Parque Farroupilha
Well, since we had such a late night Friday night, we slept in on Saturday and then went to a park in the city. GPS is a wonderful invention and it helped us drive in a foreign city all by ourselves!! I'm amazed by it really! Absolutely amazed.
There are an insane amount of turtles here! At every park, in every pond, there are a gazillion little guys (or gals) poking their heads out of the water or sunning themselves on a rock or branch. I quit counting after 30. Do they just breed amazingly well or does someone hunt them down just to fill these ponds with them? Hmm, questions I'm not all that interested in having answers for.
I've always thought these swan boats were pretty neat and I finally had the opportunity to ride in one. However, the thought of sitting and pedaling in the blazing sun for half an hour just didn't appeal to either of us, so we didn't go. Emma was content to just watch other people float by. Maybe someday. . .
Just after we passed the boats, I looked down to see this homeless man laying on cardboard. Throughout the park we noticed homeless people laying on the ground. Skinny, tired, hungry and sad. I didn't know what to do. I took this picture for me, so I remember how much I have to be thankful for. I always wonder how homeless people came to be where they are. How vastly different my life is from theirs. As we sat on a ledge by the water, a young man approached us and began begging. After a few seconds, we realized he was speaking Spanish, but his sign language informed us he only wanted food. All we had were a few granola bars that I had packed as snacks. Kevin gave them to him. "Gracias," he said and hurried away. We gathered our things and I watched him walk to a nearby park bench. He had eaten one granola bar and was opening the other one before he even made it to the bench. Sadness creeped into my heart as I realized what was my "snack" was probably his only meal of the day. It's hard to walk away from those situations unchanged.
A pretty girl on a pretty stone bridge.
I sure love these two.
She has such a sweet heart!
a temple
idol - a statue made by people and worshiped as if it had the power of a god; anything that takes the place of God in a person's life. (NIV dictionary) "We know that an idol is nothing at all in the world and that there is no God but one." I Corinthians 8:4
I hope Emma likes to climb trees when she's older. Kevin and I both enjoyed that as kids. Actually, I remember climbing a tree on one of our dates in Manhattan. Good memories!
"Tchau", she says.
"Tchau", she says.
Later in the day, we went to the mall to eat and pick up a few things. Crazy-looking clowns were there promoting something, so we spent some time with them.
Most of the clowns here are kind of freaky-looking. Spandex is the choice of clothing, which just makes me sweat even looking at them! It was hot that day and I can't imagine how awful those people were feeling!
"Daddy, we foe-dot to puh-ray!" We hear that quite often from Emma Jae. She loves to pray for our food (and any other random item sitting on the table or hanging in the room) and her little voice is just precious. I love hearing her pray. I love hearing her thankful heart. We were all very thankful that night because we were eating at OUTBACK STEAKHOUSE!!!!! Yes, yes, we found a very American restaurant in Porto Alegre and decided to celebrate our anniversary there (which was over three weeks ago). Kevin had decided long before we arrived that he was going to order a Bloomin' Onion. I was thinking they had removed it from their menu because it was so horrible for one's health! Nope. I was wrong. They had it. We ordered it. We ate over half of it. We paid for it (in more than one way!) The decorations, the booths, the menus, even the attire of the waitresses were so American! Except for the language, we had a very American-feeling evening and we enjoyed it! Happy Anniversary to us:) We had a full, but fun Saturday in the city.
