I just returned from my weekly Friday lunch with the fabulous gals of Sao Paulo and as I'm feeling very rejuvenated by their presence in my life, there's no better time to devote to updating this forlorn blog of mine.
"Why don't I blog more?" I often ask myself. I always have a lot of "material" so to speak, but as time passes by, it starts to feel outdated and not worth talking about. Sometimes the topics just don't have any weight to them. Who wants to read about the difficulty I have buying bread every week? Probably not many. It's this constant struggle I have with myself about wanting everything in my life to have a beginning, a middle, and an end, even the stories I put on my blog. It stopped me writing in the past and it's stalled me once again. So going forward, I'll be writing about random happenings in my days....for me. Things may not make sense, have a message, or even a definitive subject. But guess what? That's how I roll these days.
And yes, I know there's no such word as roganization, but that's how it typed out and I like it, so it's staying. I've decided it's like rogue organization, whatever that is.
Back to life- the kid's were out of school for a week and "lucky us" got to tag along with David on a trip to Buenos Aires. Let's just scream "I LOVE THAT CITY". There aren't many places I visit that I can actually see myself living in. I'd move there tomorrow if it was possible. The architecture (everywhere, on almost every building), the vibe, the food, the people, the climate- I felt at home with it all. We even visited a local hospital, and although antiquated and crowded, provided tender loving care to Camryn's ear infection in a very timely and affordable manner.
We spent 10 days riding in taxi's, eating like king's, exploring the city, and walking a lot. After this trip, David and I both agree, that life in a big city could really work for our family, especially one where we felt safe. One little funny/bad thing happenend, but we look at it as a lesson learned. One night after dinner, we flagged a taxi down, hopped in and tried to get back to our hotel through a parade route. As the meter ticked, we finally gave up and got out on a dark side street and walked the rest of the way, even dancing through the parade to get to the other side of the street. At the airport on the return trip, David went to pay for something, and the cashier wouldn't take his $50 pesos. It was counterfeit! She showed David all the ways it was clearly faked and David knew right away who it came from-our late night taxi driver. When David went to pay the fare with a fifty, he took out his bank roll, which had a $100. The driver said the $50 had a tear ( a very small tear) and refused it, forcing David to pay with the $100. The driver sweetly gave David a crisp, fresh off the copier, $50 in change. Oh well. At least it was in pesos and not dollars.
Something else happened while in Buenos Aires that was a little shocking. Instead of reverting to English when we weren't sure what to say in Spanish, we instead blurted out Portuguese. I was so confused why I wasn't trying to use English as my default language, when it's actually understood by most people in Argentina. This is actually a linguistic term called "inhibition" where your language centers have reorganized themselves and now your first language is pushed under your second language. Even the kids were doing it. We were translating all Spanish into Portuguese, and then into English. It really was comical to hear us all stumbling around to finally push out our native language. We usually thanked someone three times...Obrigada (Portuguese), thank-you, then finally Gracias. We were a mess, but it kept us all laughing.
Which brings me to my bread story and a little lesson in linguitics. The word for bread is pao with a tilde above the "a". It's pronounced "pown", and said through your nose, not your mouth. As you can see, there is no "n" on the end, and even in pronunciation it's very quick , just a touch of the tongue to the roof of your mouth. In Brazil, most bread is bought from the bakery and bagged just for you. I've been buying bread from my grocery store for a few months and the same young guy is usually working, and he always seems a second away from cracking up when I order my six large breads. So much so, that I knew I was saying something wrong, but what? I decided to change the word pao to baguette...not so much laughter. I finally got around to talking to a Brazilian friend about the words I use that never seem to be understood. When I told her about pao, she got that same silly grin and proceeded to tell me, that without that obvious nasal sound, I had been ordering six large penises (well actually "dicks") from the bakery every week. No wonder the poor kid could hardly contain himself. Ultimately, I now avoid the word for bread at all costs and my family is eating baguettes these days.
We're off to our beach place this weekend and the weather looks good for boogie boarding and sunning. When it was Spring in the States, it was tough for me watching the Southern hemisphere shift into Fall. So I guess right now it's pay back time. Spring is in full swing and Summer is around the corner. We're packing up our boots and sweaters, dusting off our Havianas, and waiting for the rains to come (about the same time the snow flies "Up North"). Stay tuned to hear about how we celebrate Halloween South of the equator. Would you believe we have more parties to go to here we did in Auburn? Including trick or treating on an elevator. Who needs a golf cart or a hay wagon?
