Captain’s blog star date: 24.02.2011

What endears me to this place is the constant stream of silliness… last night Milton got a taxi at the rodoviaro on his way home and the driver could not understand what he was talking about. When he arrived at Flomon, we asked him to wait just a bit so M could take his stuff upstairs and to take us to campus… it cost a luxurious 30 reais for the whole trip -  vs the bus which is a shocking (and exciting!) R$1.90 per ride. The driver was called again after our meeting, and promised to be there in10 minutes, 40 minutes later as we waited out of the rain he came back, apologizing (we had missed three buses). He took us to a O Passo for us to celebrate his chegada with a chopp e pizza, and we walked home with the lights of the city and the nice streets gleaming in the light rain...

I got in, and Milton tried again to explain where we wanted to go, and guy couldn’t understand what he was saying… I explained, and the driver understood us. Now for those of you just tuning in, I am a Portuguese as a second (actually third) language speaker... and Milton, from another state is obviously a native speaker of the world’s most beautiful language. It is like a Californian traveling to Texas, and people not getting what he is talking about. When we came here for the concurso in November we had to go through customs between Sao Paulo and Belo Horizonte (the flight was coming and going  to Buenos Aires (which if look on the map is no where near Belo Horizonte). So we have jokes about Minas being another country now... and it is as people are funny, very sweet, and great to be with here...

After work, we headed downtown to change his voting registration only to find out he has to live here 3 months to do so. Then we went to the bank to get my  ATM going, and I forgot my code, or it didn’t like the one I have been using… we stopped (not wanting to have a total fail of an afternoon – not that there is a total fail here in Ouro Preto when all you need do is walk about town. We decided to stop in and get him a cell phone… once again the girl at the counter couldn’t quite get what he was saying… I burst in to  laughter. M, getting frustrated and both of us laughing, as the place is a busy place  in the corner of a 200 year old building, music blaring, friends coming buy, three young ladies running the place… one of which from Rio wants to move home, another declared that she hates carnival...  He eventually got a cell phone and we walked on deciding we would get some ice cream on the way home. We stopped at O Chocolate, it being very hot, then we stopped at the hardware store to inquire about a estabilizador for our computers and stuff (the lighting here being of apocalyptic proportions, one is very wise to use some form of protection). And of course, they don’t have one, and they suggested that we go to another place we had just passed, we were both tired and hot and just went home only to find our apartment hand not just been cleaned but loved!  A basket on the table for our fruit, an new little  rug, the chairs arranged nicely, the sheets changed… and blessing above all the toilet had been unplugged (no need to go into details about it… let’s just say I forgot that you do not, ever put toilet paper in the toilet, only in the covered basket).  

 M went downstairs to the supermarket and bought some soup, and we are decompressing after a simple dinner… there are rumors of popcorn later.