Olá gente! My name is Noelle, I live in Sao Paulo, Brazil. and I am a freelance project coordinator with a Bachelor’s Degree in International Business. I was born in Surinam but I have lived in the Netherlands for most of my life. I’ve also lived and worked in Germany and the USA. My entire life I have never really connected with any culture, it’s like every culture I grew up with – Dutch, Surinamese, American – I felt like I just couldn’t fully identify. In 2012 my fascination for the Brazilian Portuguese language began when I first listened to Brazilian music.
In 2019 I decided to spend 2 months in Brazil to take a language course. During my time there, it was like I found the missing puzzle piece. I had never felt so at home and I identified so strongly with the culture – the music, the dancing (I fell in love with forró), the kindness, the food! The way that Brazilians have this incredible zest for life just amazed me. I went back a couple more times to dance forró and see my friends. I met my treasure of a husband on one of my trips back to Sao Paulo. We spent 9 incredible days together and decided that when I came back to Brazil, we wanted to see how things would play out. We spent 3 months together in Sao Paulo, 2 of which in quarantine. There was an instant connection and we just knew this was it and didn’t want to be separated again for this long. We got married in the Netherlands this past August and I moved to Sao Paulo in September to stay indefinitely. We live in the south of the city, in our cute little house with one dog and three cats and I am loving my new expat life!