Making a fool of ourselves!

Living and Learning

As any person abroad, we have been facing some differences. In Brazil, for example, it is not common to use coin operated clothes dryer machine like here in North America. Because of that, we have an interesting story to tell you about our broad understanding of those machines. 

In the cottage that we initially were, there were two very similar machines, one with the lid on top, as we have in Brazil, and one with the lid on the front part. I chose the second one. I did not find the place to put the powder soap, but I thought the machine was so powerful that would wash and dry without powder soap. Sixty minutes later, I picked the clothes up. And all of them were warm. Perfect! I told my husband: "this machine is practical, but it does not wash very well, the clothes are not smelling good". And he said: "Maybe you should put the powder soap directly in the clothes". 

In the second use, I followed his advice and throw soap on top. But, again, I did not like the result... Week three: I selected the other machine. Sixty minutes later, clothes were washed and smelling good, but… still wet. So in that moment, finally, we had the great insight! We figured out that during our first two weeks we were “washing” the clothes in the clothes dryer machine!!! Of course the clothes did not smell good in the first two weeks… We laughed a lot and sometimes we remember how smart we were washing our clothes in the dryer.

Other funny story, now it happens at the gym. I was picking the weights gym up to work out and I thought that all the weights were weightless, so I chose the number “6” and said to myself: "Wow, I'm stronger here, working out with 6 Kg weight for each arm”. So, I was finding myself stronger during some weeks. Some weeks later, I was in a store that sells the same gym weights when I noticed that the weights were in pounds, not in kilograms. It means, I was working out with 2.73 kg.

The last one! The first time Renato and I went to the grocery store we did not have our own recyclable bags. And when we arrived at the cashier to pay, where are the plastic bags to put our purchase? There were no plastic bags with handles, only paper bags without handles. As a result, we walked back home (5 km) hugging the paper bags. Lesson learned. Now we always carry our recyclable bags and even earn cents off because of it.

Living and learning. See you!