I still remember the first time I walked inside a grocery store here in America - June of 2009, Walmart, Marietta, GA. I was so excited and as I got inside it... shock. People of all types and sizes there: everything I had seen in movies before was there before me. The first thing to be noticed in any type of store here in this country: the professionalism - everybody smiling, being respectful to you wherever you walk to... people always ready to serve, to engage you into consuming more. The rule we always hear about is real here: the customer is always right.

Here in Georgia, specially the city I was in, we have a huge hispanic community, and I still could sense people staring at me: compared to people here I'm too skinny... and too tiny. What we see on tv about obesity here... it's real. I've seen people overweight to the point of not being able to imagine how heavy they are. At that point, I started questioning myself how it was possible for people to have so much money, the possibility to buy pretty much  anything they want, and still choose not to be healthy. In my mind, keeping your weight something we in Brazil would call 'normal' was a choice... when it's not, really. Just by walking around by a few minutes, I noticed that people like me are not that common... that most people have passed the line of being healthy concerning keeping their body weight a long time ago, to the point of not caring about that anymore. Honestly, I started getting aflicted... more people staring at me. I asked my friends - other internationals from Colombia and Japan who shared an apartment on campus with me - where the fruits and vegetables were, and to my extreme surprise... they were restricted to ONE aisle. I'm being dead serious. NO JOKE. ONE AISLE. Worse than all that... everything expensive. Do you want to buy bananas? Pay $5.00 for three, four of them... and ugly ones. Pineapple? You're not able to find a full one to cut at home... you can just find them already cut and ready to eat, for something around $7.00 dollars for a whole pineapple that you'll just have the work of opening the plastic container and swallowing. Grapes? Just seedless. Apples? Cut to pieces, with no need of peeling. Everything ready for you? I started getting uncomfortable. The first thought that came to me: are American really that lazy? Is all this really happening? I tried to catch my breath and then went to the next aisle... as seven other ones, all frozen food. All your work? Getting the container out of the box and sticking it into the microwave. A meal of corn, chicken nuggets and a little mac n' cheese for $1.00 dollar. Ramen noodles (university student's favorite food, as they call themselves mostly poor and broken while driving their BMWs and brand new Corollas to the campus) for $0.18 cents a piece. Chinese meal similar to noodles that you just add water to and also put into the microwave for $0.69 cents. A paradise or nightmare? Coming from my world of having my dad as an awesome cook and teacher on that at home... it felt more like a nightmare. Up to that point, microwave was something far from my reality... I never had one at home. What I heard is that they liberate can cause cancer and so on... and since my health was always above my laziness for cooking, I would always find myself among pots and pans. FOR REAL.

A few more interesting observations concerning this first shopping experience:

-due to a lot of people being overweight - and because of that having problems to talk, breathe or move in any way - in all the stores you have automatic shopping karts available for you. All you have to do to enjoy your shopping experience is sitting on the kart and pressing your button... no walking will be needed as long as you're buying something;

-the portions in the packages here are HUGE - what they call 'Family Size', what makes them cheaper... but from what I've seen, it also leads people to eat a lot more food than necessary;

-the amount of products related to making houses smell good - candles, air fresheners, sprays and so on. To be honest, being crazy about perfumes as I am, and how cheap those products are here... that felt like paradise;

-Americans use credit cards all the time... you barely see people paying for whatever they buy in cash. I had to learn that the hard way after having people giving me the 'weird eye' for carrying so many dollar bills with me and for keeping the lines too long while counting my coins to pay for my groceries. I've embarassed myself several times until I came to the realization that yes, I had to surrender to plastic money: credit card;

-meat is extremely expensive here, and once again, everything comes in packages already cut and clean, sometimes even with all the spices. All you need, once again, is just sticking it inside the microwave or inside the oven (along with using with some canola oil SPRAY, so then you don't have to touch the pan and feel you're messing yourself while trying to cook a meal. Sticking fingers and hard work while preparing your meal here? NO WAY! :)

-you can find fish already prepared and just read to go to the oven or microwave relatively cheap - $4.29 dollars for ten tilapia fillets that taste really good (and for someone who already adored fish... that went to the top of my list as the meat I would consume for the next three years);

-exchange of products: if you buy something that later on you realize that doesn't fit or please you, you can just take it along with your receipt to the Customer Care area of the store and they will immediately replace it for you or give your full money back... no complaints, no weird eye... just fairness (I learned to love this!);

-self checkout: for this one, I've embarassed myself a thousand times until I got the handle of it. As you walk towards check out, you see some smaller lines... walk ahead and all you'll see in front of you is a machine through while you scan all you're buying, use the scale for the things you're buying per weight, bag your own groceries and yes... pay for it. At the first time I used it, I bursted out in laughter, thinking if that would work in Brazil... would it? Good and bad people are everywhere, but us Brazilians are known for our 'Brazilian way'... would that play a part in the whole story? ;)

As a way of sharing my adventures here in America, I definitely need to be more faithful in writing... and this is just a start!

Any questions, curiosities? Just contact me and I'll do my best to talk about it!

I love you all very much and miss our Brazil more than we know!

P.S.: If you want to go through a similar experience, we have a Walmart in Sao Paulo (in case you haven't already been there) - it's worth the try! ;)

Rua James Holland, 668 - Barra Funda
Sao Paulo