Day 4 & 5: Curitiba

            Ok!  Holy Crap!  Yesterday was a nightmare.  We woke up and packed for our 3:00 to Curitiba.  We had our favorite taxi driver on the way to the airport. He looked like Nelson Mandella and he talked with his hands.  He was itty bitty and had the cutest laugh.  Our flight was fine; only forty-five minutes.  When we got there, we rented a brand new car that was a stick shift.  Paul practiced driving a stick shift before we left, so we thought we were good to go…NOT THE CASE!  Right in the middle of the city, in the middle lane, the car started smoking and would not go into first gear.  It was dark by then, and we were stuck.  We had to push the car around the corner, near a phone booth.  Paul called a friend for help, but only reached his wife who didn’t have a car.  He called Avis to get someone to come help him with the car and the hotel to send a taxi for me.  After about thirty minutes and many tears, the taxi driver came and drove us to the hotel to get our stuff put away and back to the hotel to exchange the car.  The taxi driver, also named Paul, saved us!  He left his taxi in the middle of a busy street to help us.  He made phone calls to avis to find an automatic car even after they told us there were none.  He talked to avis and told them it was not our fault, which saved us goodness knows how much money to fix the car.  All he asked for was American coins in return for his help (of course Paul gave him much more).  We finally got another car, a newish chevy.  It was 11:00 by the time we got back to our hotel.  We were so relieved that the awful day was almost over

            This whole time we had not eaten anything besides a bag of peanuts on the plane.  THE WHOLE DAY!  I was cranky!  When we got in, we ordered pizza.  This was even better pizza than the night before.  We had one that was half shredded chicken and catapury (soft cheese), greek olives, and the other was ham, eggs, onions and greek olives.  We also had two personal sweet pizzas.  One banana cinnamon and the other brigadeiro (condensed milk, chocolate and chocolate sprinkles).  After six hours of misery, we deserved a pizza overdose.

            So, today was a different story.  We went to visit Paul’s friends Elisene, Edivaldo, Mayara and Kimbery.  This family is amazing.  They cooked Paul’s favorite lunch for us: Stroganoff. It is made very different here; its made with crème de leite. Here, lunch is the main meal, so this was a great welcome.  We drove to the new temple here in Curitiba, which is so beautiful.  There is a tree called araucaria here that is mostly just in Curitiba.  The temple grounds have a gigantic araucaria tree.  We had a great time.  We went grocery shopping at BIG, a store owned by Wal-Mart.  We hope to pack a suitcase full of groceries to come home with.  There are so many things here we cannot get at American grocery stores.  This family is so loving.  We feel blessed to know them and blessed that they love us back. 

            Paul is doing really well with the language and with getting us around.  Every taxi driver complements his Portuguese.  The time he had in Sao Paulo to practice his Portuguese was a very good thing.  He blows my mind the way he speaks with such personality and ease here.  Today was the first day I really attempted to speak Portuguese.  I felt comfortable with this family.  I knew there would be no judgement, so I went for it.  It went well.  The little Spanish I know helps also. 

            Well, it is 12:30 a.m. here and we are getting up early for church. 

F.Y.I.  We have been having difficulty adding more pictures.  We’re new to this blogspot thing, so maybe we’re doing something wrong, but it is either taking forever to upload a picture or it is not uploading at all.  When we get home we’ll be able to make this a lot fancier.  (I hope!)  Forgive errors please, its really late and we’re exhausted.  We’ll update much more tomorrow.  Love you all!  Miss you Sophie Love!-Stop eating hot popcorn kernels off the floor!  Miss you more Mama!

TCHAU!