Last night I ventured to Extra with Gallagher, one of my newbie buddies. She's one of the 3 Erin's at EAB, hence the last name only. Extra in Brazil is like Walmart. Well, kinda. It's like a Super Walmart in selection of things. Prices living in Brasilia compared to the Midwest are much more expensive depending on what you buy (that would make for a good comparsion blog entry sometime - I'll get on that one Maz).
Anyway, my Extra goal was purchasing a Brazilian hairdryer and hair straightener (been using my travel ones for 2 months) and Erin's goal was buying a replacement coffee pot. The bottom of her pot literally fell off one morning while brewing.
Gallagher and I decided to make this our first Metro trip and then planned to take a taxi home. We walked to the stop closest to her apartment, bought tickets and were off 4 stops to Extra. We were going the reverse way of the commute so not too crowded.
One thing I should mention is that it's gotten really HOT in Brasilia in the past week. I mean HOT. Like walk out the door and you're sweating kind of hot. So please, as you read on, remember the heat. Paints a prettier picture. Well, sweatier is more like it.
Brasilia's Metro is clean, efficient and very quiet. From the station to the people. Quiet. It's kinda weird since especially here I'm so used to noise...insects, people talking, music so it was way quiet and the train itself too! There are two Metro lines in Brasilia
So we exited the train, walked out of the station, down a couple flights of stairs and across a parking lot to Extra. Inside, grabbed a cart and walked up and down the aisles looking for above items as well as a few extras...bottles of wine, toilet paper (12 roll pack), ironing board cover (since mine has already been burned through), surge protectors, coffee, pasta, coffee mugs, bowls, frying pan and a few other odds and ends. Success!
We checked out, told the cashier we wanted to pay debito (debit cards) and bagged up our purchases into the tiny plastic bags (about 1/3 the size of plastic shopping bags back home). We had about 12 bags total. Side note for all my environmental friends. I brought my reusable bags to Brazil but forgot them in my classroom. Lots of other things to navigate so please be forgiving.
Erin and I took our cart down the metal escalator (one with magnets so you are on the same one as the cart) and walked out into the parking lot looking for taxis. We saw none. We pushed the cart further along. No taxis. All the way to the end of the lot, no taxis. This left us one choice. The Metro.
So that hill we had walked down before, we used the ramps and pushed the cart all the way up to the Metro station. I'm not a good estimator of distance but it was pretty far and I'm sure pretty funny. Two gringas pushing a shopping cart to the Metro.
We got to the Metro station, unpacked the cart and loaded up our arms with all of our purchases. Went into the station, I put down the purchases, bought 2 more tickets (while forgetting how to say 100 in Portuguese - our stop's name was 108 so I faked it using Spanish and Portuguese together). Then we schlepped ourselves up the escalator to the platform where one of the handles of one my bags promptly broke. I refashioned the tie as we waited for the next train to arrive.
Train arrived, we got on it and found a spot. In fact one person actually got up because we had so much stuff and gave us her seat. We were getting all sorts of stares from people on the train. No, not looks, stares. Hard core. I know, we were probably the only 2 gringas on the train. But then add to that image of 2 gringas...sweat, 12 bags of stuff and rush hour on the Metro. People were staring at us. I'm sure we were dinner table conversation for at least 10 families.
4 stops later, we arrive at 108 (the stop closest to Erin's house), put all the bags on our arms and exit the train with many others. People were turned around on the escalator looking at us. Sorry, staring at us. For what felt like a minute. As we were exiting the Metro, Gallagher joked that she wished we had a camera so so we could have captured the stares and also what we looked like to everyone else. So wish we had. We exited the Metro and began to sweat more. I was carrying the 12 pack of toilet paper which due to my arms now getting sweaty began slipping out of my arms as we're walking, trying to carry that and school bags back to Erin's apartment.
We made it to her service elevator and her portero (guard) opened the door for us. He asked us if we wanted to use the shopping cart and Gallagher said no, next time. We got in the elevator, Erin pushed the 4 button and prompty the bag I was carrying that held a bottle of wine and carton of milk broke. Thankfully only the wine bottle fell and it survived.
Actually we survived our first independent Extra trip. Survived our first Metro trip, carrying an insane number of bags in the most inefficient way, schlepped them to her apartment and nothing broke. Yea! And think of all the glass we carried.
To celebrate this accomplishment or maybe it's better said to unwind after our crazy newbie trip to Extra, we went our for drinks at a nearby restaurant. 4 large bottles of perfectly chilled Skol (Brazilian beer) later, we parted ways and crashed for an early night. Always an adventure...
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