Day 7- SprayTec and Home

Once we hopped off the plane we gathered up our stuff and loaded into yet another touring van for... a five minute drive over to SprayTec.  

Ha!  We were all so glad it was such a quick trip!

Yep, we could definitely see agricultural similarities between the Midwest and Parana. The skies look exactly like this in Iowa about half of the time, and the corn looks the same too!

We didn't know quite what to expect from Spraytec (Diego's company), but wow!  It was such an impressive tour of a truly fantastic organization. 

And we got a tour of this agricultural 'chocolate factory' from Willy Wonka himself!

After a welcome luncheon, we went all around the facilities.  

From the storage facilities 

to the labs

to the production lines

and the expansion buildings

to the packaging manufacturing and the accounting department and the creative and marketing departments, we saw it all and we loved it all!

Of course no tour is complete without a professional photographer to document the occasion!

Diego has built an incredible company and he is making good in the world!  I noticed how happy all of his employees were, how nicely dressed everyone was, how clean every building and manicured the grounds were.  It was a great insight into his brilliance and hard work!  Once we got to the Parodi's house I put the camera away for the night and we just enjoyed the most delicious food- think pulled pork over mashed potatoes and delicious coconut pudding (I don't know why they don't call it flan) and the kids relaxed and played and the adults talked all about how Spraytec came to be and our families and we all just loved being together in their home.  It was so relaxing and wonderful! 

 And eventually they took us over to our hotel for the next few nights- boys with boys and girls with girls and treats and minibar snacks for everyone! And this was the view from our room- the landmark of Maringa!

Day 7- Arriving in Maringa

We survived the night!  And the views in the morning were excellent!

For sure the best part of our hotel was the spray attachment in the shower- we were finally able to get all of the Buzios sand out of Emma's thick wavy locks!  I also loved that the showers in our hotel had a window in them- no need for a fan when you can just crack your window open and hope that a pigeon doesn't fly in to join you in the shower!

 The rooms were tiny with an oddly disproportionate amount of square footage dedicated to a kitchenette. 

This was our first non-Buzios breakfast in Brazil, and boy was Adam happy to see toast!

We converted Emma to the ways of the ham and cheese baguette!

But pao de queso was still the winner for favorite food. 

So long Sao Paulo!  We made an hour drive out of town to an airport that could get all ten of us on one flight, and we were just 7 minutes away from the Sao Paulo temple on our way out.  But we weren't in charge of the agenda for this trip, and the traffic was thick and crazy.  We didn't realize that Sao Paulo is the 5th largest city in the world.  So different from NYC or Chicago, and even bigger!  (Spoiler alert- we ended up with an entire bonus day in Sao Paulo at the end of our trip, so we got to see a whole lot more of this city that we didn't even have on our original agenda.) 

From city to country to foggy 'jungle'- I loved this road trip!

Just look at those lush trees!

And beautiful colors!

And such a variety of buildings along the way. 

It was at this point on our trip that our kids really started to shine- at this point we had been on the go from Buzios for over 24 hours and they handled the hours of travel and changes in plans and unknown so well!  I'd take these cuties anywhere, they are great travel companions!

Give Noah a piece of paper and a pencil and he is happy for hours!  Daddy and I loved playing pencil podracers with him. 

And the girls did all kinds of drawing while Adam and Diego played a seemingly endless game of War (Diego might have needed a bit of correction about where to put the cards so as to not be accused of cheating). 

I stocked up on some snacks in this airport (how is everything so cheap even in the airport?!), got a little lost myself, and then someone even stopped and asked me directions (my handy 'desculpe, no falo Portuguse' statement with a smile came in handy again, but I was delighted that someone assumed I might possibly speak Portuguese or know anything at all about this foreign country!).

Thanks to our handy dandy Earplane ear plugs those of us who suffer on planes were much more comfortable, and the once daunting idea of taking 7 flights on this trip was no longer a major concern.  We were all perfectly happy on the plane. Once we landed in Maringa, we definitely knew we weren't in the city anymore.  Maringa is an agricultural city, and it looked a felt a whole lot like the Midwest- cloudy and green. We felt at home right away!

We walked off the back of the plane and into the smallest airport any of us have ever been in. 

Our original plan, before the cancelled flight, was to fly into Maringa and spend the afternoon at Spraytec and then at the Parodi's home.  Our altered plan still took us to Spraytec and then the Parodi's home, and really it was the perfect leg of the trip to have to miss out on.  We still had such a great time visiting their beautiful home town for the 36 or so hours that we spent there. 

Day 6- Travel Day (and a Half)

Early the next morning we piled back into a touring van and wound our way back south to Rio de Janiero.  It was such a beautiful drive, and I only took a fraction of the pictures I wanted to remember this east coast of Brazil. 

One more stop at the fancy rest stop market.  No lunch this time, we had plenty of breakfast to eat in the van. 

And once we got to the airport in Rio, through security and to our gate, the kids all ate hot dogs.  Or maybe the first airport is where they ate McDonalds, much to Adam's complete and utter horror.  There's no denying that those hot fudge sundaes and fries are good, but he wasn't about to let a chicken McNugget cross his lips. 

This was my favorite plane snack on the whole trip- cheese crisps, a chocolate chip cookie and a full glass of water. 

We got onto our plane and over to Sao Paulo without any problems, and grabbed some pizza and played cards to pass the time. 

We had seen a youth group in Dallas playing cards on our flight out, and Leah and I finally found a deck in the airport!  We had no idea how much money it cost and we were only 95% certain it was the kind of deck of cards we were hoping for, and it ended up being a great purchase for the trip.  We will never travel without cards again.  Such a great way to pass the time without screens. 

We sat at these tables for a good three hours. 

And we waited and waited and waited until we finally heard the news that our flight into Maringa had been cancelled because of fog at the airport there.  Not unlike children on a trip, Jason and I weren't stressed at all about the change in plans because we didn't have to figure anything out.  And since Diego and Ellen were such amazing hosts, it was only a few minutes later that we had cars lined up and hotels rooms booked for all of us in Sao Paulo.  We spent a night in a bonus city!

It was in this moment that I felt acutely aware of how many of us there were.  We piled into two taxis- five in each car, even though there were only seats for four passengers- and Emma went with the Parodi's.  You can bet that I had a laser focus on the taxi in front of us the entire way to the hotel.  I did not like having any of my chicks out of my sight for even a minute on this trip!

But we all arrived to the hotel with no problem, even though it was pouring down rain and there were rivers of runoff on every street.  We were so happy to be out of the airport and ready to rest for the night.  No longer afraid of the minibar, we enjoyed the treats they had to offer at every hotel we stayed at for the rest of the trip.  And boy were we all ready for a snack. 

We were split into two rooms- boys with boys and girls with girls, and we all happily and quickly fell asleep in our twin sized beds, with no idea where exactly in the world we were or how long we would be there. 

But the views out the window sure looked pretty!

We just had to wait until morning to find out how we were going to finish our travels to Maringa, which was still 400 miles away!