Safely in Brazil

So here we are back in Brazil! We arrived with no delays or problems and got in to our hotel (a.k.a. home sweet home for the next month) Saturday night around 8:00. We were pretty well exhausted once we got in: partially from the ~30 hours of travel and partially from having to stay up all Thursday night to finish packing and cleaning out the house.

We are staying at Promenade Ianelli which is in the Savassi District of Belo Horizonte. The pictures above were taken from our balcony. We got pretty lucky with our room - only a few of them have balconies!

Eric and I both start our Portuguese for foreigners tutoring next week. We are definitely looking forward to it! The language barrier is a bit of an issue for us right now. Last night, Eric went to the front desk to ask for an iron so we could press his work clothes for today. Since the front desk does speak English, he was able to find out that they don't put irons in the rooms. Instead, the housekeeping staff irons your clothes for a fee. So, the front desk sent up someone to get his clothes. The exchange between Eric and the maid was quite humorous. Neither of them could understand the other, but they were both trying awfully hard! Eric finally thought he understood her: the cost would be more if she returned the items same day, but she could have them to him this morning at 7 am. Perfect! Well, Eric had a taxi pick him up at 7:30 to go in to the office. His pressed clothes showed up at 7:45. Luckily, we found a not-too-wrinkled shirt for him, but I think all confidence is lost on the understanding Portuguese thing! :)