Bad Day in Brazil!!!

There are some days that I just LOVE living here and there are also those days that I just don't like Brazil very much. I am not trying to be a pessimist in writing this blog but I do need to share my VERY BAD DAY in Brazil. I have told a few friends about it already because I had to vent right after it happened so if you are the few I've already told - sorry you have to hear it again! Andy knows some guys from his mission who are from the united states and are also living here with their families. I've never met them but was going to get together with their wives and kids to make Christmas cookies. Sounds fun huh?! (I was especially excited to spend the day speaking English and expressing myself without playing charades!) Well, one of the girls lives about an hour away so we were all meeting at her house since she is in the middle.
Before leaving I was feeling pretty pleased with myself for even attempting the drive given I had never been there. Driving here isn't always the easiest thing to do here especially when you aren't familiar with the area. Anyway to make a long story short, I left with the kids at 9:00 am and 4 HOURS later, 3/4 tank of gas later, many many many tears later, and way too many phone calls to Andy later I made it back to my house having never made it to the girls house. Our 1 hour drive turned into a 4 hour nightmare. Road signs are HORRIBLE here and don't match up very well to the map. Now I can't claim to be the best map reader in the world but I had very good directions and always knew exactly where I was on the map but the signs were just not helpful!!! Let's just say by the time I arrived back home I could not think of one thing that I liked about Brazil!!!! I have gotten over it ... kind of. Just thought you might like to know about my bad driving day in Brazil and hope it never happens again!