Rio Grande

 Layne was discharged from the hospital around 11pm. This is how it looks on a sunny Good Friday. 

It looks from the outside like a ghastly Victorian prison but inside the staff are warm and friendly and take the time to figure out what’s happening. 

Layne got a blood draw ahdcthrynkrot her while they figured out how bad the infection was (not bad they said eventually. 

Meanwhile the Easter Bunny showed in a pink tutu with a chorus singing something. 

We got candy and a few laughs but whet the hell was going on was a mystery to me. 

Family members were crowded in on this holiday night and the good cheer, whatever it was, got everyone smiling for a while.

We were parked just up the street so I wandered back and forth checking on Rusty under the air conditioner which was running more for a swish of cool air on a humid night.

Things got a bit surreal after Layne was discharged. First they shook her hand and wished her a good night and said come back if it didn’t start healing. That was it. Is noticed there was no cashier or fierce guardian of the records. No charge, no fussing no nothing. That was it. Then I started driving and the plan was to park in a lot by the waterfront as approved by iOverlander. It was a bad night for that there was an Easter street fair underway and traffic was nuts.

I just followed the flow down bark streets at 11:30 at night with no idea where we were going. When the traffic thinned out I swung to the right, found a quiet street and parked. Good enough for the night. 

We spent a lovely quiet night on the street and in the morning we got up late. The air conditioner uses no power and is a wonderful addition, the Dometic  RTX2000 and takes the stuffiness out of our cabin on a humid 75 degree night. 

Good Friday is a holiday and Rio Grande was at the beach or in bed or at brunch. Wherever they were they weren’t on the  streets. All I saw was a handful of exercisers flitting here and there.

Don’t look too closely at the canal, it’s pretty dirty under the elegant balustrade. 

Shoot cannon; hit no one. 

I used to like working holidays as I got paid more, worked less as there are often fewer 911 calls on family holidays especially and my colleagues were grateful to have Christmas off.

Recent place and clean up the graffiti. 

The municipal theater: 

Nice door well protected against home invasions. 

Then we went food shopping. Thursday night I got sandwiches for our dinner in the hospital and the supermarket checkout was a zoo.

Good Friday morning it was empty. That was perfect for me to wander round enjoying the oddities. First of all the dog food. We didn’t know what to expect before we reached South America but Brazil has a thriving middle class and dogs are the beneficiaries. They tend to be status symbols too so rescuing street dogs is not always the goal as Brazilians are as obsessed as Americans with breeds. 

Below: these are refrigerated meat products, parts of animals you and I would prefer not to eat. I’m not sure if they are salted or smoked or cured in some peculiarly Brazilian way but they sure aren’t refrigerated. Go figure. 

This is my section, savory pastries with meats and cheeses. Next to the sweet pastries and cakes. Brazilians love their desserts called sobremesa (“above the table”) in Portuguese. 

And the hardware section. I focused on the suicide showers. Here you can buy and install your own at home. 

I have discovered hoses are totally weird in Brazil so I went to TVs hardware section to illustrate my belief. 

You buy a coil of hose and the end is simply cut. There is no welded on anything at the end. That’s because of all countries in the world only Brazil doesn’t use standard size fittings and it’s exasperating. 

You buy the hose and then  buy whatever fitting you want. 

To get my normal hose to screw in to a faucet u had to buy an adapter to scale it down to the narrow little screw size they use in this country. It’s not the end of the world but unlike electrical fittings which are completely different everywhere hoses are standardized in the rest of the world. 

Anyway I got over my frustration with my 75 cent hose as later and thought you might like to peruse the selection of suicide shower heads: 

The northern half of Brazil is 110 volts but down here it’s 220 volts d as ons across the country you have to check the voltage because you can never be sure. Even in states with 110 they sometimes off 220 to help out visitors from other parts of the country. Like the hoses it’s purely a Brazilian problem. 

The supermarkets are modern and well supplied and for us relatively inexpensive especially when you look at basic daily foodstuffs though for locals not on a dollar economy it can’t be easy. Cooked meat fish past and vegetable dishes all less that $2:50 and most much less. 

I used  to wonder if we’d ever see tortillas south of Mexico and we have seen commercial packages all the way. In Mexico of course you buy fresh handmade roadside but that would be expecting a lot. This is good enough: 

I read on a forum once a touridtbponderingvwhether or not to take an umbrella on vacation. If it starts raining you can easily buy one. 

Hawaiian flip flops, Brazils favorites. Layne found a pair of Crocs at Sam’s Club and snapped them up for me. I don’t like flip flops. 

And looked I found: a sword! Actually it’s a grilling spike thing which I will find a use for. It’s pretty cool. I made the teller laugh pretending to be a musketeer. Brazil sells such peculiar stuff. 

After the food shopping we got Layne’s meds, new antibiotics and powerful pain pills for less than $20 then we walked back to GANNET2 and took a break. 

We had lunch, we read, watched TV and then it was time to walk Rusty and do some laundry. 

We live Brazil’s do it yourself laundries. You load the washer and pay with your credit card. Set the time and you are done. The machine adds soap. Then you do the same for the dryer and you’re done. Easy. 

Especially easy when you live your home in front of the laundry. 

Then as the sun set we went into the center of town to our quiet street, not quite the same place, he’s settled for the night. 

And Laynes leg is showing slight but definite signs of improvement. Excellent.