Recife!

Hey! So here I am, beautiful Drumnadrochit. I have definately been missing Scotland since going home, and it's great to be back. The things that I have liked the most so far: *Walking to the Post Office to have each person that I walk past smile at me. *Chatting to lovely touristy folk in the restaurant and have them tell me all sorts of stories and such (In Finland the only story the customers were likely to tell you would involve the quality of their food, or the number of their cupons that they expected to work at that restaurant) (Also Speacial commendation goes to the lovely austrailian couple who gave me a boomarang shaped fridge magnet on my second day here! - It's the little things people, it really is). *Continental Breakfast *Reading my paper everyday. *Naptime! (yes, I have naptime) Well, the list could go on. But the point in the end is that 4 days in I feel that I've made the right choice coming to Scotland to await the next part of the Visa proceedings (No w...

Hey one and all. Yes, I'm a day late, as was alreayd pointed out. But I figured that since yesterday was my birthday that I could have some mercy time. Apparently not. ;) So now I turned 24, although I did have a long argument about it with one of the chefs. Apparently when you reach a certain age, your brain tells you that really you shouldn't be that age. So I had convinced myself that I ws turning 23, and argued with him about it for a good 10-15 minutes. I then took out a calculator (this is how convinced I was) and showed him how I was turning..........24. whoops. So there you have it, it appears that I'm having an age crisis. Sarah has been visiting and it's been lovely, I've had an excuse to stay in bed late, and to eat good food and to watch awful movies. I like having her here! So plans have changed slightly since last week. Where the plan was to quietly wait in Helsinki until my visa comes through. Instead, I have been given an opportunity for something ne...

Hey there. I'm just going to write you a wee note about the current Visa situation, and then hopefully later on this week I can add another little note about what I have been learning about silence (if you ask my workmates, they will say... "nothing" ;) So as it turns out the Salvation Army in Recife, maybe not so great at getting paper work in order, at least for my part. So we have decided to let them go and go about the visa another way. This is both good news and ok news. The good news part of it being that I am now going to be enrolled at a seminary in Recife as a student, to study some theology (which is great, because Ive always wanted to study theology, and Judith reccomends it, so I trust her). This means that I shall be able to get my student visa (which really we should have done in the first place..but alas.. such is life). Student visas should not be such a pain to get, and might even require less work for my friends at the embassy, who despite my grumbelings...

This week has included much serving customers based work. And that's about it. Unfortunately no news on visa, we are still waiting on the Brazilian Salvation Army to resend the invite. My birthday is coming up in a week and half (hint hint) and a friend from uni is coming all the way over to Helsinki for it. So have that to look forward too! Really this is another week, with not much to say, so I shall not waste space. But instead I'm going to add an interesting story that I heard in church the other day, Enjoy: On a cold day in December , a man sat at a metro station in Washington DC and started to play the violin. He played six Bach pieces for about 45 minutes. Since it was rush hour, it was calculated that a thousand people went through the station, most of them on their way to work. Three minutes went by and a middle aged man noticed there was a musician playing. He slowed his pace and stopped for a few seconds and then hurried up to meet his schedule. A minute later, the v...

Hey there! I had a surreal day the other day. I was on one of my famous days off (I.E. headed to work last minute because there was a crisis), this would have been quite a nice saturday morning, if it wasn't for the fact that this job was ridiculously far away, and I had no idea how to get there, so had to wake up at some time of the morning that I generally don't see (not as early as I am trying to make it sound). Having dragged myself out of bed, stuck a banana in my mouth and put some Brazilian samba on my ipod, I started walking towards the bus stop (turned out to be the wrong bus stop, that first one, and the second one that I went too). I then bumped into a friend of mine Bom Cabello, one of the capoeiristas in Helsinki, and my first human interaction of the day was in portuguese. Next I was sat at the right bus stop (eventually) and was sat enjoying sunshine in Helsinki (in AUGUST!) when the couple next to me started arguing. In Portuguese. I kid thee not. They were conf...

Hey there, So I didn't write last week, but here is a quick recap of what happened last week: Sleep. Yeah, that sounds about right. I was visiting Dion and Montse in Barcelona, and it was lovely, really warm and relaxing, but I found myself docking up more sleep hours than Hamish the cat. I don't know why I was so inclined to sleep, it could have been the heat, or work exhaustion, or a number of other things but it was nice. What wasn't nice was sleeping on the floor at Gatwick North Terminal waiting for the flight back to Helsinki, which is where I picked up whatever this bug is that I have right now (Not swine flu. I promise), but even then I did manage to sleep. Dion was very jealous at this new found ability of mine (well he thinks it new found, my mother was quite aware of it from a very early age). In any case, I thought I would update everyone on the newest on the visa, it's a bit of an epic really, but here goes nothing: Apparently the invitation letter that I r...

I don't think she meant to, and I definately don't think that she got any amusement from it, at least not to begin with, but when I was making my THIRD trip between the Helsinki Registry Office and the Brazilian Embassy, I was almost in tears and the lady, well she had a smile on her face. In any case, I forgave her pretty quickly. No matter what happened with the four missing hours of my morning, all my papers have been accepted and my visa is off for processing!!! I am not kidding you. Not at all! Finally. And also she was very sympathetic about the lack of help i had at the registry office and promised to write a letter of complaint on my behalf, and anything that gets me out of doing anymore paperwork is a bonus! I had planned to go into the whole sordid story of trying to get my paper work sorted today. For sympathy you see, but then I remembered that most of you reading this live in the UK, so you probably know how I feel anyway ;) Because of the Visa process in Helsinki ...

So.. The good news that we've all been waiting for (excepting of course the actual Good News) is that I managed to have some face time at the embassy, and I took all of my papers with me, and then some ( I'm pretty sure that I had a card I made for my mother in Kindergarden with me, just in case they needed some proof that I have enough creative talent). Luckily for me (or perhaps not?) I got a lady who spoke Finnish, because the amount of technical speech that came from her barely made sense in Finnish and I definately would not have followed in Portugese. But turned out that I hadn't quite got everything, but ALMOST, I am currently only missing One Document, and I am assured that it is on its way. *sigh or relief* Almost there. It's kike a weight lifted off my shoulders. I am very happy to be going through this process in Helsinki, because of the small population everything is very easily accessible. And once the last document is handed over, and the fee paid, it shou...

Things moved ahead slowly, very slowly, it took almost a year for my papers to arrive. But they did eventually and they are here, along with a lot of other papers and documents, each stamped and signed, so hopefully one morning this week when the embassy doesn't close early and I don't sleep in I'll be able to take my applications in, and then it'll be all go. There is a purpose to me being here, it's given me time to prepare, so I'm not too worried at all. And this year has just confirmed that going to Brazil is definately the right choice. I would maybe go as far as saying a calling. Portugese lessons coming along ok, have been working away at them on the quiet days at work. Sponsorship is a little low, but Im working on that at the moment too. Was very excited to hear that Ali and Georgina shall be on their way over very soon, and am excited to see them in Brasil very very soon. Shall update later on this week to see how it all went at the embassy God Bless.