Different

I remember when I was a kid going to Austria in the summer (my mother is Austrian).  I always noted the little differences between Austria and Canada.  You know, electric outlets, cars, door handles, elevators.  Things are just...different.

Plugs

As you would expect, there are a lot of things different here as well. Like the electric outlets. These babies are never grounded and usually support two versions.  The older two hole version and the two flat plug version.

Showers

The other funny thing is showers.  With the ones in this house the water just falls on you from a great height.  - I think it's because this house doesn't have a lot of pressure.  Because Brazil has a lot of sun it's not uncommon for house to have solar hot water heating like this house has.  Of course, this means that some days the water will scald you and other days the water is luke-warm.  There's a supplemental electric hot water heater, but it's not often turned on.

This showerhead is scary because it has 220V wired to it.  The water is heated instantly. I think the idea is not to have a hot water tank, if possible, which would heat up the house more than necessary.

Bathroom

Continuing in the bathroom is the toilet - - there's no visible tank. You just press a button on the wall.  Kinda neat, but I wouldn't want to fix it when there's a problem.  Bidets are common in Brazilian households although that is changing.

Garbage

Putting out the garbage involves putting it in one of these baskets on the street. Ostensibly to keep the dogs out of it.  The city people pick up the garbage five times a week!

Coffee

Brazil is the worlds largest producer of coffee and the second largest consumer.   I'm not sure how this can be when they drink out of cups this small!  They even have tiny little spoons.

Beer

Brazilians like their beer cold.  Often when I get a can of beer it's frozen.  In the picture below there's still half a can of beer left, but it won't come out.  At parties they buy ice that has been made of salted water (the salt lowers the freezing temperature).  Ice made with water just isn't cold enough!

Common Misconceptions

Food

For some reason Canadians assume that everyone in hot countries like spicy food.  I have found that this is not the case in Brazil.  Most of the time the food is not spicy at all. Even their hot pepper sauce that they often have at the table isn't that hot.

Weather

Everyone thinks that Brazil is hot.  Well it's not.  Sure there are hot days and there are places that are hotter than others, but on the whole the weather is quite nice.  Here in Belo Horizonte the weather is a bit cooler (since we're in the mountains) and gets downright cold sometimes.

Middle Class

Research has shown that Brazil has probably the largest spread between the rich and the poor.  It's true, the poor here can be very poor (don't own a pair of shoes poor).   Amazingly, people can live here, somewhat comfortably, on very little money.   There is a middle class, however. People who can afford a new car would probably be considered middle class here.

Jungle

I think that Americans think that Brazil is one big rainforest, of course it's not.  In this state (and from a distance) I don't see a great deal of difference between Canadian fauna and Brazilian fauna.  Canada has grass and trees and so does Brazil.  I haven't see that many evergreen trees and there are palm trees.

The birds are a little different here.  The birds seem to have more white or green than Canadian birds.  A common variety of pigeons here are quite a bit smaller.

I haven't seen any squirrels here.  In Canada every tree seems to have a squirrel, but here I haven't seen any.

Bugs

Probably from the jungle mentality Canadians probably think this place is full of insects.  Well I'm happy to say that there are very few flying insects most of the time.  I drove for seven hours on the road and hit maybe three insects.

One thing that might scare a Canadian are the beetles that fly.  These things are quite big, but they don't bite and usually fly in the house by mistake.

One cool bug that I've seen only on TV and is quite common here are the leaf-cutter ants.  They are harmless (unless you are a tree) and I have seen them even in the city.

Cars are expensive!

We were looking a buying a car and had our eye on a Fiat Paleo.  We thought we would like a four door with air conditioning, good motor, ABS brakes, air bags, electric windows - doors.

But... air conditioning is R$2,000 ($1,500 CDN), ABS is R$1,700, Air bags are R$1,000...

Everything is an extra.  If you want electric windows they ask "Front or back?".  Rear window defrost is extra, power steering is extra.

In the end we were looking at R$20,000 for a small car.