Three Months In! (but who's counting?)

Durk goes walking in the early morning with our neighbor, Jose Benevides. This is their hammock. You can see how their living room has a window all the way across which is nice to let in the air. We see the same thing across the atrium where there are always clothes hanging up in front of the open window. We seem to be the soft rich Americans with air conditioning, though at church people are quick to turn it on and turn it way cold. And remember this is the fourth (not counting ground) floor so those trees are tall. Durk also watched some of General Conference next door where they were watching in Spanish, we don't know why. I chose to use my Ipad at home and listen in English.

The temple missionaries chose Pizza Hut for dinner. One consistent thing here is total incomprehension when you want to adjust something from the menu. No going in and asking "can I have sausage and green peppers?"  Or change the salad dressing from what "goes" with that salad. "This is the menu." or "it's on the menu".

The big event this week was a friend from North Carolina who came visiting. Carl Tyson was one of the Young Men when Durk was bishop in Kannapolis NC. While we were there, Carl served a mission in Brasil and they have kept in touch over the years. He came primarily to see his girlfriend who is from Recife. His trip was almost is good as ours, delays and missed connections and taking a train from one airport in Florida to another. He arrived around 2 a.m. and stayed a few days at our house. It's quite the luxury hotel with a mattress on the floor just fitting between desk and table.

Here is Carl with Angela - she's in blue on the right - at the weekly dinner with temple missionaries.
I thought we must have had the extra thick crust pizza but no, that one is apparently about two inches thick. The "Brazilian" pizza had, of course, cream cheese under everything else, I'm glad I didn't get that one.

The story Carl gets to tell forever is how he came back that night after taking Angela home and found that the key wouldn't work in our door. Apparently we were really dead to the world because we heard no ringing or knocking, even when the portero tried. The second door to the apartment is unusable because it is behind the refrigerator. Durk and Carl talk through Whatsapp, which is the major conduit for communication around here. But it didn't actually ring, so when Durk got up in he morning he saw messages from 11 p.m. and hastily went looking, to find Carl on the couch in the lobby downstairs. And we had given him the good key! Not every host gives you the chance to tell people about your adventure sleeping on the vinyl and metal "couch" (more like a bench with a back) in the open-air un-airconditioned space by the elevator.

Historical note, this direction from Marko Zero you are looking towards the port,which was once very busy with ships picking up sugar cane. There are areas along the freeway that are old warehouses for all the sugar cane brought to the port. Someday I may figure out how to get a photo, some of them are interesting looking and even the graffiti can be pretty.

The cooking adventures continue also. A few weeks ago I made granola cookies that were really good so I decided to make them again before the granola got stale or rancid. I used the same ingredients, recipe, and oven. They were not the same cookies. Some of the problem was the oven, which it turned out was cooking them up to 125 degrees too low and then about 50 too high. I spent a lot of time checking my oven thermometer trying to get it balanced, which made me forget to turn the timer on for one batch. But even the ones at the right temp were dry and crumbly. Durk liked even the burnt ones though. I'm grateful I bought the pressure cooker and had experience with one before coming as those things have been most consistently successful.