Brazil Day Zero Too: Beginning Language Struggles

The four of us girls are very equipped with the second lanuae of Spanish.  However, entering the whole new world of Portuguese was a struggle riht off the bat.  Trying to figure out how much we owed our taxi driver was quite a challenge.  It was very comical though, and he was kind natured, so we all got a good laugh out of it.  Checking into our hostel was a breeze because the workers at the hostel speak English.  A bit of time settling passed, and we entered the place we wanted to eat, but had no idea how it worked!  A man gave us slips of paper and disappeared.  We eventually mozied over to a table still unaware, trying to catch onto what the few other people were doing.  A lady beside us spoke to us in Portuguese but motioned it out, so we somewhat understood: 1) go get a plate 2) fill it with what you want to eat 3) give it and the paper to the worker to weigh and record the weight of the food on the paper: check mark! Paying afterwords was a whole other thing, but after some writing on paper and hand motions, it was all figured out.  Next, off to find an ATM! Well, needless to say that that was a fail the first night either because we were hitting the wrong buttons or because they just would not accept our cards.  An issue to be solved for the following day since it was getting dark.  It is already an entry way into having compassion for people in the US who do not speak the main language.  I now [even more so than being in Uruguay] know what it feels like!