I cannot figure this place out.

I am disappointed in myself.

I speak Spanish, I took a class in Portuguese, I went to Brasil a couple of years ago.

I should have this place figured out by now. Mais, nao.

I cannot understand a thing anyone says to me.

I can barely figure out how shit works here.

I've got a couple of things figured out. At the kilo restaurants, before you enter, you tell the person at the door whether you want the all-inclusive thing (rodizio) or just the buffet. They give you a different ticket depending on which you ask for. If you're getting the buffet, you get your food, go to the weighing station (balancar) with your ticket, and they write down what the buffet costs.

You sit down, a waiter comes by and asks you if you want a drink, or dessert, and if you order any of these things, they mark it off on your ticket. At the end of your meal, you pay at the cashier (caixa), and let the doorperson have it so they let you you.

It took two tries to get this figured out. I would say I had it figured out after the first place we went to, but at the second restaurant I accidentally stole a passionfruit mousse. Oops.

All the buffet places work this way. A lot of the music places work this way, too. We went out for a night of samba at chopperia brazooka last week, and the system was almost the same. There's a cover... they give you a ticket with your name on it, and whatever drinks and snacks you order, they just mark off the tag. hopefully your drunken ass doesn't lost the thing, or they charge you the equivalent of USD100 instead of what you owe.

This is about ALL I've got figured out.

We wento to Porcao last night. Porcao is one of the most expensive, if not the most expensive rodizios in Rio. There are three or so, and the guide book recommends that we go to the one in Flamengo because it has great views. I also happen to live three blocks from a branch of the restaurant at home.

All was well and good until Justin orders a whisky off the booze cart. He orders Johnny Walker Red (hoping that Red was less pricey than the black). Instead of the guy pouring Justin a drink, he comes back with a fresh new unopened bottle and a whole bucket of ice. Of course, I panic, thinking the guy is giving us a whole bottle of Johnny Walker, so I say "Uma botelha- nao!" The guy, sensing my panic, basically tells me to calm down and shows that there is a strip of ruler taped onto the side of the bottle. We could drink as much as we wanted, and he would count the number of doses we took. I was in the moment unconvinced, and tell him to just take it away. He and Justin laugh at me, as I'm sure he's now thinking I'm the overbearing girlfriend who won't let her boyfriend drink. (Turns out that Johnny walker red, even at this expensive place, only costs about $8 a glass.)

Porcao is a great place. The meat was incredible. My favorite resaurant in NYC is Churrascaria Plataforma, but at $60 a person, I only go about once a year. There were a bunch of different cuts of meat at the Rio porcao that they don't have at home, but all of it amazing. There was a server named Rui who, even though we had the little tag up that said "NAO OBRIGADO" meaning "STOP WITH THE FUCKING CARNAGE ALREADY" kept coming by and joking with us about eating more meat. Maybe it was the untoppable giggling from the meat coma I was in, maybe it was because we clearly were from somewhere else. He spoke English in a broken, announcer style with a portuguese accent. He was hilarious. And Justin just couldn't say no to whatever he brought by. Ostrich, chicken hearts, whatever, and even though it was clear we wanted only a little, if anything at all, Rui kept dumping it on our plate. It was 10:30 and the place was starting to clear out. He then says "OK, so you want to see the kitchen??" He brings us into the kitchen, and the next thing we know we've got skewers of meat in out hands and they're holding my purse and taking pictures of us. Amazing place.

By the way, if you go, ignore your guide book. You just DO NOT walk here. There is no clear sign to get there, there is no walking path. The valet and taxi drivers are waiting outside, and they looked at us like we were nuts when we started walking away.

There's so much I can't figure out. There's a billion busses, and even though I've tried asking the bus driver and the attendant where we get off, we (or, more likely, they) are always wrong. We tried to go to the "city of samba" museum, and even though we asked a guy where to get off, and listened, we wound up, literally, outside of Rio. We took a wrong bus from Porcao last night, and even though it said "Copacabana," we missed it and wound up at the terminal stop at the end of Ipanema. Completely confused, we got off the bus and the next bus says it's going to "Cidade da Deus" which is the dangerous favela documented in the Brazilian film that became popular all over. We didn't take that bus, and eventually found our way back.

Even though it seems that I can't get a handle on how anything is done, the people here are really patient and understanding. No one has yelled, or rolled their eyes, or told us to hurry up, or get out of their way. It would be a lot more helpful if they spoke Portuguese a hell of a lot slower, but they speak really fast and don't speak too much English.

We've got two more weeks. It just might take us that long.

Don't even get me started on the busses.