We moved this weekend to Macaé Palace. We had been looking forward to the move for a long time. Gabi and I were so excited about it. Our old apartment was far away from everything (grocery store, work, restaurants, beach), and the new condominium is right on the beach, and closer to everything else. Like everything, there are pros and cons to our new place, but these are some serious pros and serious cons. Talk about a stark contrast! Let me explain. Let's start with the positive points..
Our apartment is right on the beach. We live on the 6th floor and we have a really nice round balcony, so the view is gorgeous. I have a sliding glass door from my bedroom to the balcony, and falling asleep with the door open to the sound of the waves crashing on the beach make life feel like a vacation (for the 5 minutes it takes for me to fall asleep). The maid service is like a hotel. They come clean everyday, make our beds, and change the sheets and towels once a week. The 7th floor is the roof, but also the location of the pool, jacuzzi, sauna, steam room, gym, and ofuro (japanese-style hot bath). Everything is nice and new, and if I ever have some spare time, I'm sure I'll enjoy all the extras the Palace has to offer.
It's starting to sound too good to be true, right? Don't be too hasty. Before you start thinking that my life is pampered one, let me share some of our struggles. The apartment itself is very small. It was designed as a one bedroom apartment, so to make two, they divided the living room in half with a fiberglass wall. My room is the artificial one. Besides the fact that the gray, office cubicle-like wall is paper thin when it comes to noise insulation and doesn't match the white apartment very well, it's a very doable situation. The living room is sparsely furnished. When I say sparsely, I mean we have a tiny little love seat that barely fits two people of average size and a nice new television. The kitchen is my favorite (thick on the sarcasm here). It looks like they took the whole kitchen and put it in the dryer on high for 5 days and shrunk everything. Our stove consists of two burners, the fridge is the kind you have in a college dorm room, I had a bigger microwave in my 9 by 17ft dorm room, and even the sink, trash can, and pots and pans are smaller than average. Notice that I haven't mentioned the size of the oven. That's because in my toy kitchen, we don't have one. No oven. Aparently we only eat food that you can cook on the stove and in the microwave. The really ironic part is that with the microwave, you usually cook frozen food. I could live like that. But our dorm-size fridge doesn't have a real freezer, just a shallow shelf inside the fridge that can hold a small box or two. We dont have any cabinets or drawers either. All our food and dishes are covering the small countertops. We don't have a kitchen table, or any table at all, just a bar with two stools. That counter space is being used as food storage as well.
The first night, I turned on my air conditioner in my room and it started leaking water. I mean, like a steady stream. If you ever want your air conditioner to leak, just call me, because I have really good luck with things like this. I stuck a pan under the mini waterfall and we called maintenence who came to fix it the next day. It appears that we have some water damage around the baseboard in the living room too.. so hopefully they won't have to tear our wall apart to fix it.
Enough about my living conditions.. I can eat my cereal on the balcony and enjoy where I'm at. Last time, I told you that I would write when I got back from offshore. Well, I haven't gone yet. The job I was supposed to go on was going to be filmed, so there weren't enough beds on the rig, and I got cut from the job as the newbie. That's fine, the drill ship didn't seem too appealing as my first experience offshore anyway. The next plan was for me to go with Julio, Bruno, and Daniel. We were supposed to leave tomorrow and be offshore on a semi-submersible rig. I got a call last night from my boss (Simão) saying that the job was delayed (along with another job), and that there might not be a spot for me on this rig either. The new plan is for me to go on the third job. If there are no more delays, I'll be embarking Sunday or Monday. There's still a possibility that I can still go with Julio, Bruno, and Daniel. If a space opens up, I would really prefer to go with them. I think I would learn more and have more fun with those guys than the other crew. Plus, I would leave sooner and get back sooner, and I'm really hoping to be able to come back to the US for a week before I head to France for my school. I won't know if I can come home until when I get back from offshore. You can pray that it all works out!
This week has been pretty chill. Yesterday was a Brazilian holiday called Tiradentes. It celebrates one of the first movements for Brazilian independence. (Check http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tiradentes for more information, if you're curious.) My boss gave me today off and tomorrow is another holiday for just the state of Rio de Janeiro. So I'm not working a lot this week. I'm just studying like crazy, trying to finish everything I have to do before I go offshore, so that I can come home.
I set up a blog (you found it!). I uploaded all my past email updates with some pictures here and there. I'll post all future updates there too after I email them out. I'm going to put up some pictures there of the new apartment, in all it's glory, so you should check it out. jessica-jordan.blogspot.com
