Driving to Porto Alegre. . .

Once a month, Kevin has to travel to Porto Alegre for work. He normally rides on the John Deere bus and they take him to the airport where he rents a car. Then he drives about 45 minutes to the John Deere factory in Montenegro. This week, we're taking our first vacation in Brasil. Kevin needed to work in Montenegro yesterday and today so we planned our trip around our time here. Vacation starts in about an hour, or whenever he returns to the hotel from work. We left Horizontina on Monday and drove east, toward the coast. We borrowed a Garmin from some friends and printed a few maps for the trip. Even though Kevin's made the trip several times, this is the first time he's had to drive! I was impressed with how well he knew the road and all the towns along the way. I really enjoyed the scenery and realized that I really haven't left Horizontina since we moved there. I've been to a few small neighboring towns, but Porto Alegre is a CITY!! We had to drive through the mountains and some of the views were incredible. Several times I wanted to stop along the road and capture the beauty. However, the drivers here are a little insane, and I wasn't willing to risk all our lives for a blog-worthy picture. Maybe another day. . .

We arrived late Monday night and Kevin went to work yesterday. Several people had told me about the shopping here and I was excited to find some fun stores, namely Bourbon Hipermercado, which is similar to a Super Target!! However, that meant I had to take a taxi downtown, with my 2-year old, without my husband, not really knowing a whole lot of Portuguese. Needless to say, I was a little scared. Remember, I'm a farm girl from western Kansas! I think I saw a taxi on a movie once:) OK, I have been in a taxi before, but something about being in a foreign city, without Kevin just scared the crap out of me. You know what's sad? The biggest motivator for me getting out was knowing that I was going to find FLOUR TORTILLAS at the store. I just couldn't pass up the opportunity to find tortillas! Last week a friend brought us two packs of tortillas from the US. They were gone in two days. Kevin is craving tortilla chips. . . I just had to go!! Well, not only did I go and find tortillas, I found refried beans, garlic salt and celery, items that aren't normally in the stores in Horizontina!! I didn't take a stroller, so Emma and I walked around for 3 hours, browsing and eating and browsing some more. It was really fun! We found several stores with children's books and we both had fun flipping through the pages. I spent some money on books yesterday. Oh, for lunch, I had the rare option of eating at McDonald's, Burger King or Subway!! I haven't seen a giant yellow "M" for 4 months!! However, none of them appealed to me and I chose to eat Brasilian food. . . beans and rice and some yummy grilled chicken. We returned to the hotel and we both took a nap! Emma slept for 3 hours and I slept for almost an hour! It was wonderful!! Today we decided to go to the mall again. I found another bookstore, very similar to Barnes & Noble and we spent a few more hours walking around. Emma's been sleeping for almost 3 hours. I found some Diet Pepsi today, so I didn't take a nap. I don't even drink soda anymore, but it sure tasted good!! Well, vacation starts soon! We're going to Gramado, a little resort town in the mountains, about an hour north of Porto Alegre. We've been told that it snows there occasionally, but since it's almost 85 degrees right now, I'm pretty sure it won't snow this weekend! More posts to come. . .