American Constitution

Ugh. What time is it?

8:00 am. In the morning. Before noon. Why are we awake? We got back to the house at 4:00 am. There’s no reason to be awake for at least another 5 hours. Maybe six. “E ai, Brian, Orlandoo! Café!” Moura called me and Orlando (Pronounced, “Or-Lan-doo” down here) down for breakfast. I rolled over on my mattress and looked at him across the room. “You know they warned us about this going hard in the paint on the weekends thing.” Orlando’s muffled response from under his blanket, “Yeah but this is crazy. I hope he doesn’t expect us to do the same thing tonight on this much sleep.” I made half an attempt to get up but then curled up again, giving up. “We got 4 hours of sleep. Not that that’s terrible. I can do 4 hours, I just can’t drink 7 or 8 beers, and then get 4 hours of sleep, and then repeat the whole process 3 more times in a row. I just don’t have the constitution. Maybe if John Hancock wrote my constitution, maybe, but he didn’t.”

We rolled downstairs to heaping plates of fresh fruit and bread and a wide smile from Mrs. Moura. Suddenly, we weren’t so tired anymore. We ate as if we hadn’t eaten since……oh right, dinner last night. Huh…Anyway, we ate a lot. Mr. and Mrs. Moura continued to ask us questions at slow speeds and with small words about how we were liking Brazil and about our lives in the states and we gladly answered and asked some of our own questions. We helped put the dishes away and then realized that is was only about 9:00 and we had the whole day ahead of us. What a nice feeling. We decided that in addition to venturing into an area known only as “Lapa” (He wouldn't tell us more and insisted we had to see it for ourselves) for some drinks and dancing later (rumors of a birthday party as well), today was a perfectly good day to put on our tourist hats and go check out a few fairly normal touristy activities, namely lots of walking in the proximity of the beach. But before the beach, there was some shopping that needed to be done; I needed a shirt that screamed, “I’m a tourist. Please take advantage of me.” Something to the tune of either a Brazilian flag, or just bright enough colors that one of the locals would realize I wasn’t from around there. Not too picky. We hopped a clean and reliable subway ride to a nearby mall.

Once at the mall (which had about 37 counter-sized electronics stores all selling the same stuff. I’ve seen this before), we strolled around a bit, bumping into watches for over 3,000 Reals and sweater vests (In Brazil. I was blown away) for over 400 Reals before we found exactly what we were looking for. A small, brightly lit corner shop with signs in English and covered in Brazilian flags. Ahhhh. The smell of impending rip offs. Bring it, Rio. I pointed to a green shirt with just a small picture of the Brazilian flag and asked the woman behind the counter how much it cost (In Portuguese. ‘Cuz I know stuff) Being well versed in dealing with travelers who think they’re smart because they can interact with locals in their language, she used a fairly simple yet highly effective marketing trick (@Jessie Cattley) If my choice is simply between A (buying this shirt) and B (Not buying this shirt) half of my possible options involve this particular endeavor involve this vendor not only making no money off me, but in terms of the difficult to quantify values of time and money, actually losing money on me. By pulling down 2 other shirts as she answered me in clear and succinct Portuguese (increasing my confidence in this whole endeavor and reducing the chance that I’ll want to end the conversation, even if it means buying an overpriced and somewhat gaudy shirt), she began a game of, “watch the bouncing ball” that became, “watch the bouncing balls” When I’m torn between 3 shirts, instead of being torn between separating myself from my hard converted Reals and walking out wearing the awful shirt I already had on, the vendor knows they’ve got me on the line. In order to land me, they simply need to change the variables again and spin the wheel a little harder before I’m thoroughly discombobulated. Before I know it, I’m trying to decide between 12 different shirts and have actually brought my friends in from outside to help me decide. The vendor tries to sell to them as well, but they see the ploy and tell me to hurry my ass up. I end up flipping a coin and deciding on a yellow one with a small Brazilian flag and the words Rio de Janeiro. Such a tourist. Moura reassured me, “No no, you look native. A real Carioca.” Carioca and Fluminense are words used to describe people from the state of Rio de Janeiro. Much like how New York only has “Long Island”, “The City”, and “Upstate” with Upstate representing roughly 90% of the New York State land mass, Cariocas are people from the city itself whereas Fluminense are people from everywhere else in the state. Fortunately, down here it’s a much closer ratio than in the US, which makes for some interesting interactions.

We decided that our next stop would be Copacabana beach and the famous Copacabana Palace Hotel. The Palace is famous for one reason or another (One reason being the Rolling Stones, another being the dancing duet of Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers) and is literally across the beach from a street. Kidding of course, it’s across the street from the beach. But you can throw a coconut from the revolving door in the lobby and hit one of the vendors selling Brazilian flag towels on the beach. That kind of close (we checked. We can’t go back though) We walked up the beach a bit, just kind of taking in the sights (walking barefoot and shirtless, checking out the women, the water, the sand, the women, the crazy sand sculptures, the vendors, there might have been some women there, a beach volleyball game, a bar on the beach, I think we just passed a girl I want to take to the movies)

Towards the end of Copacabana beach, Moura asked the three of us if we had ever had coconut milk. A flashback to a Florida vacation when I was about 8 years old (@Mom and Dad) where there were plenty of coconut trees all over the place and I desperately wanted to try one. Long story short, something involving a hammer, a screwdriver, and coconut milk tasting nothing like milk led me to an extremely upset state that didn’t evaporate for hours. “No, is it good?” I said out loud. Moura smiled, and put his sandals back on. "You must. It’s one of those things.” Just like when I can’t explain a word in English or when someone can’t explain something in Portuguese and we use the phrase, “It’s slang” or “E giria” respectively, we’ve come to an agreement with Moura that whenever there’s something we have to do because it’s just one of those things that people do when they come to Rio, he tells us so and no further explanation is needed. Levels of trust, hooah.

We sat down and for 3 Reals a nut/fruit/whatever family the coconut falls into, a man with a machete cuts triangular holes in the top of our nuts purchases and inserts a straw (total bad ass, too; the guy holds the coconut in his hand, raises the machete well over his head and slams it down. 2 chops later and he hands it off. Kid’s good, that’s all I’m saying) We sipped coconuts like beach bums when a man with a large bucket (read: no, this one’s legit, it was a goddamn bucket) full of peanuts comes up to our small table, puts down a napkin and dumps a small pile of peanuts on it. “He is selling peanuts,” Moura explains. “This is a sample. If you want some, he’ll be back in a second and probably over charge you because you look like a tourist.” I was at first a little upset at being immediately dimed out as being a tourist but am partial to a delicious peanut (amendoim, by the way, in portuguese) and these were pretty good. For 2.50 Reals (“Ladrao!”-Moura) I bought a small bag to go with my coconut. Fantastish (German for “Fantastic” Thought I’d switch it up a bit) After emptying my coconut, I brought it back to the man with the jagnormous machete where he (without looking, you know, cuz he does this ish all the time and he’s that good) gives it another good chop, enabling me to get to the coconut meat inside (carne de coco) Using a technique perfected by the natives (read: Moura showed me) and taking a piece of the broken shell in my hand, I used it as a makeshift spoon (Jane Goodall would have flipped at my creative use of tools in a social environment) and scooped out the meat inside. Delicious.

We decided that the coconuts had been had and sans shirt and shoes, began walking again. As we continued to traverse the beach, we saw more of the beautiful waves, sand, and inhabitants of the beach. At one point, a member of our group decided that before we continued walking, we should “practice our Portuguese by asking to take a picture with those lovely ladies over there” This person, who absolutely was not me (read: no, seriously. I was perfectly content with walking down the beach) will remain nameless for the story gets rather good but a little awkward for the involved parties. As I resignedly handed over my camera, I looked up at the women he spoke of in particular. They were a good 50 or so meters off but seemed rather shaped like women so I thought nothing more of it. They began walking towards the water and the group continued (minus one member) to walk along the path we had set, in order to look inconspicuous, meanwhile glancing at our friend as he made his way over there. Something was buzzing in the back of my head but I couldn’t quite place it (turns out, it was the DoD Threat Assessment of Brazil and the Rio de Janeiro/ Sao Paulo region) so I brushed it off. Our friend shortly came trotting (Trot: a purposeful jog in order to increase speed from a walk without letting passerby know you’re trying to avoid something) up and while maintaining constant forward direction said hurriedly, “Go, go, go, go, don’t look, just go, we’re leaving.” We moved with him, all smiling and asking what happened. “I’d rather not talk about it,” he said, maintaining a determined look forward as we hurried along the beach.

We eventually got it out of him that when he approached and asked if he could take a picture of us with them (what a nice guy, playing photographer for his buddies), he heard what only could be described as the deepest and most enthusiastic, “Sim,” (Yes) he’s ever heard. Which is right about when certain details started coming into focus. The semi muscular back. The adams apple. The balls. He told us he mumbled something in a combination of Portuguese and English (which we’ve nick named Por-English) and turned tail and left. We’ve decided to never bring it up again. Except now. With all of you….

We ended up making it over to Ipanema, another famous beach (Apparently there’s some girl from Ipanema. She’s a big deal) and checked out the sights over there, which included in no particular order of awesomeness; Brazils version of muscle beach (1/4 the size and 4 times the jankiness. We’re talking weights made of concrete poured into buckets, pipes driven into the ground to make = dip and pull up bars, and swole tan dudes benching everywhere), a huge-tacular rock with benches and all sorts of paths(which we deemd Gringo point because it’s one of those large places any tourist would look at and think to themselves, “Man, I bet there’s like a whole mess of great pictures to take and other people’s views to obstruct up there. Let’s check it out.” We did), apartments of the rich and famous of Brazil and the world literally 15 feet from the sand, a whole mess of surfing (kinda wanna learn now) and finally, vendors selling everything from coconut ice cream confections the size of my hand (1 Real, well worth it) to Brazilian hot dogs (which are hot dogs covered in anything and everything from rice and beans to more hot dogs and potato chips)

On that note, I’m getting kinda hungry. Second dinner? Maybe after I work out. We ended up going out again that night, this time to Lapa (what’s that?), but we’ll have a much deeper explanation of that next time. Portuguese for the day is, “Treinando Fisico Militar”, or simply TFM, the Brazilian Military version of PT (Physical Training). 

Tchau for now!