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Veracel

I just realized I never gave any information on the mill where Billy is currently working. It's called Veracel and you should click on the link for more info because frankly, I don't know much about it. I haven't even been there yet. It's about an hour and a half drive from here, but I plan to go one of these weekends. I promise to take lots of pictures on the drive. With Carnival next week, it could be a while before we get around to the trip.

Next stop Vitória

--Update--
The parts didn't arrive in time to leave today. So we head out first thing in the morning.
--Update--

Today, we drive to Vitória, Espírito Santo, Brazil. Once again, it's to visit some shop for Billy's work. But, this time, we have to bring some parts to the shop with us, so we can't leave until the parts show up at the mill here. As of right now, they haven't showed up yet, so it will be late by the time we get to Vitória. Unfortunately, that means we have to do part of the drive in the dark. If it's anything like the last trip (and it should be a very similar drive), that means an extra hour or two on the road. Bummer. On a positive note, we've got a new, larger rental car. So the trip should be a little more comfortable. Maybe even faster because the new car has substantially more power. Still dinky, but it shouldn't feel so much like you need to get out and push on the long inclines (you have to climb a LOT of hills, even on the highways).


View Larger Map

I considered not going again. Same reasons - the long drive, the being stranded alone in a strange new city - OK, it's mostly the long drive that I don't like. But, again, the hotel on the other end looks to be very nice. This time we're staying at the Novotel. I have a feeling that link will break, so try visiting the Novotel homepage and searching for Vitoria. It's a major chain (a French chain if I read the history correctly), and looks pretty good. It's worth a shot. I'm just praying the Internet works properly in the rooms.

We plan to come back on Friday. Then Billy gets a 4-day vacation. Carnival is on Tuesday, so they make a long weekend out of it. The parties are already starting in Porto Seguro. They'll kick it up a notch starting this weekend. But get this - the really huge parties don't start here until Wednesday! That's when all the big name acts (bands, DJs) come to town. They do the traditional days in Salvadore and Sao Paulo, then hit up Porto Seguro when everyone else moves on to Lent. The thing is, Billy's company is supposed to go back to work on Wednesday. Will anyone show up?

Carnival in Porto Seguro is nothing like down in Rio with the samba school parades you've probably seen on TV. I think there's a few small parades, but mostly it's like a week-long dance party. You have your choice of hitting the streets downtown, or buying tickets to the beach clubs. We plan to stay up all night partying at least once - probably Saturday night. If we have a good time, we'll probably do it again on Monday. We'll probably go the the club one night and downtown the other. They're in opposite directions from our hotel. It's a little too far to walk, and driving is completely out of the question. Luckily, there are lots of buses to shuttle you around. The public bus has a stop right out from of our hotel, but I think we'll probably buy tickets to take the charter provided by the hotel.

Photo Albums

Brisa da Praia

On the way to Ipatinga

Ipatinga

Back in Porto Seguro

We made it back to Porto Seguro safe and sound. The trip took even longer on the way back because we had to do some of it in the dark, making it very difficult to pass the large slow-moving trucks on the twisty, hilly roads.

I've had some trouble uploading my pictures, but I think I'll be finished today. Then I'll post links to the albums.

Oh, and it turns out the Brisa da Praia DOES have hot cocoa available at breakfast. The powder was hiding in an unmarked metal bowl with a lid on it. But I spotted a little girl making some on Wednesday morning. I haven't tried it yet though.

I'm actually feeling rather lousy. I seem to have had a reaction to the Yellow Fever shot. Apparently it can make you feel all achy like you have the flu. But it should go away soon. It's nothing to worry about as long as I don't get a high fever too.

Top 10 Reasons This Hotel Rocks

10) Fab modern styling

9) The great glass elevator

8) A couch in your room

7) Drawers to put your stuff in

6) Hershey's chocolate in the mini-bar

5) A very cool mall a 20 minute walk / 5-10 minute drive away

4) A couple dozens channels of satellite TV

3) Make your own hot chocolate on the breakfast bar

2) Not bursting at the seems with scantily-clad beach bum tourists

1) The most comfortable bed/pillows ever 

I'm serious about the bed. I've been plotting the best way to steal these pillows since I woke up. Sneaking them through the main lobby could be difficult ...unless we hide them in our bags to get them to the car. Now there's an idea...

There are three draw-back to the San Diego Suites in Ipatinga versus the Brisa da Praia in Porto Seguro:

1) No beautiful views of the ocean

2) The staff seems pretty stuffy

3) You have to pay for the Internet

But, the pricing isn't that bad. We paid about $15 for 8 hours access. Fancy hotels in the US often charge $10 per day, even if you only use it for a few minutes. If we were staying longer, we could opt to pay $35 for 30 days unlimited access. Plus, it's definitely faster and more reliable than in Porto Seguro.

I promise to add pictures later.

New Address

When you opened this page, you should have been forwarded to a new address. From now on this blog will reside at http://blog.jacquelinepittenger.com. I'm working on fixing up the rest of the domain as well, but for now it's pretty much just the blog.

Bring On The Mosquitos!

Success! We left this morning for the clinic at 6:45 AM. It's about a 15 minute drive. We waited outside with a growing crowd until 7:30 AM, then we moved inside and waited a while longer. Good thing too, it started pouring just after we got inside. The woman at the desk asked us to stand to the side when we finally got up to her. Just before 8 AM a girl came and asked if we were the ones waiting for vaccination. We said yes and were ushered into a back room. A nurse wrote our names on little pieces of paper and stamped them to use as proof of vaccination (we were told to keep these in our passports). Another nurse prepared the shots (yes, they used a new syringe/needle for each patient - it came out of a little plastic peel open container, just like in the US). It was surprisingly painless. Just a tiny prick to the back of the arm (they gave it in the triceps area). Plus, it was free of charge. Not being residents we expected to have to pay. But no, we didn't even have to show our ID to get the shot. We did show her our passports rather than having to spell out our names and birthdays. And we had to tell her we weren't allergic to eggs.

Now if only it could have been that easy yesterday!

One Shot Please

Billy's company needs him to go check on a shop doing some work for his project. It's like 7 hours away in the interior of Brazil. I'm getting to go with, but it turns out if you get away from the coasts you need a Yellow Fever Vaccine. Bummer. So now we have to go get shots this afternoon. I'll update on our adventures when I get back.

----

Update

----

So here's the details. When you go to Brazil, you don't have to get a shot for Yellow Fever. It's not an issue out here by the coast. But if you travel in the interior (where our destination Ipatinga is located), you really, really should get immunized. From now on, we will definitely get all possible immunizations before we leave the US.

Yesterday afternoon Billy found out about this requirement. He'd only found out about this little side trip the afternoon before, so it's not like we had a lot of time to prepare. He left work early to go to a clinic before 5 PM. After some searching, we eventually found the place, only they stopped doing vaccinations at 3 PM. We returned at 7:30 AM this morning as instructed. By 8 AM, the lady there informed us they did not have any vaccines available, and sent us to the hospital. They claimed at first to have too few to go around (about 10 people were waiting) and after nearly an hour told us to come back at 2 PM. We got there are 12:30 PM, and were told they would start at 1:30 PM. We returned at 1 PM and were instructed they had no vaccines, try another day. Elias went around back to the office, and got info on another clinic after much angry talk from the woman in charge. There does appear to be a shortage. We tried the place she suggested. They had a straight-forward sign on the door saying they were out. Elias spoke to them, and finally was told that each location should have 30 shots available tomorrow. She said we could come back there, or try the first place we'd gone. They're smaller and we have a better chance there. So it's back to clinic # 1 again at 7:30 AM tomorrow. If we have no luck there, we'll give the hospital one more try. 

If we're still out of luck, I will not go on this side trip, but Billy still needs to. Ipatinga is on the very edge of the danger zone, so he probably won't even be exposed. He'll just stay covered up, use a mosquito net, and lots of bug spray. The real bummer is that the guys lost an entire day at work over this wild goose chase. Plus having left early the day before, and going in late tomorrow. So keep your fingers crossed we actually get our shots tomorrow. But we've stocked up on bug spray either way... we're also heading into the fringes of possible malaria territory.

How Did I Get Here

Once the big issues
(A) Quitting my job
(B) Giving my dog to my parents
(C) Preparing the house for our absence
had been taken care of, we still had to actually GET to Brazil. That turned out to be a lot easier than I expected. We had two major factors in our favor
(1) We live within driving distance of JFK, one of the world's greatest international hubs
(2) This is tourist season in Porto Seguro (and most of the rest of Brazil), so a lot more flights are scheduled
That isn't to say it wasn't an incredibly long trip.

A limo (ok, a Lincoln Towncar, but there was a cheaufer) came and picked us up at 2 PM Wednesday. That drove us to JFK, which took about 4 hours with the traffic in NYC. I slept for about an hour in the car. Then we get to the airport, had to check in, go through security, go find our gate. We flew business class, so by the time we got to the gate it was about time to board for our 8:25 PM flight. We settle in to our nifty business class seats (4F and 4G see SeatGuru for details). No, they weren't the cool kind that fold out into a bed. But it's still way better than coach. And yes, they really do go around offering champaign/mimosas/orange juice while you wait at the gate. That part rocks. The food was pretty good, although I wish I'd selected a different dinner. The kid in front of me's ravioli looked absolutely scrumptious. Nothing against the quality of the food, but I took a gamble and ordered beef spare rib with brussel sprouts purred parsnips. I was trying to be all high class and get something fancy. The beef was quite good. I'm sure the other stuff was too - I just don't like brussel sprouts or parsnips very much. Even without eating my side and veggie, dinner was filling. There were some h'ordevoirs to start, a fancy green salad with balsamic, then the main course, a fruit tray to finish, and an icecream sundae after all that. I was full before they even came around and asked about dessert. But I am incapable of saying no to hot fudge sauce.

In flight entertainment wasn't bad. They didn't have video on demand, or the full array of TV channels that I've seen on other planes. But you did get your own personal video screen and your choice of 6 channels of video entertainment (a dozen audio channels and some simple games were also available). We watched Balls of Fury during dinner, but due to technical difficulties we never saw the ending. It started over from the beginning like 20 minutes before the end because they realized they'd only turned it on in business class - coach just had blank screens and it was their featured film. After dinner Billy went to sleep, but I stayed up to watch another movie (they had all the films on loop). Hairspray was pretty good. After that I tried to get some shut-eye, but only managed maybe an hour of sleep on the plane. Eventually it was morning and they offered us breakfast. I managed to eat a bowl of Special K and some fruit. I was still stuffed from the night before and declined the tasty looking breakfast quesadilla, bagels with cream cheese, muffins, etc. We touched down smoothly and on time.

Which meant we were off the plane around 10 AM local time. That would be 7 AM EST, I think. We breezed through customs and picked up our luggage (that part took nearly an hour). Our flight wasn't until almost 6 PM. Luckily (and I think this is be best idea EVER) there's a a place in the Sao Paulo airport where you can go rent a tiny little room by the hour to sleep in. They have showers, internet, TV, a place to plug your electronics, everything you need after a long flight. Most importantly, they have a fully horizontal, stationary bed with sheets and everything. Rooms have bunk beds, so I grabbed the top one and hit the sack. I got about 3 hours of sleep there (we rented the room for 4 hours), then showered, brushed my teeth, and actually felt human enough to start a new day. By the time we checked out of our cubby hole it was time to check into our flight. That killed at least another half hour. With our checked luggage off our hands, Billy gave me the full tour of the airport's available food options. We eventually headed back to the first coffee shop we'd been to (it won out due to the gelato place next to it). I had a tuna salad sandwich. They cut the crusts off all the sandwiches here. Why do people do that anyway? Billy had these tasty fried chicken balls that reminded me of chicken croquettes. We slip a small chocolate gelato and headed through security to our gate. Less than a half hour of waiting later we were back on a plane. This time it was smaller and we were packed in like sardines on an all-coach regional jet.

At least it was a flight to Porto Seguro. Normally you have to go to a smaller regional airport and then get on an even smaller jet for the last leg. But like I said earlier, it's tourist season so they run extra flights. That flight was about 2 hours. Due to the strangeness that is daylight savings time, and the Bahia state's choice not to participate, Porto Seguro is EAST of Sao Paulo, yet the time there is an hour behind. The other half of the year, they're in the same time zone. So that makes it 2 hours ahead of EST here right now, but 3 hours ahead of EST to our west in Sao Paulo. Weird. I also learned that either due to a short runway, or pilots getting a kick out of doing a seat belt check, they land nice in soft in Porto Seguro and then SLAM on the breaks. I was fastened in, but not as tight as I should have been. I was literally lifted off my seat. We got our bags (hurray - no lost luggage!) and got picked up at the airport by Billy's colleague Elias. We barely got the three of us and our luggage into the tiny rental Fiat. At any rate, we made it to the hotel in time for a 7:30 PM dinner. With the time difference, that's a travel time of 27 hours.

Life is Beautiful

I am at the Brisa da Praia Hotel in Porto Seguro, Bahia, Brazil. Billy and I arrived the evening of Jan. 10, 2008. I'll add an entry about our trip down tomorrow probably. I'm going to try to check in here each day and keep you updated with pictures and the details of my adventures. Check back often!