According to Wikipedia, “… Sao Paulo is the 11^th most populace city on the earth, and largest Portuguese-speaking city in the world …  The city, which is also colloquially known as Sampa or Terra da Garoa (Land of Drizzle), is known for its unreliable weather, the size of its helicopter fleet, its architecture, gastronomy, severe traffic congestion and skyscrapers.”

I don’t know anything about its helicopter fleet, architecture or gastronomy, but I see it from my 9^th floor balcony.  A view of a soccer field below, and beyond that, skyscrapers.  At first I disliked the sport field, but then I realized, if not for it I would see nothing but tall buildings which seem to go into the horizon.

And as you will notice in the image below, I have what appears to be fencing on the balcony.  It is made of string instead of wire, which I assume it is to keep birds out.My balcony is long and narrow. The rectangular hole in the wall is a BBQ grill.  One thing certain about this country, the Brazilians take their meat very seriously.  Everyone cooks meat, therefore all houses and apartments need a place to cook it.

And they do cook meat very well.  And beans.  These Brazilians know how to cook meat and beans.  Every restaurant serves meat and beans.  The little place I go for lunch has meat on a grill, and beans, rice and a few vegetables.  I cannot imagine this country being friendly to vegetarians, but I know personally several who do find a lot to eat.

Many of the restaurants have a selection of food that you load up on, then place your plate on a scale and pay per kilogram.  I have a very good lunch with a bottle of water for about 10-12 dollars.  With a meal like that, I have a small dinner.  Usually a sandwich or toast.

Now, the Brazilians are not people who enjoy spicy food.  As a matter of fact, you will not find black pepper on tables at a restaurant, because it is too spicy.  When I go to the little restaurant for lunch (Santina de Maria), I will ask for some of their spicy sausage.  It is not spicy at all, but it does have a very unique flavor.  The first time I tasted it, I wondered whether it was good meat or not.  I took a chance and ate it anyway and did not wake up dead the next morning.  Every time I ate it since then, it tasted the same.  So I guess it’s just the spices they use and not bad meat.

The best way to describe the traffic here is cordial.  If someone wants to cut you off, they use their blinker and wait for you to give them room.  Not what I am used to in Turkey.  Everyone drives the speed limit, because there are cameras everywhere watching you, which will send you a ticket in the mail for speeding or running a red light.  As I type this, the lady who owns the “Damnit Cat” that I took care of for 6 weeks, just took me to a restaurant for lunch.  She told me she gets so many tickets each month, that she no longer even tries to drive politely.  She said, her approx 300 Reais a month ($100) is just the price of driving in Sao Paulo.

She also told me that because of the crime in the city, when you drive late a night you ignore the traffic signs.  No stopping at a “Pare” (stop) sign due to the possibility of being car jacked.  Yes, you may be pulled over by the Polícia, but the fine is part of being safe.

The People.  I was told the Brazilians are the happiest people in the world.  With the crime I would question that, but working with these good people, I can see their happiness deep inside.  There is Jefferson Tisano who works in the Maintenance of the Consulate who does everything he can to hold his joy inside while he works.  One of these day, I will take him out for a beer after work to see what’s inside that glorious cerebral matter of his.  There is a small diminutive electrician named Fransisco who is always smiling.  Always.  When I say, Fransisco, why do you smile so much?  He says, I dunno!  Then there is Felipe who is cautious with me.  He is in charge of the local guard force and tries to maintain a serious nature when he is around me.  But I have seen him smile and laugh when I was not nearby.

Now, there is something we must talk about.  After coming from a Muslim country with its call to prayer 5 times a day, starting at about 4-5 am, I was looking forward to being in a Christian nation with churches and cathedrals abound.  But alas, no.  No, as in no churches and cathedrals abound.  I thought that Brazil would be like Ethiopia or Russia with its Orthodox churches everywhere like the mosques in Turkey.  Sometime, I will have to search one out, wherever they are.  But I have yet to hear any bells at all.  *sigh*

Okay. Enough for this post.  Kick butt.  D.

I now live in a country that speaks very little English.  I do not learn languages well, so I just learn the necessities:  cerveja, toalete and obrigado.  (beer, toilet and thank you).  Thus, it is unlikely I will go to a restaurant by myself and order a medium Kansas City strip with a fully loaded baked potato and a salad with ranch dressing.

So, I decided to start learning how to cook for myself.  The best thing to start with is beans.  Now I come from a family of nine kids and as my brother states, our mother only cooked for eight.  (our little sister is very thin).  So, the meals were not gourmet, nor should they have been.  It was quantity, not quality.  Beans where a staple that we grew up thinking they were what they were.  Not like the beans I’ve had in the years that followed.  So I looked on the Internet to see how to cook them.  Wash, soak and cook for 60-90 minutes.  You know, that sounds quite easy.

I like black beans and I like some brown beans.  So I went to the local market and picked up a bag of black beans and a bag of beans that appeared kinda white but should turn brown when they are cooked.  I took a cup of each and washed them and mixed them together in a bowl, covered them with plenty of water and placed in the refrigerator before leaving for work.

When I came home, the beans, both black and kinda white were a dark purple color.  Now I would think that this was something that would have been taught by the nuns in the parochial school, that black beans have ink in them, but I don’t have any recollection of anything to do with beans except planting them for a science project.

I went ahead and placed them in a pan with plenty of water and turned on the heat.  I then took 4 cloves of garlic, a half onion and a potato and chopped them into small pieces and added them to the now boiling purple beans.  I also added a secret ingredient that I will not divulge here should I ever enter these beans in a bean contest, but I can tell you it rhymes with baking, but without the “g”.

While they cooked, I made some cornbread which had a sweet taste like that of coconut because I could not read the package that was written in the local language.  Somewhere on the package it must say, This is sweet cornbread – Do not cook unless you want sweet cornbread.

After 75 minutes I decided the purple beans were done, so I sat down with the beans, sweet cornbread and a glass of chilled rose’ wine.  What a meal to remember!

I am babysitting a cat for a friend of mine, and when I offered her a taste of the meal, she quickly backed away.  I think it is because of the garlic.  We all know cats are a subspecies of vampires.

This cat is a female that has been named, Tiger.  She is extremely affectionate to the point she will nuzzle me any chance she has.  Her owner told me that they cannot sleep with her in the room, because she will continually nuzzle during the night, with her wet nose on the face.

So, I decided to break her of that.  The first night was a challenge where after an hour, I ended up sleeping with my head under the covers.  The second night, I decided to teach her the word No.  So, every time she crawled over to my face and started rubbing her wet nose on my face, I pushed her away and told her, NO!  It took several times for her to understand I did not want her at my face.  Six times to be exact.  This took place several times throughout the night, and at one point, I counted eight attempts from her before giving up.  But I was adamant to teach her the word No.

As it is now, I can stately say No as she gets near my face, and she will stop and lay down where she is.  Sometimes she will go to sleep and sometimes she will wait a few minutes then move to molest me again.

I am convinced that I will eventually teach her the word No to a point she will fully understand.  Afterwards, we will work on other words, like Fetch me a Beer.  With a little luck, by the time her owners return in late January, I will have her reading Tolstoy.

As for the beans, I will eat the remaining next week and try adding different ingredients for the next batch.  Perhaps some spicy stuff like pepper sauce.  If I leave out the garlic, the cat should be willing to try it. I will let you know how it goes.

Well, it’s been awhile since we visited.  In the meantime, a lot has taken place.  Good and not so good.

We left Turkey with a great deal of memories that will never subside, but the preparations to leave took a toll on both of us.  Transferring from one past to another is never easy, not just saying goodbyes, but the actual logistics of it all.  It started months before sorting and determining what to keep, what to discard and what to put in storage.  After the day when we saw a third of our belongings roll away, then came the scheduling and paperwork.  We had our final wingfest and several lunches and gatherings with Embassy personnel, and cleaned out our desks.

The last work day, before leaving the Embassy in a taxi (because our vehicle had already shipped out), I went through all the gates and shook hands with any guard I could find.  Some of the guards think more of me than they should and had tears in their eyes.  I would be lying if I told you it had no effect on me.  By the time I made it back to the main gate to leave, my hand and arm was sore from the handshaking.  The Turks have firm handshakes when they like you.

The next day, Saturday, I went back to the office to finish items left undone.  This included paperwork and archiving files off my computer.  But it also dealt with concealing ping pong balls in several places in the office.  One location was in an overhead shelf above my desk.  The Office Manager/Logistician is stickler for everything super clean.  I know the week after I leave, she will go to my desk and start cleaning it out.  She will open the top shelf and the 144 ping pong balls will flow out onto the desk.  And just to be sure it happens to her twice, I hid another 144 in a shelf above her desk that she doesn’t use often.  Someday, she will encounter those as well, if she hasn’t already.

Then leaving the Embassy compound for the last time, I spent a few minutes with more guards including the Most Handsomest Man in the Universe.  According to him, I am the second Most Handsomest Man in the Universe.

There are so many things to say about Turkey that it would take a blog spanning three years, but I can tell you, that it has made me an aggressive driver.  It has made me enjoy sour cream and yogurt more than before.  I developed a special friendship with Serkan who married our friend from Stinnett Texas.

… and a friendship with Burak, the guard supervisor who took us to Mogla.

We will miss our friend Stacy who has two masters degrees, but you would never know it from her bubbly love of life.  Her vibrant eyes constantly smile. And the little Taiwan friend, Ann who is working on her third degree.

We will miss Gozde with her Phd.  What little time I spent with her, she nurtured my passion for the creative spark of literature and the arts. I will miss my friend Ozlem who speaks five languages, three fluently.  Her English vocabulary rivals mine, and it is her third language.  I will miss our short discussions during coffee breaks in my office.  She would tell me things about her life that few others knew.  She once told me I was the girlfriend she never had.  I don’t know how to take that, but I think it was supposed to be good.

I will miss the vibrant Selin who uses any obstacle in Life to jump as high as she can.  I wish I could look into the future to see where all she lands!

And I will truly miss the smile on Nadjia’s face when she came to the office twice a week to clean.  Aside from the crazy Turks, Serkan and Burak, I think she made me laugh the most, just by being herself.  When she left each time she would say, See you later alligator.  And I would reply Afterwhile Crocodile, and she would reply Oinky doinky. (okey dokey)

On Sunday the 11^th, we were picked up at our apartment at 4am for a 6am flight.  I had to leave a few things undone like cleaning up the apartment before leaving.  This is one of the issues that make changing posts stressful.  No matter how hard you try, things will still be left undone.  I fear my life will be the same.

We arrived in Virginia for medical checkups, passport issues and getting our visas for Brazil.  I also had to apply and obtain a tax number from the Brazilian Embassy.  Once I finally found the place at 1:15pm, I saw that they close at 1pm every day.  No matter how hard you try, things never fall into place appropriately.  If that should ever happen, I will quickly go out and purchase a lottery ticket.  But all got done by jumping through the required hoops, and I headed to Texas while Terese went to New York to see her sister.  The two of them jumped in the car and made a trip to Nova Scotia.  A trip they had been planning for over a decade.  In the meantime, after getting to Texas, I took the little Miata out of storage (what MotherDear calls the Barbie car) and took a trip into the mountains of New Mexico which ended with a fishing trip with all my brothers, and then some.

After the fishing trip and Terese’s trip with her sister, we headed to Pampa to see several close friends, one on which who has cancer.  It was sad to see how far he had regressed since we last saw him.  I fear we may lose him too soon in the future.

At this point, we will stop the discussion until I am ready to discuss it further.  Instead I will tell you about Brazil next.

Last Thursday, a moving crew came in and packed up what we had in our apartment.  That was the forth pack-out we have endured.  Every time, things get packed up and things we need, do not.  So far, from what we can tell, we are missing a set of keys that may cost us somewhere about $200 to replace.

These people move so quickly, we have to be watching every move.  There were only three men, and only two of us.

Below are pictures of the packed up apartment after they were through. The next day, they came back and loaded everything into a truck and drove off.

And below is the remaining apartment minus one third of our worldly possessions.

… and who did the most work?We head out to Washington DC on Sunday morning. In the coming weeks, I will sit and think about this incredible country with its astounding people and visit with you about it.  It will be a few weeks.  Until then, kick butt.  D.

Nolte Wingfest

That term has become well known in the Embassy.

When we have one of these, we invite about 70 people in which only half show up.  So, 35 is really the limit for us to host in our apartment.  So this time, being our last, we obtained permission form the Embassy to use an area behind the cafeteria for a personal party.  It being on a weekend, we knew fewer would show up, but with the invitation going to pretty much everyone in the Embassy, we still had over a 100 people.  Below are a mess of pictures.  The first one is before people arrived.Then they began to trickle in. One thing that makes these so special to me, is the Marines who come and partake of these.  Every time, the wings left over go home with them to feed those who were not able to come.   I asked the Marines to sell beer and wine during the fest, which helps them support the Marine Ball. The two females are Marines who know how to shoot to kill.  Don’t let their petite sizes fool you.  Also, notice the Marines on the left who stop by to sample the wings while on duty.In reality, the pictures do not do the Fest justice, because they appear to show much fewer people.  I spent the time at the feeding trough dishing out food (above) and Terese spent time in the cafeteria cooking the wings, so what pictures we had were minimal.  But suffice to say, it was most enjoyable and we look forward to creating the WingFest extravaganza when we get to Sao Paulo.

We have a dear friend who recently had a birthday, and since she is such a dear friend, Terese and I offered our apartment to host a small wing party for her and a few close friends.  What follows are pictures of the celebration. Terese with two other good friends.  Stacy on the left who has two Masters degrees and our friend Ann, who I mentioned before with degrees in Mathematics, Physics and working on her Electrical Engineering degree, plus is a concert violinist.When we have these parties, most of the people hang out either in the kitchen or on the patio. … and getting down to business on lighting the cake.Some of Gozde’s guests. … and the Pretty Lady watching it all.I have mentioned before, how you never know people until you take the time to visit with them.  Below is a picture of Gozde, who has a PHD in whatever she teaches (she has told me but it goes over my head).   I have had several good conversations with her on literature and all the creativity it encompasses.I am always amazed, no, I am truly stunned when I discover what is inside those I meet.  Gozde is a unique 34 year old individual, that follows her own path in life and never looks back.  I am glad to consider her a friend like I do Selin with her gift of dance.  You never know what resides in people.  I am truly gifted to meet and know these people, who consider me a friend.

~ Never underestimate anyone!  D.