September 16th- Day 2

Wow, do Brazilians ever like Macdonalds… Everyone here is mad because the town has only 90,000 people, and apparently, you need 100,000 people in order to get a Macdonalds. So they are waiting until the city grows enough. I told them that I don’t like Macdonalds, and that my town of 10,000 people has one. They think that I`m crazy, and they are very jealous. I realize it might be a generalization to say everyone wants Macdonalds, but I think that it`s almost accurate.

This morning I woke up late again, and ventured into the kitchen for breakfast. Irina brought me the breakfast food (it’s really weird to not make my own breakfast in the mornings…) but I guess I can get used to having a maid. I had the same breakfast as yesterday, but this time was offered cold milk for my cereal, I appreciated that. Irina taught me the words for the food that I ate, and I was able to say `prato` to say that I wanted a plate. I now know that in learning a language, things come pretty slowly, so I celebrate the small things.

After breakfast, I sat in my room, and wrote a list of the words that I knew, and looked up some that I thought I needed to know. The list turned out disappointingly short, but I`ll keep adding to it each day. Then I settled into reading my verb book, a slightly boring enormous book full of 501 Portuguese verbs conjugated in all the tenses, most of which I have no idea when to use. Nevertheless, I might have retained one or two verbs in the present tense. I fell asleep while I was reading the verb book (no big surprise really) and then read my novel for a while to give my brain a rest.

I`m not sure if this impression is really true, but after 2 days in my city I have not seen one insect or bug of any sort, and all the windows and doors to the balconies are open all day with no screen. When I came here, for some reason I expected to be swarmed with bugs, and have cockroaches everywhere, but thankfully, my expectations were wrong. I guess there are screens on the balconies, but its big mesh, I`m assuming it’s to keep birds out. I have seen quite a few birds, and I can hear one chirping as I`m writing this, I think that they are building a nest in the air conditioning vent outside my window. Come to think of it, I guess it’s coming into spring here, so it’s time that birds are building nests probably.

When Renata came home from work for lunch, her and I went for lunch at the same restaurant as yesterday, and I had a few different things, I still don’t know what some things are, but there was definitely rice and beans and churrasco (barbequed meat). At the restaurants, everyone ask Renata about me, and where I`m from, if I speak any Portuguese etc. and they all want to hear me speak.

After lunch, we went to the photocopying and printing place to get documents done for my Federal Police identification card (I think that’s what it’s called anyways) . Getting all the things in order for that was quite an ordeal, but finally we finished there, and then we went to Renata`s dental office. She had to work, so I waited for a while, and then her secretary took me to get my photocopies notarized, and get a picture taken for the ID card as well. It was pretty awkward getting the photo taken, but I just hope that I didn’t look too uncomfortable in the picture. After that Renata brought me home and I relaxed in my room for a while.

Somehow people know that I’m here, and they came to meet me, and visit. Gabrielle and Yan/Yen came and introduced themselves, and they speak English, so it was nice to have some connection with a language that I can express myself in. While they were here, the newspaper called Vinicius, and they wanted to write that I had come here, where I came from, and how long I will be here. After translating through Gabrielle, I think they got the point across.

After that, we headed out and they showed me the city, and took me to what they thought is the best ice cream in town. With the boys yesterday they also told me that the other place was the best ice cream in town, but I didn’t really notice a difference. We walked around `downtown` and there was a market in the square that we perused. They told me, as the boys had yesterday also, that there is nothing ever to do in the town, because it is too small. I would like to show them where I’m from, and then they would say that here has more to do.

After that, I came back here and waited until Renata came home from work. Just after it got dark, the power went out in the city, and I was in my room with no other light than my laptop. However, I was very glad that my laptop was on, so that I could at least see something. The power was only off for 5 minutes or so, but it was really surprising how quiet it got, aside from the traffic which continued, the car’s lights the only ones in the city.

When Renata came home, she showed me one of the city’s newspapers, which had a small article about my parents receiving a new daughter. I haven’t translated it fully yet, but I probably will soon, so that I know what everyone else knows about me. No big surprise though, they didn’t spell my name right. For a city larger than my hometown, I’m surprised how much more closely knit it is. As you walk down the street, people greet each other a lot, and everyone is so friendly.

The article in the Newspaper

As happens every evening (I think) Renata and her friend go for a walk at the club. I went with them, and we spent the entire time learning language. They would point to something, and then say it in Portuguese for me to repeat. After I had mastered the word, I would teach it to them in English. It’s quite amusing to hear them speaking English; however, it must be the same for them to hear me speak with such an English accent in Portuguese. I also was able to make a few sentences about what I saw, and some differences between here and Canada.

After the walk, Renata and I came back here and showered before dinner. Then, we went to a restaurant and since I couldn’t understand anything on the menu, just told her to order 2 of what she was getting, and I’d eat the same. Luckily, it turned out to be pizza kind of thing with liquid cheese and a huge pile of salami and onions. I ate only about half of the meat, but otherwise, it was quite good.

Things are getting a lot easier to understand, and I feel myself changing already. At home, I usually am obsessed with knowing exactly what the plans are, and what is going on. Here though, I have completely let go of this, and I am totally fine not having any clue what’s going on, and where I will go next. Its kind of relaxing not having any obligations, or stressing about something that’s going to happen, because I almost never know what will happen until it happens.

After skpying my parents for a while, I crawled into bed, thinking of how much I’ve already learned in the last 2 days. It’s crazy how quickly you can adapt when you have no other choice. When I came here, I thought that it would be really tempting to be on the computer all day talking to people at home. But here, there is almost always something that is more useful or more fun than sitting here thinking about home, so I don’t spend much time on the computer at all.