Lately I've been working on my medium length movie (cause it can't really be called short, it's past 30 minutes already) with Erik, my Dutch friend (the causer of all this stuff).
In case you don’t know that yet, I make short films once in a while and now I'm making the most difficult one that our sick heads were capable of cooking so far. But that’ll be for a later post, when a decent trailer should be ready.
When I was about seven years old, at Christmas, my father decided to give me a "game" (not the game, but let’s say so ...) called Flight Simulator. It is a semi-professional flight simulator for virtually anyone who likes the thing. Some years later the Internet had expanded worldwide and we could "fly" with simulator online, with other "pilots" out there. It is like a virtual world where you fly to and fro with your Boeing and the air traffic of this world is made of real people, flying in their own homes. It was then that I met a guy crazy about aviation called Thiago, who liked to spend hours "flying", just like me.
One day we decided we wanted to build a 3D plane to fly on the simulator, but we didn’t know much about it, then Thiago a googled here and there, and on a forum about 3D modeling, he met a guy named Erik, from Holland, willing to help. Incidentally, I added Erik also in my MSN and we started talking.
We have never modeled a plane in 3D.
Years passed and I started making short films. I made a version of a Star Wars fan-movie (trailer), still in high school. And those who know Star Wars, know it's a movie that needs 3D to be more "real." Enters Erik.
We did one, two, four, six "movies" together, always exchanging some information about our countries:
Bruno: You think I live in the middle of a forest, right?
Erik: Not necessarily ...
Bruno: Okay, but you are not sure whether we have paved streets here ...
Erik: Hmm .. yeah...
Bruno: And snakes and spiders walking down the street ...
Erik: Well .. not spiders ...
Oh, Neverland of the Dutch, oblivious to any other little worlds. Anyway ...
While making another movie (which was never released since Mark, a friend of ours at the time, decided he would turn into a professional prostitute and didn’t want to make movies anymore) I needed female screams for a scene. Only the sound recording of the screams of a woman, which I would edit into the film later.
Commenting on this with the Dutch boy, he tells me he has a friend who might be crazy enough to record it for me. Imagine the scene, you sitting on a chair, a camera in your face and you screaming like a desperado.
Then he introduces me to his mad friend, Ellen. And that started the whole thing.
After two years talking with those two, I decided I wanted to see the Netherlands and came here for the first time in 2008, december, winter, cold.
And Ellen lived at that time 10 km from Nijmegen. But 10 km from Nijmegen, depending on which direction you go, can mean you arrived in Germany. And that was the case. She lived on the border Holland / Germany and crossed the border everyday to go to college. It was not uncommon to read on my MSN:
Ellen: Today I'm going to Holland in the morning, but I come back to Germany overnight. Tomorrow I'm going to Holland and I’ll stay there for two days.
Bruno: Okay .. Today I'm going to Brooklin........
It happens...
Right after arriving here, on the first 3 days I, like any other citizen, went to the toilet and left there what no longer served me.
It already disturbed me that their vase is not the same as ours: it has a kind of "step" before the water hole, but the step has no water, so anything that falls there will stay "fresh", if you know what I mean, and only falls into the water after flushing. Being disgusted is for the weak.
Alright, I finished, I use the toilet paper, and like 98% of the Brazilians, I throw the paper in the little basket.
Already understood or not yet?
After three days, we went to Holland (in my head: "Wow, I woke up in Germany and now I’ll have lunch the Netherlands ..."), I had lunch at her parents' house. We stayed two days. I went to the bathroom twice.
Great.
We returned to Germany. I sat by the computer and Ellen disappeared inside. 10 minutes ...
She shows up at the door with an awkward face.
Ellen: Bruno ...
Bruno: Yes?
Ellen: What happened in the bathroom?
Bruno: I dunno, why?
Ellen: In the basket ... You did that?
(A thousand things going through my head, except what she expected me to think)
Bruno: Eer ... that what?
Ellen: Somebody threw dirty paper in the basket ... was it you?
Oh-oh.
Bruno: You don’t throw it in the basket?
Ellen: No. In the vase.
Bruno: Hmm .. What is the basket for then?
Ellen: To throw the cylinder of the toilet paper roll when when the paper is over.
AAAH! Sure!
Bruno: Ellen ...
Ellen: Hmmm?
Bruno: You know ... I kinda took a crap at your parents'...
Beautiful start with the inlaws... to this day I don’t know what happened when they saw it ... but since I’m still well accepted here ... I prefer not to think ...
Now when she goes to Brazil we remind her to throw it in the basket every time.
I wonder what else I did wrong here now, and they don’t tell me, because they try to be polite all the time.
The first time I visited (formally) a local house was indeed her parents’, back in 2008. I went in, said hi. She explained that I didn’t speak Dutch. I tried to speak it. It didn’t work. Her father, who probably never had to speak English more than a few minutes before, now had to do it all the time. He asked everything about Brazil. All vonderful.
Father: Ssso you came from Brrasil, eh? It must be fery colt to you here.
Bruno: Ja, ja.
Her mother refuses to speak English, even if the law were to tell her to, so before I understood Dutch, Ellen had to be as an official translator.
Mother: Bruno, wil je je jas uitdoen?
Ellen: You want to take off your jacket?
(Inside home the heating system always leaves things at about 25 degrees)
Bruno: Oh, no. It's okay.
Admittedly, no one takes off his jacket when they arrive at the somebody’s house... in Brazil ...
5 minutes later...
Mãe: Ellen, wil Bruno zijn jas echt niet uitdoen?
Ellen: You really don’t wanna take your jacket off?
Bruno: No, it’s really fine...
Twice already...
5 more minutes ...
Father: You can hang your jacket by de dooor if you vant...
I give up ... I go there and hang my jacket ....
The first chance I get, I pull Ellen to an empty corner.
Bruno: Do I have shit on my jacket and I just didn’t see it or do I have a Nazi symbol on my back?
Ellen: No. .. when you arrive at someone's house, you MUST take the jacket off, or it seems that you want to go soon ...
...
...
Ok.
Now you tell me, what else did I do wrong here without realizing it?
I think half of the Netherlands must be offended with me already for some reason like "you have not thanked me the glass of water yesterday.”
Now, the communication has improved already with the mommy-in-law, because now I understand everything she says (although she thinks that the old rule "if it is a foreigner, speak loud, very loud" works) and I can say almost everything, too. But she still refuses to speak English, tough she understands it.
So when I don’t know how to say something, I throw English on the table. But luckily she doesn’t understand a couple things.
Mother: Wil je iets drinken, Brrruno?
Me: Ja, een biertje is goed, alstublieft.
Mother: Oke, ik pak het voor jou.
Me: Ja, dankje.
Now if I want to say something I don’t know, enters English.
Bruno: But should I put the bottle outside or near the trash after it’s empty?
Sogra: Ja, in de schuur is goed. IN DE SCHUUR IS GOED. DE SCHUUR.
Bruno: Ok, Chewie. I’ll put it in the schuur then.
And we move on...
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