It's good to be home...

A funny thing about the place we call "home". Our apartment here is still quite bare. We have white floors and walls in most spaces, and hardly a thing hanging on the white walls. We have beds, dressers, tables, chairs, couches and a variety of other items that we didn't choose and don't actually belong to us. We've lived here for less than two full months. Yet after being away from the apartment for 4 days, it actually feels good to be "home". I guess this is something I can thank my parents for... we always had a new "home" every couple of years growing up, for the most part, so maybe my adjustments are a bit easier.
Anyway, this talk about home is, in no way, a commentary on the quality of our trip to Paraty. In fact, it was pretty much as great as expected. We arrived on Thursday night, although after a full day of work and then almost seven hours on a bus (quite the Rolls-Royce of buses though it was), there wasn't a whole lot of action going on that night. So the fun began on Friday morning when we woke up at the Estalagem Colonial - a little bed-and-breakfast pousada - to this little pervert standing on our balcony, checking us out through our open door:
There was a whole family of these little lemurs that hung out in a giant tree that covered the expanse of the courtyard outside our room. They spent a little time every morning on our balcony, looking in at us. Abby was scared shitless by these harmless little tree-dwellers. The kids and I thought they were pretty cool companions though.
So Paraty is a designated historic site; a preserved colonial town in Rio de Janeiro state, south of the city of Rio. The cobbled streets are lined with rocks that were apparently hauled over as ballast for cargo ships that came to Brazil from Lisbon in the 1600s. They really account for a good deal of the downtown charm, along with the local shops and the boat-lined docks.

We spent Friday on a 35' chartered sail boat that flew a Pirate flag - Noah was extremely happy with that little detail. We sailed around and stopped every hour or so for a dip in the ocean, and ate lunch a couple of hundred feet up on the side of an island at a really nice restaurant with an amazing view.
Saturday was spent mostly shopping and napping (guess who-did-what?)... it was a little overcast, but around 80, so it was pleasant. Since I was with the kids all day (napping, playing in the streets and taking pictures) while Abby shopped, I got a pass to go experience a little Paraty nightlife.... it was a cool town to hang out in. I ended up at the "Margarida Cafe" (I didn't misspell - that's what the place is called) with a few other teachers who went with us, and listed to local music and chatted in broken Portuguese with some Braziledos and various other tourists.
So overall, a great time. Although our rustic little hotel little to offer other than a nice breakfast each morning and (I'm pretty sure) a flea-infested bed or two, we'll definitely be going back to Paraty....but probably not to the Estalagem Colonial.