Stacey in Brazil: Day 28 - mercados/chair progress

Had to leave work a little early yesterday to get pictures made for my ID that I'm going to the federal police to get Monday. At home, we would run in the CVS & get it taken care of. Here, no CVS; the drug stores really only sell drugs, so I had to go to an actual photography place to get it done. Jackie and I went to the town where she lives, Mogi, to get the pics and to check out the furniture stores there. Lo and behold, I found several chairs I liked! They were all on the expensive side except one, so I bought that one of course. Couldn't fit it in the civic so they're delivering to Jackie's house today, and she's going to borrow a Fiat truck-ish thing to bring here. Yay!

While we were in Mogi we went to their mercado... which I loved. Jackie said she was sure SJC has one too, so I googled it and sure enough there is one! I went there this morning (it's in Centro, so it gets super crazy crowded by afternoon) all by myself like a big girl and had so much fun just walking around and looking at stuff. There are a bunch of different fruit & veggie vendors, butchers, little restaurants, and booths selling all kinds of other stuff. I bought some little bitty bananas and what I thought were small grapes - they actually taste more like plums and have seeds. Bummer about the seeds but they are still tasty. I'll be munching down on those once they cool off in the fridge.

I also bought the kids some mini brazil soccer balls - so cute :) I even managed to explain to the girl selling them that I didn't want them inflated because I am taking them to the US.

I bought some pao (bread) at a little place where they spoke a tiny bit of English - it was fun, they were all excited to talk to me. And it was very tasty for lunch.

No pics of the mercado... I wanted to take some but when I'm by myself in a crowded spot like that don't want to make it too too obvious to everyone that I'm not a local. If I go with someone else I'll be sure to get pics.

The mercado is right next to the "field," so I did cross the street to take some pics of that as promised!

Oh... by the way... Friday morning I may or may not have bumped a column in the parking garage of doom. Fortunately I was going really slow so only chipped the paint a tiny bit (on the Civic - the column is just fine). We're working on the smaller car business... apparently it's a status symbol here to have a larger car, so the leasing company doesn't have smaller ones handy. I mostly just want to be able to park without breaking into a sweat, status be damned!

Sao Jose's campos ;)