Abby, Zoë and Enzo

I am enjoying this trip so far.  Getting here is difficult and I can't envision anyone visiting us due to the complexity and adventurousness of the approach to JP.  Laura mentioned this difficulty and said, for better or worse, this baby will be Brazilian, by the sheer fact that she could not handle a return trip so soon.

I feel good about being here and the way of life here.  The climate is very agreeable for me.  At night, it drops to the low 70s, and the breeze makes it feel even colder.  I get goose bumps it is that cold.  It feels nice, and is a great contrast from the day's heat.  Being so close to the Equator, only 7 degrees south, the direct sun radiation is very strong, and the days are fairly constant, 12 - 13 hours of sun a day (~5:30 - ~5:30 +/- 0:30).  In the morning when the sun comes up over the ocean, we get direct light into the condo, and while working on the laptop, the sun is very hot on my back.  But within 2 hours or so, the sun has ascended enough that it only shines onto our veranda and not directly into the apartment anymore, which is great.  There is a super nice strong breeze that really keeps the apartment cool.

The showers and the hot water things are different than we are used to at home.  They only have hot water for the shower.  All sinks and other areas only have cold water, and one on/off knob.  This is very common here as many places do not have a boiler or central hot water heater.  They wash their dishes in cold water with soap.  So learning how to use this big electric device built into the shower head took 3 shows for me.  I showed Laura how to get a hot shower this morning, and she was thrilled.  When she stepped out of the shower, she felt like a new person, problem resolved.

From the second night, I noticed that the bed was very uncomfortable.  There seemed to be a hard line or ridge or bump across the length of the bed at the rib level.  It made sleeping difficult and hurt.  The mattress all around was soft, except for this line.  After investigating it today, I noticed the bed was rotated so the upside down position.  The tiny padded top area was down, so I flipped the mattress and redressed it, problem solved.  I look forward to a softer more comfortable sleep tonight.  I didn't notice the first night, as Laura was talking to me as I laid in bed, and she said I was out in minutes, completely asleep and exhausted from the travel, or Laura's pillow talk is really boring.

The bandwidth and network is an unresolved issue.  It isn't exactly a problem as I am able to make US phone calls for free from my properly configured laptop, and we are able to get our home phone calls directly here as well, so it is like we never left.  But when using the phone, the network is very slow, can't multi-task and do other stuff.  Also, uploading photos back to our home server, or uploading anything anywhere is very slow.  I have tested uploading to major providers and not just to my fiber connection, and the bandwidth is very limited for a sustained upload connection, it varies between 10 KB/s to 15 KB/s on good moments.  So I am only able to upload 1 photo every 2.5 - 3.5 minutes. This is an issue as I am taking more photos than I can store and carry home.  I will have to look at a solution, maybe a lan house, where I can upload 1 or 2 GB of data at a time and quickly.  Then I can make small trips there and save myself hours of uploading, which I try to do as soon as possible, if not during the night.  I think I would be happy with about 10 of these connections teamed together, but it isn't cost effective.  This service costs more than my super fast and great fiber connection to our home.