Hernando's Hideaway

My grand design to start seeing the sights of Rio this week got put on hold for two reasons...1) most aren't open on Mondays, and 2) the rain from last night continued intermitantly throughout the day today. I'm not trapsing around, map in hand, on a rainy, muggy day.

Plans begin anew tomorrow, weather permitting.

B 14...BINGO

So the other day, I was walking down a street very near my apartment, and I saw these two guys walk down this kind of mall type alley way...not a mall, but a corridor with some stores, mostly abandoned empty stores. Thinking they might have a bike rental place amongst the shops, I decided to follow them.

No bike rental spot, but at the end of the corridor, there was a door with a big man kind of sitting there, maybe guarding it, maybe not. The two men went in...and I heard a noise inside. Not one to miss out on anything "mysterious", I thought, what the heck, why not...so I walked past the man like I knew what I was doing, and entered the door.

There, kind of like in the movies was this whole MOVIE SET of gambling and corruption--in the form of elderly people playing BINGO. How funny.

Come to find out, the country outlawed Bingo last April, but I guess this establishment was is still going strong, incognito.

Did someone say G 52?

AL GORE...I OWE YOU A BIG THANKS

Well, he says he invented the Internet--highly debatable--yet finally I got my wireless hook-up here in the apartment.

So, rather than borrowing a roomy', or even heading off to the internet cafe, I'm here on the living room sofa typing. It's much more convenient.

It's even rather cool, with the high speed overhead fan flowing the humid air on me. Cools you right down.

WHEN THE CATS AWAY...

So one of the roommates flew to Miami for a week...and he said I could use his room. So today I lugged my mattress into his room, plopped it onto his bed and tonight I'll sleep with A/C and have a color tv at my disposal.

Ahh, this mouse is about to play, well, sleep well tonight.

IS THAT ITALIAN YOUR SPEAKING

So I have these two doormen. Both nice guys. One likes to talk to me about his love for one of the local soccer teams called the Flamingos. So I talk with him...his animated speech and my broken speech...we have a fun time.

Last night as I came home, he and the other doorman were watching the Flamingos play on TV.

Tonight as I came in, the two were together and I said, as best I could, "So who won the game last night...the Flamingos or the other team."

They looked at me dumbfounded. I tried again. "What was the score of the Flamingo?" This they got. 2:1 they said. Oh, "So the Flamingos won?" Again, dumbfounded looks.

I repeated it...pretty sure I was using the correct words and even the correct conjucation of the verb TO WIN (Ganhar)...it was that word that seemed to be tripping them up.

Still, nothing.

Finally, the funny doorman said, "Are you speaking Italian?" They both laughed.

(I move out of the building tomorrow!!!!)

I walked up to the apartment, got my Portuguese/English dictionary and walked right back down and showed him the word for TO WIN.

He read it and said, oh yeah, "Flamingos won".

I said, "Wasn't that the verb I was using?" He smiled and said, "I thought you were speaking Italian."

Ughh, languagues can be so frustrating at times.

Tired tonight...off to bed early--or is it really off to zap some energy through my waiting A/C.