Prccerpt from In with the East Wind: A Mary Poppins Kind of Life - Brazil
My experience in getting to know Brazil was very much like my experience in getting to know the USA, my home country. Like the US, Brazil is large—and I was lucky to be able to work in cities in nearly all regions. That allowed me to hear a lot of regional dialects, and, like in the USA, I could understand some better than others. (My favorite dialect was that of the area around Porto Alegre; it was so lyrical and easy to emulate. But then, I have a very special place in my heart for Porto Alegre, where I worked at many different tasks.) Before going to Brazil, I decided I needed to be able to understand and use the language, so I picked up a language learning book and some tapes. Unfortunately, I did not get a chance to spend dedicated time in language learning, so I had to resort to a crash course on the airplane there. Little did I realize in advance that it really would be a crash course. I took Delta Airlines from San Francisco through Los Angeles to Sao Paolo. BUT, it w...