stumbling around Barra like the clueless tourist that I am
So I pulled a couple of winners yesterday, a few things that are bound to happen when you're a foreigner living semi-long-term anywhere. The big shopping center here is called "Shopping Barra", and I decided to try to find it yesterday after doing some general familiarization with the neigbhorhood (i.e., walking slowly, tripping on loose cobblestones, and looking up at the buildings). Of course the map which clearly shows its location was back at the pousada but I'd already been walking around a while and didn't feel like making multiple trips back and forth. So I went to a couple of places that clearly were not Shopping Barra, and on the way there, 2 different Brazilians - 1 guy in a car with his buddies and 1 woman walking on the street - asked ME where Shopping Barra was. Being the helpful guy I am, I said "Eu no falo portugues", which, loosely translated, means "rob me". The guy looked at me in disgust and peeled out, and the woman smiled and shook her head and kept walking. Hey man, I'm doing the best I can here just trying not to trip over the goddamn cobblestones in these freakin flip-flops, which, incidentally, I've only ever really used for maybe a total of 3 weeks in my life. The funny thing is that people are always asking me directions in New York or wherever, and I am almost always the last person you want to be asking how to get anywhere. But apparently no matter what country I'm in I look like the guy who knows where stuff is, which, sadly for these people, is far, far from the truth. I've even walked rapidly in the opposite direction after confirming to myself that I gave exactly the wrong directions, just so that the person couldn't find me and be like "Hey man (pointing and shaking finger), you told me the wrong place to go! And I came back here just to tell you that! Because I have all sorts of time, being a lost tourist and all, or in some cases locals ..." You get the idea.
There's more (sorry). I poked around for about half an hour at the supermarket I eventually went into (which was clearly not part of Shopping Barra) and settled on apples, crackers, and seltzer water as things I couldn't live without but didn't need a fridge for. I saw an older woman weighing her produce on a public scale there and thought to myself "They don't expect us to weigh and label our produce ourselves, do they? Because that would be silly." Well, guess what. I got to the register and the guy doing the bagging gave me an evil glare after the woman doing the ringing up handed him the bag of apples to go label since the stupid gringo failed to do so. He was amazingly fast, however (probably because it's so freakin easy), and I got away with my food which I guess is really all I cared about.
And finally, I stopped at a newsstand later last night to get some paid phone cards which are required for the payphones here (I don't have a cell and I refuse to get one). The woman told me how much it cost, which came out to $R18 (~$7US), but me, not understanding numbers in Portuguese, handed her the equivalent of about $50US. Lucky for me she was nice, and laughed and shook her head and was like "No, no ..." and just took the two $R10 bills I was just about throwing at her.
At the end of our Portuguese class this afternoon I asked the profesora if we could learn numbers tomorrow. She said yes.
There's more (sorry). I poked around for about half an hour at the supermarket I eventually went into (which was clearly not part of Shopping Barra) and settled on apples, crackers, and seltzer water as things I couldn't live without but didn't need a fridge for. I saw an older woman weighing her produce on a public scale there and thought to myself "They don't expect us to weigh and label our produce ourselves, do they? Because that would be silly." Well, guess what. I got to the register and the guy doing the bagging gave me an evil glare after the woman doing the ringing up handed him the bag of apples to go label since the stupid gringo failed to do so. He was amazingly fast, however (probably because it's so freakin easy), and I got away with my food which I guess is really all I cared about.
And finally, I stopped at a newsstand later last night to get some paid phone cards which are required for the payphones here (I don't have a cell and I refuse to get one). The woman told me how much it cost, which came out to $R18 (~$7US), but me, not understanding numbers in Portuguese, handed her the equivalent of about $50US. Lucky for me she was nice, and laughed and shook her head and was like "No, no ..." and just took the two $R10 bills I was just about throwing at her.
At the end of our Portuguese class this afternoon I asked the profesora if we could learn numbers tomorrow. She said yes.
posted by n10471 at 2:22 PM
1 Comments:
In answer to your first question, No, I haven't learned anything from your blog posts, except that Greece has some sort of gross-sounding hazelnut spread. Which I've had here in the states, can't remember where, but I remember it skeeved me out. And which you seem to have some sort of bizarre fixation with. Maybe it's because our pet rabbit that died of heat exhaustion (Dad's fault) was named Hazel and you've never gotten over it. Or maybe that's me. Anyway.
I have no objection to being called glib or being ignorant of the history of psychology. I do, however, have hundreds of dollars.
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