Pin me up... or not

One of the first things I noticed arriving at the UK was that some British girls have the skinniest legs I've ever seen. No tights, no calf muscles at all. My mother was astonished how boots looked loose on the girls legs, while she had trouble zipping hers. The second thing to note is that apart from the too-skinny ones, there's a lot of slender elegant women on the street. All around.

I've heard a lot about obesity levels and all that, but I can tell people in Rio are more chubby than here. And well, I have to admit, the more I walk around and come across these girls, I remember I am not a slender girl, and probably will never will. Some I feel like I had the biggest thighs in the whole UK.

And since even if I loose a lot of weight I will never be as elegant as a gazelle-shaped woman, maybe I should assume that and develop my chubby pride. Go for the charm of being not thin and not elegant.

I thought many times that maybe I should take some advantage of my strong complexion (hahaha, I love euphemisms!) and maybe try to adopt some pinupish style. After all, pinups have huuuuge tights and strong arms, and never get anorexya.

It sounded like a good idea that could work well, except from the fact that I am too lazy to be a proper pinup girl. I would have to blow dry my fringe, Betty Paige style, use shorts or short skirts, high heels and all this stuff.

Sadly I am not stylish (or patient) enough to be a post modern pinup, so that's probably the closest I will ever get to being one :P

Other people's living rooms

High in the list of unbritish things I do, there is the habit of peeping inside other people's houses. I have always loved to know were my friends lived, how they organize the things in their living rooms, all these things. And now I have a whole city of ground floor beautiful flats to analyse, by the price of getting a really upset look from an old lady in her couch, or disturbing a family dinner, from time to time.

By the way, among the general advantages of riding a double deck bus (the most important one being that there is no such thing anywhere else, as far as I know), there is the possibility of expanding you peeping universe to the first floor apartments! I admit, I do that. And it's fun.

Considering that I live in Kensington and I walk all the way from Imperial College to here, you can imagine the huge amount of fantastic houses I peep into every day. To me, all of them look like writer's houses, with lots of papers in a table, books scattered, and that kind of mess that gives you the idea that someone in creating something.

There is nothing more disgusting than that kind of decoration where the person hires an architect to create a bizarrely perfect scenario where no one could ever live. There are some houses in Brazil like this, and I'm sure it happens here sometimes. But these are not the rooms I look at.

Of course, some of them look like old badly decorated museums, with oil paintings hanging on the dark papered walls and dark wood heavy furniture all around. It feels claustrophobic just to look at them, and I imagine what kind of person could live there.

But back from the cool well decorated artistic houses. I know probably most of the owners of those houses are not artists. They probably have more boring jobs, but it doesn't matter. I can't help thinking if I will ever have such a nice house, or be a rich writer. I don't want to think about the odds right know, the only thing I know for sure is that if someday, for any reason, I get to be as rich as it takes to live in such a place, I will never see my room as a cool writer's place.

But maybe some curious and ill-mannered journalist, renting a tiny studio and living in a scholarship will walk down the street and be impressed by it. Too sad the journalist won't leave a note to let me know that I finally achieved it.

Writers and readers

Now the term is over and the presentation has been presented! I was a bit nervous, worried if everything would go well. It did, and I think our "Ant...icipation" performance was quite nice, at least in my opinion. Now, revision time, more parties than I can attend, and life goes on. I will try to write more frequently in this blog, I just have to think of things that may be interesting for my (few, very few) readers.

I know some people who say they "write for themselves". I think in some cases they are telling the truth, but I'm pretty sure most of them are just trying to play cool.

I'm not cool, you might have already noticed that during the last months :)

One of my uncool habits is that I write to be read. Otherwise I would open a Word file, fill it with my opinions, dreams and whatever, then close the file and save it in some obscure folder in my computer.

In advance

So far during these months of British life I really have no complaints about British people. They say sorry when they bump on you (and in lots of other occasions) and, even more important, they try not to bump on you on the tube. But apart from all the politeness and sense of humour, there is one British habit that really drives me crazy. Planning everything too much in advance!

I can't just pop up at the salon and have my hair cut, even if the woman that cuts the hair has nothing to do at the moment. I have to call them and set an appointment.

I even like when people tell me about parties that will happen one month from now, but it still sounds strange. How can I know if I can go to a party one month from now? I can assure you I want (or not) to go today, but I don't have a clue if I will have a headache or a terrible deadline for the following day.

And what about restaurants? Half the fun of dining out is when you figure out, by the end of the day "today I'm in the mood for Japanese food!" and then go there and eat lots of sushi and sashimi. Not that I eat out here in London, but that's what I used to do in Rio (when I was rich compared to my current student budget). The only time we have a proper restaurant dinner here we celebrated my birthday one day after the right day, because the restaurant we wanted to go was already fully booked. I wonder if British people has ever heard of spontaneity.

But with no doubt the worst "centuries in advance" thing is buying tickets for concerts. Six, seven months in advance!!! Sometimes almost a year! How can I possibly know if I will still like this band eight months from now? Or that I will be on the mood for music and crowded places that specific Saturday? I don't even know if I will still be at London or someone will have offered me a great job in Reykjavik!

Anyway, it doesn't matter for the planning gods of UK. Buy it now or regret it later. Ages later.

I imagine a single woman living in the UK, who buys tickets months in advance for theatre and concerts. One day she starts to date a nice guy, who becomes her boyfriend. During the first six months of their relationship, he can't go with her to any of the concerts that she booked when she hasn't met him. But they are already buying tickets for concerts the following year, this time planning to attend to them together.

Now imagine they break up. What happens? For the next six months, will she be haunted by the possibility of meeting the guy in all the places they planned to go together? Or should he sell her the tickets? What is the right way to deal with these things? Is there a special kind of etiquette?

Nice caipirinha tutorial

Nice video from a Brazilian guy who lives in London. Useful for everybody who wants to make a proper caipirinha (except Neil, of course, because he already knows).

The owl from Luton at the frontier

Funny thing about British people: they correct my pronunciation with no hesitation. Last night I learned how to say "owl" and "frontier". Some weeks ago, when I tried to find out about the trains going to Luton, at least three people I'd never seen before (the lady who sold the tickets and two other people I asked for directions) corrected me immediately after I pronounced the "u" in Luton like the "u" in "nut". Well, two strangers corrected me and I kept saying it wrong. Maybe it means I'm stupid, but luckly there was the third stranger and I finnally understood it.

Campaign for British awareness of Brazilian things - caipirinha

Yesterday I went to Guanabara, and I found out that their menu is the source of some misunderstandings expressed by my British friends. Specially when it comes to drinks, so I think it's my duty to try to explain some stuff. After reading their crazy drinks menu and trying their weird caipirinha, I decided make a brief guide of some caipirinha-esque things everybody should know:

- caipirinha: pieces of lime crushed with sugar, then added cachaça and ice. Attention to the crushed part. Untouched limes in the glass are no caipirinha.

- caipirinhas made of other fruits: they are made of other fruits, sugar, cachaça and ice. No lime in it (where the hell they got the idea of putting lime in it?)

- crazy translations: definitely the funniest part of their menu. Açaí is translated as "berry" which is obviously not correct. I don't have any idea of how the caipirinha de açaí looks like, because I don't know if they use the fruits or the cream. In Brazil, it is easier to find the juice or the cream than the fruit itself.

After eating açaí, everybody gets their mouth, teeth and gums black. Something like drinking a lot of red wine, but much blacker. So, after eating açaí, smile really cautiously.



- another crazy translation: "cupuaçú" as "exotic indigenous". Well, first of all: what the hell does "exotic indigenous" mean? If it means something for you, please tell me, because I didn't understand...

Cupuaçú is a nice fruit from the north of Brazil (açaí is also from the North). It has no translation, of course. It is exotic, tastes good and that's all you need to know. If you not curious enought to try it, why bother explaining?



(I didn't know how it looked like until I looked for some pictures to post here... Well, it's not pretty, but who cares?)

- And the most important mistranslation of all: "caju" as "cashew nut". No wonder a friend asked me how they could possible make a caipirinha out of nuts... No, they can't (I hope). Cashew nut is one thing, and cashew is another thing. The caipirinha is made from the cashew fruit.



The yellow thing is the cashew, and the small black thing in the bottom of the fruit is the nut. After it is roasted and salty it turns into the cashew nut you know.

Well well...

Someday I had to start it here. The blog has been created weeks ago, I guess, but I've been postponing the first post because of... well...

Well, I admit. I don't have a good reason but now I'll try. I decided to start it here to practice my written English a little more, because I really want to learn this damn language of you and be able to write articles in English. I mean, decent English.

Why? You may ask (if you don't ask, don't worry, it's not that interesting after all). I guess mainly because I like to get myself into trouble. I already know how to write in Portuguese. I write to some cool magazines in Brazil. So, it was time for me to get another problem to solve, and now here we are.

So, please, dear reader, tell me where my mistakes are. I can guarantee that we'll have lots and lots of wrong prepositions in here.

Thank you very much. Not the smartest first post ever (I mean, the first post with more than two sentences), but enough to say "welcome", I hope.