Thursday Februry 4 , 2010

So the past couple of days have been interesting. I got to the house yesterday and there was the most almighty smell of gas – ugh. I called Marcelo (who is now my Mr. Fix-it as well as my driver). He rushed to switch off the gas at the mains and called the emergency gas service. The response was typically Brazilian – no problem –we will get to you eventually. No problem if the house blows up in the meantime.
Later on they came, checked a few things, reconnected the gas and left. Not sure that the problem was solved, so if we move in and don’t wake up one morning – chances are it is the gas leak.

Today I played house. I had the furniture delivered that we are renting. Two sofas, three beds, two tables , six chairs, an ironing board, washing machine and a few pots, pans and bits of crockery. It took me all of 5 minutes to put the crockery, silverware and pots and pans away. It took two guys 3 hours to bring the rest into the house. Brazilian time you see.

In the meantime I had an electrician around to fix a plug to the dishwasher and a water heater to the washing machine. The electrician quoted me R$ 90 – about US$ 50. Marcelo was trying to gesticulate to me that it was FAR too much money. Hey $ 50 for what turned out to be 4 hours work sounded fine to me. Seems that I still have “foreigner” tattooed across my forehead though and as far as Marcelo was concerned, I was being totally ripped off. How often have I encountered that before?

So by early afternoon I was ready to do my first load of laundry. It turns out that the washing machine is totally prehistoric. Thank goodness it is a rental and I have a nice shiny Bosch coming from the USA. Trouble is, in the middle of the washing cycle, the mother of all thunderstorms happened which resulted in a power blackout. I had been warned about power outages but Marcelo assured me that it would be over in 5 minutes.

It also turns out that when it rains, the laundry room floods, as does the lanai. No gutters in Brazil it seems. Mind you, with the quantity of water I can’t imagine gutters coping. The garden was flooded and the pool overflowing – no matter.

An hour later I gave up and went back to the hotel. Trouble was, the power outage was fairly wide spread so after an hour of no traffic lights, the part of the city that we were travelling through was in total chaos. There were trees down and police trying to direct the traffic. Now as everyone knows, if you let a policeman take charge of an intersection, total chaos will ensue. Believe me it did.

But here again is something I love about the Brazilians. People were cutting each other up, intersections were blocked, motor cyclists were their usual annoying selves, weaving in and out and causing their own chaos, and as for pedestrians – well they are a law unto themselves. But everyone was immensely good humoured. Not a single sign of road rage, which, were it in any other country of the world I am sure there could be.

Bless you Marcelo for knowing every short cut in the book and getting me back to the hotel. Only a few more days to go and the commute will be a lot easier.