Thursday afternoon at the mall

Our apartment building is going through some remodeling right now because the pipes are made of iron** and make the water smell. The dust clouds in my room, the fact that the water is turned off and the sound of jackhammers has driven me to find refuge at the mall, YUCK. Malls or 'Shoppings' (pronounced show-ping) are very important spaces in Brazil, especially here in Rio since it's always so hot. Shopping Leblon is overwhelming chilled with the power of some of the strongest air conditioners in the city and of course is poorly organized. The UP escalators are nowhere near the DOWN escalators and it's extremely easy to get lost. It also has the only Starbucks I've seen in Rio which fascinates me. Their smallest coffees with no additional Starbucks shit is $R8 ($US4.50)! I'm sitting here right now actually picking up wi-fi signal and am watching this very stereotypical Leblon mall-rat woman eating a muffin with a knife and fork.

Brazilians choose to eat strange things with utensils e.g. pizza and pastries. One time I told someone that in the US everyone eats pizza with their hands and I got the usual "oh no that's so wrong" response. This past couple of weeks have been all about "oh no that's so wrong" responses. Krystal and I always get the weirdest reactions for grocery store employees when we bring our own bags to carry our food out because cariocas love their goddamn plastic bags. Not only do they put a maximum of two items in each one, but they DOUBLE bag everything! When it's something as small as a 500ml bottle of orange juice I buy, the person giving me change reaches for two plastic bags and I say 'não preciso da bolsa' which always freaks them out. This week Krystal went to just buy some tomatoes and bread and when she said she would just carry her transparent bag of veggies 'a mão' or by hand, the guy bagging actually asked her 'aren't you embarrassed to walk down the street like that?'

?!?!??!?!?!

What the hell Brazil will you ever make sense? Will you ever accept me for walking one block to my house with a bag of tomatoes without thinking less of me? Get back to me.

**Last Friday I had a portuguese test with a comprehension section about 'ferro' which means iron and I had no idea what the hell it meant. Now I see 'ferro' EVERYWHERE. Figures.