On the topic of uncomfortable situations, putting myself in a foreign counties that does not speak English was a recipe for disaster. Most situations I walk into in Brazil, I have a preset list of phases in my head of what to say in Portuguese. Currently my batting average is about .333 on using these phrases flawlessly and having both parties understand. One particular situation where it did not end up it did not work out the way I planned was when I went to the TIM cellular store to recharge my phone so I could finally make calls to the United States. To provide a little exposition, walking into the store I knew my basic sentence structure from the Survival Portuguese class we took and the verb 'to recharge' and 'to activate'. I sat down and confidentially released, “Oi! Todo bem? Eu gosteria de recharragar meu cellular” or “Hi, how's it going? I would like to recharge my phone”. What ensued next was my downfall. The kind women began speaking very quickly and showed no signs of stopping. She pointed to policies of TIM on the mat sitting on the counter between us. After she long winded speech, easily in excess of 150 seconds. I had to look her in the eyes and admit defeat with, “Desculpe, no falo bem portugues. Sorry, I do not speak Portuguese well”. She then looked just as defeated as I was knowing she speech was useless. She tried to explain it in more simple terms but it only increased my embarrassment. Fortunately, Jeremy, another Associate, walked in at this moment, saw us struggling, and replied to me in English that the computers do not working correctly and that I saw come in tomorrow. This event happened a week ago. I still haven't returned.