The landlord was called Alessandro. I would never forget that. Really friendly chap. In the end of 2011 I was renting an apartment of him on Fortaleza's seaside. I spoke to him only on two occasions as my Brazilian girlfriend was dealing with him from the start. My Portuguese was very poor and only later I got to know that he lived in USA and speaks quite good English. Therefore my astonishment was huge when on the day that I was moving to a different apartment he not only offered me a ride in his car to a new place and told that I don't need to worry about utility bills. During the ride he invited me to one of his private houses in Guaramiranga. What a shock! I was completely confused. First time in Brasil and I don't even know the guy. My ex was not much of a help in that situation and as I didn't know much either about the place he wanted to take me to or about him I refused after a moment of consideration. Obviously I didn't want to spend a weekend in a secluded house in a companion of a gay. That would had been very uncomfortable. However, now when I think about it, he knew I had a girlfriend and he probably was some friendly man in his 40s who was looking for a companion to talk about world and life in general.
That is one of not many situations in my life that I didn't know how should I behave. I really regret I haven't accepted the offer because I missed out on living an adventure and getting to know a region more, on the other hand mother always taught me to don't trust strangers and at those time it looked for me silly to travel with someone who shared with me no longer than an hour of conversation in overall. In my point of view I behaved logical, but deep in me I feel like a not brave enough to accept the challenge of life and go towards the unknown...
