major milestone acheived as laundry is done for the first time
Before everyone freaks out, let me just add that I had previously been washing the, um, essential clothing via hand, and was prepared to do this until I was way comfortable with Portuguese, until I realized how freakin' long it takes to wash any significant quantity of clothing by hand.
For a while I've had a laundry place nearby scoped out, and I went in yesterday and stared with my mouth open at the price list on the wall for a good 5 minutes, and then looked back at the washers to try to figure out where the hell I put the coins in. I'm guessing that I'm not the first one to do this because one of the workers there came up and asked if I needed help. She was very, very friendly - I'm not sure why I thought they wouldn't be, and explained how much it cost for me to wash my own clothes vs. me dropping it off, which luckily they do here - woohoo! The price difference is R$5, which comes out to around $2, so guess freakin' what? I went back up to my apartment, stuffed all my clothes in a bag and came back and dropped it off. As I write this my clothes reek of the comforting scent of detergent.
I think the woman who helped me out was the owner, and though she didn't say it, her body language was like "kid, i've been doing this kind of thing for years. I've seen it all." Before she took my clothes she counted out all the items and wrote it out on a bill, and then when I came to pick it up she counted them again in front of me, to prove that she hadn't lost anything. I was ready to just pick the stack up as soon as I got there, and once she started counting I was like, well, whatever. As long as the pile is relatively close to the size it was when I dropped it off, I'm good. There's nothing there that on an individual level I would be concerned about if it never showed up again.
The milestone here is not so much the clothes (though to most people that might be the critical issue) as much as the fact that I was able to interact with a Brazilian, for the most part with language and not hand signals, and that I understood her well enough (and she understood me) that I was actually able to get something useful done, which, to be honest, doesn't happen a whole lot around here, with me or other people. Not that I object to that.
For a while I've had a laundry place nearby scoped out, and I went in yesterday and stared with my mouth open at the price list on the wall for a good 5 minutes, and then looked back at the washers to try to figure out where the hell I put the coins in. I'm guessing that I'm not the first one to do this because one of the workers there came up and asked if I needed help. She was very, very friendly - I'm not sure why I thought they wouldn't be, and explained how much it cost for me to wash my own clothes vs. me dropping it off, which luckily they do here - woohoo! The price difference is R$5, which comes out to around $2, so guess freakin' what? I went back up to my apartment, stuffed all my clothes in a bag and came back and dropped it off. As I write this my clothes reek of the comforting scent of detergent.
I think the woman who helped me out was the owner, and though she didn't say it, her body language was like "kid, i've been doing this kind of thing for years. I've seen it all." Before she took my clothes she counted out all the items and wrote it out on a bill, and then when I came to pick it up she counted them again in front of me, to prove that she hadn't lost anything. I was ready to just pick the stack up as soon as I got there, and once she started counting I was like, well, whatever. As long as the pile is relatively close to the size it was when I dropped it off, I'm good. There's nothing there that on an individual level I would be concerned about if it never showed up again.
The milestone here is not so much the clothes (though to most people that might be the critical issue) as much as the fact that I was able to interact with a Brazilian, for the most part with language and not hand signals, and that I understood her well enough (and she understood me) that I was actually able to get something useful done, which, to be honest, doesn't happen a whole lot around here, with me or other people. Not that I object to that.
posted by n10471 at 6:48 AM
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