I realize I should be over these little incidences by now, but they still amaze me or weird me out a little, depending on how you want to look at it. Since our move to Brazil I seriously feel like I have Brazilians following me everywhere I go. I know they aren’t following me of course, but they seem to end up in the same place at the same time as me far too often.This could be because I can now recognize Brazilian Portuguese so I am more aware of those who may be around me or it could be that Brazilians are traveling more. At least the latter is what I have heard/read in travel and tourist reports. It just feels like such a strange coincidence each time an encounter happens outside of Brazil.
Before I go on to tell you about the Vegas encounters I’ll share with you a particularly crazy one in my hometown. When my husband flew back to the States for the holidays, he was sitting on the plane awaiting his connector flight from Atlanta to a small town in IN. An older woman went down the rows counting them in Portuguese.
It turns out she was from the small town of Aracatuba where we attended a friend’s wedding not long ago. She lives in IL near her children. If you knew much about my hometown you would be as completely baffled as we were about this coincidence. Perhaps it is how people feel when they find a USAmerican in Maringa.
Now on to Vegas…
#1
We had been in Vegas roughly 30 minutes. We were headed up to our room. As the elevator doors opened a large group came out with rolling suitcases. We waited patiently and my husband reached out his hand a bit to hold the doors open. As a girl pulled her suitcase by us she said….obrigada.
My husband and I immediately looked at each other to make sure we had both heard it. Good grief! It had already started.
#2
That same night we went to the Cheesecake Factory in the Forum Shops. After about 20 minutes, a party of 3 were seated next to us – took 2 seconds to realize they were Brazilian. What was even funnier was to hear them comment on the massive portion sizes in Portuguese. Despite my previous comparisons about US vs. Brazilian portion sizes I will admit the Cheesecake Factory is out of control.
#3
We were boarding the tram from the Mirage to TI and realized there were a group of Brazilians getting on with us. This time it wasn’t the language that gave them away. I just happened to look down and they were all wearing Nike Shox. A dead giveaway for sure. I have no doubt that many people can peg me as a USAmerican in no time, but the Nike Shox reveal a lot when it comes to identifying a Brazilian. I seriously think more people wear them in Brazil than in the States.
There were a few more instances, but these stood out. It just still feels strange to go from never having met or heard a Brazilian before, to living in the country to now running into people everywhere we go. Who knows? If we had never had this abroad experience each of these encounters would probably have gone completely unnoticed. Life’s paths are certainly interesting.
8 comments:
Even though I have yet to live in Brazil, being exposed to my husband and his friends, I am accustomed to the accent they tend to have when they speak english as well as hearing portuguese and recognizing it. I run into Brazilians quite frequently when I travel and there is a large population of Brazilians in Myrtle Beach as well!
One of the funny things is when Sidnei and I were in the airport on the way to our honeymoon there were some people sitting in the airport in florida going to st thomas, with us and got on the plane that were Brazilian. Sidnei made some comments about them and that was that. After everything happened, Sidnei went to court and the SAME lady that was on our plane was his translator. It's just funny where you run into people.
Yup, we are everywhere! LOL
Mrs. S - Definitely a small world. It feels like that kind of stuff happens even more often since our move. :)
Elaine - Ha, ha! Hope I didn't make it sound like a bad thing. Got your comment about Nike Shox. Too funny! I think it stands out so much to me because most of the people I know don't even like Nike. We are New Balance and Adidas fans. So the fact that everyone has them makes an impression.
We definitely had popular trends to deal with when I was in school, but the idea of "imported" being so popular is a bit foreign to me as well. We only really got interested in that when it came to music.
PS. I had A LOT of rum cream in Jamaica. ;)
rum eh? ;)
mine is long gone. One day my husband grabbed the bottle, gave it a soft shake and wondered about the "vanishing" rum! LOL
Lori,
You should see Boston, there are Brazilians EVERYWHERE!
The Brazilian consulate in Boston confirms a population of more than 300 thousand in the Boston Metro area ( which includes Providence, Rhode Island ).
Every Dunkin Donut's around here have more than 50% Brazilian staff, it used to be all Jamaican, but the Jamaicans were temporary workers and used to go home for the winter, when they came back there were Brazilians working in their place, slowing they moved into other industries and Brazilians took over the Dunkin Donut's, if you are not familiar with New England I should let you know that Dunkin Donut's is HUGE here, in almost every corner, literally, some places you see one on each side of the street and they are both packed with people inside and cars around the drive thru windows, it is big business here!
Every time I go to the Supermarket I hear Portuguese, not to mention Portuguese from Portugal is also big around here, the Providence International Airport has signs in two languages, PORTUGUESE and ENGLISH, no SPANISH signs like we see in most airports.
There is a long history of Brazilians immigrating to Rhode Island and Massachusetts and it started with the Brazilian Jews that were kicked out of Recife in the 1700's, those Jews came to New Port, Rhode Island and they spoke Portuguese and hired Portuguese sailors and started the Whale fishing industry in New England, so Portuguese speaking immigrants have been around here for a looong time...you can google this stuff and get a lot more details on the Portuguese and Brazilians immigrating to New England.
Ray
What a wonderful small world we live in!! :)
I am a Brazilian who has been living in the USA since 1974 when I came here for graduate studies. Once, when I was still in graduate school, with another Brazilian I was sightseeing at the California Academy of Sciences in San Francisco. While waiting in a long line to get a sandwich at the cafeteria we were looking at the women working at the sandwich counter. For some reason I can't remember I said to my friend: I bet THAT girl is from Ceará! Well, as it turned out she was indeed from Ceará.
Sometime in the mid-1990s I was in Miami having dinner with two American colleagues at a Spanish restaurant, a "tapas" place. The "busboy" who brought our bread was a young woman. At some point she came to check on us and turned towards me and in Portuguese asked whether we wanted more bread and without missing a bit nor realizing what had just happened I answered in Portuguese and she left to get more bread. Then, from the expression on colleagues faces, I realized what had happened. When she came back I asked her when she had arrived from Brazil etc. She was surprised that she had asked me in Portuguese about the bread. It turned out she had arrived just 2 weeks earlier and was able to almost immediately find a job.
We are everywhere indeed!
Dalcio
Ray - Very interesting. Almost everyone we talk to in Brazil who has family in the US says they live in the Boston area.
I love Dunkin Donuts coffee. Sounds like Starbucks is in Seattle - every corner, everytime you turn around.
I'll get to exploring that area some day.
Tucano - What a funny story! A truly wild coincidence. Thanks so much for reading my blog taking the time to comment.
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