Shops and the importance of mothers...

I have now been here in Brazil just over two months and I have managed to get most things organised. I have mentioned before that most things take a very long time and that everything is extremely slow, and it really is! For example, it takes ages for cashiers to scan your groceries. That is, if the scanner works at all!
Talking about shops, they are crazy about splitting up payments here. Often, you can choose between paying the full amount immediately or dividing it over a few months. Most of the time it's a bit more expensive to spread out the cost, but most people do that anyway! It's also really annoying to check prices, look at the picture below. You would expect the numbers with the largest font size to display the full price, but of course they don't...

I found something funny in the shop as well, a siamese twin (or conjoined twin) banana. The peaches were also really tasty.

Another interesting thing is that for almost everything you do, they need your mother's permission name. They require your mother's name when you book flights, open a bank account, register with the police, sign up for conferences and so on. It doesn't matter if she lives half way around the world or even whether she is alive or not! An 80 year old professor was here for a conference, and she was required to submit her mother's name to be able to sign up for the conference!