You know you're a gringa in Brazil when...

Versão original em português

1. You go to a restaurant, read the menu, and wonder, "X-salad? X-burger? X-chicken? X-bacon? X-WTF?" ("X" sounds like "shee" in Portuguese, and it means cheese is added to the sandwich.)
2. You're afraid of escova progressiva (a popular hair-straightening process that uses chemicals known to cause cancer).
3. You ask for "pau" in a bakery. ("Pão" is bread but without the nasalization, a sound that's difficult for foreigners to make, it means "wood," which is also slang for "dick.")
4. You can't read "kkk" without thinking about a racist group. (Americans laugh "haha," but Brazilians laugh huahuahua, hihihi, rsrsrs or kkk.)
5. A Brazilian tells you that you speak Portuguese better than Henry Sobel and thinks that this is a compliment. (Henry Sobel is an eccentric American rabbi of Portuguese descent who has lived in Brazil for decades and speaks the language fluently, but for some reason, chooses to speak it with a ridiculous American accent.)
6. You discover that people from Rio think they're better than people from São Paulo, people from São Paulo think they're better than people from Rio, and people from Rio Grande do Sul refuse to accept they're Brazilian.
7. You teach English under the table. (Because as much as foreigners complain about the process to gain a work visa in the United States, it's about 10X harder for an American to legitimately work abroad because most countries are far more protectionist.)
8. A friend tells you that the party starts at 7 p.m., so you arrive at 7 p.m. And no one is there. (Time is relative in Brazil.)
9. You send emails about David Goldman.
10. You're given a nickname based on your skin color, and you think that's racist. (Brazilians don't view race in the same way that many Westerners do, so it's quite common to encounter nicknames that translate as "Little black guy," "Little Japanese girl" or "Ghost girl.")
11. Now when you go to an American beach, you think the other women look like they're wearing diapers. (No, Brazilians don't typically wear thong bikinis, but bikini bottoms are considerably smaller.)
12. You were almost hit by a car when you entered the pedestrian crossing because you trusted the drivers would stop.
13. You feel guilty about having a maid.
14. It took you a while to realize why there was a small trash bin next to the toilet, and by then, you needed a plumber.
15. You wonder, "Why aren't there any seatbelts in the backseat of cars? Does a magical forcefield protect passengers?"
16. You almost had a heart attack the first time you used an electric shower.
17. You go to a soccer match and still think it's a sport for girls.
18. You forget what it's like to live in a country that follows laws and learn to embrace the "jeitinho." When you return to the US, you try to bribe a government worker and are arrested.
19. You have Orkut and even know how to pronounce it "correctly," but you think Facebook is better.
20. You have dramatic friends who delete their Orkut profiles because an ex is "stalking" them or because they've decided Orkut is garbage, but two weeks later, they create a new profile and add you again.
21. Your friends ask you to bring electronics back from the US. And you do. For a price.
22. You think it's strange to put corn, mayonnaise or mashed potatoes on a hot dog.
23. You think a motel is a place where you sleep. (A motel is not a hotel. In Brazil, like in Italy, many people live at home until they're married or have achieved a certain financial standard, which presents a problem when they want to have a little, ahem, fun. So, they go to one of the many love motels, which often have themed rooms and individual parking garages, so no one sees who you are.)
24. You don't understand why a lot of Brazilian women will wax their bikini line but bleach their thigh hair.
25. You make a lot of mistakes in Portuguese, but no one realizes because they make them too.