B To The Razil

Hey homies.

We are alive, and we are tanner than heck. Actually, my skin matches my desk at work. Holla!

I'll start at the beginning of this whole trip-a-roo.

We left MSP on April 4th. Our flight was as such: MSP to ATL to GRU (aka Sao Paolo aka WORST AIRPORT IN THE HISTORY OF THE WORLD) to FLN (Florianopolis). The entire thing was scheduled to take about 22-ish hours. Kill me now, please and thank you.

The weather when we left MSP was gorg, seriously. It took about 3 hours to get down to Hotlanta (haha, I'm funny btw). BUT when we got to the ATL, there was a full on thunderstorm going on. The pilot comes on the intercom and says "We're now in Atlanta, but because of the storm, we're going to be in a holding pattern for about 45 minutes". BAD NEWS BEARS. We only had an hour layover to get from our gate onto our international flight. When I had called the Delta rep a couple of days earlier, I had checked to make sure that would be enough time. "We usually recommend at least 60 minutes for a layover, and you have... 61... sooo". Literally verbatim. Of course I went into full on panic mode. Somehow, our pilot found a hole in the thunderstorm (how, I don't know?) and got us landed only 10 minutes late, hallelujah. So it was Kyle and I sprinting through that Atlanta airport, pushing people out of the way. It happened. Ran up 3 different double flight escalators. Managed to get to our gate as they were finishing boarding. Again, hallelujah. We finally got onto our plane and got settled in for our longest leg of the trip. Good thing they had the personal TV screens for us! BTW, I'd highly recommend This is 40, Silver Linings Playbook, and No Strings Attached.

Once we got to Sao Paolo, it was through immigrations for us. Biggest joke of immigrations/customs ever. And worlds worst airport. Honestly, I don't know how Brazil is going to survive the World Cup and Olympics. But that's neither here nor there. We got on our last plane and headed to Florianopolis. Never heard of Floripa (as they call it)? Don't worry, neither has anyone else. The only reason we knew about Floripa is because my uncle lives down there!

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This place, you guys, was unreal. We went to my uncles beach house, which is located in Barra do Lagoa (say it ba-ha, they don't say R, they say H), and stayed there for the first couple of days.

Seriously. Seriously.

The first full day we were in Barra, we went on a BIG LONG hike. I'm talking 3+ hours up in those hills. I swear we half rock climbed. But there some of the most gorgeous views.

This is the canal that runs through the town that goes from the lake (which you can see below) to the ocean and is littered with all of those little restaurants and fishing boats that you see. 

More later!

xx

I'm Still Alive

I know I've been like, the ultimate slacker lately. But for good reason! And don't worry, there are projects lined up and in the works.

It's all because Kyle and I are headed to...

BRAZIL!

So exciting! We originally were going to be headed down there later this year (think October/November time frame), but Kyle has decided to go back to school. Words cannot express how proud I am of him for working up the courage and deciding to make a complete life change. When we were in Duluth, there wasn't ever one thing as far as school that he really loved.

But we've now found a Railroad Conductor Program offered at DCTC. The stars are aligning. This kid has been obsessive over trains since day 1. Seriously, it's a dream of his to be involved in the railroad industry. And he's now following that dream!

..which means that some other stuff had to get moved around to make sure that his start date would be a-okay, and no school would be missed. And since we're going to Brazil, we had to act fast. Their "summer" is our "winter", and vice versa (obviously their winter is nothing like ours, still in like the 50's, easy). That meant that we had to get down there and back before May to make sure we could snag some "summertime". HOLY MAN. I had to get my butt INTO GEAR if I was going to get us to and from Brazil with a months' notice.

That also means that we had to get our PASSPORTS together (we both changed our name when we got married, so that all had to be updated, plus I look like a BABY in my old passport picture. Who is that!?), along with visas. Oh, you've never gotten a visa before you've gone somewhere? ME EITHER. Brazil requires you to get your visa prior to entering the country, which takes an extra who-knows-how-many weeks (we just sent ours off yesterday, so fingers crossed we get them back in time!).

(sorry for the shotty iPhone picture)

So, please, please please excuse me for not being here more. I'm just running around like a crazy lady trying to manage every day normal life on top of trying to make sure we can get into a country. Good thing we don't have kids (yet ;) ) otherwise I would have already been admitted to an insane asylum.

xx