From: Tomer Morad [tomer_morad@hotmail.com] Sent: שבת 23 פברואר 2002 1:43 To: tomer_morad@hotmail.com Subject: The Carnaval! Oi (Hello) Everyone! Oh, south america! I am so glad I made the decision to cut my time in New Zealand and spend it here! Every day something new! In this edition: Buenos Aires, Brazil, the carnaval, beautiful beaches, the police and more... So my last email ended promptly before I boarded my flight. The flight to Buenos Aires took only 10.5 hours (the other way took 13). I must tell you the most annoying thing I find about flights: it is when I ask for an exit row seat for my legs, be told that all those seats are taken, and then see a midget sitting there! But no worries - I was awarded by sitting next to two very nice argentinians who mad the flight fly. Coming to buenos aires was great, seeing people with life again, and meeting some old friends. After two days I boarded a flight to Recife, Brazil, and then headed to the nearby town of Olinda. In Olinda I met with my friend Gabby, and we are travelling together since. We rented an apartment with four other Israelis. The carnaval was great, as we were acting like little boys - dancing in the streets and shooting people with water guns. It was a real unique experience, as it was in such a large scale, and not intended for tourists but to the locals themselves. There were bands of trumpets and trombones, who played the same four songs over and over. For the openning of the carnaval, we went to the city of Recife. There were too many people and it was so crowded that it took the fun out of it. Me and gabby were on one of the bridges, and when the people started to dance, the bridge danced with them. Realizing this we left the place immediately... On one of the bridges one person took my bandana from my head! I couldn't believe it until ten seconds later I felt the hand of another person inside my pocket... Don't worry I had nothing there. When I heard all the horror stories about Salvador and the violence that was there, I realized what a safe place olinda was... When the carnaval ended we had to calculate how much each person in the apartment has to pay for each night. So we calculated and paid. You are probably thinking now why I told you this tiny little detail. Don't worry, you will soon find out! Anyway, after the four other israelis left the place (two girls who were friends and the parents of one of them), we talked to the owner and she told us that the girls stayed in the apartment longer than we were told - meaning that we paid much more than we were supposed to (almost twice)! They lied to us, in order to steal about $50. This made us mad, but they were already on the bus to salvador, which is about 1000km from there, so we forgot about it. Our next jurney was to Natal, and as there was nothing to do there we continued to a beautiful beach resort named Praia Da Pipa. It consists of mainly one street with bars, cafes and a few discos, with three wonderful beaches. We had a really relaxed time there, and even saw dolphins! We also went on a horseback riding trip for a few hours to see the sunset. >From Pipa we had a 19 hour trip which consisted of four busses and one van to get to Salvador. This place is the cultural center of brazil, with alot of artwork and music. Then it happened... Gabby was innocently surfing the internet while an israeli girl sat next to him... She was talking to him, but it was only until the middle of the conversation when he realized who she was - The girl from the apartment from Olinda! So gabby asked her how many days she stayed there, and she lied again. He told her that we know the truth and she told him that I must have misunderstood the landloard. So gabby called me from the hotel, and we went together to talk to her. We explained to her that I speak spanish and portugaise and I know exactly what the landloard told me, and that I wasn't exactly dumb. We told her that we want our money back now. She tried to stall us by saying that we can fix it all tomorrow, but we waited for her outside the shop and escorted her to her hotel. In the hotel after another attempt to stall she told us that she was going to her room to put her bag, and then come down and talk about it. She never came down... Meanwhile we talked to her friends and they told us that they were all leaving the following morning! We asked her friends to call her from her room, but they said she wasn't there anymore... We explained to the guard of the hotel the situation and asked him to look for her, and he told me to look from outside the hotel as she was on the porch. After this little game of hide and seek she agreed to come down and talk. We talked to her and she agreed on all the facts but said that she will not pay us without the others paying also. She was also very annoying and I could not talk anymore out of anger. Gabby, with alot of patience, tried to convince her to pay, but again with no success. She was eventually saved by the guard that told us that we should leave because it was midnight. As the conversation was not moving forward we threatened to call the police. She was not impressed by the threat, and niether was the guard. So we had to leave... We then found in a distance of eight meters from the hotel a group of three very bored policemen, and explained the situation to them. They decided to help us and talk to her. So we went to the hotel (8 meters) and a policeman went to talk to the girl. Soon the guard called me in, for one of the funniest parts of my trip. Inside I saw the girl, her friend, an english guy that had a good portugaise and therefore served as the translator, and the hotel guard. Soon after the translator heard the story he became completely one sided and started to incite the policeman against the girl. I had a spanish lesson in buenos aires about a thief that robbed a bank, and it really helped me understand and explain - thanks sonia! So my job was to incite the translator, and his was to incite the policeman... The translator said to the policeman that she stole money from me and she should give it back, and she was a thief. After hearing more details the translator tried to convince her to pay, but with no success. His exact words were "unfuckingbelieveable!", and "How can you wake up in the morning and look at yourself in the mirror", and more sentences of the same idea... Her defence tactics were not that good as she was very afraid of the police. She then tried to seem miserable by saying that she has no money for her trip and that she needs this money... The translator then tried to explain to her (shouting) that it is not her money and she should give it back. She then tried to say that she agrees to pay but only if the others pay... I asked the translator to translate this to the policeman and he couldn't believe. The translator also had an idea on how to collect the money - he told the policeman "why don't you block the others from leaving the country?" All this time she couldn't understand a word and therefore it became even funnier... As she refused to give back what she had stolen, the policeman said to the translator - "tell her to come with me". VICTORY! I imagined how she will probably spend the night in the police station - A few punches by some big policemen and she will pay! Eventually I began feeling sorry for her. I didn't want to read in the papers about an israeli that was arrested in brazil and never heard from since... As we were approaching the door, I was offered to settle the whole thing if she pays her part. It was so easy to put her away, but I decided it was still too mean - so I agreed. We got one fourth of the stolen money - but we still want the other three quarters!!! So if you meet a Vardit whose father's name is Dany, and they live in carmiel, beware! This is a family of crooks! The girl that we met here is named Reut, and she is even worse than the family... They must be 20-21 years old. Good thing I know more people from Carmiel to contradict this impression! So... I've got two weeks to go for my trip. I still haven't decided what I'll do with them. Maybe we will hunt Vardit down... Chau, The Gringo. _________________________________________________________________ Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com/intl.asp.