"Where are you guys?" The miniature phone beeped loudly into my ear and I scanned the beach. You'd think finding a gigantic pale red head on a beach of dark skinned, dark haired, scantily clad people wouldn't be terribly difficult. "Near the big flags, in front of Copacabana Palace. You can't miss us. We're really white and not wearing much." I was walking and talking, something entirely out of regulation when in uniform........good thing I was in my, "As-for-beachgoing-shenanigans". My tiny green bathing suit was at home among my South American neighbors but my ghostly skin was not. Something to work on. "Hang on, the rainbow flags?" My friend asked, somewhat confused. "Yeah," I responded, "There's like 4 of them, we're about 50 meters away from the big one all the way to the left if you're looking at the water. There's a bar next to it and if you continue on that line, past the circle of chairs and the eleven dudes and those two guys- OH MY GOD!"
So as it turns out, the rainbow flags denoted the unofficical, not exclusive, "purely-just-as-a-heads-up-so-you-know-what-you-might-not-be-able-to-un-see-later", gay-friendly part of the beach. I felt kinda sick. "WHY would you set up here?" My buddies had arrived. "Seriously. There's like 3 miles of beautiful beach. Filled with beautiful women. And open spaces. Why the 100 meters of gay-beach?" I was busy rubbing coarse sand in my eyes but to no avail. There was a memory burned into my eyeballs for good. Terrific. "Can we please just get some beer and make the pain go away?" I asked.
As if by magic (read: because we had money) a large bucket full partially with ice and mostly with beer appeared at our feet. Out came the cups and the drinking began. Soon enough we moved past the incidents of earlier in the day (emotionally. Physically we stayed in the same spot, 'cuz you know, it was a great spot) We ended up meeting 2 girls from Australia ("Austalianas" in Portuguese) who were traveling across South America for a few months (which I guess lots of Australians do. That's neat) From them, I learned 3 very important things about Australia;
1. First and foremost, they don't have Foster's Beer. I'm going to let that sink in for a bit. For those of you not familiar with Foster's, there's only two things you need to know. It tastes like it was brewed in the sink of a Texaco station (read: ok, it's not that terrible, but still. It's not good). Second, their ad campaign is pretty simple. Pictures of kangaroos and other Australian stuff followed by a big picture of the can and an Australian accent yelling, "Foster's! Australian for beer!" Which eveidently it's not. Because they don't have it. So it's got nothing going for it.
2. Kangaroos are not unique or special. They're like deer down there. Or rats. Wrap your mind around that. Kangaroos=Giant Rats.
3. And finally, all Koala bears have chlamydia. No, seriously. Take your image of the world's cutest and most cuddly animal. Now imagine you not touching it. Because that's what you're gonna do now. Because it has chlamydia.
Blown away. And on that note, this psychology homework is not going to do itself. I'm off. Adventures from the club next time. On the note of STD's, AIDS in Portuguese is SIDA. Best of luck figuring out how.
Tchau!
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