General Update

Chihuahua update: he now has fleas.  We had to dose him with frontline and then bleach and spray anti-flea spray everywhere.  Apparently it's something to do with him feeling unwell.  I don't give a flying f*** what it's about, I don't want to be bitten to pieces any more.  Although, it's worse for my mother because she has some kind of allergic reaction to flea bites - she gets a massive swelling about 5-10 centimetres wide.  Ouch.

Portuguese: my spoken portuguese is bollocks due to me speaking english most of the time.  I have a lot of shit to do: find work, sort out visas, other legal crap with our (english speaking) lawyer, make plans...we're really busy and taking the time to "umm" and "errr" through an awful Portuguese conversation is not top of my list of priorities.  I know it's important, I will get around to enforcing some portuguese conversation for a minimum of one hour a day at some point, but at the moment I'm limited to speaking it in shops, cafes/restaurants (which I don't go to very often), and screaming "COM LICENSA!!!" (roughly translated: "EXCUSE ME!!!") when trying to get past all the meandering Brazilians on Avenida Paulista.  On the plus side, my verbal comprehension is very good; i.e, I can understand everything you say but I will talk back to you like a 3-year-old.

Personal life: don't even go there.

Cachorro Fofinho

What I, or should I say we (just to be fair), have been dealing with mostly this week is the dog.  On Sunday he managed to get his paws caught in the escalator on the metro and had a rather nasty and bloody accident.  It looked a lot worse than it was.

We had to rush him to local veterinary hospital (!) for emergency treatment.  By the way, taxi drivers are assholes.  They wouldn't take us the impossibly-far-to-drive 6 blocks to the vets because we had a dog, despite the fact they could see very clearly that he was bleeding and he's TINY.

The vet hospital was better equipped and staffed than most human hospitals I have had the pleasure to see the inside of.  Most of the staff didn't speak English, so we had to communicate in very basic Portuguese (I'm beginning to graduate to full sentences, but still reverting to a pigeon version of the language when I'm in a hurry), using various hand signals and eventually Google Translate.

They had to clean up his wounds and he yelped, squealed and barked his way through the whole thing - even after they administered a sedative.  He's a chihuahua, they're "agitado" (jumpy/fussy) in general.

Then he vomited everything we fed him for about 2 days - including his antibiotics - so since Tuesday he has had to go to the vets twice a day for antibiotic shots.  He hates going there and saves all his pee for whoever is unlucky enough to be administering the shots.  He's eating special [expensive] mush for his dicky tummy and he's still refusing to drink water, so we mix it into the mush to make sure he doesn't get dehydrated.

Other than that, he's happily hobbling along on his messed up paws (no broken bones, just a couple of nails came off - hence the blood) that are healing quite well, and is enduring his neck cone.  Bless.

"When this thing comes off, I will have my revenge..."

Communication blocks, gays and supermarkets!

OK, so I NEED to learn Portuguese.  FAST.  There’s only so many hand signals I can think of for “yes, he’s a very cute dog” (people keep stopping us on the street whenever we take my mum’s Chihuahua out for a walk).  Here is a picture of said dog – named ‘Squirt’ – to illustrate:

Squirt the chihuahua*

The weather is pretty warm here, but it dips right down at night by about 15C.  Being on the 7^th floor makes it even colder.

The supermarkets here are quite impressive – very little processed food.  They never got mad cow disease here because they wouldn’t be daft enough to feed their animals anything other than what they naturally eat.  Vegetables and fruit are plentiful and varied – some things I’ve never seen before and I don’t even know if there are actual English names for them.  Garlics and onions usually have an entire section to themselves – they’re usually surrounded by huge piles of dead skins, presumably because people don’t want to pay for the bits they aren’t going to use. You wouldn’t get away with that shit in Sainsbury’s.

Things are not dirt cheap here, so if you think you’re going to come on holiday and spend hardly any money, think on.  Prices are very slightly less or on a par with London as far as most things are concerned.  Food shopping is slightly cheaper, but electronics cost a bomb.  I’m waiting for someone to fly over from London so I can ask them to bring me a bloody flatscreen.  Screw paying R$1249 (£500) for a not particularly impressive 32” LCD.  I’m more than happy to pay whatever tax the customs want to slap on, and the £70 additional baggage fee – it’s STILL cheaper than buying it here.

There’s something to be said for having a lesbian haircut here – I don’t look like a soft touch (even when I’m carrying the Chihuahua) & every gay guy who speaks English is falling all over themselves to tell me what to do, where to go, where “our people” hang out.  We went to have a look at the Portuguese school the other day to check it out – mostly so we know where the hell we’re going – and one of the teachers there recommended an area in Rio for us to look for flats.  “I think it’ll be good for you,” he said, nodding, “the beach there is very nice.  It’s OUR beach.”  I swear he was doing jazz hands as he said that.

I’m starting to understand what pretty much every Brazilian I know has said to me about Sao Paulo: “yes there’s a lot to do there, but I wouldn’t want to live there”.  The place is dirty, busy, dangerous, overcrowded, and doesn’t even make up for it in beauty the way Rio does.  Or so I’ve heard. 

P.S. These are great, you should try one.

*Squirt is the official company mascot of the website BeARichBusinessBitch.com - check it out!