11/12 - Você fala Inglês?

The importance of learning Portuguese is quite obvious and came down on me pretty right away. After less than 14 hrs in the country; the phone rang on Friday morning. A presumably very polite man said something in Portuguese…repeated it about 5 times, cut the sentences down to some key words…tried again…and so on, and I had absolutely no idea what he was talking about. Was it a question? An emergency? Information? No clue whatsoever. After a few minutes he’d been able to track down an English-speaking colleague who kindly informed me that a breakfast basket was waiting for me at the reception. Don’t want to miss out on treats like that in the future just because the English-speaking guy is having a day off.