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Published: November 29th 2005
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Sao Paulo
November 26, 2005
4:30pm
Right now we are 35,000 ft over Brasil on a flight to Salvador. We made it to Sao Paulo earlier this morning and, so far, have had no problems! We had a 5 hour lay over there, but most of it was a blur since I rested my head our luggage and passed out and Heather read a book. One thing that came to my attention while hanging out here was that I have only learned about 3 words in Portuguese. One word is Obrigado for “thank you” and the other two words are food items, so not sure how much they will help! So I started having Heather teach me phrases like, My name is Ben (Eu sou Ben), Hello (Oi!), I don’t understand (Eu não entendo) and 1-2-3 (still working on 4-5-6). One phrase that helped me out a lot when we spent a couple weeks in Mexico was, How much does it cost or Cuánto es? in spanish. It is very similar in Portuguese, Quanto é? I thought after learning these phrases, I needed to practice using them.
After my nap in the airport, I woke up and was very
thirsty. So Heather had some Reais (Brasil money) and I asked her for $50. The exchange rate right now is about 2 to 1, two Reais for every dollar, so as you continue to read this story, keep this conversion in mind. So I walked to the little shop in the airport and grabbed a bottle of water and asked…”Oi, Quanto é?” Well the clerk proceed to say some numbers in Portuguese and I think I heard a 2 in there, but remember at this point I only know 1-2-3. So I had to come clean and let her know that I didn’t speak Portuguese, but I think she appreciated my effort. She let me know the water was 2 and 5…so I said twenty-five? and she responded with a yes. I walked back to the cooler to grab another bottle because I thought Heather would want one as well. I was thinking ok, 2 bottles will be $50 Real and that is about $5 dollars (right?) and I had that much money, but I knew something wasn’t adding up right. I decided I would check with Heather first before purchasing to make sure that I understood everything since I
was still a bit cloudy in the head.
As soon as I reached Heather I let her know that I tried to use a phrase that she taught me and I was understood, which was exciting, but she started laughing at me as soon as I told her it was a question I asked, because she knew there was no way I would understand the answer! Once I let her know the lady said water was $25 Real she was a bit shocked and said that is about $12.50 for a bottle of water! So she asked if maybe the lady meant $2.50 a bottle which made perfect sense to me now that I was a bit more awake. Oh yeah the exchange rate is 2 to 1 not 10 to 1. Regardless, I made her go back and make the purchase.
Heather arrived back shortly with no water in hand…I thought, wow the water must be expensive then, but I was wrong. She tried to use the $50 Real bill and they didn’t have change so she was getting a smaller bill and it was only $2.50. So in my head I started to replay my attempt
at purchasing the water and if I would have bought two bottle and handed the clerk the $50 Reais what would have happened? I probably would have handed her the bill and said Obrigado and walked away! So what is the moral of this story? Don’t buy water in Brasil, it is too complicated. Ok not really, the moral is don’t be afraid to try and speak a foreign language, even if you don’t know many words, because it is funny events like this that take the edge off of the 36 hours it is taking for us to make it to our final destination!
November 29, 2005
10:00am
Hello everyone, we are here, all settled in, and having a great time. We have been in Recife for about 3 days now and everything is going great. Everyone in the family is sweet and I am picking up Portuguese here and there! Well we are going to Olinda today for a festival, but I am sure we will have another posting real soon! Talk to you all later!
Love Ben and Heather
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mindy
non-member comment
counting in Portuguese?
hope you're having a great time! i'm glad you didn't spen $50 on water, thats one expensive drink!