The Hunt

Hey everyone! By now, I am sure you have seen a few of our posts on Facebook and Twitter and you know that we did arrive safely to Niteroi and are doing well! On Friday, we became official Brazilian Residents which is very exciting because it was quite the process. We spent all day Thursday gathering documents that we needed and the hope was to get the two documents we needed that day. However, Brazil had other ideas. Long story short, we visited 4 post offices, many government offices, the "policia federal" office many times (which btw is in a mall and Kelci never bought anything in the mall, there is a first for everything), a few banks, and a few other offices before we got our official documents on Friday. But we are good to go for a year and then we will have to re-apply. More on that
next year.

Right now, I would like to update you on The Hunt! And no...I am not talking about the hunt each night that we have as we search for mosquitos and other bugs to kill with are cool tennis racquet bug zapper thing (see picture). That hunt can actually be quite fun! I want to update you all on our apartment hunt. Up to this point we have seen 7 apartments. We saw two on Thursday after we did everything we could do document wise. Then on Saturday morning we saw 5 different apartments.

A quick synopsis on the apartment hunt in Brazil. We have been looking for apartments on websites here, that is the easiest way. When we find one we like, we take notes on it or write down the code for it so we can find it later. Also, that code or information will be needed to tell the real estate company which apartment you want to look at. Most times thus far we have had to visit the real estate company and get the key to the apartments we want to see. Sometimes they will give you all the keys you want, and sometimes they will not. It is then upon us to go look at the apartment(s) we want to see and typically there is a 2-hr limit to having the keys. So getting to see 5 apartments in 2 hours on Saturday really was some kind of miracle. The apartments are not always clean and they do not try to "sell" you on them nearly as much. Which is good in some ways but also bad in some ways. I do not think I can completely explain how different looking at apartments here and in the states is, so I'm not gonna try. It is not bad, just very different!

Needless to say, our apartment hunt in Brazil has been an experience. It is fun in a lot of ways, but it is also exhausting and frustrating in some ways. We have mostly enjoyed it but are ready and hopeful we will find our new home soon! Please continue to pray for us and our apartment hunt. Up to this point we have found 2 that we like, however (and very unfortunately) paperwork has already been submitted on both meaning that unless the paperwork is denied...we missed our chance on both. However, we have a list of other ones to go look at and we are confident we will find our new home soon. We will be on The Hunt tomorrow!

Love You All,
Kelly and Kelci