Funny/ Stupid

It is still relatively early here in SP, and I am a bit tired from my bus ride from Curitiba. So as I was sitting in the cafe I started thinking of funny silly things about Brazil and thought that instead of laughing about them by myself like a weirdo, I would come and write a post. I felt inspired! Anyway, forgive me if this is silly but maybe at least a few of you who have already been to Brazil (Nicola) might get a kick out of this.

For starters, I have realised that really the hard thing about using the bus loo is not that it's gross (though it can be), but mainly the driving of the bus driver! The bus shakes around and bounces about so violently that it's about all you can do to stay standing/sitting. You are therefore overcome by a fear of the door suddenly swinging wide open and you being flung out of the loo with your pants around your ankles, into the lap of the poor person sitting accross from the loo (bad choice of seat!). This is in any case how I feel...Therefore it is a case of desperately hanging on to the door of the loo to make sure it won't fling open, and also to stabilise yourself. ha ha! I am making myself laugh already...Speaking of loos, there was a funny sign on the door of the loo in the last hostel I was in that said "please keep the door closed". I wondered why it was that they had ended up putting the sign on the door. Had someone maybe decided to go to the loo one day and leave all the doors open for any passer by to see? No idea! But I felt that in order for there to be a sign, something must have happened. Also, in the bathroom in the hostel in Foz it said "please do not throw the toilet paper into the vase, throw it on the trash can" (in Brazil you can't throw toilet paper down the loo, coz of the drain system). I had this funny image in my head of people carefully putting it ON the bin instead of in it. It's silly I know, but these translations you encounter whilst travelling are really funny and people even sell books with these in them!

Another funny thing about Brazil is the pronounciation of english words. Well, of any word for that matter but in particular the english ones. A hot dog becomes the hotchee doggeeeee, the red bull a hedgee boule, hip hop: heepee hopee, and as it said in the guide book the pic nic is the pikee nikee! ha ha! In fact I'm sure there are loads more of these I just can't remember right now. Even Brazilian words are sometimes hard to pronounce. For example Tim, the country's biggest network provider for mobile phones to be pronounced chim or even ching, so trying to tell people you want a tim chip is next to impossible: a ching cheepee! A lot of things like that make me laugh here. Don't get me wrong I'm not making fun, it's just that it's amusing to observe, especially as foreigner who speaks several languages. Oh and I nearly forgot: the borracharias!! On my various bus trips I had seen loads of signs for Borracharias everywhere. Well, as far as I know in spanish borracha means drunk so I thought a borracharia was like a bar I suppose. Except all of these places were empty and didn't much look like bars at all. Well, call me ignorant because maybe you already know this but it turns out these are not bars but places where they make tyres. I thought that was kind of funny, or at least my mistake was. Anyway, I guess that is all for now but if I come up with any more I will be sure to write them down. I'm happy to see a few people are reading, especially people other than my family! :-) Nothing against the family of course, this is intended for you, but it's nice that other people are interested.