8-Apr-2012 Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
 View of Corcovado from Guanabara Bay |
 Prime Real Estate |
It’s a free day in our tour, even vacations need a break. A number of us opted to take a leisurely boat ride around ‘Bate de Guanabara’. Not much information was given during the ride because our guide, Carlos, speaks very little English – about 15 words to be precise, most of them are names of places like Sugar Loaf and Copacabana Palace. But he is a nice fellow and tried his best to communicate. When he was overwhelmed he finds someone who can translate.
Great Day for Sailing
Gee-whiz – that just added a lot more possibilities of things that can happen on that phone. I sat down and went through my camera bag once again. In desperation, I ripped off all the velcro padding of my bag – and there it was, my iPhone, trapped between the paddings.
To celebrate my relief, I asked the skipper to make me a caipirinha, and started enjoying the Brazilian music he was playing. He wrote down the name of the artists for me – Sue Jorge and Ana Carolina – it was.
 Hippie Vendor |
 Brazilian Arts |
 More Brazilian Arts |
 Mosaic |
After the boat ride, we asked to get off at the Hippie Market in Ipanema instead of the hotel. This market is only open on Sundays. After a few minutes however, I got bored and I know Vivien and Jeanne will be occupied in this market for hours. So, I started checking out the area looking for a CD shop that might sell the album of Sue Jorge and Ana Carolina.
Not far from the Hippie Market is an Americanas Store, but to my surprise – they were not selling any CDs. The skipper told me that I can get it from Americanas. The album seems to have been released by Americanas as well – but anyway I kept looking elsewhere.
I saw this TV/Electrical store which has a DVD section and a small CD section. I browsed for a while but I thought it would be quicker (and more fascinating) to get the sales help who speaks very little English to see if my even more little Portuguese (more like non-existent) could get the message across.
I started out by pointing at my iPhone where I wrote the artist name, she then started looking for an album but can only find an album of Ana Carolina. Then she signed that I follow her to where the display TV’s are. She hit play on one of the DVD player and she told me that the couple playing is Sue Jorge and Ana Carolina. I though, hmmm they must really be popular in Brazil to have their DVD permanently loaded on the shop display. I asked to buy a copy – she said no more copies – last one, then she said something else I can’t understand.
Then I noticed that their colour system is NTSC (Australia uses PAL). I may not be able to play it in Australia afterall. I told her ‘No puede esta DVD no Australia’. This is the problem when you try a bit of their language, they respond also in Portuguese expecting you to understand it. She went away for a while and brought back a USB thumb drive. She continued to speak to me, and I think what she said was – buy this thumb drive and I’ll copy the DVD for you because you said the DVD is ‘no puede’ in Australia. So I said yes and paid for the thumb drive. She then wrapped the USB drive and gave me the only copy of Jorge-Carolina DVD which she took off their display player.
I was so confused – I asked if she wanted me to copy the DVD myself then return it to her. She said – No, no, no, no and some more Brazilian words. I nodded as if I understood and said – Obligado (thank you) and went away.
I think what she said was – copy the DVD into the thumb drive so you can use it in Australia – since you don’t have DVD players. Either that, or she’ll be waiting for me to return the DVD the next day. Unfortunately, I failed to tell her that I’m flying to Peru the next day at 3:30am.
Recent Comments