long-lost daughter and it was beautiful and made me remember how much I miss company and people to say goodnight to, but also loud voices in the morning and someone to fight with over the bathroom. We spent the night, and I crashed on the sofa and while it wasn’t the most comfortable bed in the world, on Sunday night it was the best place in the world I could have been outside of perhaps snuggling with my little sister in a queen size bed and about 15 blankets.
Monday was a holiday, which I took without the slightest bit of guilt. None whatsoever. I got up when I got up and ate breakfast with Tia D and laughed with Tio D and then L drove us home. I’d made plans with a new friend who !surprise! called ME to see if I wanted to hang with her (usually I’m the one who makes the plans) and we ended up at my favorite not-so-secret place in the city, as evidenced by the fact that we had to wait for a table. But it was totally worth the wait. My friend brought a friend and we spent the morning and afternoon talking about politics and Brazilian culture and things we miss from home, theology and careers and men and razors…we walked through fake caverns and a scummy aquarium, wandered along the big lake where I ran into a friend from IBMEC (there is NOWHERE in this city I can go without being recognized!)…traipsed our way down to the best bookstore in the city, because it is open 24 hours a day. I bought a book and my friend ran into an acquaintance of hers from the beach (NO ONE, it seems, can walk around anonymous anymore). I got beach lady’s phone number, because she speaks French and English and German and Portuguese and is a translator. I need someone to practice my French with. Preferably over a chocolate mousse or crème brulee. (As evidenced by the fact that I don’t know if brulee has an accent or not).
Hungry now, again, we retreat to friend’s apartment in Leblon, which is empty of furniture and food but with a little creativity we roast an orange pepper and make pasta with pepper, black pepper and salt and olive oil. 4 ingredients if you count the spices. The pizza we got later that evening was better. But the chocolate coffee mousse that we ate after everything else convinced me that if I had just (just!) a couple thousand dollars more every month, the first thing I would do is move to Leblon, on the corner of the bookstore and the store with the mousse. And I would make myself walk miles every day, along the beach, so that I wouldn’t get fat on Guanabara pizza with fresh basil and the butteriest mozzarella in existence outside of Italy. Or the chocolate mousse. Or the lime pie. Or the…did I mention there was chocolate mousse?
I’m blissful right now.
And feeling a little vindicated, somehow, by the food and the holiday. It’s like God was saying, “Jenna, you were complaining that I’ve been rough on you and not tangible enough. How do hugs, a Brazilian family, great conversations with new friends, future career prospects and chocolate mousse sound to you? Do you *feel* loved now?”
Oh. I. Do.
Thank you.
Saturday, April 19, 2008
Mexican Stairwell Tripping and Wild Nights
These have been some intense days.
Thursday I was out of the house, except for a brief shower, from 9 am until 10:31 pm. Long day, but worth it, full of kids and Bible storytelling, singing songs at the top of our lungs and playing with Legos and puzzles, followed by an excellent meal at my coworker's house and an evening of worship and fellowship.
My boyfriend (of a short two weeks), calls that evening to remind me that he wants me to go with him to a birthday party Friday night.
16 hours later, he calls me on the cell phone, from work, and terminates the relationship in the six minutes he was, I don't know, climbing the stairs? Delivering papers? Something about not being ready for a relationship...it was six minutes and it was on a cell connection. I'm still not sure how he got from point a to b in those 16 hours...maybe he had a bad dream. Ate something bad for breakfast? Woke up and was like, "Wow. I think I'm not in the same place as I was yesterday. I should break up with my girlfriend after lunch." ??? Who knows. One could say I wasn't in the best mental state at that point in the day.
Which perhaps explains why, two hours later, I fall down the stairs. Tomorrow I should have bruises worthy of posting and should they turn out as I think they're going to turn out, I'll be putting some pictures up. Something about those beautiful pointy witch-toe shoes seemed to not agree with the stairs in my apartment and down I went...into a heap of bruises and tears about five steps down.
An hour later, I wobble into my post-graduate class where I manage to understand about 1/4 of the professor's lecture.
Three hours later, I sit in an empty corner bar with some friends, eating Arab empanadas and talking about Italians, men in general, and Mentos.
By 12:00, we're standing in line for a poor-quality nightclub, so chosen because of its cheap entrance fee, in the rain. Thankfully, we are VIP'ed out of the line and spend the next couple hours dancing to American hip-hop and eletronica, while people-watching and laughing at bad pickup lines. I am determined to enjoy my Friday night. None of this sitting at home trying to figure out why the men I date always end up being unjustifiably crazy.
And I do. We do...getting home at a decent hour to eat pizza at my friend's house (4 am) and sleep until almost 10.
Then it's home for me, to wash my clothes from the night before, go to the grocery store and prepare a meal for 11 people. 10 if you count that the now ex-boyfriend is definitely uninvited, as I have reached a point of pleasant rage at the mention of his name. We're having Mexican, and by 5:00 this afternoon, the number of guests inviting guests raised the number of potential attendees to 13. Fourteen people showed up and we still had one plate of food left over by the end of the party. It was a rousing success if I do say so myself, and brought back fond memories of the Souphouse.
I love parties. I love people. And I am tired. Since I assume that I'm uninvited to my ex-boyfriend's aunt's for lunch tomorrow (I received the invitation on Tuesday and was looking forward to pudim and that wacky wild family), I kind of hope that someone at church will decide to carry me home with them and feed me. After having the full house tonight, it would be kind of a let-down to have to make and eat Sunday lunch alone.
But if I do, I will be spending my afternoon googling options for how to detect erratic and obviously mental, inconsiderate tendencies in men who appear to be perfect gentlemen but obviously are teetering on some kind of internal fault line.
I think maybe I should stay single for a while longer.
:)
Thursday I was out of the house, except for a brief shower, from 9 am until 10:31 pm. Long day, but worth it, full of kids and Bible storytelling, singing songs at the top of our lungs and playing with Legos and puzzles, followed by an excellent meal at my coworker's house and an evening of worship and fellowship.
My boyfriend (of a short two weeks), calls that evening to remind me that he wants me to go with him to a birthday party Friday night.
16 hours later, he calls me on the cell phone, from work, and terminates the relationship in the six minutes he was, I don't know, climbing the stairs? Delivering papers? Something about not being ready for a relationship...it was six minutes and it was on a cell connection. I'm still not sure how he got from point a to b in those 16 hours...maybe he had a bad dream. Ate something bad for breakfast? Woke up and was like, "Wow. I think I'm not in the same place as I was yesterday. I should break up with my girlfriend after lunch." ??? Who knows. One could say I wasn't in the best mental state at that point in the day.
Which perhaps explains why, two hours later, I fall down the stairs. Tomorrow I should have bruises worthy of posting and should they turn out as I think they're going to turn out, I'll be putting some pictures up. Something about those beautiful pointy witch-toe shoes seemed to not agree with the stairs in my apartment and down I went...into a heap of bruises and tears about five steps down.
An hour later, I wobble into my post-graduate class where I manage to understand about 1/4 of the professor's lecture.
Three hours later, I sit in an empty corner bar with some friends, eating Arab empanadas and talking about Italians, men in general, and Mentos.
By 12:00, we're standing in line for a poor-quality nightclub, so chosen because of its cheap entrance fee, in the rain. Thankfully, we are VIP'ed out of the line and spend the next couple hours dancing to American hip-hop and eletronica, while people-watching and laughing at bad pickup lines. I am determined to enjoy my Friday night. None of this sitting at home trying to figure out why the men I date always end up being unjustifiably crazy.
And I do. We do...getting home at a decent hour to eat pizza at my friend's house (4 am) and sleep until almost 10.
Then it's home for me, to wash my clothes from the night before, go to the grocery store and prepare a meal for 11 people. 10 if you count that the now ex-boyfriend is definitely uninvited, as I have reached a point of pleasant rage at the mention of his name. We're having Mexican, and by 5:00 this afternoon, the number of guests inviting guests raised the number of potential attendees to 13. Fourteen people showed up and we still had one plate of food left over by the end of the party. It was a rousing success if I do say so myself, and brought back fond memories of the Souphouse.
I love parties. I love people. And I am tired. Since I assume that I'm uninvited to my ex-boyfriend's aunt's for lunch tomorrow (I received the invitation on Tuesday and was looking forward to pudim and that wacky wild family), I kind of hope that someone at church will decide to carry me home with them and feed me. After having the full house tonight, it would be kind of a let-down to have to make and eat Sunday lunch alone.
But if I do, I will be spending my afternoon googling options for how to detect erratic and obviously mental, inconsiderate tendencies in men who appear to be perfect gentlemen but obviously are teetering on some kind of internal fault line.
I think maybe I should stay single for a while longer.
:)
Friday, April 18, 2008
A Call for Miles
My morning face, on learning that roundtrip tickets for Christmastime will be in the realm of one THOUSAND EIGHT HUNDRED DOLLARS.
At that price, my presence will be a Christmas present to all the people on my list!!!
I'm so excited about going. It's been four years since I spent Christmas with my family...there are so many things to get excited about:
Frolicking in the snow after four years of summer
Christmas with a real tree (instead of a two-foot tall imitation-of-an-imitation shrub that fits on a bookshelf)
Spending the holidays with family
Visiting friends and supporters
Hot chocolate around the fireplace
McDonald's breakfast sandwiches, Krispy Kreme doughnuts, and all the other fattening American food I miss
Libraries with English books
Goodwill and all the other used clothing stores
Buying stacks of Vogue and Harper's Bazaar to take back
Antique stores
Snowball fights
Mom's cooking
Tromping through the snow, looking through old yearbooks, eating my sister's perfect chocolate chip cookies straight from the oven
etc....
Priceless? Absolutely. Expensive enough to make me cry? That too. I don't suppose anyone out there in the blogsphere has United Airlines miles they're just dying to donate? I just heard recently that there are more unused airline miles in the world than there are of the world's largest currencies. More airline miles than dollars, yuan, euros, etc... It sounds too crazy to be true...
At that price, my presence will be a Christmas present to all the people on my list!!!
I'm so excited about going. It's been four years since I spent Christmas with my family...there are so many things to get excited about:
Frolicking in the snow after four years of summer
Christmas with a real tree (instead of a two-foot tall imitation-of-an-imitation shrub that fits on a bookshelf)
Spending the holidays with family
Visiting friends and supporters
Hot chocolate around the fireplace
McDonald's breakfast sandwiches, Krispy Kreme doughnuts, and all the other fattening American food I miss
Libraries with English books
Goodwill and all the other used clothing stores
Buying stacks of Vogue and Harper's Bazaar to take back
Antique stores
Snowball fights
Mom's cooking
Tromping through the snow, looking through old yearbooks, eating my sister's perfect chocolate chip cookies straight from the oven
etc....
Priceless? Absolutely. Expensive enough to make me cry? That too. I don't suppose anyone out there in the blogsphere has United Airlines miles they're just dying to donate? I just heard recently that there are more unused airline miles in the world than there are of the world's largest currencies. More airline miles than dollars, yuan, euros, etc... It sounds too crazy to be true...
Tuesday, April 15, 2008
Hiatus
It's been a little while since I wrote on here. Mostly laziness...
(my flour is burning instead of toasting. Wait two seconds...)
Still on my food kick, but with less time to be inventive, I'm trying these cookies from the Chocolate and Zucchini website. They sound just right for a day like today...
Today was a gloriously cool, rainy day, and after spending the morning and afternoon at Projeto Vidinha, I was ready to head home for a nice nap. And lunch, around 4:30 pm! With R$10 in my pocket, I visited the grocery store on the way to the bus stop. Ever since the other Sunday, when I had lunch with some really fun people after church, I've been craving some Romeo and Juliet. Not the play, though a little Shakespeare would be welcome in my current culture-deprived life. Romeo and Juliet is a Brazilian dessert that's simply a strip of thick guava jelly and a slice of harder white cheese from the state of Minas Gerais. I'm a big fan of this cheese; it's mild, goes great with sweet flavors, and isn't drippy with cheese juices like traditional Minas cheese. After a little searching, I found it in the refrigerated cases, but the size of the pre-cut blocks were daunting. Almost a pound of cheese?
I put on a pout and convinced the guys behind the counter to cut it in half for me, even though they weren't "supposed" to...I could never eat that much cheese before it went bad! (Nor could I have afforded the other items on my list!) I was excited to find a lot of the winter vegetables and fruits at extraordinary prices. Here's my shopping list:
Not bad. Not bad at all. I've got a fistful of limes, three oranges and kiwis, nearly two pounds of potatoes, a block each of cheese and guava jelly, and 400 grams of chocolate powder. Because without chocolate milk, I CANNOT LIVE.
*-----------*-----------*-----------*-----------*----------*-----------*----------*
In other news, I won $100 in a poetry contest, which wasn't enough to buy a washing machine, but I'm still pretty excited. After all, it was just ONE poem. Check it out at the Utmost Christian Writer's website.
Oh! I cut off all my hair! But that's for another post...
(my flour is burning instead of toasting. Wait two seconds...)
Still on my food kick, but with less time to be inventive, I'm trying these cookies from the Chocolate and Zucchini website. They sound just right for a day like today...
Today was a gloriously cool, rainy day, and after spending the morning and afternoon at Projeto Vidinha, I was ready to head home for a nice nap. And lunch, around 4:30 pm! With R$10 in my pocket, I visited the grocery store on the way to the bus stop. Ever since the other Sunday, when I had lunch with some really fun people after church, I've been craving some Romeo and Juliet. Not the play, though a little Shakespeare would be welcome in my current culture-deprived life. Romeo and Juliet is a Brazilian dessert that's simply a strip of thick guava jelly and a slice of harder white cheese from the state of Minas Gerais. I'm a big fan of this cheese; it's mild, goes great with sweet flavors, and isn't drippy with cheese juices like traditional Minas cheese. After a little searching, I found it in the refrigerated cases, but the size of the pre-cut blocks were daunting. Almost a pound of cheese?
I put on a pout and convinced the guys behind the counter to cut it in half for me, even though they weren't "supposed" to...I could never eat that much cheese before it went bad! (Nor could I have afforded the other items on my list!) I was excited to find a lot of the winter vegetables and fruits at extraordinary prices. Here's my shopping list:
Not bad. Not bad at all. I've got a fistful of limes, three oranges and kiwis, nearly two pounds of potatoes, a block each of cheese and guava jelly, and 400 grams of chocolate powder. Because without chocolate milk, I CANNOT LIVE.
*-----------*-----------*-----------*-----------*----------*-----------*----------*
In other news, I won $100 in a poetry contest, which wasn't enough to buy a washing machine, but I'm still pretty excited. After all, it was just ONE poem. Check it out at the Utmost Christian Writer's website.
Oh! I cut off all my hair! But that's for another post...
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