Good Things

I am totally over last week's little issues, and as of now, I am feeling super for several reasons.

First of all, Saturday night a bunch of us girls got together and had a little festa sans men. As if that in itself is not enough fun, we all brought clothes, shoes, and jewelry that we didn't want anymore. So in between eating pizza, pão de queijo, and cake, we dug through piles of our friends' clothes searching for something good. Although I definitely had the least amount of stuff to trade, I mean I did only have 2 suitcases when we moved here, I walked away with some totally adorable things. None of the shoes fit my big ol' feet, but I snagged some black pants and shirts to wear at concerts and a couple really cute dresses. SCORE!

The second reason I am happy is because of the incredible experience I had last night playing Shostakovich Symphony No. 7, "Leningrad." The piece is gigantic and involves 125 people. We played with the Experimental Orchestra, which is like the youth orchestra here, and the musicians filled up the entire stage. The piece was written during WWII and one can hear the soldiers approaching Leningrad, feel the torment and crying of the victims, the hope that remained, and the eventual triumph over the Germans. The piece is very moving in that respect and has some bombastic trombone parts. The Teatro was packed, and everyone seemed to appreciate our efforts. I know it was an incredibly rewarding experience for me that I will always treasure.

This is a rehearsal pic from the newspaper 

article about the concert. 

You can't see the trombones, but there 

were 6 of us in the very back. 

The full theater before we started.

The third reason to smile is that after a long month of waiting, the package my mom sent us finally arrived!! She was told it would take 7-10 days to get here, but according to the tracking, it's been sitting in Brazilian Customs for the last couple of weeks. I never stopped waking up with the hope that today would be the day, and it finally was the day! In our package, we got some much needed chapstick (haven't found any here), contact solution (very $$$ here), some cool Cardinals paraphernalia for the man of the casa, my favorite tea that they don't sell here, yummy salt-and-vinegar chips, and some clothes for me, among other things. All in all, it was worth the wait, and we're already looking forward to the next one!