babies, food and cars

Well it was a week ago Alena was born. Everything seems to be pretty good with Alena sleeping lots, drinking lots and just generally observing her surroundings. She doesn't cry much and doesn't mind if her uncle carries her around which is good (which I just had to go off and do as I was writing this post). The two boys love her and always want to hold her or snuggle up to her, although sometimes their timing isn't always the best for this sort of thing. The two boys are pretty good most of the time and can be good fun, although they can be a bit illogical sometimes (case in point at the moment being that Esra is crying that he wants to go down the stairs with Marit, meanwhile she's feeding the baby, not really for any reason other than Marit went downstairs to bring the baby upstairs without him) and sometimes stubbornly want to do the opposite of what the adults want. But hey, I guess that's part of growing up, I've probably done the same sort of things.
Man, there's some awesome restaurants round here. The first week I was here we went to this pizza place. We ordered pizza-rodizio which meant that they would bake as many different pizzas as were available and then the waiters would walk round the tables of the people who ordered this with pizzas and you could take as much as you wanted. I, of course had to try every pizza and went in for seconds when they came round. The pizzas were delicious (even though they don't put a tomato paste base on any of their pizzas, tomato sauce is put on the tables for people to put it on their pizzas if they feel so inclined) and they even had chocolate dessert pizzas!!!! Last Wednesday we went to a place which is a meat lovers paradise called a churrsco (although even vegetarians still have plenty of choice) They have a huge buffet, which I only got part way round, and then like at the pizza place the waiters come round to your table bringing all sorts of wonderful meat on big skewers and slice bits off for you. Again I think I pretty much tried every meat until my tummy was at bursting point. The chicken drumsticks were excellent and I even tried some chicken hearts which tasted alright. The meal cost less then 10 NZ dollars! Although the drinks then cost a bit more on top of that. And the thing is that this is not just a one-off restaurant, these types of restaurants are all over the place.
Other than that people drive on the wrong side of the road I have also noticed a few other things: Most people tend to drive either a VW, a Fiat, or a Chevrolet. They are usually small models and have tinted windows which makes it look like everyone is driving around boy racer cars with the only thing that tells you otherwise is the normal exhausts, not much noise, and the nun at the wheel. Although there are also quite a lot of boyracers who like to drive past our house with music blaring. And then of course there are lots of people driving motorbikes and scooters. The motorbikes tend to have a big chilly bin on the back and a big water container or gas canister up the front and you tend to watch them going straight to the front of the traffic lights will you sit there waiting further back. That of course depends if people stop for traffic lights and stop signs, which a few people don't and sometimes they aren't so good at realising which way the one way streets go either! The main roads tend to be alright (they even have separate bus lanes) but as soon as you get onto the suburb roads there are potholes everywhere. The streets look like a patchwork quilt with the many spots where potholes have been filled in over the years.
The church here is quite different from many churches that I have been to. Church starts with breakfast followed by the sermon with people sitting around their cafe tables. They don't have any singing usually although at various times a band plays a bit of background music. Then they either have a long chat or a bible study. This is then followed by lunch. It gives the place quite a community feel which I like. I pretty much can't understand a word of the sermon but before and after the sermon I can talk to quite a few people as quite a few people either speak English or German.
By the way feel free to drop a comment or an email. The photos are of me and Alena, and the other one is of a signpost just outside our house which I found pretty cool.

I have another niece!

Hi everyone. This morning I got another niece. Her name is Alena Johanna Frank. While Marit and Patrik rushed off to the hospital in the middle of the night I stayed behind to look after the kids. They kept on sleeping for a while but eventually Esra got up to go to his mum. when he found that she wasn't there he began to cry and this woke up Kilian as well. Kilian took the news well but Esra took another 20mins to stop crying which I have to say was a bit amazing because when he starts really crying and It's just me around then he doesn't tend to stop. After reading a book and having a small snack they both managed to fall asleep in my bed which was a relief. In the morning Patrik came home and told us the news. Then after breakfast we headed down to the hospital, Kilian and Esra were very excited and hand been repeating Alena's name ever since they had heard it. At the hospital Marit seemed to be fine although still quite exhausted and tired. Alena is so small!! And so cute!!
I haven't really given my impressions of Brazil so far. It's sort of has a lot of things that are similar to New Zealand (probably more so in the south because the people here are generally a bit richer) but also quite different. When I was picked up at the airport I just about hopped into the drivers seat of Patrik's car until Patrik asked me if I was sure that I wanted to drive. Everything is the wrong way round! Takes a bit of getting used to. I did the same thing with a Taxi one time and just realised my mistake in time. Also the other thing that is quite different is all the security. Every house has a high fence around it often with either spikes or a small electric fence running along the top of the fence. The Brazilians also seem very keen on fireworks and seem to let them off at all times of the day and night. They recently held the local elections and there were a lot of flyers all over the streets and in the evening lots of fireworks from people celebrating. The weather here is a bit strange. It is sometimes quite cold and then other times like the last 3 days it can be really hot.

Foz do Iguacu

On Monday (6/10/08) i left for Foz do Iguacu (said "Iguazu") on a approx 10 hour bus trip (the buses are a lot nicer than in new Zealand). When i got to the Pousada (inn) that I was staying at the owners had already gone to bed but I woke them up by ringing the doorbell and then gave me a nice welcome (they speak English) and then i went to bed. The next morning after breakfast Evalina the nice owner of the pousada went through my options for the day and also just generally chatted away have fantastic the weather was and how good the falls are. The Iguacu falls are the main attraction and are world famous (and rightly so as you'll see later). The river is also the border between Brazil and Argentina (and the parauguan border is not right next door as well) so I decided to go over to the Argentinian side. So me and a french couple and evelina and the driver set off. Evelina knows everyone at the border crossings so we crossed over quickly. The falls are also part of two national parks on both sides of the border and so here you have to pay to get in. Anyway after having to say no to a few expensive adventure experience thingies I wondered off along the walkway to the falls taking photos of lizards and little hamster like things on the way. As you will be able to see from the photos the falls are very big and there are various walkways so that you can look at different parts of the falls and from the top and from the bottom. At some lookouts you can end up getting pretty wet. The river also had a lot more water than usually which means that they were even more impressive then usual. Unfortunately this also meant that there were no trips to the island in the middle of the falls because the ferry didn't have anywhere to land on the island with that much water. As a major tourist attraction there were lots of people there, but this also meant that they obviously get enough money so that they can run the wee train that takes you to different parts of the falls. While i don't mind walking I did find the train fun. While i was there I also saw a coati and group of about 20 monkeys (see videos), but if you want to see butterflies then come to the Iguacu Falls. There are millions of them and hundreds of different species. On the train we would sometimes drive through butterfly clouds. And then I also saw quite a lot of vultures who seem to like hanging around the falls. There are also a lot of suicidal birds (or at least seem to be) that like to fly through the waterfalls in order to hang out with their mates on the cliff behind the waterfalls.
Later in the day I went on a small trek to see another smaller waterfall nearby along the track I saw more butterflies and also some sort of small bush pig or something like that. Unfortunately I couldn't get any good photos of them. The waterfall had a swimming hole at the bottom but I decided not to go for a swim. Firstly because I don't really know what lives in those sort of holes and secondly because I didn't realise that the walk was that long and need to get back quickly to catch the last bus. When I arrived back in town (I think Foz do Iguacu has about 300,000 inhabitants) I missed my bus stop, so after walking around for a good while I got a taxi not knowing that if I had just walked a few hundred metres further I would have know where I was. oh, well.


The next day I visited the Brazilian side of the falls, but first I went for a visit to the bird park. This was absolutely awesome with so many awesome tame birds. One of the walk-in enclosure even had hummingbirds and butterflies in it. This was fantastic watching the hummingbirds sucking nectar and "humming" (hehe) past your ear so that you get a fright. I had a good time seeing the falls and got myself a bit wet again although a bit tough on my poor camera, but seems to be alright, a lot of the videos seem to be overexposed but hopefully you get the general idea, although still not as good as being there. After that I bused back into town (getting off at the right place this time) and went to the supermarket and got some food and then had a swim in the pool at the pousada. I then walked to the bus stop where I just about got on the wrong bus. the bus I went back to Curitiba with was really, really nice. It had basically cinema seats that tilted back and had foot rests. We also got given some chocolate and other goodies. We left about 9:30 in the evening so I tried to sleep as much as possible on the long trip back. Although they were easier to sleep in then in a plane I only slept on and off (a bed is still better). When we arrived Patrik and Kilian picked me up and we drove back home.

I'm going to Brazil

Well, here I am in Brazil. I left Dunedin, Wednesday the 1st of October on the Knightrider bus to Christchurch and arrived there at about 3:30 in the morning. after trying to get a bit of sleep on the floor I sat round for a while just generally feeling nervous about what I was about to do. I'm the last Frank to have left NZ since we came here from Germany. Then after locating the Qantas terminal I took a deep breath and walked up to that desk and hey! everything went pretty smoothly, the lady had a new computer program and she got a bit confused at first but we worked through it and I was ready to go. I got my boarding pass quite early so I had to wait around for a bit and so i watched planes coming in and out until I saw the plane that I was going on pull in. NZ seems so small from the air. When we flew over the south island you can see the whole width of the south island. I had a really long stopover up in Auckland so I I made the most of the sun and sat outside and listened to my mp3 player. Auckland International airport has at least 2 McDonalds and I counted 4 Witcoulls! Then it was off in a great big plane, where they spoke everything in both spanish and english. I sat next to an asian Brazilian, and she gave me a few tips on pronouciation in portugese. I should probably have used the situation better because my portugese is still very bad. Cruised on through to Sao Paulo where things got a bit more difficult. Firstly because there aren't as many English speakers but then I couldn't find my luggage on the luggage belt thing I was just about to get really worried when I spotted it standing a bit further off. Obviously someone had taken it off the belt and then just left it there, so I was very relived. But then the gate written on my boarding pass was different then the ones up on the depature screensbut I managed to get on the right flight (uh, and there was a lady who fainted just a bit behind me in the que. that got the airport staff running around). Then it was on to Curitiba (yes, Sao Paulo is very big as I found out flying over it) where Patrik (my brother, for those who are not in the know) picked me up. The next couple of days I spent recoving from the flight as well as playing "rough and tumble" and other games with my two nephews, Kilian and Esra. On Sunday we all (Patrik, Marit, Kilian, and Esra went to the Zoo (which is free entry). The highlight had to be seeing the bears playing a little bit of "rough and tumble" as well. In the evening I went to church with Patrik. At the moment he is looking around at the different churches around here just to try and understand the culture a bit more. We went to a Lutheran church. there were a few people there who spoke german so at least I had a few conversations but other than that i didn't understand too much. still i joined in the songs as best i could. we sang "seek ye first the kingdom of God" except in portugese so at least i didn't have to worry about how the melody went and the "allelulia" part of the song isn't any different.