Oasis

Without argument, one of the biggest things (maybe the only thing?) we really miss about the US living in Brazil is....Starbucks. There are Starbucks in Brazil, but, to the best of my knowledge, only in Sao Paulo and Rio, not way out in the interior hinterland of the country.

To understand Brasilia better, you have to imagine if in 1956 President Eisenhower declared that the capital of the United States would move from Washington, D.C. to say....Lincoln, Nebraska. This is pretty much what happened when then Brazilian President Juscelino Kubitschek (the 'JK' in JK Bridge) moved the capital from Rio to Brasilia.

In the last 55 years, Brasilia grew. Now it has a zoo, five star restaurants and even a mall, Iguatemi, with a Burberry, Louis Vuitton and Zara. But, alas, sadly, no Starbucks.

Coffee is huge in Brazil. Sao Paulo, one of the largest cities in the southern hemisphere was built on the back of a tremendous coffee industry. The cafezinho is now integral to our way of life and the Brazilian culture. But much of the best coffee is exported.

Starbucks recently bought back controlling interest in Starbucks Brazil, and new stores are popping up (slowly) in Rio. Hopefully, one will open in Brasilia before we have to leave in December of next year.

Elise and I are not collectors. I have an LP collection and a pretty impressive run of Uncanny X-Men that I left in storage in D.C., but, other than that, we are not known to amass great quantities of material objects. We're kind of like nomads in that respect. We only keep that which we can carry (babies included). To understand better the picture above one must know that we do have a collection of Starbucks mugs from all the places we have lived in or visited that had a Starbucks, including D.C., the Bahamas and Paris. So, when I saw this picture, I knew we had to have one. And when I shared it with Elise, she responded, "And so we shall go."

We know people here who long for Ruffles, nachos, Taco Bell, milk that doesn't come in a bag, pizza without cream cheese in the crust, a grocery aisle with 50 different kinds of cereals. I can honestly say we don't miss much and can honestly say that we have the things close to us that are truly important. There is nothing that is really important that we don't have at hand and we wouldn't threaten to leave never to return just because we couldn't stroll the aisles of Target or use a drive-thru without wondering if what we had ordered is what we really wanted or were going to get.

Starbucks has always been close to Elise's heart for obvious reasons. Based in Seattle, Starbucks reminds her of her soggy, moss-covered Pacific Northwest home, both figuratively and literally. Starbucks is close to my heart, because even before Elise and I knew we would spend the rest of our days together, we would meet at Starbucks for coffee before either I went to work at the office or she drove down to school or went to work at the restaurant. It was our special meeting place. After Sam was born, he basically grew up in Starbucks for the first two years of his life, until the point when a daily pink 'sprinks donut was as much a part of his morning ritual as coffee or an iced latte was to ours.

At some point, we will have to find the Starbucks in Brazil, for no other reason than to get the mug. Stay tuned.