... "GOT" to be Kidding Me!
Santa Cruz do Sul,
Brazil
Sunday, June 22, 2008
Hell of busy! - Lots of classes this week. Busy, busy, busy ... 2.5 hours a day of Portuguese lessons and I'm spending about 2 to 4 hours a day with the English classes. One day I and my teacher played chess. We had to explain every move in Portuguese. I won! Another day we would alternate giving and following directions on how to get to places downtown and walked around town in Portuguese. Another day (after learning "supermarket" vocabulary) we went shopping in the supermarket to practice. My teacher's way-cool!!!
I can now understand and speak a lot more than when I arrived. I can hear and read about 1/2 of words in conversations, print and TV, but it's still not enough to understand the conversations well. Sometimes not knowing just one word can make a big difference. I still need a lot more, but its coming and everyone compliments me on how fast I'm learning the language.
Shooting Pool and possibly other things - Hung out this Thursday night at this bar in town with language teachers from two different schools for a night of beer, pool, and silly, yet very humorous conversation. Two of the people there were Americans teaching English here in Santa Cruz. Both were as wild as the wind, although in different ways. They reminded me of home.
Best BBQ EVER - Had Churrasco (South Brazilian BBQ) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Churrasco at the Centenario this Friday night, for the second time. For about $11.00 dollars American you can have a selection of a buffet and 20 different "all you can eat" meats that are brought to your table by the chefs on a spindle right out of the fire. Crazy, crazy good! It's like a meat buffet. There are also other, more healthy selections of food, but trust me, here, it's all about the meat. The best parts of the meat, too. You select your burn, the piece, the size, and they cut it right there onto your plate. Soooo Goood. It's like tasting the best of everything that fire and salt has to offer. I swear the food here is going to kill me because it's so damn good!
Went to a car-race this Saturday, then I and a few friends had planned on going due west from Santa Cruz do Sul to the Brazil-Argentina border and into Argentina (sight-seeing and spending the night in another city). Less than 2 hours into our trip they realized that their car registration had expired a week earlier. In America, this would not be a big deal, but in Brazil they impound your car on the spot until you pay the fines and you can't pay the fines until Monday. Although South-Brazil doesn't have even a third of the police force on the streets and on the roads that we have in America, no one wanted to chance it. This turned out to be a good decision for me, because later I realized that I didn't have my actual passport with me. I carry an official "copy" in Brazil in order to keep my original safe. My copy works fine in Brazil, but I don't think it would have flown in Argentina.
Got to be kidding me! - Okay, this Thursday during my Portuguese lesson, I finally came across the word GOT or get. One word right ... "Got" ... pfff, one word in English. In Portuguese there are over 30 different forms of the word got. 30+ words for fricken "got" and they all are different http://www.wordreference.com/enpt/got I never would have imagined the English word "got" was such an all encompassing word. Example: I got paid (there's a word for that), I got time (there's a different word for that.) I got to get ready, I got lucky, I got crazy (Yep! a different word for those too... but guess what there isn't a or one word for ... yep, you guessed it (our universal) "Got!" Got-da#$%t ... After I learned about this little tidbit I decided to look up "got" up in my portuguese/english dictionary. The definition of this one word took up 2 and 1/2 whole pages. That's when I got a little depressed. I thought, you've GOT to be kidding me. Got has gotten out of hand and honestly, I got a little overwhelmed. I've got to get to get it together and get my head around the word "got". So next week, I'm going to get down with got and yes, I've got to keep studying got until I've got it, because if I don't get got I've got no one to blame, except maybe the word "got." Well, I guess you 'got' the jist of it and, of course, I've got to go.
Beijos!
