No Window Shopping Available

When my parents were here visiting, they kept noticing things about life in Brazil that I had never mentioned before. Why had I never mentioned them? Because I've gotten so used to life here, that I forgot those things were weird! So, over the next while I'll randomly show you those thing in posts. The first...is storefronts.

Do you notice anything different about the storefronts of Brazil from this picture?


How about here?
While it may be a bit hard to see above, it is very clear in this picture. Shops don't have doors like stores in the States. Instead, the WHOLE front of the building is open. The storefront is a huge metal panel that rolls up and above, like a garage door and locks down totally at night. So, when you're walking down the street you can see right in each store without entering. And if you're shopping (or getting your hair done like below) you can see right out to the street as you do!

Here we were doing some shopping in downtown Goiania. Here the stores are grouped by type. This area was several city blocks of just fabric stores! There are whole city blocks of car parts, beads for jewlery making, bakery equipment, and just about everything else you can imagine. Since the storefronts are all open, the products just spill out onto the street during working hours.

Also, since there is no front of the building, that means there are no windows....so therefore no "window shopping", but it's even easier since you can just see in the whole store :) What would you call that, then? Storefront shopping? I'm not sure...we'll have to work on that one!