Certainly Not in Canada

These are many of the things that remind us that we are far away from home (even though the normally unusual is becoming unusually normal as time goes on). Here are a few:

1) Showers - having to justify taking a shower in the morning - here showers are most often for the afternoon or evening. I tried, but I just end up feeling gross all day.
2) Salt and . . . toothpicks (as opposed to pepper) on the table
3) Blistering heat in November/December - the weather makes it very difficult to remember the month, that's for sure.
4) Shoes - fighting the feeling of wanting to remove my shoes after entering people's houses (somehow I haven't adjusted to that completely)
5) No cheddar cheese - it's been almost three months already! They have something they call cheddar cheese, but Jess and I discovered early on that what they really mean is cheese whiz. Not even close to the real thing.
6) Portugized English:
"A gente might have to sair soon"
"Is the key with you?"
7) Seatbelts - explaining to people that I wear a seatbelt even when I'm riding in the back seat because it's the law back home.
8) The absence of brown sugar. Haven't seen any since we've arrived. They've got something called mascavo, which is a dark sugar but powdery, and thick granuled white sugar, but no brown. I would never have imagined. It makes for experimentation when baking (which is right up Jess' alley).
9) It now feels wrong to put the toilet paper in the toilet, even when I can.
10) House plants growing outdoors - the most spectaclar so far was an enormous Ficus benjamina tree.
11) Computer keyboards - you have to learn to type differently or else you end up getting accents instead of apostrophes.
12) Common cutlery - steak knives are considerably more abundant than butter knives.
13) The News - a lot more blood and guts and gore up close than I ever remember seeing back home. We hear about it in Canada, but more often than not I find I actually see it here.
14) The price of Hagen Daaz ice cream - it's already considerably more expensive than other ice creams back home at $6 for 500mL, but here it goes for $9!
15) Maids/housekeepers - it's a respectable job and extremely common to have one here, but I just can't help feeling guilty about having someone hired to clean up after me.
16) Milk - most people use the kind that comes in cartons that don't need to be refrigerated until you open them - Ultra Heat Treated.
17) Gas stations - they're always full serve, and the attendants are often dressed up with blouses that are tucked into their matching pants, wearing a tie, or a little scarf, and waving the cars into their spots like planes coming in from landing.
18) The meal that comes after lunch - it can either be lanche, which consists of something light such as a sandwich and something to drink, or janta, which is a full meal. Or you can do both. This/these meal(s) take place anytime from about 6pm until midnight, and it never seems to be the same thing two days in a row. I've learned just to go with the flow, but truthfully I find it very confusing never knowing if I'm eating for the last time or not . . .
19) It being okay to give people nicknames based on their race, skin colour, body size/shape - we are often shocked. I'll leave it at that.
20) Noise - there are a lot more hard surfaces, a lot more tile, and a lot less insulation in buildings here than back home, which leads to lots of echo. I get auditory overload quite easily when there's a large group of people. At times I wish I could invent an ear funnel to siphon out the things I want to listen to in all of the noisy chaos.