Library Cards and Hot Dogs

Well, we made it through Carnaval! A couple of times we found ourselves at blocos where everyone was singing along to the music and dancing so freely and I have never felt whiter! My Puritanical blood rebelled against even trying to imagine my body moving in those ways. While things were closed, we killed time by running, studying Portuguese (on our own – no classes from Friday to Thursday), working (on one of three presentations I somehow agreed to give in Portuguese in a few weeks), and watching The Good Place. We tried to go to the mall on Monday with Shelby but it was closed, not that she could have gotten to our house through the bloco anyway (one of our runs accidentally took us through a bloco that took us half an hour to get through!). By Wednesday I was going so stir-crazy that we went over to Victoria’s house and hung out with her and her lovely family for a while, which was really nice.

Yesterday I had a long-awaited first meeting with the state library people (the director and two department-heads, plus my advisor)! I was really nervous. Even though they spoke slowly, I still left feeling like I had only understood about 20% of the conversation, and I think I agreed to do another talk (10 minutes this time). The staff members I met with are all really nice and I have a meeting on Monday with one of them so she can give me a tour of the library.

Also as we were leaving, I asked Marilia if I could get a library card and she helped me go to the children’s desk (the adult section is closed right now for a reason I didn’t catch) and get one, and then she took my picture! It seems very fitting for a children’s librarian to get her library card in the children’s room, and for her “grownup” to take her picture like she’s a kid 🙂

Here’s the answer to the last trivia question: The word “hockey” in Portuguese refers to rock music. The Portuguese R at the beginning of a word is pronounced like an H, and they have a hard time with words that are not consonant/vowel/consonant/vowel, so with a word that ends in a consonant sound (rock, Marc, Duke) they tend to add an “ey” ending to make it easier to say. (So yes, Marc becomes Marky!)

Ok, new trivia! Which of the following is NOT a topping on cachorros quentes (hot dogs) with the works, as you might find at a food truck at a Carnaval bloco:
a) ketchup
b) white sauce
c) red sauce
d) batata palha (tiny crunchy french fry-type things)
e) corn
f) raisins

If you want to take a stab at it, I’d love to see comments on this post!