Meet-up

by Amalia

I finally met up with a Brazilian CouchSurfer, Vivian. She contacted me two weeks ago but I had been busy the past two weeks so we only got to meet today. I was so glad I met her! She’s my age, friendly, open-minded, and thoughtful. We had a very nice conversation for 3 hours at Usine, my favorite café (of course!). We just talked, talked, talked like we knew each other for years! Hahaha. It was a great afternoon!

Well, I learnt quite a bit of things about Brazil from her:

  • Not many Brazilian can speak English. If you can speak the language, you’re considered "educated" or "higher" than others.
  • Brazilians are usually not so fond of Portugal due to long colonial history 😛 (I asked her if she’d live in Portugal since they speak the same language, and that was her answer hahaha).
  • You’ve probably heard about Singlish (Singaporean English) or Manglish (Malay English), but have you heard of Portuñol? LOL! It’s Portuguese Spanish! I didn’t know that!
  • The word gereja is from Portuguese! How come I didn’t know that?!
  • The Portuguese in Indonesia were kicked out by the Dutch in 1570’s while the Dutch were kicked out by the Portuguese in Brazil! 😛 They both got their portion, eh?!
  • Brazilian guys are hot and sexy but they’re not "created" to commit on their relationship. She said that it’s common for them to cheat on their girl or wife 😐 She was even very sure that all of the Brazilian guys (99%) at some point in time have cheated on their woman! That’s not good.

I can’t remember what else we talked about. There were too many things, but these were the main ones. We’re going to meet up for lunch next month probably… I’m going to cook an Indonesian food and she’ll cook a Brazilian food. Excited 🙂