It's like a giant hug :)

The entire time I've been in Brazil, I've been in constant shock by how nice people are to me and to each other.

First, we can look at it from a customer service perspective. I just spent three months in Peru, where the customer service philosophy is certainly different than the one we have in the U.S. (you know, the one where the customer is the most important and is always right). In Peruvian stores, it was often high school kids working who didn't care one bit about answering your questions. I made some great friends in some of the smaller shops but, as far as big stores are concerned, customer service seemed a bit useless to me. In Brazil, on the other hand, I've never had such over-the-top customer service and I feel like it's weird to be treated this well just for shopping in someone's store.

Vere and I were buying yarn and material at a little shop one day and could not have been more obnoxious customers. We asked what felt to me like 100 different questions, had the ladies who worked there retrieve and put back countless strings of yarn and meters of material, and then stood there discussing our different options for way too long. If we were leaving that store in the U.S., the workers would've fake-smiled and (somewhat sarcastically) wished us a nice day because they had to, even though we were just a giant pain for them for the past hour. Well here in Brazil, for some reason, these women seemed ridiculously grateful to have had us in their store. As we were leaving, the one touched our arms, looked into our eyes, and gave us the most sincere thank-you I think I've ever heard. I was so confused.... We walked out of the store and I ranted the whole way back about how we were such pains in the ass and the fact that I didn't understand how she could be so nice to us.

In my opinion, a perfect synonym for Brazil would be patience. It seems to be the foundation of every aspect of life here. For example, the majority of the music we've heard is a very chill type of samba or forro. The majority of it is not crazy-fast like my favorite salsa songs, but a lot calmer. Even the language, itself, is extremely patient. The Brazilian Portuguese intonation is slow, calming, beautiful and reassuring. I'm pretty sure that anyone freaking out about something could be immediately pacified if they simply had a conversation in Portuguese (although I won't really be able to test that out for sure until I'm entirely fluent and don't have the language barrier, itself, stressing my out). I automatically feel happy, relaxed and at-peace when someone is speaking to me in Portuguese. It's beautiful.

Even though I'm currently in Brasilia, where the people are not even close to being considered the kindest in the country and where there's no ocean to be found, I feel that relaxed, island vibe everywhere I go. It's warm weather, beautiful blue skies and pure tranquility all around; the sounds of Portuguese and Brazilian music float through the air and smiles greet you everywhere you go.

Since I've been able to stay in one spot in the country for a while now, I've gotten to know some people and have noticed how much more touchy-feely Brazil is than other places I've been. I've noticed that even older married couples are always holding hands, rubbing each other's shoulders or touching in some way when they're in public, the way we do in the U.S. when we're in middle school or high school. It's really sweet but totally caught me off-guard at first.

Friends do this, too. I went to a get-together of Vere's coworkers (who are all close friends) and I noticed that they were all doing things like holding hands, touching arms, and playing with each others' hair. Someone even started playing with my hair at one point and I'd just met them. In the U.S. it's only close girl-friends that do this and it's not as often. This group seemed like a giant family to me, though; everyone (different ages, skin colors, sexual orientations) was equally included and loving toward each other. It seems that, in Brazil, touch is a much more widely-used love language than in the U.S. I could see a lot of people in the U.S. being uncomfortable with this but I, who love hugs, love it!