Weekend Activities

The many colorful tents of the Feira.

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Since I have been making Emily work so hard lately at keeping up our Blog, I thought I would finally let everyone know that I too know how to use a computer, and give you a little insight on our latest adventures.
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I finished my first (almost full) week of work recently. Things are off to a good start, and all the people at CNH are great to work with. My work hours are a little different here than in the US, but nothing too terrible. We start our work day at 8:00 am and work until at least 5:30 in the afternoon. Everybody must take an hour lunch break, but it is almost necessary to fully enjoy the restaurant or cafeteria in the plant. I am definitely eating much better here than I do in the US. My two options for lunch at work is the all you can eat Brazilian buffet (for the large cost of $0.28!!) or the higher class order off the menu restaurant (for the much higher cost of $3.75!!) We generally eat at the buffet a majority of the time, since the food there is great and at a great price. The only downfall is that you can only get one cut of meat (steak, pork loin, fish, chicken breast,etc) but you usually don't need more than that anyways by the time you have some salad, soup, veggies, bread, dessert, and soda!
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Saturday Emily and I spent some time getting to know some neighborhoods in the city. We are currently trying to decide where we would like to make our permanent residence, so we walked the streets of our potential neighborhoods trying to figure out where we like best. (All in all part of our decision will depend on what apts/houses are available, but which neighborhood they are in will have a weighted factor as well.) We had no problem with any of the places we visited, and everywhere seems to be pretty safe. This day we also spent some time checking into the wonderful Fiat automobile that we will be soon purchasing. We swung by a Fiat dealer and tried to look at several different models, and also spent some time online checking out the features of these vehicles. Basically in Brazil cars are much smaller, simpler, and more expensive (and did I mention stranger-looking?) If you have some free time, feel free to check out the sweet options we have. http://www.fiat.com.br/
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Today Emily and I visited the famous Feira. The feira takes place every Sunday in Belo Horizonte and is a must visit event. Basically it is a huge open air market where you can buy all sorts of hand made arts and crafts. There are over 3 thousand exhibitors setup in tents that span the length of several city blocks. These tents are split up into 17 different, color coded sectors, where there is a different commodity in each sector. (For example you can find jewelry, clothing, paintings, hand made goods, and many other things.) This place was packed today, but we had a good time checking it all out, and also visited the large city park that is directly beside this. After our visit to the feira we decided to walk around the area and find somewhere to eat lunch. I was slightly concerned when we came across another mall in the downtown area. (One more to add to Emily's list of visited malls in this city, hopefully we were lost enough she won't be able to find her way back!) Despite my concerns, it turned out to be a successful trip for me. We ate an awesome Brazilian lunch consisting of some filet mignon and sirloin, then we stumbled across a great sale at one of the shoe stores inside. I have been in need of some new Brazilian shoes to help me blend in a little better down here. Everywhere we have looked has been very expensive, but finally today we found some great ones at a great price!
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Well, that has been enough rambling for me for one day. I hate to take away all of Emily's fun, so I suppose I will let her have her job back for now. I will try to keep in touch every now and then, but don't worry I will make sure that Emily shares some of my perspectives in her entries. Take care everybody!