How many nationalities does it take to successfully celebrate a birthday?

Answer: 6. Two Germans, Three Brazilians, an Austrian, a Guatemalteca, an American, and the Colombian Birthday Girl.

From left to right: Graça, Suzie, Ehidee

On Saturday evening we celebrated Ehidee’s birthday in a diverse array of Portuguese accents over some Birthday beers, and some traditional Brazilian guitar music which then transitioned into eighties covers when they ran out of Brazilian favorites. The group was quite an interesting mix: The Brazilian-born son-of-two-Germans spent most of the evening trying to elicit some sort of reaction from Carmen, the Guatemalteca. In addition to taking advantage of every opportunity to have his picture taken with the two of us (see below).

The Austrian owner of a Brazilian microbrewery was quite happy-go-lucky, and I learned much about the .5% of the Brazilian beer market which is comprised of microbreweries. He confirmed my assessment of the fact that there are, in practicality, no imported beers in Brazil. That when I am drinking Stella Artois or Heineken, they have been bottled in the Southern Hemisphere.

The younger German spent some time complaining about his headache, but seemed to be enjoying texting enthusiastically (rather more than conversing with the diverse array of female company). At one point Ehidee turned to me and said: “¡Me encantan los hombres que prefieran jugar con sus celulares que conversar con la gente!” (“Don’t you just love men that prefer playing with their cellphones to actually talking to people?”) I promptly burst into laughter and responded “¡Como no!”(“How could you not?”) He did not look up.

Ehidee had already informed me about Suzie’s same-sex preferences, but Suzie also decided to inform me herself. The conversation went as follows (a rough translation from Portuguese).

Suzie: “I want to tell you something…..I’m a lesbian.”

Me: “I know. No big deal—she (Ehidee) told me.”

Suzie: “At first when I saw the rainbow flag in your room, I thought….”

Me: (laughter)

Suzie: “But then I figured out it was just a peace flag.”

(laughter)

Suzie: “It’s ok: I’ve already been with an American.”

Me: “And?”

Suzie: “It was boring. The only thing she knew how to say in Portuguese was “você e muito bela—“it got old.”

Lessons of the evening:

Don’t hand your camera to a drunk German/Brazilian unless you are willing to relinquish it for a while.

If you’re going to try to seduce someone of either sex, you’d best learn how to tell them something in their native tongue other than that they are attractive.