Hello melbvitorio, BDBrasil, chantelleb44, LucyHolden, Lucia Pupilli, missycrissy, rachelinbrazil, gav34 and nativelana

On behalf of the entire Expat-blog Team I would like to welcome you all on board. I hope your experience here on the blog will be both enjoyable and informative.
A Very Merry Christmas and a Happy and Prosperous New Year to all of you as well. I note that while some have you have registered quite some time ago you have not been particularly active on the blog. I sincerely hope that this will change in the New Year, since it will make meeting new friends a lot easier. As and expat (Canadian) who has been living in Brazil for eleven years now I can tell you that there's nothing worse than the feeling of being isolated and alone here. Participating in the forums (not just the Brazil Forum) will help build a circle of friends both here and abroad and will go a long way towards reducing that feeling.
I am the Brazil Animator and if any of you need assistance in the way of information, advice or explanations regarding the absurd bureaucracy here in Brazil please feel free to drop me a line, that's what I'm here for.
I have been making plans to hold an Expat-blog get-together in a few locations in the year to come (if I can afford it) and was thinking of Rio, São Paulo and Belo Horizonte to begin with. Please watch for further announcements in this regard and perhaps we will have a chance to meet in person.
Hope to see you all more often in the forums next year, we really need more contributors and your participation will be appreciated by all of our members here in Brazil. While I note that you are all looking primarily for fellow Brits, please don't limit your contacts just within your own countrymen since you'll be missing out on the wealth of information and pool of potential friendships from all the other expat groups here in Brazil. Trust me, each group has something different and special to offer. Don't forget that Brazil is a truly multicultural country and as such has expats from every corner of the globe. While many of them may not be able to share experiences of your home country with you, the experiences they have as expats here puts them in the same boat as you're in right now, so you really do have much more in common than you might think.
Cheers,
William James Woodward - Brazil Animator, Expat-blog Team