house hunting

If middle class Brazilian marriages last longer than others, it might be because nobody ever has to share a bathroom.

Like parking spaces, toilets outnumber people in many São Paulo apartments. I doubt it's because of any regulations on toilet-use like with cars, but it's a curious illustration of decadence.

Mark and I have started having fun arguments in our search for a home:

"No, NO! Look, it only has seven bathrooms, what if we have six people over and everyone needs to take a dump at the same time? What are we supposed to do, share?"

Another phenomenon new to me: uncredited toilets. In New York real estate listings, every square millimeter is shouted about. Large closets become 'flex bedrooms' and a wide windowsill is described as a 'flex balcony.'

But here you'll see bizarre shit like a listing that reads 3 bedrooms, 3 bathrooms and 1 guest pizzad, But a look at the floor plan shows five bedrooms, four bathrooms, one guest pizzad. Who the hell undersells an apartment on bathrooms?

I discovered that the unmentionable bath and bedrooms are part of the 'Service Area,' sometimes called 'maid's quarters.' These are the accommodations built for your servants of course, and naturally they don't count as real bathrooms and bedrooms, because you wouldn't want to use them. They are small, without amenities like pretty tiling and decorative fixtures, and universally miserable-looking.

Before we made the leap here I read a lot of gringo expat blogs, several of which celebrated the fact that in Brazilian culture, 'Hurrah! Everyone has a maid!'

Oh really, assholes? Does your maid have a maid? Does her maid have a maid? Does your driver have a driver? Who does your gardener's garden?

Check this out, from an otherwise amusing gringa blog: "...visiting in-laws, end of year festivities, carnival, sick children and school holidays.  The last in the line of things to stand between me and my ‘me time’ was my maid.  She was hospitalized for a week and almost died.  If it was painful for her, it was for me too, stuck at home doing chores instead of indulging my yoga, ballet and lunch habits.  Thank God she came back."

Did you just throw up in your mouth? OMG me too! Elsewhere in the same post, Gringamel (I just made this up! It's like Gargamel from The Smurfs, but for mean gringas! Shut up.) complains about how it's hard to get used to having another adult in your home who knows your business. Then she complains about how she doesn't like hearing TMI about her maid's personal life, personal information which she then reveals on her blog.

If i had a job right now I would feel quite superior to to this Gringamel...

the robot and the slip n slide

I'd like to take a moment to talk about Brazilian television.

From the small sample of it I've seen (none during primetime) I've had enough orgasmic WTF moments to last several lifetimes.

Let's start with the robot:

As I sat one afternoon in a miserable waiting room, I began to notice that nobody around me was miserable. They seemed downright pleased. I followed their collective gaze to a large TV, on which a twelve-foot storm trooper-like robot was dancing.

But by dancing I mean the white man's overbite style: step-tap step-tap, swaying side to side. like, not dancing, but 'dancing.'

On either side of this robot were two young women with huge breasts and juicy asses (there's no other way to describe their asses) in tank tops and hot pants, also dancing the white man's overbite, though with a little more wiggle and grace than the robot.

This went on for a full five minutes.

In the studio audience were hundreds of screaming fans, most of whom were young attractive females.

After an astoundingly long time a white-haired gentleman appeared with a microphone and seemed to be the emcee. He interviewed one of the screaming juicy-assed fans in the audience and people on and around the TV cheered.

Next a young attractive man in tight clothing arrived on stage and joined the robot and girls dancing.

Almost immediately this young man was beaten off the stage with a foam noodle wielded by the older emcee. The audiences roared approval.

That very night i begged my best friend back in New York to come visit as soon as possible. I'm afraid that once I understand Portuguese the experience of these shows just won't be the same and I'd like to share it with her, preferably stoned.

Now lets get to the asses on the Slip 'n Slide:

Late one sleepless night I landed on what was perhaps a gameshow.

About a dozen women standing in a row, every other one young, buxom, beautiful and in a bikini.

Every other one was fully clothed, less groomed, older-looking and ok, several were large folks. I would later learn that these were the bikini girls' moms.

All were standing on a very large grassy hill, where a regular Slip 'n Slide - complete with the sad tiny 'splash pool' - was arranged. It looked greased with something like dish soap.

Now I grew up on shows like Fun House and GUTS and Double Dare and Wild and Crazy Kids, shit filmed on sound stages or in custom-built parks, with multimillion dollar jungle gyms and circus gear installed. A Slip 'n Slide on a hill already seemed way more practical.

I knew it was a game show because they were introducing the contestants with still shots of each of them on the hill in her bikini, followed by five second clippies of each turning around and shaking her ass.

Beside their asses would appear their stats: age, height, weight, and some stuff I'm not brazilian enough (YET) to translate. These ass shaking and stat displays were accompanied by voiceovers from each girl's mom, and capped off with a shot of each mom woman looking serious and nodding solemnly.

Next the girl in question would walk toward the Slip 'n Slide, where she was handed a life-sized toy chicken.

Then, on a LOUD go-ahead from the host, she'd crouch and begin her slippery decent to the splash pool.

With fascinating agility the camera crew were able to track each ass as it trembled with the turbulence of the irregular terrain beneath the yellow tarp. American rock music played for the duration of each run.

After each splash landing the mom-figure would talk again, apparently commenting on her daughter's performance. More than one wept, overwhelmed with pride.

Spike, get on a plane.

laundry day

I am typing in my undies and a blanket because I have no clean clothes.

I took a suitcase full of dirty laundry to a shop down the street from our hotel where the front desk staff said I could drop off and have my clean clothes delivered later at no extra charge. Sim, obrigada!

But the people at the shop seemed to think i wanted everything - socks, underoos, jeans, 12-year old t-shirts, hand-me-down sports bras - dry-cleaned. 

A kindly bilingual woman in line ahead of me translated for us. She asked if $300R ($150USD) was expensive for me.

I was about to reply “for whom (TF) is $150 for clean underoos not expensive?”

Then I realized they thought I was wealthy. 

I looked at myself in the full length mirror nearby, my filthy shoes, my ripped cords, my haggish, messy ponytail, and thought ‘Wow. The rich people in brazil have awesome style.’

Who could have known that thus would begin a journey through the rain, a little over four miles in total, dragging my cumbersome suitcase behind me (which made me miss my dog), humming the patty duke show theme because it was stuck in my head, looking for a normal laundromat?

Well, not me.

The same answer applies to: and who could have known there aren’t any normal laundromats in São Paulo, because all people here do there laundry at home, so anyone looking for one is categorically SOL? 

I didn’t believe it when the front desk told me so. I started to believe it when I read a thread on tripadvisor.com discussing the very issue in this very neighborhood. I only truly came to accept it when my friend confirmed it in an email (and invited me to use his apartment as a laundromat you can get drunk in -sim, obrigada!). there are no normal laundromats in São Paulo.

BUT they’re cousins! Identical cousins and you’ll find: you can lose your mind! When cousins are two of a kind!

i think i'm gonna like it here

Used-to town: Cill would frown
Street snacks only meats

SP splendors: POPCORN VENDORS
Everywhere, holy sheetz!

There are many numerous copious plethoras of other reasons I think I can make it here.

One is that there is a kind of green tea with pepper seeds that is so delicious I want to bathe my face in a river of it. 

Another is that it is warm and sunny and breezy all at the same time, which means I smell like sunblock all the time, and I love the smell of sunblock. 

A third is that the nickname Betsy is spelled 'Bete' and pronounced 'Betch.' 

A fourth is that Mark came out of a restaurant bathroom  and said 'If I understand correctly, a sign in there reads 'Please do not pee on the floor.'

Also the diet coke here is fortified with B-vitamins, magnesium and zinc. SUPERCILL.

Furthermore, I have to hand it to Brazil: the Italian food here rules.

I'm very very very glad to volunteer.

pipoca cart, kids

minibar

A dude is knocking on all the doors on this floor saying ‘Mini bar.’

I guess he comes into all the rooms and restocks the fridge and the snack basket. 

Yeah, he just came in and did that. 

But holy smokes was that stressful. I kept hearing the knocks and thinking they were on our door. 

But then I would hear them again even closer, so i kept feeling more and more shakily certain they were here.

I kept answering him. 

He kept not answering me, but coming somehow nearer and repeating his knocky-chant.

Then a DEAFENING knock on our door. 

“Minibar.” 

And I answered it. 

Holy gorilla pancakes. That shit was like out of Hitchcock.

I’m glad my name isn’t alfred.

And I'm glad we now have all these Cokes!

clean towels

Brazilian toilets have spray gun hoses attached, like how some kitchen sinks have spray guns for rinsing dishes.

The toilet hose guns are not for dishes though. They’re for rinsing penises, vaginas, anuses, taints, and maybe butt cheeks.

My Brazilian friend said he particularly likes to rinse his anus with his toilet hose gun.

I thought aloud that that must feel nice, but then wondered aloud what happens when you stand up. 

‘Doesn’t it drip into your clothes?’

‘No no it’s okay, you keep a little towel nearby to dry yourself.’

But that means he keeps an anus towel in his bathroom. 

Which means I’m now a little weird about drying my hands in his bathroom. 

(I don’t.) 

I mean, it’s probably a clean anus towel, if his anus was clean when he used it. 

But still.

rinse that anus, son

FIVE PARKING SPACES

I noticed while looking for apartments online that many of them seem to have weird ratios of stuff, like three bedrooms, two bathrooms, FIVE PARKING SPACES. Or two bedrooms, one bathroom, FIVE PARKING SPACES. 

I started to wonder who in the F needs FIVE PARKING SPACES. And somebody told me it’s because of traffic.

See, there are too many cars in São Paulo and the traffic is oppressive. So the city government made up this rule that each car can only drive in the city on certain days. 

So the super smart rich people came up with a SOLUTION! They bought more cars! This way they would be able to drive every day of the week. 

And that is how cars came to outnumber household members in the land of Brazil.

The End.

Wait, not really the end. That sounded uber judgmental and now I feel bad.

So i will admit something ‘hypocritical’ about myself. Ehem:

I don’t think I’m as offended by how pathologically selfish and dick it is to buy a bunch of cars when too many cars are the problem; I think I’m outraged because I’m jealous.

Not of having five cars, cause who wants to clean that noise, but of having FIVE PARKING SPACES.

I lived in brooklyn for four years and manhattan for three. Parking spaces are like liquid gold. Parking spaces are nirvana-bliss-heaven in a chocolate popcorn Tabasco. 

Finding a parking space is like hitting a grand slam in the bottom of the ninth when your team was about to lose by three and then you score a touchdown and shoot a three pointer all at the same time. 

Parking spaces are like god massaging your neck and shoulders while jesus gives you a mani-pedi and the virgin mary gives you a facial. And these kids have FIVE.

OF THEIR OWN.

the phantom diarrhea

One of the guide books I read before coming here (can’t remember if it was American or English) advised against trying to avoid diarrhea.

There’s a clearer way to say that.

Maybe not; the author just says you’re going to get diarrhea, so don’t flip out trying to avoid it. Be smart; ask for bottled water, avoid fresh fruits and veggies rinsed in tap water and…I forget the rest. don’t lick the sidewalk. But don’t bother too much because it’s going to happen.

So I resigned myself to a couple of weeks of diarrhea. In fact i was looking forward to it. Not the diarrhea, but the IRON GUT my friend promised i would earn by being sick and having diarrhea for an extended period of time. 

Here’s her logic: Americans aren’t used to real whole food, which has like, organisms in it. Ergo, once we eat real food with organisms, our bodies flip out a little and protest with some diarrhea, But then after a while they don’t want to fight anymore, so they develop an IRON GUT that can handle everything thereafter. That’s what happens.

Wait, she also said that in the US everything we eat is made out of pesticides and corn. So when we leave the US and start eating stuff that’s not corn or pesticides we get diarrhea. But then when we keep eating the non-corn-non-pesticides, our bodies change and become better. That’s what happens.

Or something.

So anyway that all sounded pretty reasonable and I was looking forward to earning my IRON GUT. In fact I went a little crazy you could say, eating fresh fruit for breakfast (it’s so delicious here), accepting drinks with ice in them (the book advised asking if the cubes come from bottled water, but I didn’t want to look like a douche. Plus I don’t speak Portuguese), singing in the shower, and other unconscionably brave stuff.

I even had my first blog post title ready: “PAPAYARRHEA: WORTH IT.”

But you know what? Three days in and still no diarrhea. In fact I feel fine. Great. Montezuma tried me and failed. We were like Harry and Voldemort, and now that I think of it he's probably enraged by my victory. 

And not to be a jerk, but he'll probably take it out on one of you. I know I should feel guilty about this, but i'm too busy not having diarrhea to feel anything other than the comfort of not having diarrhea. HAZZAH.

I am sad though about losing the dream of the IRON GUT. I was so ready for that. after all these years of motion sickness and food allergies and being a pale and queasy weenieface, I was so ready.

...and maybe it’s this longing that has made me start to wonder if diarrhea is simply in the early stalking stages. I keep seeing shadows as i turn corners. 

Maybe Diarrhea is watching me, gathering information so it can sneak up at the worst time (or the funniest, depending on its real goals).

I think if diarrhea was a real villain in a real book it would definitely be a dude, and would look like Julian Carax in The Shadow of the Wind. Wait, if you haven’t read that book delete what you just read from your mind. And if you have, you know what i’m talking about.

Or Zorro. Or the bad guy in Roger Rabbit. Good god that’s IT. The evil guy who burns cartoons into liquid in a big canister. 

Wow, we watched some seriously f-ed up shiz in our childhood day.

OK I promise the next thing I write will be insightful and about Brazil.