Traveling

Always when Brazilians say they are leaving or they are out of town for any reason, 

if they speak English, they say they are "traveling".   

Because in Portuguese, the verb for travel is viajar 
and it means to leave town for any reason.

So the Halls have been "traveling" a bit.

(in addition to our Holiday trip or "viagem")

Our first big trip out of São Paulo was to Brasilia.  
 It is a relatively new city, founded in 1960, 
to replace Rio de Janeiro as the new, centrally located national capital.

 These are all government buildings.

 This was a short visit, two days, one night, Dec. 9-10

The three of us flew about an hour and a half early Tu. morning.

We promptly landed and rented a car.  Sounds simple.

Never rented a car in a foreign country before.  We didn’t know the language for insurance, or "do we fill it up before we bring it back?", etc.  We were given the keys and we were off.



The purpose of the trip was for Craig to visit the American Embassy and

 try to establish some relationships with the visa and American Services individuals.

To avoid any chance of being late, 

we decided to drive directly from the airport to locate the embassy. 

Then we could find someplace to eat lunch.

Of course that was not as easy as we hoped~
Our gps was as confusing as ever.
After a while of wandering and guessing,

and asking a live person, we were successful.  

 Good thing we didn't delay - we were still a tad early, but - no time for lunch.

All three of us were invited in.  The two people we met with, 

 Jonathan and Brianna, were very friendly and helpful.

The brief meeting was quite productive. 

Craig's assignment was to insure that the church was using the correct visa applications for Brazilians going to the United States to serve as missionaries and that we were following the correct procedures. Great news is that we are. In fact Jonathan mentioned that in his experience with the foreign service, only once has he in his role, had to offer assistance. 

He has been very impressed that the church 

takes care of its missionaries and that they do not do stupid things.

Craig felt that a solid relationship had been created.

Hopefully they will serve us and the church well in the future.

We took these photos on our way out.

These are some great views surrounding our small resort-like hotel.

Randy on the bridge

The weather was pleasant.  We found and explored a shopping center,

ate dinner and watched a movie on Netflix. Then called it a day.

The next day we took a drive to a city called Taguatinga.

Craig served the first part of his Jr. mission, 

in 1970, in this "town" where he and his companion

worked hard and had a little bit of success.

He wondered if he would recognize anything.

This is a small portion of what it looks like between Brasilia and Taguatinga.

Many, many apartments. 

He remembers nothing but open space here previously.

They traveled the distance often, in those days, by bus to attend church in Brasilia.

We found the street-

 and the approximate location of where he lived for a time.

 The building was called Hotel Santos Dumont at QNA 5 Lote 2.  It really was not a hotel but a series of small rooms used as bedrooms. The shower and bathrooms were down the sky hall walkway. We ate lunch and dinner with the family who lived with all of their kids in a larger one-room kitchen, bedroom and living room. He doesn't remember that it was bad in any way, except maybe the "shocking" electric shower :)

Being there made him feel a little bit surreal.

.

Upon returning to the big city, prior to our flight back to São Paulo, 

we wanted to do a little sight-seeing.  

The effort was cut a little short because of our on-going battle with the gps and

  the complicated navigation of the streets.  :/

This modern looking building is Brazil's National Cathedral.

This was the highlight of the city for us on that day.

It's very beautiful and unique, as cathedrals go.

The roof appears to be reaching up, open to heaven.

The statues are the "Four Evangelists" that we know as

Matthew, Mark, Luke, John

the birds are not part of the statue :)

 The cathedral has a deep reflecting pool that surrounds the cathedral roof, helping to cool the cathedral. Visitors pass under this pool when entering the cathedral.

 We entered into the cathedral through a dark tunnel 

and emerged into a bright space with the gleaming stained glass roof. 

Hanging from the ceiling are three angels suspended by steel cables.

This was part of an exhibit displayed inside the cathedral.


Hurrying back to the airport,
we were glad that we had made this quick,
interesting trip.