"Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman!" - unam.

Monday, at the latest.
I got all upset. "Maybe there's a cargo plane. I'll travel in a cargo plane," I said.
"Professor!" they said, "It's really quite nice here in Recife. We'll show you
around. Why don't you relax ­­ you're in Brazil."
That evening I went for a walk in town, and came upon a small crowd of people
standing around a great big rectangular hole in the road ­­ it had been dug for sewer
pipes, or something ­­ and there, sitting exactly in the hole, was a car. It was marvelous: it
fitted absolutely perfectly, with its roof level with the road. The workmen hadn't bothered
to put up any signs at the end of the day, and the guy had simply driven into it. I noticed a
difference: When we'd dig a hole, there'd be all kinds of detour signs and flashing lights
to protect us. There, they dig the hole, and when they're finished for the day, they just
leave.
Anyway, Recife was a nice town, and I did wait until next Tuesday to fly to Rio.
When I got to Rio I met Cesar Lattes. The national TV network wanted to make
some pictures of our meeting, so they started filming, but without any sound. The
cameramen said, "Act as if you're talking. Say something ­­ anything."
So Lattes asked me, "Have you found a sleeping dictionary yet?"
That night, Brazilian TV audiences saw the director of the Center for Physical
Research welcome the Visiting Professor from the United States, but little did they know
that the subject of their conversation was finding a girl to spend the night with!
When I got to the center, we had to decide when I would give my lectures ­­ in the
morning, or afternoon.
Lattes said, "The students prefer the afternoon."
"So let's have them in the afternoon."
"But the beach is nice in the afternoon, so why don't you give the lectures in the
morning, so you can enjoy the beach in the afternoon."
"But you said the students prefer to have them in the afternoon."
"Don't worry about that. Do what's most convenient for you! Enjoy the beach in
the afternoon."
So I learned how to look at life in a way that's different from the way it is where I
come from. First, they weren't in the same hurry that I was. And second, if it's better for
you, never mind! So I gave the lectures in the morning and enjoyed the beach in the
afternoon. And had I learned that lesson earlier, I would have learned Portuguese in the
first place, instead of Spanish.
I thought at first that I would give my lectures in English, but I noticed something:
When the students were explaining something to me in Portuguese, I couldn't understand
it very well, even though I knew a certain amount of Portuguese. It was not exactly clear
to me whether they had said "increase," or "decrease," or "not increase," or "not
decrease," or "decrease slowly." But when they struggled with English, they'd say "ahp"
or "doon," and I knew which way it was, even though the pronunciation was lousy and
the grammar was all screwed up. So I realized that if I was going to talk to them and try
to teach them, it would be better for me to talk in Portuguese, poor as it was. It would be
easier for them to understand.
During that first time in Brazil, which lasted six weeks, I was invited to give a talk
at the Brazilian Academy of Sciences about some work in quantum electrodynamics that
I had just done. I thought I would give the talk in Portuguese, and two students at the