Since I came here, I have been the foreigner in all my social settings. Even living in Lapa, I don't see that many tourists for some reason. Maybe I'm just in my own little world. After all, since I got here I have been much more of a homebody than I was in the US.
But tonight I went out and sat the whole night speaking Portuguese, drinking chopp, at a table in the street near the entrance of a bar here in my neighborhood. Toward the end when we were having that lingering conversation before parting ways, a group of Australian tourists came up to the entrance. I finally had a moment of not feeling like the newest, most lost person in Rio.
A tall blonde guy wearing a tight v-neck t-shirt and loose swim trunks (Rio attire for sure) asked a passing waiter, "Can we have a table for ten?" When the guy didn't understand, he held up his hands to show the number "10" and repeated himself, but really slowly and in a very loud voice. Then a girl in the group said, "Tenaymos dyes pur-SO-nus." In case you didn't get that, that was really bad Spanish. The guy did manage to understand and looked at them as if to say, you are in Lapa on a Friday night, in one of the most crowded bars on the street, and you expect us to somehow have a table for 10 people?
He went away and brought back a paper for them to mark their drinks on. He then came back out a minute later with a tray full off caipirinhas (probably guessing).
I told my friend in Portuguese, "Watch, they're all going to clink glasses and say something like, 'To Rio de Janeiro!' and then cheer and drink." And then they did just that.
It was satisfying, but in the end I did offer to help them out with communicating with the waiter, and then told they could have our table since we were leaving.
And then on my short walk home I bought my first coxinha ever from a little place I always pass, because I never had dinner but somehow drank like 8 glasses of beer. Yes, I have been to Brazil four separate times, for a total of five months of time in the country, and never ate coxinha. I liked it, but what made it really really good was the Heinz ketchup :-)
You can take the girl out of Pittsburgh...
But tonight I went out and sat the whole night speaking Portuguese, drinking chopp, at a table in the street near the entrance of a bar here in my neighborhood. Toward the end when we were having that lingering conversation before parting ways, a group of Australian tourists came up to the entrance. I finally had a moment of not feeling like the newest, most lost person in Rio.
A tall blonde guy wearing a tight v-neck t-shirt and loose swim trunks (Rio attire for sure) asked a passing waiter, "Can we have a table for ten?" When the guy didn't understand, he held up his hands to show the number "10" and repeated himself, but really slowly and in a very loud voice. Then a girl in the group said, "Tenaymos dyes pur-SO-nus." In case you didn't get that, that was really bad Spanish. The guy did manage to understand and looked at them as if to say, you are in Lapa on a Friday night, in one of the most crowded bars on the street, and you expect us to somehow have a table for 10 people?
He went away and brought back a paper for them to mark their drinks on. He then came back out a minute later with a tray full off caipirinhas (probably guessing).
I told my friend in Portuguese, "Watch, they're all going to clink glasses and say something like, 'To Rio de Janeiro!' and then cheer and drink." And then they did just that.
It was satisfying, but in the end I did offer to help them out with communicating with the waiter, and then told they could have our table since we were leaving.
And then on my short walk home I bought my first coxinha ever from a little place I always pass, because I never had dinner but somehow drank like 8 glasses of beer. Yes, I have been to Brazil four separate times, for a total of five months of time in the country, and never ate coxinha. I liked it, but what made it really really good was the Heinz ketchup :-)
You can take the girl out of Pittsburgh...
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