Politics are not for pussies

It was mayor election on 2nd of October 2016
I don't still know who got selected? I can't find any info from internet.

Over here they took down the current president and replaced it with equally or even more horrible character. Next elections are gonna be 2018 I think. So out of the frying pan into the fire. Sounds great.

Downtown there was these demonstrations on the weekends against this new president and the bridge to the continent was closed few times.

I think the up coming elections in general are shown here better than in Finland. You don't have these road advertising signs but you have people marching with the flags of their candidates all around the city handing out flyers or then you can find them standing next to the roads with the flags.
They get paid to do that so I don't really believe that those people even know much about the candidates in those flags.. At least those 10 year old kids.
One dude grabbed me from the shoulder and tried to give me this flyer while saying something in Portuguese and I was like "Dude I don't speak any Portuguese, sorry man" And Mauri said to me "Well I don't think he spoke any Portuguese either, I didn't understand anything he said.." Hahaha.
Every morning you could hear this tiny car going around our block and screaming from loudspeakers some political phrases.

Lady working while texting. Good job.

I don't know how safe it is to keep giant political stickers on the back window..

Over here you have to vote. If you don't, you have to have a good reason why not. For example being very sick or living somewhere else, like abroad or outside of your hometown. (??? Isn't it your hometown where you live at the moment?? Apparently not because Mauricio didn't have to vote because he lives here. Weird things)

If you are voting and you don't know who to vote at the moment, you just press white button so your vote goes to the person who is on the lead at the moment.. yeah.. soo smart.. Also Mauri told me that if you don't want to vote anyone you press 000. But you have to go to the voting place no matter what.

I read that there were murdered few candidates in Rio. Apparently behind this there was this gang who is against the things these candidates value. Insane..

I'm so happy we don't live in Rio. I would probably never go out from our house and still I would be scared.

I asked from Mauri that if you choose a good mayor for this city and also the help of the mayor, do they have any power? I mean if they want to change anything over here, is it possible?
He said yeah they can change things. Mayors are kinda like mini presidents I think.

Yeah. Downtown I started to feel crappy again how everything is so expensive and salaries so shitty. That's why I got very curious if anyone can honestly do any changes here. I'm waiting that some young smart hippie person gets selected as president some year. Someone who would care what happens to waste and trash. Someone who figures out how to get salaries better. Someone who cares, has fresh ideas and is not corrupted. Let's see. Thank god youngsters are very into making their future better.

We also tried to find some book for me to learn Portuguese. We did find one. 700reais HA HA HA HA. Fuck that.

Money, money, mooney.. MONEY!

Okay. I don't really know where to start with all these money things. Nothing just makes sense over here. Like for real I knew where I was coming to when I got here but oh my god...

Over here they have minimum salary in use. I've heard it's around 800 reais. We don't have minimum salary in Finland but if you have full time job in Finland (about 40 hours a week) your weakest salary before taxes is around 1500 euros. After taxes something like 1200 euros. About that much. I think like 1st year register ladies or McDonalds workers gets this money. Something like that.
Okay so this 800 reais is 200 euros. You don't pay even our rent with that money. Maybe this is one reason why kids never move out from their parents place. Or maybe when they turn 30. (In Finland we often move out when we turn 18 and at least by 20). If you would like to live here in a same standard way than in Finland, your salary should be at least 2000 reias. Or maybe even 2500 reais if you want health insurance. So 500-750 euros.

Our rent is 1000 reais and season months it's 1100.. Like. What? You can just change the rent like that? Like I get it because we live by beach and all but isn't it better to have long term renters than tourists once in a while? Or well yeah maybe the tourist rents are like 1000 a week. Hahha. Wasn't thinking.
So the water and electricity is part of the rent money. And then 100 extra from internet. So the living money is about 300 euros.

Our couch was 900 reais. So around 250€. It was on sale. Normal price about 1400reais. So 350e. So the sale was good.
But you only get the discount if you pay the couch right away. And who has 900 reais in your pocket just like that when the minimum salary is 800? Rich people. If I would have bought the couch with installment, the final price would have been about 2000. TWO FUCKING THOUSAND. Like talking about the interest.

So I have no idea how many people in the end actually gets to buy anything from sale. And the salesguy went nuts when I told him that I want to pay the couch right away. He asked many times "Do you mean like in 30 days? So you mean you want to make some kind to payment plan?" No, I want to give you all the money right away.

So installment payment over here is the most common way to pay things. From clothes to furniture.

The big prices are shown like this:

And this is so weird because you kinda have to read the fine print which tells you the REAL total.
So first when I saw all these low prices I was like WHAAAAT HOW IS EVERYTHING THIS CHEAP! And then Mauricio said that yeah those prices are actually the prices you pay monthly... Well. Fine.

So we are still trying to look for the kitchen table. It's very hard to find the right size and GOOD QUALITY! I want it to be full wood or some hard plastic. So there is no plastic furniture here and full wood is very hard to find. (Why the fuck you don't have IKEA here?? I don't get it). Everything is made from this weird woodchip thing. And this material doesn't take moist good like at all.. What's the point of selling furniture that doesn't last under moist weather when you live in AN ISLAND and the SEA is EVERYWHERE?? It doesn't make any sense! But hey when this is the only thing you have then this is the one you buy. And after 6 months the table is completely soft and moist and filled with termites (I got some experience from that). And this same material you use in a sink cabinets but doesn't take the moisture.. Oh yeah and these furniture from this material are not cheap. But local people don't mind. Everyone is in the same situation. Quality and Price don't walk hand in hand and that's just how it is. It's normal.
Sometimes I feel like shaking this people here and ask WHERE IS THE REVOLUTION, WHEN ARE YOU GONNA ASK YOURSELF "WHAT THE FUCK IS HAPPENING HERE" (Okay there is more to this than furniture :D)

Electronics are crazy expensive. PS4 was like 5000 or more when it came on the market. It's way over 1000 euros. No one in Finland would pay this much from a game console. It's still like 3000 or something over here. 

Movies, CDs, bags, clothes, shoes, EVERYTHING is so expensive over here that the president built this "mall" downtown which is dedicated only to pirate stuff. And this is legal. Oh well I honestly don't even know if this is legal or is the illegal just made to look less criminal :D I know it was illegal but still people kept selling this stuff on streets. So apparently the president thought "Better -hide- this shit". There is one this kinda mall also in Mauri's hometown.

The food in general is more expensive here than in Finland. Especially when you compare the salaries.
Cheap food like fries, frozen pizzas and ready meals are very very very expensive over here. Like 2kg of fries is 15 reais?? Like it's frozen freaking potatoes why the price??

This is what 125 reais of food looks like. I think it's kinda a lot of money.

We don't really eat cheese anymore because it's so INSANELY expensive! One kilo is like 30-50 reais! In Finland one kilo you can get with 5,99 :D Insane.

If you wanna live as a vegan. Good luck. Or if you honestly just want to eat vegetables then it's affordable but soy, tofu all this kinda things are SO expensive! And it's actually very hard to find any vegan groceries. Only soy things.

If you do have money then you just go to these cool vegan restaurants which are surprise surprise too expensive for regular people to eat.

But I think I'm gonna write more about foods later.

The one positive thing is that I can ask pretty much whatever money from my cakes!

The Couch

Caipirinha and fruits in a cake bowl mmmmm.

Okay so where were we? Mauricio's dad left back home and we still don't have a couch. Or oven. That's where we are.

We have been quite a lot in downtown and elsewhere to find furniture.
We need kitchen table and some sort of closet to keep clothes in. We do have closet for clothes here already which belongs to the owner of this apartment. It smells like a grandmom. I'm so not gonna put any of my clothes in there. No one should put clothes in there. It still kinda smells funny in our house. But you get used to that.

Btw. In Finland I had these crazy ass migraine attacks once a week and I went to hospital once because one attack was so bad. But here I haven't had any. Well it must be because I don't have this insane work stress over here. I had one attack after fighting with bureaucracy over here but other than that. None.

We still cook with microwave, yeah no oven yet. We haven't had time to go to this store next door while its opening hours. I hope the cheap ass oven is still there.

Okay about the kitchen table. I've kinda realized that we are not gonna find one I like. I've been checking out if I could find one online. It's not very easy to google stuff with language you don't speak :D
Moveis, cozinha. I've found few things but the delivery times are insane! Minimum 30 days of delivery??? I AIN'T GOT TIME FOR THAT. Okay while writing this the table would have been here one month ago.. But I also want to touch and feel the products I buy. Mainly because the quality can be whatever over here..
Well. We keep looking.

Aaah yeah, we also need a laundry machine. I didn't even remember that.
We actually have been searching a laundry machine once in a while. I just don't know where to put it because there is no space in bathroom and there is no holes anywhere in this apartment that would show someone has had machine here before. I told Mauricio to make sure from the owner that we can make hole to the wall so we can put the water hose somewhere from the laundry machine.

Well we can't. Apparently somewhere here in this condo there is this laundry room where you can put your machine. But ofc now there is no space for us. Well. Maybe we just have to find these laundry places like in States. You know where ordinary people use some coins to make the machines work.

So on this one Tuesday I was lying in bed and watching some movies when suddenly someone is banging the door and yelling "Mauricio!". I went to check the door like wtf is this crazy dude yelling at. It was the Couch. They were supposed to bring it on afternoon so Mauri would have been home already but 9 am and afternoon. What's the difference.. I opened the door and bla bla bla Portuguese and I said "Yo dude I don't fala no Portuguese, you know English man?" He didn't. So we just waved our hands.

Those dudes threw the big ass couch in the middle of the living room wrapped in packaging paper and plastic and I was like helll no how the fuck am I gonna as a small girl be able to get the couch of this packaging. Well I did. Easy. Peace of cake. Strong independent woman from Finland. I don't need no man.

Look at it! Its so niceee, I also bough this comic puff. Also very nice.

Oh yeah. Before leaving from Finland I sent some of my posters here. They were supposed to be here in 7-14 days. Haven't seen them yet. Honestly I would have been more surprised if the posters had been here on time. Our walls just look kinda empty so posters where aaare you. Also some kind of couch table and corner lamps would be nice. I kinda hate our overly bright roof lamps. So does Mauricio.

I have been trying to find those lamps from online. No luck.

One day this same neighbor who gave us the number for the cheap gas, told Mauri that she has this extra gas bottle which she can sell for us with a good price. Also she asked if we have a laundry machine and offered hers for us to rent! So that's done until we got our own machine and place for it!

People are way too kind

Mauricio's dad and his family came here to spend some vacation time. The timing wasn't perfect because it just rained the whole week. Too bad.

But it's okay! People came to our place right from the morning and there we were waiting for that couch. We waited until it was 1 pm which was the time the couch should have been here already. Well no couch. Mauri called the company asking what the hell, because we had other things to do than waiting for some couch.
"Aah so they didn't let you know? The delivery has been transferred to another time, I thought they called you about that!" Mauri was freaking pissed and said few strong words and they promised the couch to be here on Tuesday so in 3 days.

It was kinda embarrassing because the only couch we had was this...

I was too embarrassed to ask people to sit down. As a Finnish.

While we waited for the couch, Mauricio's  dad started to talk with our neighbor. She gave us a number where we can get cheap gas for the oven. Okay. Help. Gas in my house?!

We left to see the island by CAR! CAR! What a wonderful freedom free'er! Ahh. Gotta love the easiness of a car.

People were kinda hungry and we started to search a restaurant from Lagoa. Lagoa is part of the city close to Campeche, filled with artists and hippies and cool restaurants. On season time it's the place where people go partying. Lagoa has been built around the Lake of Lagoa (Lagoa da conceicao). The lake was very pretty. Very bright from some areas and surrounded by mountains. I think this is my favorite place on this island so far.

We found this buffet restaurant, 35reais per person and eat all you can. Finnish buffet restaurants are soooo cheap after seeing this. Especially this one sushi place. God damn.
But the food. It was SO GOOD. Salads were fresh, no added salt, rice was so good, fish SO good but the salad table was amaziiing! Just take me there now. Please. I want it. And there was a dessert table where I found this pudding that tasted exactly like Finnish Christmas! I ate soo much and I was very happy, SOMETHING ELSE THAN MICROWAVE FOOD!! (because we still don't have the oven)

Had to take couple of selfies in the back of the restaurant.

We continued our trip to the continent. Mauri's dad's wife had secretly been writing a list of things she thought we would still need, so we started hunting those down. I kinda feel very awkward when someone wants to buy us something because I know we are financially good and it's not small thing over here if someone buys you a blender.

We found super lovely store! It was filled with stuff from toys to grills and everything between.
I went nuts but I tried to keep my head cool because "we are gonna buy only things we actually need.. and little bit candies.."This is my everyday mantra. Sugar addiction is bad.

So we got some shelves, clothe hangers, cups and spoons and everything we need at home. They had so much things there. I had to control myself from buying cake bowls and others because A) We don't have any space for those and B) We don't even have a kitchen table to use for baking stuff. And also we don't have that oven yet. Damn.. We spend few hours in the store because we had a car to bring stuff home!

Mauri's dad bought us a clothe rack, blender, coffee mugs and water boiler. He also paid the shelves I chose. This made me feel so bad. Someone is buying all these expensive things for us that I could pay myself also. I felt so guilty. I didn't really know how to be and it didn't make me feel any easier to not know how to show my gratitude in his language. Horrible. So I just smiled awkwardly.

But it was amazing. I was so freaking exited that FINALLY we have shelves where to store our food! We had nothing before this.

After leaving from the store we headed back to the island to see whats up. But well it was Saturday so all the stores were already closed from the downtown and the weather was very bad.

So we drove back to Lagoa to take some pictures from mountains.

After that we went to the downtown mall (not for poor people or not for me) to find some place to eat, since it was already like 5 hours we ate at the buffet. Again I started missing food places in Finland with these prices. My broccoli had salt on it.
Ofc we had to take some selfies.

Mauricio, me, Mauricio's sister, dad and stepmom.

We took a stroll on the street by the downtown beach, checking out some views and gray clouds. Finally we gave up with the weather and headed back to Campeche. Good timing, when we got in to the car it started raining extremely heavily and window wipers had no use. Mauricio's dad wasn't very good navigator anyway and the rain made it impossible to see any signs where to go. We were circling around a lot and we passed many intersections. Good that we were not in a hurry.

Mauri's family spent little bit more time in our place drinking chimarrao and chatting. His dad wanted to put the shelves to the wall himself. (He probably saw my skills with the curtain rods.. OH YEAH! We have curtains now! But it's not super easy to drill stone walls.. so don't judge me) It was kinda late already so we decided to put the shelves on the next day.

But now we have shelves on wall and stuff on shelves. Clothes on hangers and instant coffee made with the water boiler! Also we made some mango smoothies with the blender!

It's all good.

Sausage of the rich people tastes better

Weeks are going fast and the order of doing things is pretty blurred, but lets see! So week two living in Brazil!

Mauri's friend Esmute (or as I call him SMUCHIEE) from Pelotas was visiting his mom here in Floripa, so he spent one day with us. (I'm SO local already calling Florianopolis Floripa, kinda like local Helsinki people call Helsinki Stadi, it's word transformation from en stad which comes from Sweden and means city) so pretty cool that he came to see us. Smuchie invited us barbecue with his family and so we went there.

We took a bus, took another bus from our terminal and another bus from downtown terminal  and last bus from Canasvieras terminal. We left from here around 4pm and we were there around 6pm. Smuchie was waiting for us and took us to the front of the condo where his mom lived.

"Okay, wow" Was my first reaction when the guard opened the gate for us. Even the gate looked fancy. We took an elevator to Smuchies moms place which was obviously rich people apartment.
But the level of fanciness was kinda same as our houses in Finland when you own your apartment and renovated it a little bit. But the balcony. THE BALCONY. I'm pretty sure that the balcony was bigger than our apartment! There was a door to the balcony from each bedroom and also from the living room, there was barbecue area, dining table. Just small for 10 people I think.. Balcony furniture and small garden area. Honestly I'm not exaggerating. On the left you could see a view to the sea and on the right it was mountains. Still not exaggerating.

Even the barbecue meat and chorizo sausages tasted better than normal. There was no salt in the salad (YESS) and mom had made potato salad herself. That's my absolute favorite food. As a drink there was Heineken beer and cola for me. Beer is always beer and it tastes always bad. Ew. Rich people drink imported beer here. It's fancier than drinking local. Which is so not the case in Finland so it's kinda weird :D 

Oh yeah, people don't speak English here. In schools they don't study English much and all you see from television is dubbed so you just don't hear English much. This kinda sucks for example while eating when people speak Portuguese and suddenly everybody starts laughing like crazy except Finnish person who looks grumpy because doesn't understand. But I'm gonna learn. Smuchies mom knew few words and with those she tried to tell me just stuff in general. It was wonderful. I felt like people are interested in me and they want to make me feel comfortable. I loved Smuchies mom and stepdad. So happy and open, funny, smart and nice. They asked me and Mauricio visit them whenever we want, if we just get bored for example.
Gotta love that!

Mauricio, Me, Smuchie, his mom and stepdad.

Smuchie wanted to show us rest of the condo area.

And I mean my first reaction was "WOW" and then it was "what's the point" and then it was "Rich people get rich while poor people get more poor." I'm little bit like this. My inner hippie sometimes jumps up. Kinda like in Greece when we went to say hello to turtles. I felt like starting a war against tourism after that trip.

Okay. On the backyard there was crazyass pools. On the parking lot they had fancy 60's cars (okay I don't really know about the years but retro and expensive looking), from the condo area you could go to the beach. Beach was of course amazing. Gorgeous. Even the beach looked like for no poors. How can sand and water tell me that this beach is not for poor people? Okay you are not recommended to swim on this beach, because it's little polluted, at least on tourist season. Because well.. Brazilian people let shit to their oceans okay.. But it looked very pretty, very pretty.

You can see the balconies from here

Palm trees!

If you happen to own a jetski or a boat you can just drive it out from the condo through this water road they have here.. Not lying.

They also have gym and movie theater here. Think if your condo area would own a movie theater. What. That's what. 

So I was little curious of what Smuchies peeps do for a living and how much do you have to pay from apartment like that and do they rent apartments for tourists or is allll this just for locals (apparently they also had some politics living there and those people are kinda like celebrities over here, people you don't see hanging around with normal people) and do they have rental apartments here or do you just have to buy one. Also is this place sold out. (Because it looked kinda dead there)

He said that mainly people buy these places, they are too expensive for anyone and some people only live in those on season time. That's why it looked so empty.

But the place was super cool that's for sure.

After the condo tour we went to say goodbyes for Smuchie's mom and stepdad and she made us eat some pineapple-coconut cake. It was good minus the coconut (also I think my cakes are better.. just saying..) we said thankyoubyebye kisses and hugs and we GOT A RIDE back to the Canasvieras terminal so one buss less travelling! We were back at home little bit after midnight.
It was a damn good day!

Shopping, buses and jumping around

Okay, Rest of the week was just bouncing around on the beach and our neighborhood.

There are two restaurants at the beach (so expensive it makes me wanna hurl) and some beach clothe stores. I think there might be one icecream shop also, I'm still waiting for this up coming summer season to show me how this village is gonna turn alive!

Campeche is not crazy millionpeople city filled with stores nonononono.
We have two supermarkets, both very close to our place. From "downtown" you can find organic stores where they sell hippie things, hardware store, flower store where you also can find fresh spices like basil, few gyms, meat market, fruit market, shitty furniture store, crafty stores and small we-sell-everything-you-need stores. Everything is little apart from one another. On night time snack food places open. We haven't been in any of those yet. SO if you really want to go shopping shopping you have to go to the downtown of Florianopolis.

We move around here by buses. On weekdays buses are more active because people need to get to work somehow. And on the weekends there is less buses and more people making streets crowded, so on a weekend it's kinda slow to go anywhere by bus.
In my opinion this bus traffic here is amazing (at least comparing to Finland.. damn), even though Mauri is hating very openly and every day the "fucking crowded bitch ass buses". hahah

Buses move here pretty much 24/7 so you can always kinda get home, even if you need to wait little bit longer to actually get the bus. If you want to travel this island from end to end, you need only one ticket. Even if you need to take 6 different buses. I think this is dope.

The buses go from terminal to another.
So you wait your bus on a stop, pay 3,50 reais and sit down. Bus is gonna take you to the terminal and from there you need to choose your next bus like bus to the downtown of Florianopolis for example. The bus is gonna stop in this downtown terminal and from there you can choose another bus to go somewhere else or you can walk out of the terminal and go shopping downtown.
You get back to the terminal by buying new ticket.
If you never leave from the terminals you can keep riding by buses as long as you want and only with this one ticket. Super cool.
Except if you want to take a bus to the continent you have to pay a little extra. The price of the tickets depends on the location you take the bus from. I think.

If you are senior, pregnant or you have some physical disability you just sit on the front of the bus and pay nothing ! Super amazingly wonderful!

Other than Finland, in Brazil the driver doesn't take your money, he focuses on driving too horribly. In the middle of the bus there is this dude who takes your money or checks your bus card and opens a gate for you. The ticket is 3,50 reais with cash and 3,35 with the card.
I think this dudes job is kinda unnecessary, but they have bunch of random jobs here.

Okay. Crowded buses indeed. You don't have seat belts in a bus and they are crowded as fuck, not always but often. There is no rules that you should sit on a bench. Some people don't mind being in a crowded bus and others calmly wait for a bus which is not so crowded. I don't mind. They don't have thieves or gross people here much so it's cool. Mauri is always so broken if the bus is full. haha.

From our place to downtown it takes about 20-25 minutes on weekdays.
We have to take 2 buses. On weekends in can take few hours.

This island is not small. I haven't been googling any specific lengths or sizes but from end to end with a car it takes about 2 hours if you just could go straight without any problems.
This island is one big city and it continues across the bridge to the continent.
So these areas where people live are like parts of the city. Like for example Queens of New York or like Hollywood in Los Angeles.

Okay, shopping. We went downtown right on the morning, we were supposed to buy an oven.
First I had to wait a while at Mauris school so he could handle few classes, other teachers didn't really know how to deal with me. Hahah.

We searched from every store and we couldn't find any cheap ovens anywhere. Then we remembered that we saw this one oven on the shitty furniture store right next to our place.. So we decided to go get that one. Hahahah.

Okay so now we started to search a couch.

I started to get tired and grumpy, it was hot and I was thirsty and hungry and ALLL the couches were too fucking expensive (I'm cheap I know) or really freaking ugly and we also wanted to get a couch where people can sleep if someone wants to come here from Finland or from Mauricios hometown (10h by bus).

But after a while WE FOUND THE COUCH! Nice, big and gray. The clerk almost fainted when I told him I want to pay the couch right away without any monthly plans. But these payment and money things over here are so insane that I'm gonna write a completely own text about that.

They promised to deliver the couch to our place on by Saturday and we bought this couch on Wednesday. Well promises, promises but let's see how it went down!

We still had some time to walk in circles after buying the couch and before Mauricios evening classes started so we went to see whats up with the Beira Mar which is one of the main avenues on downtown. There is no poor people living on that area I can tell you that..

Very Pretty.

You can't swim here, polluted.

Campeche, the beach

Okay, day three. Sun is shining, Mauri has a morning shift, I'm not tired, I'm on vacation, no more working in Supermarket, no crazy sales, no additional sales, no working at all so IT'S BEACH TIME!

It takes about 5 to 10 minutes of walking to our beach. Depends if you are in a hurry and if it's 15 or 45 degrees.

I wasn't really expecting anything special, just so that my big dreams wouldn't crush. I have seen beaches of Croatia and those are not easy to beat.

Okay, few pictures.

Look at that sand!

Look at that view!

Look at those mountains!

I live here!

I live here! This is my neighborhood and I can walk here when ever I want! We also found a shortcut from our place to here so it takes only 5 minutes to see the beach! There is a surfing school on a beach and waves are pretty high here on this wintertime so you can actually see a lot of surfers! (At this time it was winter ((August)) and it was like 25c)

But I mean I LIVE HERE! I don't care I don't speak the language, food is expensive and I don't know how to use a gas oven because THIS is my backyard! It was so worth of waiting the 6 months in Finland and feel the broken heart and crying for far love because all this was so worth it. Mauri is also kinda nice but this beach is so beautiful!

Our beach!

It's not a tourist season yet and the beach is kinda empty. In summer there's gonna be umbrellas, tourists, beach chairs and beach vendors making the are more lively. I CAN'T WAIT! I'm super exited that summer is gonna be soon and I'm gonna see how this part of the city is gonna be on it's best glory! I want to drink mojitos on a beach and eat hot dogs. Buy jewels from hippies and listen to reggae. Look people who know how to Samba and think why Brazilian ladies wear flosses as bikinis. I want to be curious and stare how thick women carry themselves in thongs and their husbands are proudly squeezing their butts! No fat shaming, no stupid-ugly-fat days and guitar is playing!

After this happy moment I realized that my whole face is completely red and burned. I mean whole face, not just little bit from here and there but my whole face was evenly red. Like someone would have painted it. Winter sun is not for me, I'm too white. My shoulders were also burned. My shirt you see on picture didn't help much. Now I'm smarter and bought sunscreen of 50 with aloevera.

Next day my face hurt and scalp was peeling. hahah. I haven't burned myself after this day so lesson learned.

"You can always get the curtains up somehow"

Second day started with Mauri going to work around 7 am and I stayed here to get to know this ..dream apartment.

I didn't feel so horrified anymore, I got used to the smell, it wasn't so cold inside and I got warm water from shower!

Okay. Isn't it kinda obvious that when you move to a rental apartment there is supposed to be fridge, stove and other kitchen cabinets. Like basic furniture. Right? (At least in Finland)

We had: A fridge, (which Mauri carried few weeks before from the balcony to inside) sink and under that a sink cabinet, ugly as fuck kitchen table and chairs (these are the owners of this apartment) equally horrible couch, closet for clothes and bed. Ew. And ofc toilet things.
Yeah no oven. Its not part of the basics. OVEN IS NOT PART OF THE BASICS. No worries I knew that already but what... We cooked first two weeks with a microwave. Yeah you can cook with a microwave, did you know that? Our microwave sounds like it's in terrible need of euthanasia though.. I'm serious it's explosion hazard.

All this I would accept but a curtain rod. We didn't even have a curtain rod.

The balcony of our place is kinda like walk-through-balcony. So other people who live in this building also walk through it and our front door is the "balcony" door and the door is a size of our kitchen. So the size of our front wall. Filled with windows.
But still. No place to keep the curtains.

On a previous day we went to a hardware store to buy a drill, the bit for the drill and curtain rods. I told the dude who was selling those to us that "Now, sell us everything we need to get curtains on the wall". Sim sim.

At home I was super exited and said "Hubby, now let's start drilling!" I drilled a hole, put the curtain rod there and added a screw but HOW ARE YOU GONNA DRILL THE SCREW TO THE WALL WHEN THE DUDE ONLY SOLD US THE BIT AND NOT THE PART WE NEED TO SCREW THE SCREW. No screwdriver no nothing. See you don't remember all the things you need when you start your new life. Even the hardware store dude didn't realize that we have to attach the screw to the wall somehow.. ..sell me everything we need.. yeah right.

It's cool, now after living few months here we have curtains on the wall.

There is few other interesting things I realized from this apartment.

Here we already got some shelves to keep our food somewhere!

The sink cabin of ours is a fiasko.
Doors wont click, the closets don't fit. Who ever installed this thing there, didn't really care to measure much. "yeah, this is good I'm just gonna put this here, oopsie it's crooked well whatever because Brazil baby." Same thing with the sink. The hole of the sink in little bit higher that the bottom of the sink, so you have to push the water inside the hole, to empty the sink completely. Well.. No problem. It's cool.

Other thing I noticed is that shower only gives you freezing water or hot as hell water. Nothing in between. Well there I go and get my skin burned red and try to get used to the temperature. At least we have other than cold water.

It's okay, it's okay small details and it's all gonna be good.

My mother told me to

"You should start writing a blog, at least I would read it" -Mom

Okay so I have been writing this blog a month now in finnish and I thought that I give it a try in english too. Mainly because blogspot shows me what countries have been visiting my blog and people from States and all over the Europe have seen my finnish blog but the language is well.. finnish. So I'm just gonna give this a go.

All these texts here are just direct translations from my original blog: brazilandiia.blogspot.com.br

I've been living in Brazil 2 months now, so these english texts are not gonna be dated correctly. But all the texts are in the order of how I've been experiencing days here.

This is a tryout and lets see how it goes!

Okay, let's try this. At least I don't have to open up my mind on facebook anymore and this gives me other things to do than acting all wifey while Mauri is working.

We are gonna start from the day one and the first impressions and feelings about this country and place.

This place where we live with Mauricio is called Campeche, this is a beachy area, I insisted that if we are gonna live in Brazil, we are gonna live by the beach. This is still a rental apartment which you can tell, but Im gonna get back to that later..

Okay. Florianopolis, Campeche. I didn't know anything about this place before I got here. Mauri just told me that this is the place where brazilian people come to have their vacation and that this is amazingly gorgeously beautiful place and that "You are gonna love it!"

I prepared myself mentally as good as it is possible to be prepared when you move to a weird country. I knew that nothing is like in Finland and Finland is a luxury country and life is easy over there to compare to Brazil. I knew all this but Oh my Lord how this hit me hard. There is WTF moments everyday and all the time.

I flew here through Frankfurt and Sao Paolo. It took about 24 hours to get here.

It's okay, I like travelling and I'm used to wait arriving planes and delayed planes and I think this was actually a first time when nothing weird or special happened during the trip. Except on Frankfurt-Sao Paolo flight there was this kid who screamed 10 hours in a road, also the time when people tried to get some sleep, because it was a night flight. Hahhaha. At the time it wasn't funny.

Frankfurt airport is crazily big! Super cool to go from terminal to another with a train!

In Frankfurt I was again a threat as always...And 10 solid minutes I was lifting up my shirt and stretching my pants and making some exercise movements just to make sure I wasn't carrying anything illegal with me. At least this time there was no drug dogs sniffing me around.

In Sao Paolo at the gate where I was waiting my plane, I got to know to this boy from Florianopolis. He was coming back home from his to Europe. So he was kinda from wealthy family.

Brazilian people don't travel outside of their country unless they have money. Well maybe in other South American countries, but not in Europe.

Anyway we were talking a while with the dude about our trips and travels and we compared our countries to each others and I made him laugh by telling him how cold Finnish girl had to learn how to hug and kiss people whenever meeting.

Also I recommended few places to go in Europe and just chatted about general things of travelling. 

At one point I realized that the gate has changed and I had to leave and hunt down the right gate. Announcements are just in Portuguese so.. But I didn't miss my plane!

Florianopolis has its own airport, many asked if I need to take a boat to my home island but no I don't :D

Mauri was there at the airport waiting for me and we cried a little while we met after 6 months. We took a cab and my first impression from the island is the same as I have from all the warm countries. Similar ground and plants like in Greece or Spain. But when the plane landed to the airport the view was AMAZING! Mountains were framing beaches and the whole island looked like this secret place you find accidentally and you notice that WOW this is a paradise, you know?

Our home is close to the airport. 20 minutes by cab. Which is amazing, I was so tired and 3 hours or something by bus would have been ridiculously horrible.

And then: Home

Okay First I was pretty shocked that oh hell no this is the place Im gonna be living? Help me.. It was cold and even colder inside, because floors are tile and walls are stone, it was echoing inside, no curtains, rugs, NOTHING and the place smelled weird. I almost started crying, but now I blame the tiredness of the trip and I was pretty emotional because of the 6 months waiting.

Right away I told Mauricio that we are gonna go buy some cleaning products and clean this place from floor to the roof. And we have to buy a curtain holder. And sheets for the bed. And this is what we did. And I felt little bit better.

Mauri must be very happy when wifeys first words are "Eww it smells in here!" :D

But the next day was already much better!