"schurlif's thing in Valinhos (created Feb 2011 )" schurlif's Profile

I moved away from São Paulo in July 2006 and too much has changed since then to keep my old homepage the way it was (and still is, as an album, see below).

I now reside in Valinhos, a quaint "middle little" city with about 100,000 inhabitants, some 80 km north of the gigapolis São Paulo, that’s just one hour by car, the same amount of time I sometimes take to cross an intersection in São Paulo during rush hour…

Valinhos is also real close (like a suburb) to Campinas, a major city in the State of São Paulo with over 1.5 million inhabitants, so I have all the amenities and infrastructure that I might need, 24h supermarket, cinemas, top quality highways, good schools for my daughter and, at the same time, a quieter life, no air pollution or much of traffic, little crime and a heartier and much more personal relationship with the employees of the shops that I frequent and just about everyone else (just to mention a few things).

And to put a FIRST photo here, there's me with two new members of my household, born on 10/10/10, taken end of Nov. 2010...... For the fun and for cat lovers...

photo taken guess when...?? (2010 )

Times change and my relationships change... ( I very much hope this one is going to stick....). No more Camila as in many of my old Sao Paulo and Egypt tips ( but we're still good friends....). Now it's Danielle and Danielle in my tips.... ( Because, hey, whom will I take the most pictures of ? And how will I possibly show places to VT members without her or me in the foreground ? Sure, I can also take pictures just for VT's sake, we'll see..... But we're anyway both so pretty that it would be a shame to omit us from you.... lol... ).

Well, I used to be a philanderer but Danielle has tamed me ( so far...), lol...
I'm being serious about it though and trying my best.....

El Mariachi staff and a "visitor"

Here's half of my kids, from left to right Benjamin, Anna Bianca and Denis, taken in June 2010 at my tex mex restaurant ( wanna see ? My São Paulo
restaurant tip El Mariachi ). Benjamin and Denis were working there at the time of the take but not anymore. Anna didn't have school that day because Brazil was playing at the World Soccer Championship in South Africa, which meant all of Brazil stopped and everybody was watching the game. There's a "telão" = big screen at the restaurant where we can project the TV picture. And it's much more fun to watch such games with a whole bunch of loco, supporting, whistling and yelling El Mariachi patrons.

Just in case you want to see how the kids have grown, especially Anna, compare this photo with the kids photo of my old homepage.....

Thales, Socorro, Anna, Denis + me in the front

Back at my house in Valinhos for a "churrasco" (= bbq ), there are Anna Bianca and Denis again and me.... of course... taken in Oct. 2010

And there's also Thales, my youngest, 9 years old.

And there's Maria de Socorro, my house keeper, butler and governess in one person..... The fairy tale godmother like Glinda, the good witch of the North. Without her and her husband Marcelo I would be lost. She's also my private secretary, confident and "business manager".... (lol)...

Her daughter Mayara, though 3.5 years older than Anna Bianca, is her best friend...

During the difficult times of the beginning of Anna's adolescence Socorro is the ersatz-mother for her and the indispensable adult woman role model figure. Anna started to act like a real nerve-wrecking teenager when she was just 10 and a half ( even though she will only be a real teenager in 2 months, thirTEEN in April ). Anna is very precocious and I wouldn't have been able to handle her on my own..... No way.....

So...... things are going somewhat smoothly.....

BTW, just for the curiosity and it doesn't mean anything much :

Benjamin ( from the other picture ) and Anna are adopted children, Thales and Denis are biological.....

my street

This is Rua Lydio Beltramini in the Vale Verde (= green valley ) pure residential bairro where I live, a little and steep dead end street with just a few houses. No traffic zipping by, just the neighbors' dogs barking sometimes....

Clean air, peace of mind.....

The prow of my white Toyota Hilux is history by now, I have a new car (don't know to whom belongs the other car, I must have had a visitor when I took this shot...., can't remember).

There's only ONE "bad" thing about my place, without a car you're f***ed...
The next shop for whatever is a few km away, to the town it's like 6 km....

You might not believe it but there are somewhat iguana like gigantic lizards ( don't know their scientific names ), like 1 meter or maybe a little more in size living in the bushes of my garden and also in the neighbors' gardens.

My cats go nuts about them but don't dare to "play" with them.... Lol.....

My home is my castle...

This is a partial, slightly color modified view of the driveway of my house with its blueframed yellow brick ( no bricks, but asphalt ) road....

I had it fixed up and upgraded like two years ago because before, when I still lived in São Paulo, it was "just" the weekend country cottage. It's simple and humble and colorful ( the way I like it ), but spacious, comfty and cozy.... 4 bedroom ( the smallest being my office ), 4 bathroom, 2 living rooms and the necessary rest on a 42mx30m lot, or some 1.260sqm.

Plenty of tropical garden with fruits, flowers, bushes and trees, heaven for my cats.... ( I have as many cats as kids.... 6 ! )

Yep, I'm in the tropics, not much but I am..... each time I go to or come from São Paulo I cross the Tropic of Capricorn, that means like 6 times a week on the average... maybe I'm the VT member who most often leaves or goes to the tropics, who dares me ?? Lol....)

( Coming soon: an album of things that grow in my garden....)

Had to be done....

When I had the house fixed up 2 years ago we also had to redo the whole attic, the supporting wooden spline (??) for the shingles and the shingles themselves..... What a work !! With all the furniture, TVs, computers etc. in the house and us living in there !!

You don't want to know about the details......

Next stop: World Champion

In the first month I lived in Valinhos, a neighbor came along and asked me if I didn't want to donate or sponsor something for the "bairro" soccer team.... So I did sponsor the team and bought their uniforms and had the logo of my restaurant printed on the chest of the shirts...

The yellow and green colors are THE brazilian colors ( symbolizing the sun and the forest - Amazon, I guess - ) and the red stain on the front of the shirts is a moustached Mariachi singer with a guitar leaning - how relaxing -on a cactus.... Lol !!......

Anna, then 8 years old became the mascot of the team and guess what ???
"Vale Verde Futebol Clube" became the champion of its league category in the 2006 season !!!! 3 points ahead of the runner up.