Thursday February 18th 2010

Just in case you thought I was having too much fun here in Sao Paulo I just wanted to set the record straight.

We have now been here five and a half weeks. I am taking Portuguese lessons twice a week but Marcelo and I are still communicating in sign language and arm waving. He is so pleased with himself when he learns a new word/verb/phrase etc and has to use it in every conceivable opportunity. Today it was the weather. Yesterday was 30 degrees Celsius – today 21. But today was ”back to work day” after the 5 day carnival weekend and so of course it rained and the temperature dropped. The traffic rose in direct correlation to the drop in temperature and quantity of rain.

Still, no problem. We made it to the supermarket, followed by a second supermarket because the first one was out of anything fresh, followed by the bank, library and Shirlleys. After all of that hard work, one has to have ones nails done. I have yet to have the same girl so every time it is more arm waving and trying to explain that, ”no – I really don’t want my cuticles cut”.

But getting back to the reality check. Steve left at 7 am this morning having got up at 6 am. Besides my Portuguese teacher the only other English I spoke all day was to the dog and funnily enough she didn’t talk back.

We are in our house but the furniture is still in New York. It seems that the Brazilian government hasn’t woken up to the fact that the sooner they give us our visas the sooner we pay Brazilian tax. So they delay the process as long as possible, and the consequence is that the 547 boxes containing pretty much everything we own is still sitting in a warehouse somewhere in New York State. We have been told that our visas have been approved but the issuance takes at least another two to three weeks. The furniture cannot move without it. Once we have the magic visa number can we start the shipping process which in itself takes 6 to 8 weeks.

So here we are - mid February. My expectation is that the furniture will be shipped by the middle of March and should arrive by mid May – fingers crossed. Then we have to rely on customs clearing everything. Maybe by the end of May I might have notification that my stuff has arrived. Getting it is another matter.

We met some people in Turkey who shipped their goods from the Far East. They were told that it had arrived but heard nothing thereafter. When they inquired about the whereabouts of their shipment they were told that it had been impounded by the authorities and if they wanted to see it again, their best course of action was to go to the public auction and bid for it. It seems that in their case, the requisite back handers had not been paid.

From Turkey we tried to ship our car to the United States, there being no market for second hand American cars in Turkey at that time. We had to relinquish all the original documents which of course the American authorities wanted. This was one of the only times that our offer of anything that resembled a “facilitating payment” was not accepted. Probably because no amount of money to the Turkish authorities could produce documents that they physically didn’t have. Having left Turkey in January, I recall that we were able to legally drive our car in the United States about 4 months later.

But again, back to the original comment. We are currently camping in our house with rented furniture. We have literally, three beds, two sofas, a table and six chairs, four plates, dishes, cups, saucers, knives, forks etc. I airfrieghted some of my favourite kitchen essentials, potato peeler, can opener and cork screw etc, but for the main part, we really are camping.

So, the next time you sink into your favourite chair, comfortable bed or soft towels, think of me with none of the above.