What I Missed

I guess it is no surprise that I travel a lot. I knew when we made the decision to move here that I wanted to take advantage of not working full-time and spend some extended time with my family. It helps ease the impact of the fact that I now live so far away.

Once I arrived, it didn’t take me long to start missing some things about Brazil.
Here are a few things that I found my self thinking about even after a few days of being home.

Milk – I know. Milk is milk, right? No, not for me. I find the milk we buy in Brazil to be so much better than what we get in the US. There are two reasons for this. One is the taste and the other is the storage.

I buy skim milk and the Parmalat brand I buy here tastes so much better than the skim at home. It has a richer, more satisfying flavor.

I love shelf stable milk! All the milk here is in 1 liter packages that stay fresh on your shelf for months before you open them. Once opened, we store them in the fridge for about 7 days. I still like my milk ice cold, but the convenience of this storage method is so great. We can go buy a case so I don’t have to lug it home on foot once a week. That does us for a long time and we don’t have to worry about it spoiling. I wish so much this would catch on in the US!

Cheap Beer – Other than a little wine, I don’t drink when I’m home with my family. It was nice to get back to the cerveja-goes-with-everything culture. Given my 4 week abstinence, I decided to start early and got a 20oz draft in the Chicago airport. It cost 7 USD. We stopped at Fabrica 1 in Londrina when my plane got in and got 300mL for about R1.50 (I think it might have been happy hour). Do the conversions and at that rate we would have paid 1.87 USD for the same amount I got in Chicago. Crazy!

In addition, eating out in general is more expensive. However, I will say the quality of food is better. Sorry, I like some foods here in Brazil, but for the most part I personally haven’t found much to get too excited over. Brazil wins for produce, but the US takes the prize for variety and presentation.

Feiras – I missed these terribly. I have been in such a habit of going to the feira each week for my produce. Fortunately, it wasn’t too bad of a transition with the presence of my Dad’s garden, but I still missed it. In addition, to produce I buy fresh cut flowers and occasionally a brick of doce de leite. And of course I missed the dirt cheap prices of these things. Produce in the US is unbelievably high.

My Workouts – I really missed my Spinning classes. I think I needed a break because I was getting a little burned out, but I missed the cardio and lifting at the gym. I did stuff at home and worked out with my mom some, but I really got off track during my trip. Apparently, I was missed a little too. My husband went to pay for the month and said they were asking about where I had gone. Well, I guess it is nice to be noticed.

Portuguese – It took me a good week not to blurt out a Portuguese word during conversation. I guess this is a good thing since it means I’m learning more. I sort of missed it. Unfortunately, I feel really out of it now. My trip to the States in December didn’t set me back too far, but this time I really feel like I’ve forgotten a lot.

So there you have it. I view these things as a growing list of aspects of this experience that I will be missing even more once our time here is up. Now, I’m just going to concentrate on enjoying them while I can.