Adapting Back

I know I live in Rio de Janeiro. Hell, I can say I've lived in Rio de Janeiro for years now. Regardless, whenever I spend an extended period of time abroad, I have to re-adapt.

Here are my principal areas of re-adaptation:

Paying for things: When I come home I have an issue with buying things at the so-called less than official places. Case in point, the popcorn lady. I doubt and question myself. Is it R$1.5 or $2? Would this guy be able or willing to break a R$20 note? Things like that. I truly believe that when you are comfortable and knowledgeable in purchasing, you don't ripped off.  Of course I keep putting the 'Please charge me an extra R$1 because I like it' face on. It's starting to piss me off.

Portuguese: Not that I'm even close to fluent but I usually don't have consistent and annoying Portuguese brain farts anymore. I may not say it right but I can get my thoughts out there.  Hey, when you are a ranter, you find a way. But after a trip home I get brain gas that would make any stoner fall over laughing.  It's out of control and certainly does not help with the above mentioned problem.

Bums: I've been desensitized after so long here but that immediately goes away after going home. I find myself crossing the street to avoid the obviously crazy bums. I can not keep doing this in Rio de Janeiro because I'll never walk in a straight line again.

Crosswalks: I've stopped j-walking. Want to call attention to yourself as a foreigner, do not throw yourself into oncoming traffic. Cariocas are amazingly skilled at knowing the precise seconds between that bus and cab speeding your way. They can pick an almost inconceivable moment where they can cross without getting hit nor busting out a jog.

But I'm getting back into the swing of things again.  The R$1 foreigner charge has gone down to 50 cents and I'm proud. I held a full conversation this morning with my Father-in-Law that caused only 2 creased brows and 1 huh?.  Not to mention I j-walked past a crazy bum on the way home from Hortifruti. That's two birds with one stone my friends.

So I'll get back to 100% wannabe Carioca before I know it. Now I just need a tan and a beer belly. Oh wait, already got that last one.

How about you? What do you need to adapt to when you come back from vacation?

Even the crazies are helpful in Rio de Janeiro

My boys and I went on a supermarket run to the Zona Sul this morning.

We were waiting for the light to change to cross the street when a totally crazy bum walked up to us.  He had noticed my youngest's super blond hair and then became intrigued with both boys.

Fair enough, he seemed crazy but not dangerous. He came up and said hello to the boys while keeping a respectful distance.  This kind of thing doesn't really bother me as long as the crazies respect our space. Bums are people too and it's good for my boys to learn to be polite to everyone.

Well, Crazy, as I'm going to refer to him, saw that we were waiting to cross and decided to take it upon himself to stop traffic for us. I said no no, really you don't need to. He disagreed. Luka called to him and told him that he couldn't go into the street until the light was red. 

Crazy thought that was really funny and turned to Luka every few seconds just to say, It's ok Ref, It's ok. 

So cars are zooming around him as he is enthusiastically putting up the international hand signal for stop.  Funny thing about Carioca drivers is that they are used to this kind of thing and can swerve around people without even slowing down.  I don't know how, but after a couple of minutes he actually managed to stop traffic. 

I didn't know what to do. Should you encourage Crazy? He was only trying to help. I hesitated and he told us "quick quick. Go go.  It's ok Ref".  You can't fight Crazy with logic so I crossed just to get him out from the middle of the street.  The light changed the moment we were on the other side. 

At the very least, the people J walking down the street got a big kick out of it.  I guess the good samaritan bum isn't something you see every day here.