Happy Birthday!

Marcelo and Márcio, my eternal loves!

That handsome boy holding a cute baby is my brother Marcelo and his baby Márcio! What a gift from God! 

Today is Marcelo's birthday and he is turning 30. He got old! Now he is a father, he has his own family and above all that he is the maturest man I ever met. In fact, he was born like this!

Marcelo has faced many hard moments in his life and he goes through those odd moments with sad eyes and a shy smile on his face, trying to get sunny days, out of the mess, with his sharp sense of humor. He does that because he isn't the type of a guy who complains or complains in vain. He talks about the immediate problem until he is satisfied or until he find time to fix it. Just a good observer can notice in his shy eyes that things are kind of complicate for his side. 

Marcelo is a constructor. He has this power to build and improve things and lives of everybody around him and he always maintains it. He constructs out of nothing and he makes his way through every single barrier. It has been this way since he was a little boy. He realized he was on his own at very early age. 

What is funny is that he loves a problem because he knows he can solve anything... From a broken shower to a broken heart. Once he told me that the time he thinks about our mother's issues is when he is taking a shower, meaning that even when he is taking a shower he doesn't relax.

Thanks to his organization skills he's able to administrate his store, his wife's clinic, my brother's finance, my nephew's sanity, my mother's issues and my annoyances with perfection. Of course we all fight with him, and of course we all don't know how to live without him.

Well, I love you Uru. You mean everything to me. I'm so proud of you and so happy to see how well you turned into adulthood.Welcome bro! (I'm glad you didn't publish Chevetão's videos...they would contradict me!)

To finish this love declaration I just need to thank you for that piece of cuteness called Márcio. Thanks for giving us one more reason to keep us going on.

Happy Birthday 

my baby!

Feliz Aniversário!

I'm back home!

Nigeria was wonderful, Brasil was perfect and Paris unforgettable. Yep, I'm back home and ready to face many changings and challenges and reality!

I miss my routine, I miss blogging, I miss my silence, I miss my books, I miss my friends and most of all I miss having the key of my home in my purse.

In a way, it's good to be back home.

I'm moulded!

It's almost 4:30 AM and the window in my bedroom looks...wet! It seems that even the window is crying asking for a few hours of sunshine day!

The humidity here is extremely high. Today it reached 92% and I can't take this anymore. Really! I'm cleaning up the mould every single week and it comes back stronger. Even some clothes got moulded. I'm moulded for sure as well.

I live in the 12th floor of a 13th floor high building and all this wetness in the interior of my bedroom's window is the consequence of months without sun light. I was preparing to sleep and I needed to try to dry it because the water was coming to the floor already!

It's too much rain, too much!

The interior of my bedroom's window!

Really, it's the interior not exterior!
It's raining through the glass and metal parts of the window!

A lake is forming in my bedroom!

The mould starts and grows daily!

Home

I just got an email with some pictures that were taken this morning in Baden, Switzerland, where I lived for about 5 years.

That small town is really cute and charming and my eyes got full of tears seeing it again after 1 year. On October 19th, it was the 1st anniversary of my moving out.

I didn't miss the life I had there whatsoever! It was my poorest life quality ever!
Just to illustrate it:
-I paid a very expensive health insurance there but I never could use it since no clinic or physician accepted me as patient. As soon as I opened my mouth to ask for an appointment they shouted they were full booked. If I asked to be booked for 2 or 3 months ahead they asked me to call later and always the same answer was given to me.
-I love go to to cinema, shows and theater but I never went in Switzerland as expensive as it was. I can't see myself spending almost 100 US$ for one unique ticket and far away from the stage. I never saw any propaganda of free shows as it's common in Brasil or France for example.
-To cut my hair I needed to drive about 100Km to France because even the coiffeurs with a "walking in" appointment denied to cut my hair!
-I tried to get an membership at the local gym and full booked. A friend from France had no problem at all! The same day, the same time he got his membership!

I look at those pictures and I looked at the many pictures I took myself and I can't believe how a beautiful and charming country as Switzerland can treat people so badly! By the way, I talk about myself and in behave of people from other countries who don't have a very fair skin and don't look European.

Anyway, complains apart... I miss walking under the 1st snow of the year, especially at night. I miss the feeling of the snow falling in my face slowly...

It's unbelievable how alone I was in this town. I never spent too much time with myself as I did in Switzerland and in the end I could understand that it was very nice because I could improve the relationship with the inner me. I get along with myself much better now than before.

Brasil, United States, Germany, France, Switzerland, Taiwan...Wondering which country will be the next place I will call...home!
As they say... home is where your story begins!

Preciosities

My cousin Luciana just gave me a very emotional moment!
She downloaded to her orkut many pictures that touched deeply my heart. They were taken around 35 years ago and I had never seen some of them!

I have a huge family. My paternal grandparents that I love very much had 9 kids, and my father was the number 8. I was 7 years old when those 2 pics below were taken and I remember perfectly those precious and unforgettable part of my life.

I'm in a very nostalgic moment, I mean, even more nostalgic than I'm usually in. I love to look at those precious pictures, pay attention to each face and remembering the birthdays we were together, the trips we went together, the coffee we drunk together, the songs we sang and danced together,m the tears we cried together...

This emotional patchwork is who I'm now! Without those people I cannot be me, I cannot exist, I cannot live! I'm extremely thankful to God for being born in this family!

Lu, thank you so much sweetheart! You know I'm your fan!

50th Wedding Anniversary of my grandparents!

My grandparents, uncles, aunties, cousins and
my parents on the top of the pic!
My middle brother on my grandpa's lap and I'm on the floor!

Bachelor party for my cousin "Bibia", Maria do Rosario, Luciana's mother!

I loved that dress I'm wearing so much. It was in dark green!
The yellow mark is pointed my mother and my brother Marcos

Sui Generis

I left Brasil yesterday, 12th, Valentine's Day in Brasil. I already took 1/2 of the trip and I still have a lot to go. Right now I'm in a cafe in Amsterdam, Schipol Airport trying hard to kill time...it's much stronger than I'm!

I'd booked a tour to see Amsterdam once again, but it was canceled and as it's raining I decided to stay here the 8 long hours I have to wait to catch my flight to Bangkok!

I'm very exhausted, mentally and physically! Those 34 days in Brasil were...yeah, sui generis. I didn't go anywhere beside hospital and doctor's offices and labs. I didn't see any of my dear friends, I didn't go to any of my favorite restaurants, I didn't go to any party. What did I do? Good question!

Sometime I think I can held time on my hands and make things work on my own time. But then I go to Brasil and suddenly I have no control whatsoever of my time, of my life, of my will. Why? No idea. I just know that I'm able to figure it out when I'm there but I'm not able to take any action to change it in my own old and used way!

And it makes me very stressed! I got in Brasil wearing a bright orange Thailand style pant and on week later or less I came back to my black bold outfits. And being stressed is not a good thing for anybody. Emotional stress cuts the effect of the hormones I need to take daily. Without it I'm completely unplugged. So, I get unplugged there for long time and it makes a mess on my body letting me extremely sensitive to everything and to everybody. That's why I didn't go anywhere and I didn't see anyone. I preferred to be locked at home or better saying...i have no forces even to go out to meet a friend in a cool place.

Well, adding to all this the time my mother spent in a hospital. Oh God, what a trip!!

So, coming back to my routine and to my massages I hope my medicines will start working
soon and to its fullest! I'm hungry to live my life!

Right now is 15:34 and my flight will be at 20:35. I have a long way to go still!!

As my legs are very swollen, I'm gonna walk a little to help them out!

Rainy

I miss sunlight so very much! I'm from Brasil, I'm a Sahara lover, I'm a tropical woman!! Sun and blue sky are things that really are important to me!!
My mood and my energy change drastically with the weather! I wish I could see at least a little bit of the blue sky or get a little warm by the sun light...well I didn't get any of those since I arrived here and according to the weather previsions, I won't get it soon!

Due to the pollution, the clouds are very dense making the landscape heavy and not very desirable! I want to go out to have fun so badly, but the cold I got is still demanding some resting!
Well, since I don't have much to do in this condition, I went to Blockbuster and I got thrilled when I saw some very recognizable DVDs. So I got the lasted Gilmore Girls episode and I could be happier!! Then a quick stop at Carrefour to fulfill my necessities of being very comfortable at home , under the blanket, in raining days! Voilà!!!

Now dear rain rains!!

Uberlândia III

Rondom Pacheco Avenue

João Naves de Ávila near UFU-Federal University of Uberlândia

Getulio Vargas Streets and a storm coming

Uberlândia IV

Segismundo Pereira Street

Main Bus Station

Uberlândia V

Rondom Pacheco Avenue

Downtown- Floriano Peixoto Street

João Naves de Avila Avenue

Uberlândia VI

Downtown - Tubal Vilela Square and Cathedral

Downtown - Tubal Vilela Square

Center Shooping and Plaza Hotel

Storms

Summer time in Brasil could be translated as raining time, but the last days of 2006 and the first ones of 2007 are getting a lot of rain, bringing also high winds and thunderstorms, specially in the central of the country.
In just 2 months Uberlândia, my hometown, had 4 very brutal rainstorms that put part of the city under the water, letting the population very preoccupied about it.
The heavy rain that fell in Uberlândia yesterday has caused chaos across the city with not just material damages as showed on those pictures, but unhappily it killed 2 people as well.

All this ecological mess that is suffering our little blue planet is a huge alert to us, inhabitants of this planet, and a lot of people seem don’t care about it. Small actions as taking care of the personal/domestic trash could solve a lot of problems for sure but we do need a serious and effective measure to try to contain all those natural catastrophes.

A bigger and superior action must be taken and fast by the governments! Unfortunately a well knowing developed country doesn’t sign the Protocol of Kyoto what doesn’t surprise me at all! It just shows its intransigency and arrogance henceforth the globe.

Anyway… everyday my mom crosses twice or more the most significant point of inundation in the city. I have called her every night to check if she is getting home safe, sound and dry! Thank God, everything went fine so far! I said so far because the weather forecast said that there is a lot more water to fall down yet!!

The problem is that even though the city has a very good infrastructure it isn’t enough to hold the flood because the soil is very wet and unable to absorb all the water, since it’s raining every single day for weeks.
Well it’s raining since I arrived from there, on November 23rd!