Even the Mall Gets It

I can't say the mall -- or as they call it here, shopping -- is my favorite place to eat. However, when I was at Bourbon Country Shopping last night, I couldn't get over certain details. Namely that our pizza was served to us on real plates....with real cutlery, including knives sharp enough to actually cut the pizza. Talk about sustainable! Yes, yes, they did give us plastic cups for our plastic bottle of water, but c'mon, this is definitely impressive. I wish malls in the US would be so inspired. My guess is that malls here don't even think twice about this, that this is just how things are done and that labor is affordable enough (i.e. someone's gotta wash all these plates later) to sustain this sustainability.

Time to Get Touristy!

My boyfriend flew into town this afternoon with only a backpack.

Because his bags hadn't followed him quite as quickly. 

So, they'll be delivered to where I'm living in Porto Alegre sometime after we arrive in Foz de Iguaçu, where he's going to a symposium on circuits and systems and we're going to enjoy some amazing waterfalls.

This meant that for his first afternoon in this lovely city full of beautiful green trees, we had to do his least favorite thing: clothes shopping.

Seriously, I'm not sure he's actually gone clothes shopping since 1979. (And no, it's not because I've been buying clothes for him).

I haven't paid too much attention to men's clothing here, so I dragged him into a C&A downtown with blaring pop music (oh yeah, Spice Girls was on the playlist) just because it was cheap and I figured there'd be some basic options.

Poor man.

I tried to help him get it over with as soon as possible, and considering his zombie-I've-just-been-traveling-for-21-hours-how-am-I-supposed-to-figure-out-my-clothing-size-in-a-foreign-country state and my you-like-it-let's-buy-it-let's-go-let's-go-let's-go state, we did pretty well.

LUCKILY, he's already got some gaucho culture under his belt. Before we ventured into the shopping insanity, we stopped by the travel agent to rent a car for the first few days of March. And there, he was able to try his first chimarrão. Everyone looked at him anxiously and asked, "Did you like it?" I'm not sure if his "Yes, it's good, I like anything with caffeine" was as enthusiastic a response as they desired. But, he did drink it all. 

We fly out of here at a god-awful early hour tomorrow. And, surprising as it may appear, I'm not bringing my laptop. And yes, I do anticipate some separation anxiety. I figure I'm going to really test out this enjoy-being-with-my-boyfriend-and-detox-from-the-incessant-need-to-obsessively-check-the-internet-far-more-frequently-than-called-for thing.

So, see y'all a few days from now!