Finally Curling Up with my Other Lover

If it's been your dream to read big books like Moby Dick or The Brothers Karamazov, going away to a place where you don't speak the language is a great place to do that. You may try for a while to strain your brain to understand sporatic words on the television or in conversation or even be a good student and read the paper with your dictionary, but soon enough, your brain gets tired, you become anti-social, and find yourself curled up in a hammock with your hardcover of Ulysses.

In the past, a few weeks before my holidays to Brazil, I would request from my co-workers and friends, old paperback copies of the longest books they could give me knowing there could be a small chance I would leave it behind absentmindedly on a beach somewhere; a joyful treasure for another tourist to find. With two 1000 page long bricks in my suitcase, I felt reassured I would have enough reading material since at home they would take me one year to read!

I underestimated my reading zeal with still one week of holidays to go, sadly turning the last page of my book. And like a smoker with a nicotine fit, I begin to frantically scrounge for anything written in English, at first in obvious places like hotel lobbies, and later taking a day trip out of my way to a "specialty" book store where someone heard there might be a tiny dusty English section hidden at the back, under the discounted stacks of Moby Dick and The Brothers Karamazov, in Portuguese. Yahoo! I found something! "Potato Prints, 250 Decorating Ideas for the Home!" I'll take it! Even if it costs $55.

So you ask me, why don't you just read on the internet? Yes, it's true, but sitting on a beach with an IPad or a laptop is just not the best way to "blend in" with the locals; you might as well wrap yourself in a Canadian flag, kick up your "comfortable walking tourist" shoes and wait for a pickpocket to snag your stuff while you're painstakingly trying to figure out what coins to use to pay the snack guy.

To solve this problem, Santa bought me an e-reader which connects to the Vancouver Public Library through any Wi-Fi connection and gives me access to shelf-loads of books. Imagine how happy I was about this gift, and for the first two months in Brazil, I zipped through two handfuls of books. Then we moved. And I lost the Wi-Fi connection. I tried to download books using the landline with no success; lost in weird software, incompatible browsers, in a different time zone, facing west instead of north, my computer was confused, 'is this an e-reader you're connecting or a lazy-susan spice rack?'

I tried to call the library help line several times only to be intercepted by a Brazilian operator who couldn't understand a word I was saying. My husband had written down the magic number to dial out of the country before he left on business to Miami, but of course, I misplaced it.  Finally, last night, after the kid was in bed, I was able to talk to Sara on the e-book helpline who didn't seem surprised by my troubles, and spent a good 20 minutes walking me through a zillion steps I never would have figured out on my own. Love Sara. Sara speaks English, and she helped me figure something out on my own! What a great feeling it is to figure something out on your own and not have to rely on your Brazilian husband to deal with it!

So last night, while my husband was asleep in a hotel in Miami, I curled up in my bed in Rio with my other lover, my e-book, and read until I fell asleep.