The Day Portuguese Celine Assaulted My Ears

So we're on an eight hour bus trip from Porto Seguro to Ilheus in North Eastern Brazil. While Wade and I battle it out for use of the arm rest  in between our side by side seats, our mate across the bus aisle is all snuggled up on two seats, with a pillow and a blanket. She's also hugging an old Nokia that perhaps if it was created as a speaker instead of a phone, may still be in production today because holy shit her music is loud! 

From what I can hear, her Nokia is belting out what can only be described as Brazil's answer to Celine Dion - because apparently one Celine just wasn't enough. 

At first it was funny how unperturbed she was by the fact that her music was echoing throughout a 50 seater bus, first thing in the morning, while other people are trying to sleep. Knowing that there was nothing I could do to stop this assault on my eardrums, I plugged my headphones in and tried to drown out Portuguese Celine with some relaxing tunes in the hope that I may also get some sleep. 

Unsurprisingly this didn't happen. 

Not only was the bus ridiculously cold (and I wasn't given the heads up on the BYO blankie/pillow scenario) but I was also starting to lose my mind thanks to the world's worst remix of my chill out tunes combined with some warbling Portuguese woman (and I was also concerned about my hearing now that my headphones were at full volume in an attempt to drown out those big power notes we all know Celine loves to hit - the jury is still out as to whether Portuguese Celine loves them even a little bit more).

I eventually ripped my headphones out and started venting my frustration to Wade before realising that the blank look on his face was not in response to my random rant but because he was fast asleep behind his dark sunglasses. ASLEEP?? How does one sleep through this shit?! 

And then the penny dropped. 

Because I'm such a wonderful wife, I bought Wade a pair of noise cancelling headphones for his birthday before we left Australia. I didn't buy myself a pair cause I've always doubted their effectiveness.... Damn you Sarah! 

So of course - because as mentioned I am such a great wife - I didn't think it was fair for me to experience the beautiful talents of Portuguese Celine on my own, so I somehow "accidentally" knocked Wade's earphone out of his left ear.... Woops. He promptly awoke to what can only be described as the pinnacle of the Titanic soundtrack (Portuguese style of course). 

"What the f**k is that shit?" My oh-so eloquent husband asks while still half asleep. 

The ensuing conversation covered a range of topics such as:
- How could we amplify our own music to combat hers? Would cupping our phone speakers be adequate amplification or should we sit behind her and hang our phones over the back of her chair, carefully choosing the right moment to press play on Metallica's "Enter Sandman"?
- What would Portuguese Celine's name be?
- Did she ever write a ridiculously over-played award winning song for a Portuguese version of a James Cameron movie?
- And finally we weighed up the potential positives and negatives of me donating my one pair of headphones to our "mate" so she could enjoy an assault on her ear drums alone while I could at least sit in peace and quiet for the remaining 5 hours on this bus. 

Wade convinced me that the headphone donation was not worth it however I still had my doubts as I plugged my earphones back in to a unique remix of Bob Marley and whatever the hell this woman was listening to! 

On the upside, I had created entertainment for myself as my anger turned into obsession and I spent the next hour playing on my Portuguese language app in an effort to increase my vocab enough to learn some sort of abusive phrase to insult this woman's music should I ever find the courage to do so. Sadly, due to the limited vocab available to me, the best I could come up with was: "Your music sounds like 10,000 cats dying in a train station". 

I'm not sure how well that would convey my anger, but hey, I can always hope!