Hi, my name is Eva, welcome to my travel blog.
I travel since I was a kid but seriously started to discover other continents and more countries in 2006, first in Europe, then in Central America and Africa.
Currently I live in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.
Subscribe to my YouTube channel and check my Instagram profile for more recent pictures and visual stories of my travels.
Categories
Chat Like Brazilian And Never Miss The Valentine's Day
12 May 2019
I met some friends today, and you know in Brazil it doesn't end there - you don't just meet people, then go home and forget it. No, no, no.
Once you are in a(ny) group they will put you in the zap zap (pronounced zapee zapee), yes, zap zap, so you can keep in touch with news and basically keep chatting forever. I sometimes think what they do all days, whether they work or are just pretending to work? I never have time to actively keep chatting simply because I need to work, cook, sleep etc. etc.
So what is it zap zap? Well, when you live in Anglo-Saxon world you learn to pronounce like English. When you live in a different country you learn that people customise English vocabulary and expressions to their own language. I can't remember how I got the meaning of the word, whether it came naturally because I learned Brazilian Portuguese pronounciation or someone gave me a hint. Long story short the effect of living in Brazil is that you get into plenty of WhatsUp groups, yes, za-pee groups. They absolutely love it and it's the most popular way of communicating.
To continue the story - after meeting today with friends we kept talking on zap and I learned that tomorrow (12 May) is the Mother's Day. Wow. Yeah, I already know it may be different in different countries. For instance it's 23 March in England and 26 May in Poland. But then there are things in common like Children's Day or Father's Day or the Valentine's Day is on 14 February across the Western World.
In Brazil almost everything is different: Children's Day falls in October, Father's Day falls in August and the Valentine's Day happens in June. I'm happy at least Christmas and Labour's Day is the same, I am enough confused with other celebrations. And when I think that Brazil's autumn is in what I always considered spring, summer looks like winter and the school year starts in February/March I have hard time to position myself in time and indeed feel like living in an upside down world or on a different planet.
Ah, and they also celebrate Christmas with fireworks! It's not only the New Year's Day attraction ;)