Blocking My View

When it comes to Brazilian cities not located on a tropical beach, Maringá certainly tops the list for one of the most beautiful. Our apartment is in a decent location. We are able to see what I would refer to as the countryside and also the center of the city towards the Cathedral.

Looking out the front of our living room I’ve always had a good view of a median of trees a couple streets over. It caught my attention because there is both a palm tree and an Araucaria tree in this mix. The only one I’ve seen in town, I might add. I enjoy gazing out at it. I haven’t written about Araucaria trees yet, but I will. They have an interesting history in the state of Paraná.

Shortly after we moved in, we became aware of some construction going on in front of our building. The very loud church next door is building a parking garage. It seems the view of my trees is slipping away by the week. I had my fingers crossed for the longest time, hoping each level that went up would be the last.

Bad news. We’ve seen a small model of the construction and I’ve had to accept the fact that the top of the building is going to block my view. In the future, I’ll get to stare at a sparkling new roof.

Despite the loss of view, I do wish they would get it finished. The workers whistle the entire day. I never knew how annoying whistling could be until I had to listen to it from sun up to sun down while I worked in the apartment. It is like nails on a chalk board, horrible! Shutting the windows doesn’t help and even turning on the radio doesn’t completely drown it out. I have no idea how anyone has the lungs to do that all day without a break. It is consistent the entire time they are out there working.

Looking on the bright side, I guess it will free up parking on Wednesday and Saturday nights and Sundays. All those people will be off the streets and in the garage. We don’t park on the street much, but sometimes leave the car out during the day or my husband quickly stops by to pick me up to go somewhere in the evenings.

So I guess there is a bright side, but I will definitely miss my trees.