Adventures of Living Abroad

As I ate my dinner and relaxed Friday evening, I thought what to blog about this weekend. It was a pretty uneventful week. It was another busy and stressful week. I helped with the musical on Monday after school and then had hip hop and samba class. Tuesday I had my usual meeting after school and then I went to Portuguese class. Wednesday I had ballet, hip hop and salsa class. Thursday I stayed late at work to get some things done. My grade partner and I had been preparing for International Day at our school where our students have to give a 30 minute presentation. I felt exhausted trying to continue to teach on a regular schedule and prepare them for this performance on Saturday. Anyway, that is another post.  Then came the eventful Saturday morning....I woke up and got ready to go to school. I used my Easy Taxi app to call for a taxi, grabbed my things and unlocked my door. To my horror and surprise my door did not open! I tried to key again and spent a few minutes pulling on t...

Before I get too accustomed to life here in Brazil, I thought I would share some observations about life here  in Porto Alegre, which is the capital of the southern most state of Brazil , Rio Grande do Sul.  Enjoy! :)   1. NO IT IS NOT HOT HERE YEAR ROUND AND NO I DO NOT LIVE NEXT TO A BEAUTIFUL BEACH  It is true that I live in Brazil, but I live in southern Brazil which is not near the equator. When I first arrived in Brazil, it was cold and rainy. The story goes: God began creating the beautiful beaches up north but became exhausted when he reach the bottom state of Rio Grande do Sol and just stopped. haha. But it is true. 4-5 hours north in the state of Santa Catarina are pretty beaches like Florinapolis and Garopaba, but down here, not so much! Additionally, the winter season is the rainy season and it can get chilly 30s-40s. What makes it feel so cold is all the dampness in the air from the rain and moisture which leads me to my next point... 2. CENTRAL HE...

I have been living in Porto Alegre for 8 months and I already broke 2 hairdryers. The first hairdryer stopped working a few months after buying it when it smelled as if something were burning and became bright orange inside. After such a long adventure to buy my first hairdryer, I vowed to find an easier way this time. Luckily, I did. For about the same price (around US $30) I bought another hairdryer at Zaffari's, a local grocery store, that is a little bit like a super Walmart. This one lasted even a shorter amount of time...Last Saturday something broke off inside of the hairdryer, started clanking around and finally shut off.  I was so annoyed....two hairdryers....over US$60....and they both broke! Pieces of crap, I thought. Back home you can buy cheap things but those things will still have a certain level of quality to them. That doesn't really happen here in Brazil.  I went back to the grocery store and looked at all the hairdryers again thinking I will just need to...