“Serene was a word you could put to Brooklyn, New York. Especially in the summer of 1912. Somber, as a word, was better. But it did not apply to Williamsburg, Brooklyn. Prairie was lovely and Shenandoah had a beautiful sound, but you couldn’t fit those words into Brooklyn. Serene was the only word for it, …
Category Archives: Uncategorized
VISAS
It’s real! They’re here! There’s no turning back! Thank God. Tomorrow we’re off to the RMV to gift our car to a friend to babysit for the year; then to buy Duck a new laptop; then wedding dress shopping with another friend (yes, Duck will get to go; yes, he’s thrilled; yes, he will beg …
“And face unafraid, the plans that we’ve made…”
Happy Festivus! Up here in the northern hemisphere, this song has been running through my head. Though it’s hardly a winter wonderland in Boston (upper 40’s today), we’re apparently in for a big “wintry mix” soon. Meanwhile, it’s almost 80F (26C) degrees and thunderstorming in Belo Horizonte and I would be lying if I said …
Continue reading ““And face unafraid, the plans that we’ve made…””
The Hard and the Stressful
We are frantically trying to get our papers together to apply for the visa. Fulbright recommends doing this 60 days before your travel date; right now we are about 5-6 weeks out and even if everything gets expedited we won’t be able to submit everything until about 4 weeks out. Eeeek. The holdup is that …
Stuffing and Festas and Shyness, Oba!
Deborah used the word oba to describe her Thanksgiving-Eve potluck party. “Oba?” I said. She replied, “É uma comemoração!” (it’s a celebration!). Google Translate tells me “oba” is an interjection sort of like “wow,” which seems like a useful word to know! I told her I would bring stuffing and we had a good time …
You Can’t Get There From Here
We had Duck’s Portuguese teacher and his wife over for dinner the other night and at some point, the topic turned to transportation. Allan had spent some time in Belo Horizonte and was giving us advice on getting around without a car. However, one of the things on our giant pre-Brazil to do list is …
Location, Location, Location
Things have been a little busy on the family front over here, so there hasn’t been much focus on preparations, but we did secure a place to live! I had reached out to someone who had done a Fulbright in BH a couple of years ago and who was a wealth of information. She gave …
Complainy Bread and Other Culinary Adventures
Following up on my earlier post, Uma introdução à comida (an introduction to the food), the other night I decided to try my hand at two dishes. One dish is called pão de queijo. If you know Spanish, you might not be surprised to learn that pão, like pan, means bread. Queijo, however, bears no resemblance …
Continue reading “Complainy Bread and Other Culinary Adventures”
Os livros para meninos
(Books for children) Since I’ll be studying libraries and in particular how families use the library, I imagine I’ll be spending some significant time in children’s library spaces, so I figured I should get to know some children’s books. Unfortunately, my library doesn’t have too many that were originally written in Portuguese. I requested a …
Uma introdução à comida
(An introduction to the food) When in doubt, a children’s librarian turns to… children’s books! I grabbed a book called Foods of Brazil by Christine Roholt from our children’s cooking section because I was curious about this famous feijoada dish. Duck and I have had several conversations about the food in Brazil, especially because I …
Horntoes in Brazil 