BOOK FAIR

"Bienal do Rio" is its actual name and it lasts 10 days, from Sept. 10-20, 2009.
It's a large and well organized event that turned out quite expensive for me... but it was well worth it since we got books in Spanish for the whole family, plus a set of CDs in Portuguese with some short stories and music.
I realized today that it takes such an effort ot be listening all day long and trying to speak in Portuguese, that at one point we were  ecstatic to see some titles in English. Little did we care if they were " Basic Procedures of Urology", "Marketing in the new era", or "Linguistic Principles". So we set out to look for books in English or Spanish- at this point even Chinese would do!
My first approximation was " você tem livros para o inglês o espanhol?", and I finally got an affirmative answer, "sim, sim, um" and he handed out a small book, basically "the most useful phrases in Spanish, for beginners"!!!
Guess my question was wrong... so I worded it differently and got "não " for an answer most of the time. At the information booth I finally got what I needed: go to the blue pabillion and look for "libros vivos", you'll find them in Spanish.
The owner  spent a long time with me talking about books and authors, Brazil, Argentina, Mexico and other topics, until I noticed his wife was mad and my kids were tired... Eric later on told me We had spent almost two hours there!!! But it was such a relief to be talking to someone and to actually understand every single word, not to mention knowing what and who they were talking about!!!!!!!!
      We visited a comic strip place where the salesman was shocked to learn we didn't know those comics! He even gave us a couple and explained the story, and how the cahracters "grew up" in time- these comics have been around for 50 years! So, I'll read them and let you know how we liked them!
      The highlight of the visit was also the "Churros stand". We each had one, "dulce de leche" or chocolate filling, mmmmm, hadn't had one in years!!