And taking the kids on a beach holiday for a week, receiving 322 boxes with our household goods, unpacking, arranging furniture, hanging pictures and lamps, going to Portuguese classes 3x a week & homework, cheering at kids football and basketball games, finding out which apple juice they like amongst 15 varieties, getting lost in the city with the car, meeting with new people, maybe potential new friends?, visiting some of the famous buildings in Brasilia designed by Oscar Niemeyer ….

This week it happened: An aquaintance of Martin from the German embassy gave us the contacts for Hans, a plumber from Germany who works in the Embassy as a security guard. I called him to install our washing machine. Of course I could have taken a local plumber – but how would I have talked to him! Whilst Hans and I are waiting that the dashing new washing machine finishes her trial run he offers me all sorts of services for connection with the worlds far away, phone and internet installation, German TV, but I wonder if he could help cutting that  tree trunk that lies around  in our garden and seems to be perfect to become a stand for the hardie! Hans knows the gardener Benno who also works in the embassy and comes from the community living in the south of Brasil  that emigrated to Brazil from the Hundsrück, a region with a  strong  German accent near Frankfurt/Main. So Hundsrück – German – speaking Benno arrives at our house at the weekend and …

We only have one table in the house as our furniture shipment has not arrived yet. But the family needs it for eating, homework, emailing and chatting! So I can impossibly use it for the very dusty work on the AYVALIK MOSAIC. I need to go to get my own table. This cries for a trip to the builders market. Hmmm! Where is the builders market and how do I get there? Google maps would help but how can I talk to the shop assistants ? I hate to expose myself again to the situation of not being able to communicate with the society I am living in. But what can I do? I will not be able to keep working on the mosaic if I stay in the house. Martin lends me his driver and off we go in our car. I insist on driving, because I want to practice, and he directs. But, I did not take into account that can not understand what he says, so we end up stopping at every …