Umamiblog

Title quote: Olavo Bilac

One of more fun experiences since being in Brasil has to be the language. I knew Portuguese was supposed to be similar to Spanish so expected I’d pick some stuff up quickly and at at least have the pronunciation down.

I was told pretty shortly after arriving that it can be considered offensive speaking Spanish as a gringo in Brasil and expecting to be understood (so don’t…). But the first surprising impression was that Portuguese here sounds less Iberian and whole lot Eastern European. It’s vastly different. Reading is much easier but hearing it, and having some Spanish knowledge, doesn’t really help at all.

There are some funny (for English-speaking ears) aspects to Brasilian Portuguese pronunciation. My favorite has to be words that begin in the letter ‘r’ – where it is pronounced with an ‘h’ sound. So people like my brother Richie get called “hitchie”, Ruth turns into “hooch”, the currency Real or Reais is “heyal” or “hey-eyes”, etc.

Another awesome aspect to Portuguese is that speakers can’t have a harsh consonant end to a word, which is most notable on imported English words. Something like a Big Mac from McDonalds turns into “biggie mackie de Mackie-Donallls”.

But this is my absolute favorite: Hip-hop Rap turns into “hippie hoppie happie”.

Listening to Brasil’s gangster-rap-thug-dudes singing about “happy musica” endlessly makes me smile

My slackness at blogging in 2008 seems to have carried over to 2009 and through our move to Brasil (where at least I thought I’d have something to blog about). So here’s my attempt to engage and enlighten… with a quick update.

Santiago

Santiago was our first stop after leaving New Zealand and where I popped my South American cherry. Flying into the city looked a whole lot like Mackenzie country and the Southern Alps. Santiago itself is a very cool city with a lot of modern aspects – we felt pretty safe there. The smog is unreal though and your sinuses will struggle. Another almost annoyance is trying to work out what stuff actually costs as the currency is roughly 400 Chilean pesos to the Kiwi dollar.

Buenos Aires

Next stop was Buenos Aires, flying over the Andes was amazing. BA has probably become my favorite city outside of NZ. It is amazing, and Pablo, it must have been very tough to leave! We’re hoping we’ll get a chance to go back and stay for much much longer. We stayed in Palermo which was a really funky part of the city but almost overrun with dog shit. The hostel we stayed at, an old geriatric home, was certainly full of character. One of the folks there showed us all the ways to spot counterfeit currency – which appears to be quite a problem there as even the odd ATM will deal it out. For my Wellington-acclimatised self, the heat was oppressive.

Sao Paulo
We then flew up to Sao Paulo and I got to catch up with my brother for the first time in years. I think I’ll save Sao Paulo and our Brasil travels for another post but this city is enormous. It just goes on and on and on and on:

I hope you’ve all had a great break and your new year is going well.