Buenos Aires

Finally a quick entry on the last stop of our round-the-world extravaganza. I need to get some closure on this trip before the new year starts (hahaha). Below some pictures of us in Buenos Aires, where we had a great time.

It is a city with a very interesting mix of South-American and European influence. You turn around one corner and you are in South America, you turn around another corner and you are somewhere in Paris, Vienna, Berlin or Madrid.

Anyway, by pure luck we met some Brazilian friends (Paulo & Maira) of ours in Buenos Aires, who where there for a conference. They even moved in the end to our hotel so that we had a great time together.

The actual purpose of this stop-over was, however, to meet up with some of John’s (our boss) collaborators in dementia research. We gave therefore both talks at the institute of dementia research and met all the very nice people of the research group, who took us even out for lunch. What a great ending to a great trip around the globe. I can see already that it will be very hard to top this time at our next trip… Take notice all of you we haven’t seen this time, the bar has been raised to please us (hahaha)

All looking in the camera – except Zoe

Rushhour BA

Are we in the Marais now?

Looking like Vienna to me – where are the grumpy waiters though?

In front of Cristina’s modest home…

Paulo & Maira + Zoe

Apples

Just a quick one to tell you all about Zoe’s first apple taste. It might not sound much, but it’s a real milestone here! We had some juices in Brazil, then a break until we got a routine again here at home. We started the rice cereal on Sunday, and today it was the first apple puree. Half tea spoon, and her revolted faces…so sweet!

We’ve been struggling to get her to drink from the bottle (mummies, any hints?!), so we’re already on the third brand. Funnily enough, she’s been drinking ridiculous amounts (better than nothing!!) from the NUK one, which makes Papa say she’s a true German girl So for now we’ll stick to NUK and hope for the best!

And the sun is finally shining here, so there’s a true feeling of summer on the air. We’ve been to the beach already, and Zoe seemed to like the colour of the sea. Papa and mamae certainly enjoyed the 30min walk from our place to Coogee!

Mamae and Zoe are really enjoying the relaxing days back into a routine – although missing everyone a lot.  The main problem of such a crazy trip around the world is that we realise how many amazing people we have in different places, and how far we are here!

So let’s hope we have loads of visitors in the new year!

ps. the ladybird/joaninha/Kaefer is a hit, D! Also the Gojira, we need to upload a pic of that one for Bine!

What Zoe learnt in Brazil

Late entry on Brazilian experiences. Nothing will beat Papa’s entry on Brazilian impressions (I’m still laughing at it), but let’s just go through a quick summary:

• there’s a place that is hotter than Sydney (Bandeirantes!)
• mamae’s family is SO big (and she didn’t meet everyone yet!)
• she should have a football team to support because everyone asks you that, especially little boys. In Brazil that defines you more than your political party…
• vovozinho’s home is nice and cool, and it includes a cot to sleep in that belonged to mamae!
• she can watch loads of TV (that’s when we realised how much she loves it!)
• she has tia Gor e tio Jaime in Sao Paulo
• and tio Zinho too
• and not mentioning all friends, but that’s for the next blog entry

And here just a small sample of mamae’s family. We didn’t manage to photograph everyone, unfortunately (tio Paulo, tia Regina, Juninho, Lidi, tia Yoshiko), plus we didn’t have a chance to meet everyone yet!

Zoe, vovozinha and a kiss

Tio Zinho and Zoe (jet lagged!)

Vovozinho and Zoe (at Mimi and Waldyr’s flat)

Tia Re and Zoe (laughing at Gojira)

Mame, Luba and Zoe (in London)

Mamae, Sandra and Lucas

Half Lucas; standing: vovozinha, Papa, Newton, Katia; sitting: vovozinho, tio Shydeo, tia Kazu and mamae

Mamae and Katia at vovozinhos’

Mamae, Simone, Isadora and Robi at vovozinho’s

Papa, tio Yorikazu, tia Regina, mamae and Zoe at Meimei

Impressions of Brazil

I want to share  some of my (Michi) photo impressions of our time in Brazil, which might not be of interest to anyone but …anyway. Please click on each picture and there will be a relevant short story/explanation under each picture. Most pictures we taken during our time in Eneida’s hometown (Bandeirantes), which is a small town (~30.000 people) located 5-6 hours drive inland from Sao Paulo.

Going to Bandeirantes

Sugarcane lorry

Main street Bandeirantes

Autofalante

Ueda Supermarket

Fusca 1972

Going for a walk

Lorry

Avenida Paulista

Otherwise life is good at the moment. The weather is though crazy here in Sydney with 21C today and 34C tomorrow. This will be definitely an interesting Christmas here. We are also over the jetlag now and Zoe (and therefore we) sleep again normally since yesterday. Thank God! I mean “Deus e fiel”… (hahaha)

52 hours later, or we are back

Get me out of here!

52 hours is the exact time we spent in the last 3.5 weeks in aeroplanes around the world. Even though Nene and I both love travelling this was definitely at our limit. This travel experience must have been even more surreal for Zoe and at the end she was a bit fed up of being in an aeroplane (see photo). Still, she liked the actual flying and in particular the turbulences, which rocked her always into sleep. All in all it was, therefore, good training for her & us for the years to come… actually I don’t want to think about that right now (hahaha).

Spending so much time in aeroplanes makes you a bit “gaga”, e.g. we spend time making self-portraits, which did not work most of the time (see photos below).

So, I hear you asking: Was it all worth it? Yes, definitely. We had an amazing time seeing our families and so many friends. But we are feeling at the moment completely exhausted because we packed so many things in such short time, by visiting 6 places on 3 contintents and flying ~40000kms with a 3 month-old baby. Still, it was all worth it and we got so many presents from so many people… actually let me correct that: Zoe got so many presents from so many people (hahaha). Incidentally we needed to buy yet another suitcase in Brazil – thank you so much for encouraging us to this step, Gege & Goiti.

Being back in Sydney feels at the moment still very strange, which might be also because of the jetlag we have to get through the next week or so.  We will write also some more entries about our trip, because we didn’t have the time and access to computers to update you on all things happening. So, some more stories to come for sure.

First attempt – Where is Papa?

Second attempt – Where is Zoe?

Third attempt – Finally all together