um pouco cansada

I tire myself out so easily. It took forever to figure out how to buy tickets to Salvador...in the end I ended up giving up on the Brazilian websites and booking a flight through good old Expedia. I tried to buy a phone, but I didn't have my CPF number with me (a Brazilian identity number that anyone with a certifiable identity can get by sitting in a room with a bunch of other people and waiting for them to call the number in your hand so they can give you another number) and by the time I started walking down the smoky Copacabana streets for the second time in a row today, I walked for a few miles and it became clear that everything was already closed.
It bothers me immensely that my phone is gone. And that the altercation was so nasty. I walk forever here and feel my legs getting stronger and this in itself is satisfying. I got a little dizzy and light heated because I hadn't eaten much. I stopped in one cafe to buy a chicken pastry. Then I stopped in another for coconut juice + milk, mmm.
Oh yeah, why no phone? One night last week, I was out with some lovely Bostonians I met through the language school. We went to a giant indoor market called Sao Cristoval. It's like an all you can buy, drink, smoke, consume fest inside a building the size of a football stadium. Every trinket imaginable, a plethora of restaurants, clubs, music venues, bars, meat shops, juice shops, it's kinda like a mall but much dirtier, cheaper, funnier, stranger, wilder, poorer, etc. Some big time singer was supposed to be performing that night and this hiked up the entrance fee. As the night wore on it became clear that fans were getting pumped for the performance and I didn't see this but apparently some girl was escorted out, sweating profusely. I had been trying to get deeper into the crowd to catch a peek of Donatello or whatever big time performance man's name was, but at this point the group I was with freaked out and did a 180 towards the exit. I only understood this later, but they caught a cab for us to go home in and bargained on a fixed price for everyone with the driver. As we only live a few blocks away from each other this sounded fine. As soon as we started explaining to the driver that he would be making two stops, one for me and one for them, he got extremely angry saying that that was too much and they hadn't given him enough money. I had a bit more Portuguese than the others and tried to negotiate with the driver but he was a nasty money digger who pretended not to understand. It was a frustrating cab ride. When we pulled up to my building I tried to negotiate again and got into a nasty argument with him. In the heat of it I forgot my cellphone in that lovely man's backseat. I had just received a text from a guy I had met days before who has been inviting me out, asking "where are you beautiful?" But the cell is gone now and has been for days as are many of the new contacts in it. Shit like this must happen when traveling especially alone, frantic, and adjusting. I'm buying a new phone and it will be even cheaper than the lost one and I have a pang of regret in my chest. If only I had been a smoother negotiator when the taxi driver picked up the phone and offered more money or shown less anger and indignation. He asked me, "how much will you give me for your phone?" and when I reluctantly said 10 reais, he decided to take revenge on me and never pick up again.
Anyway, this has been a bit of a tired Saturday, and the night will pick up in beautiful Lapa for some dancing. Rio is so beautiful, how to swallow enough of it, how to do enough. It's wonderful and overwhelming.