Só no Filé

So! I´ll only be here for two (actually.. less than!) weeks, so! I just decided, instead of reporting on a daily event, I will just blah-blah-blah on everyday/normal things in Brazil! So, perhaps when I miss Brazil dearly, I shall look back on this post and just chuckle to myself.. ha! So, here´s a bit of my life that I´ve lived in the past 4 weeks.. só no filé.

1. MILK
- is sold in boxes. Not only that. It´s NOT refrigerated when it´s sold!! Fortunately, though, they DO refrigerate after opening.. :)
- is, most of the type, drunk in the form of POWDER. Well, actually, in MY house, my mom doesn´t really drink milk as MILK. She only really drinks milk in her coffee - so, it´s more of adding milk powder to your coffee for cream. BUT. My Portuguese teacher was saying how he himself prefers milk powder to REAL milk...?

2. WATER
- you have to BUY water ALL the time. Even in restaurants, they usually charge an extra 2 reais or so per bottle if you just want a bottle of water with your meal.

3. SHOWERS
- DON´T take long showers, or else you might BURN OUT the shower! (haha, this sounds weird, right?) So, I`m not quite sure EXACTLY how the showers here work, but, basically... the shower head area has a heater thing attached THERE, which is operated electrically. If you take a long shower, you have a risk of overheating the heater-apparatus, and thus, like a light bulb, it can burn out... and you´ll be left with FREEZING cold water. Yeah... I (and I think other sutdents of the program) didn´t know this the first week we were here, so we just assumed that all Brazilian showers are just FREEZING cold the whole time!!
- Turning on the shower `stronger´ means adding more cold water. So, DON´t turn the dial too hard unless you just enjoy being ice-cold.... like a penguin..
- The technique that I have come to use, after experience (haha..): Wet hair. Stop shower. Lather hair with shampoo thoroughly. Turn on shower to rinse out shampoo. Stop shower. Condition hair. Turn on shower to rinse out conditioner and wet scrubber-thingie at same time. Stop shower. Put soap stuff on scrubber-thingie and wash body. Turn on shower to wash off soap and whatnot. DONE.
- Btw. You´re sort of expected to take a shower not only everyday, but seemingly, however many times a day. Which is good, since they´re very hygienic, but.. to an extreme, perhaps? Woke up? Take a shower. Come back from school? Take a shower. Eating dinner in a little bit? Take a shower.

4. Avocados
- are HUGE in Brazil. I feel like Brazilian Avocados are like ostrich eggs in comparison to the chicken-egged US Avocados. And green on the outside!

5. Taxes
- The price that you see in the supermarket, is the price you pay. Although I know that this may actually be the supermarket overpricing things over the tax, BUT. I kind of like how simple the math is in your head, when you only have a few reais in your pocket, and don´t have to calculate/estimate whatever percentage of tax you have to add on at the cashier...

6. Bats
- So.. one day, my host mom and I were eating dinner, and then ALL of a sudden, this BAT flies through the kitchen window?!? I was REALLY suprised, but my mom didn´t seem too surprised, and eventually the bat flew out of the window... And my host mom was just casually like, `Oh yeah. Bats sometimes fly in because they´re attracted to the scent of fruit.´ So, just like that, my host mom then proceeds to just put the bananas and pineapples and papayas into the fridge, so the bats can´t smell them. Apparently it happens.. not OFTEN, but it does. I´ve seen bats a total of 3 times flying through our apartment... haha!

7. Petrobras
- Has a monopoly over the gas in Brazil.

8. EEE-s!
- When pronouncing words in Portuguese, sometimes... it´s just amusing, especially with foreign/English words that Brazilian people say to us because they think we should know them, but at first, we have NO idea what-in-the-WORLD they are saying!
- Por exemplo. I will put out the pronunciation, first..
a) Lee-ree-kee : What are they trying to say?? To put in context, my host mom was like, `What does the lee-ree-kee mean?´when we were listening to a song. You guessed? Answer: Lyric. In Portuguese, whenever there´s a D, T, K, P, ... at the end of some words, they add an `ee´to the end!
b) Bra-jee Pee-chee: Like the example above. Answer? Brad Pitt. buahaha!!
c) Hih-pee Hoh-pee: I thought this was SO hilarious when one of my friends was saying how her host mom asked her if she liked this, and proceeded to apparently make some `ghetto´-like hand gestures while listening to Snoop Dog (pronounced snoo-pee doh-gee, btw!). Answer? Hip Hop.
d) Hoh-kee: This is kind of a hard one. But, in Portuguese, whenever there´s an `r´at the beginning of a word, it´s pronounced like an `h´. So, combine the secretly hidden `r´with the weird portugese way of pronouncing consonants at the end of words? Answer: Rock.
- Basically... things are SO much easier via reading than listening...