I'm getting sick but I have fabulous jeans

Today billy went back to Ipatinga. I stayed in Curitiba. Good thing too - his hotel is having internet issues. He'll be back friday. Unfortunately, I also started feeling sick today. Last week billy had a little bit of a cold. Now I either finally caught it, or picked up a 'free gift' while out shopping. I'm sneezy with a scratchy throat. I bought some tea and I'm hoping for the best. Keep your fingers crossed that it doesn't get any worse.
I did end up going out to search for jeans. The closest shopping center was, as I expected, a bust. Then there turned out to be a mall 4x the size a block away. Most of those stores are even more expensive. I found one that was walmart cheap, but the jeans that fit were hideous. Sort of looked like I'd leaned against purplish brown paint. And this is supposed to be fashionable? Even for less than $20 I couldn't convince myself to buy them. Finally, I did find a store that had less than $100 jeans. They also had a huge selection - probably 20 different styles, and at least 10 pairs of each style. The other stores often only had 5 styles with 1-2 pairs per size. Even the ones that had more styles rarely had them available in all the sizes, and most of the styles were way to 'fashionable' for me to ever really wear. Shiny silver paint smears. Tapered legs so tight it felt like a compression wrap on my calf. Large plastic decorative stones. Weirdly placed, non-functional buckles. And then there's just the fact that most of the ones left simply didn't fit. I did end up buying 3 pairs at a lovely store that turned out to offer free tailoring! I have a rechid time getting any pants to fit normally so this was a miracle to me. That's why I bought 3 instead of 1. Yes, they were more expensive than I would have liked. And yes, all the jeans here are painted on in a way that will REQUIRE me not to gain any weight back. I consider that motivation and I love these jeans. I had to go back the next day to pick them up. It felt like christmas. And now I won't need new jeans for a few years.

Let's see, what else has happened? We went to the local craft market this weekend with a guy from billy's office and his wife. It was a lot like the one in Portland. Then they took us out to the largest restaurant in Brazil. It serves THOUSANDS of people every Sunday. And it's italian. Go figure. They have to do it all family style and there's no menu - you eat whatever they bring to your table. Chicken wings, friend chicken thighs, chicken livers (actually quite tasty), potato salad, rice, lettuce salad on the table and a rotation of pastas brought by the servers. Very brazilian-italian (as opposed to 'real' or 'italian-american'). But it was still a pretty good selection and very tasty.

Oh yeah, and the Chinese National Circus is coming to town. We go to see them Sunday :)

Brrrrrrrrrrr

Curitiba isn't nearly as warm as Porto Seguro. Perhaps it's because we're hundreds of miles further south and not on the beach anymore. Plus, we're headed into winter in the southern hemisphere. So we're talking 50-60 degrees and rainy. I packed for ~80 degrees and sunny. I'm having serious wardrobe issues. So I finally broke down and had to get a sweater. I bought a nice zip up cardigan, a super soft long sleeve T and a thin turtleneck sweater. If desparate, I can layer all three together. But I still only have one pair of long pants. And to think I almost didn't even bring those! I also only have 1 pair of non-sandals along. It looks like we'll be here for at least another week or two, so I'm going to buy a pair of pants and possibly a pair of shoes. We've got plenty of room in the suitcases this time, but our budget can't handle me going back to the stores I bought the tops at. I had to try really hard not to spend a total fortune on clothes. As it was, my total was about $200. Ouch... If I spend $200 on cloths, I usually get at least 5-6 things. I'm not cheap, but I'm frugal. I'm going to try to find a less fashionable store for the other ones. The neighborhood we're in is way too high class for me to even try again.