Thursday 8 March 2007
Today was my Independence Day. Yes, time for the husband to teach his poor American wife how to function in a foreign country. So what if I don't speak the language, too bad, just deal with it. So today started with me having to learn how to start the car. I had made a mental decision that I just wasn't going to drive during the 4 months we were here, but Corey made me go to the car and taught me how to start it - it just need to warm up, and there is this thing I have to pull to give it more gas. That was it. So it wasn't that hard, but I was pouting. So I drove it to town, I drove us to the ATM where Corey told me how to withdraw money. Next - take the $Reais to the Claro cell phone store to buy more "credito" minutes for the phone. Check. The car was running low on fuel, so I had to fill up the car - it's full service here, Corey told me to say "Alcool, Completo". Easy enough. So after those errands we drove to the Don Pedro Mall from the north, I knew how to get there from the freeway from Campinas from the south, this time we went from Barao Geralso from the north. So we had lunch at the mall and got some groceries, and then headed home. It was good and I did feel better about being here in Brazil after learning the ropes a bit. Hooray for Indepenence.
Corey killed a huge cockroach tonight. He was sitting on the couch working at his computer and saw a reflection of light flicker off of something on the black tile floor. He couldn't find the suspect at first, but then from the other room I heard a can of Raid going full blast several times. I came in to find Corey on the couch, and he was working at his laptop and said without looking up "I just killed a cockroach, it's on the table in your cake pan (that had been sitting out... it was where the cockroach fell to his death). I walked in and almost screamed, it was the biggest cockroack I've ever seen, and I think cockroaches have such ugly legs. Corey says fleas are uglier. I don't know how the cockroach's size compares with Corey's previous cockroach encounters. It stayed lying on it's back all glissening in poison for the rest of the night, it's mouth, head, and antennas kept moving for the two hours before we went to bed. I kept saying that he was going to walk away, remembering some urban legend that cockroaches will be the only thing that would survive a nuclear fallout. Corey is sure it will die. We are going to save it for morning time to show the kids - it's so fun to share our discoveries! We think they'll be pretty grossed out by it
