Tuesday February 9th 2010

On Sunday we moved into the house – gas leak and all. On Monday morning I had to wait another 6 hours for the gas man to come. He took one sniff and although I didn’t understand a word he was saying, the inference was quite simple – “you have a gas leak”. Tell me something I didn’t know.

Five minutes and a new valve later it was fixed. Thank goodness it was that simple and didn’t involve digging up the other half of the garden.

So with that sorted I could safely leave the house to do a first “big shop”. I love discovering a new supermarket and have been looking forward to having the opportunity to wander around, aisle after aisle, discovering the culinary delights of a new place. Sao Paulo is no exception. So far I have meandered around a few specialist shops but not the sort of shopping where the cart gets loaded and you spend a fortune buying things you wonder how you ever did without. Well, when you can’t speak or read the language it is a whole other dimension. Things that you take for granted you just can’t find and things you think you will never find are very easy.

Steve is gluten intolerant so we wondered how easy or difficult that would be in Sao Paulo. I can only assume that some high ranking government official is also gluten intolerant because everything consumable has a label as to whether it “contem gluten” or “nao contem gluten.” Very useful. Even alcohol has to say whether or not gluten is an ingredient. This might strike you as odd but beer is a no-no, whereas distilled alcohol is fine.

Then of course there are some things that are very distinctive by their brand imaging. I remember when we were living in Israel and I struggled to go around a supermarket. I was even heard exclaiming “does anyone here speak English?” The trouble with somewhere like Israel is that the alphabet is not one that I am used to. In most other countries, a dictionary and a bit of logic can tell you whether something in the chill counter is butter or margarine but when the alphabet is unfamiliar, no end of dictionaries will help. This is where brand imaging comes into its own. I remember at the time offering a silent prayer of thanks to whoever it was that put Tony the Tiger on a box of Kellogg’s Frosted Flakes. It has never failed yet.