Frango?

Before travelling to Brazil I made a big list of things to do. These included:
- Sorting out a way to access money abroad
- Ordering a year supply of contact lenses
- Having a load of needles stuck in my arm so I don´t get any weird and not-so-wonderful diseases.
- and other such essentials...
My list however, did not contain any mention of learning Portuguese. In fact, until last week, I´m pretty sure I didn´t know how to spell "Portuguese".

Let me tell you now - Portuguese is like no other language on earth. It is complete gibberish. We have learnt a couple of stock phrases to say to people, but cannot understand a word of their replies. Even Spranglesi has, so far, been ineffective (Spranglesi, for those not in the know, is a creative blend of Spanish, Italian, English and French, spoken with a ridiculous accent, that served myself and others well during our travels in Central America).

An example of our communication problems:

On our first night in Rio, we went to a juice bar for dinner. With the help of a phrase book (and some pointing) we managed to order an orange juice and a mango juice (both tasty-gorgeous). Then it was time to order food. I had noticed a picture of a succulent roast chicken with the word “Frango” underneath it, so “Frango!” I said. Liz went for the “Salade Atum” – a tuna salad we reckoned. This prompted a lot of shouting and hand waving, to which we just nodded and said “OK” lots. 5 minutes later we received an egg sandwich. It was disgusting. We´re now mainly living off fruit juice.

Other stuff we´ve done: Got sunburnt, been to the cinema, drunk Skol beer, got scared traveling through dodgy areas by bus, enjoyed walking through non-dodgy areas in sun and rain, got a night bus to Ouro Preto, looked at lots of churches…

Back to Rio tonight and Carnival!