São Paulo, Vanessa and Vlad

Alda from Boston introduced us to Vanessa and Vlad by email. Vanessa is accountant at C&A and Vlad is teacher of economics in a university. The apartment is at the city center, close to the university where Vlad teaches. On the 18th and last floor (in Brazil we always stay on the top floor) of a building with four apartments per floor. Downstairs it is necessary to cross two gates before crossing a security guard and continue to the elevators. Like in Rio de Janeiro. The apartment is small. The lobby is the living room. There is a small kitchen, a room and an office, where we sleep. The shower, like everywhere else in Brazil, warms the water electrically over our head. All other taps only serve cold water. The simple washing machine washes with at cold. We sleep in a air mattress. There are three cats - Bolacha, Biscoito and another one. They have a car, a renault clio.

Curitiba, Milana and Dalmo

Milana and Dalmo are our hosts in Curitiba. Both journalists and studying for public worker examinations, in order to have a more stable future. They live not far from the center, walking distance from the "eye" of Niemeyer. Their large apartment is on the fifth floor on a quite recent building. The living with two sofas and a TV, a bar dividing the space of with the kitchen. There are three rooms, one of them transformed into a office, a toilet and a bathroom. Is the first apartment in Brazil we sleep with hot water plumbing, warmed by a boiler in the kitchen. Our room had a single bed and an extra mattress, which I use to sleep on the floor. The "office" is mostly used to hang the clothes to dry. They have a car, a Fiat, and a cleaning lady once a week.

Florianólis, Patricia and her two children

In Florianópolis the house is in Campeche, only five minutes by foot to the beach in a area of detached houses. Patrícia lives with her two children and a german shepherd in the garden. The children are 14 and 16years old and students. The younger one also plays videogames while the older one works. Patrícia is event organizer but she doesn't like the company where she is working. She is 45 years-old and not long ago she did her first solo trip to Patagonia. Her car is a Fiat. The house has two floors, with a open area on the ground floor with the dining room, living room, kitchen and a office in one of the corners. On the first floor, after climbing a cement staircase without handrail, there is Patrícia's room, the children room with two single beds and a bathroom. We sleep in the room of Vitor and Pedro and we use a bathroom on the ground floor. Again, hot water only in the showers. The kids sleep in the living room and use the bathroom upstairs.
There are few kitchen utensils and only a small frying pan where we prepare the onions and potatoes for the "bacalhau com natas". The gas stove runs out of gas while we cook, Sunday night. A short phone call and in less than ten minutes there is a motorbike arriving with a new bottle of gas. But in Brazil we never buy an extra bottle, in case.
Patrícia lends us two very shaky bicycles we use only once to go to the supermarket. She take us to visit semi-desert beaches like Matador or Lagoinha de Leste.

Porto Alegre - Elinka e Alberto

At Porto Alegre we had Elinka and Alberto. She is a singer and musical consultant, he studied history but works as a computer programmer. Elinka during whole time she hosted us - four days - had to do a blog presenting a musical group. The whole time she spoke with us and on the phone and little did, even going to bed at 6am. They live not far from the center on the third and last floor of a building not very taken care of. Even if living together already for some time, they had several boxes around. At the lobby they had two TV sets which didn't work very well. The lobby connected to a long corridor with doors for four rooms, bathroom and passageway to the kitchen. Our room is the most organized: there is a sofa-bed to which Elinka added two wood pads and an extra mattress to make a real bed. In one of the rooms - the dining room - Elinka gives classes of voice and singing. In another room - the office - there was a desktop and two laptops on just two tables and lots of pandemonium. Their room is also a mess of clothes. The bathrooms has hot water in the shower, which is a box (like in São Paulo and Curitiba). The flush doesn't wok the first days, being necessary to manually lift the rubber in the water container. Also the ceiling light doesn't work and the only working light is necessary to turn on over a high closet. The kitchen was another disarray: lots of dishes and cutlery going around. When we arrive there is a huge pile of dishes to wash. For the rest of the days we don't give opportunity to repeat the situation. Finally, the washing machine leaks in the front, water that they collect in a basin not big enough for the amount of water coming out.

They have two cats - Lord and Prince - which made their business in their boxes by the kitchen every morning while we have breakfast.

Elinka and Alberto take us out couple of times and, even with all the mess, we are feeling well at their place. Of course they do not have a cleaning lady. They also do not have a car.

Moscow - Elena and Alex

Elena and Alex have a kid, Dmitri, year and half old. They like cycling and in their last mail they said "from Monday you can stay as long you want, but we mightn ot be here on weekends". "Here" is Moscow. They lived in nice suburbs building, about 45 minutes from the center after tram and metro. The appartment was almost in western standards even if they used the big room for sleeping instead of living. Again the usual mess, no order whatsoever and almost no free space on the kitchen to put things to eat. This lack of order also means lack of cleaning of all kitchen appliances. Since some time we are used to this.

We stayed in Dmitri's room, in a IKEA sofa, quite confortable. Unfortunately better beds always mean less contact.

Monday they said we could arrive after 15:00 but at 15:20 they send an SMS that from 16 to 22 they are not there. As there was no time to arrive before 16, we were stuck until 22. They were nice when we met and we talked a while. Alex works on IT field, is big and beautiful; Elena finished her PhD on Maths modelling. Alex goes to work around 9am. we were tired from the train and wanted to sleep.

Next day at 10:30, when we finished to dress up, Elena says we have to leave in 15 minutes. Eva still tried "but we can leave afterwards...". "No, you leave with me". And Alex should be home around 20. At 19 a SMS: "will you be home before 21?". Understanding we replied that we arrive only at 23. He thanks and we arrive late so he can go to cycle. Time to leave next morning is 9+-15minutes, after we questioned. And "would you be interested to sleep at our Datsha tomorrow?". He wanted to go there and we had to follow, no way to say no. "There is a pool and you can do banya" he added to try making more appealing. "Ok", next day we carry all day stuff to bring to datsha as we can't return home before.

Her parents there are very nice and we had good time.

Thursday we leave datsha at 10 and Elena takes us to see a monastery called NewJerusalem. At 12:15 we arrive home to leave the bag and then she says that Alex will be back at 22:00. tuck outside again, we contacted Jolanda, Eva's brother's friend, to take us to some art show. At 22, while we were going to train station to buy ticket for next morning train, an SMS "we will be home only at 23. sorry". Luckly we were not yet going home. At 23:30 we were going home. Not feeling bad at all about the late time but in any case we warn them that we estimate to arrive around midnight. The tram we take, even if the good number, is going to "depo" and takes a different way. We have to stop a car and go home for 100R more. At 0:15 we arrive, Alex is sleepy and opens the door. "Good night" was the only changed words. Friday morning when he wakes up we are ready to leave. "Bye, maybe see you in Switzerland" we said ironically.

Maxim (and Ira) - Petrozavods

Maxim lives at home of Ira, "a great Russian writer", he says and she confirms "last week I sold a screen play in Moscow". Small home at outskirts of Petrozavods, made of wood, garden and remainings of wood everywhere. Part of it were remainings of the winter for the heating and the other from part of the home who suffered a fire some years before. In the lower floor lived a friend and above was the couple. The usual mess, no space for nothing in the kitchen, with 4 forks, 2 spoons and 2 knifes to eat. They were proud of having the only house with water in the area. To install water cost more than the house itself. But it worthed, they had now toilet inside home and shower with hot water. The kitchen/room had a 90cm wide bed where we slept one night. The following night I slept in the office room in a even narrower sofa but alone. After the office there was their room which we never saw.

Maxim wanted to be "truck driver" in Europe and now makes small works as electrician, musician and strawberry picking in Finland. Speaks perfect american english. Ira has agricultural course. They plant trees they brought from the village they visited for 2 days.