The brazilian tattoo

Coincidence level: 7/10 Category: Is it destiny?

One of my favorite songs of all time is “A Menina Dança” by Novos Baianos. A ‘70s Brazilian band. Basically they fled the state and lived in a hippie commune and made all sorts of amazing fucking music.

Were they on acid? Oh, definitely, among other things.

Anyway.

I decided to get a tattoo of some lyrics from this song, and I decided to do it in Stockholm. In the winter. It was late November. Don’t even ask me why.

So I’d been talking to a Brazilian tattoo artist based in Stockholm about the tattoo and she had quoted me an outrageously expensive price. Which of course I negotiated down, but she was still trying to charge way too much.

So, the next day, as I’m wondering if I’m supposed to just get the tattoo from her because she’s Brazilian and you don’t see a lot of attractive female tattoo artists in the first place, let alone a Brazilian one right when I wanted a Brazilian tattoo…….

I’m contemplating this dilemma, AND

I’m on my way to a restaurant. A pre-picked, I looked at a list of “must-visit” restaurants in Stockholm and I’m sprinting toward it kind of restaurant. All while fielding this inner turmoil.

So I’m walking, walking, and I see another really nice looking restaurant as I’m walking. I find the doors, walk in.

Only to realize, it’s not really just one restaurant; it’s actually a whole food hall. Saluhall, in Östermalm, if you’ve ever been.

So now I’m walking around Saluhall looking at SUPER VAST quantities of lobster—we’re talking am I aboard the lobster fishing boat? FUCK. NEVER SEEN SO MUCH LOBSTER IN MY LIFE.

Looking at oh, just every type of fish, caviar, having a Pavlov’s dogs reaction.

I’m literally walking around for 30 minutes, taking everything in, and reading every single menu at every single vendor and restaurant within Saluhall.

And honestly, Saluhall isn’t even that big, I just have trouble making food decisions because some places had a long line and not the exact vibe I wanted.

One pet peeve of mine is having a bad meal. I almost always prevent it from happening, to the best of my ability.

But everything in Stockholm is luckily the best quality.

So I’ve done five laps around this place and I finally settle on an empty-ish, lowkey restaurant based on the menu and the vibe. It was probably also the biggest restaurant in the food hall, with an attractive bar counter in the center. What can I say, I’m claustrophobic.

I sit down at the bar and I’m scrambling to write down my thoughts about this tattoo dilemma.

And the waitress comes over, does the intros, whatnot.

I ask her what the three delicacies and five delicacies on the tasting menu are, she explains them to me.

I tell her I want the three, she delivers them to me.

I ask her for a glass of white, and the wines are like 18 euros a glass so naturally I ask for the cheapest one. She ends up giving it to me for free.

And she’s explaining the delicacies, that the herring is mealy and so she brings me some crackers for it and she thinks the salmon is cut too thick but it’s delicious anyway because fat like that never REALLY tastes bad, and well, shrimp toast is shrimp toast, no? Add some mayo and dill and you can’t really go wrong.

I notice some tattoos on her hands, one of which is a clever little umbrella on her middle finger. Ask her where she got it and for how much. She tells me MUCH CHEAPER than the Brazilian tattoo artist quoted me and she proceeds to write down three tattoo shops near where she lives in Södermalm, hop skip from the Östermalms Saluhall anyway.

So the next day I end up in Södermalm at the first spot she wrote down for me and I get the fucking tattoo. For a reasonable fucking price!

By the time I finish, it’s 2:30PM.

And I think, fuck, the sun is setting in half an hour! (November in Stockholm)

So I look on the map and see that Monteliusvägen, a well known lookout point in Södermalm, is about just a half hour walk from the tattoo shop. So I book it to catch the sunset.

I reach Monteliusvägen and this group of three asks me to take a photo for them. I do. They take photos of me. We start talking, it’s a guy from Gibraltar, a guy from Mexico, and a girl from Brazil. We decide to get beers.

I tell girl from Brazil that I got a Brazilian tattoo literally 30 minutes ago and she loves it. Loves the band, loves the song.

And so probably 30 minutes into the conversation, I say, “Actually, I realized I don’t even know your name. What is it?”

She replies, “[the exact same name as mine].”

MY FUCKING NAME.

RIGHT AFTER I GOT A BRAZILIAN TATTOO I MEET A BRAZILIAN GIRL WITH MY EXACT NAME AND IN SWEDEN OF ALL PLACES, OUT IN THE WILD IN MONTELIUSVAGEN, NOT AT A BAR OR RESTAURANT OR HOSTEL OR HOTEL OR ANYWHERE NORMAL YOU’D NORMALLY MEET PEOPLE.

After I’d already altered my plans to not do this Brazilian tattoo artist. And to not go to this restaurant I had intended on and to stop along the way instead.

Anyway, my Brazilian twin and I are friends to this day—I even visited her right before Carnaval in São Paulo three months later.

And, as for the Swedish waitress at Saluhall who told me to get my tattoo in Södermalm? Her name is Olivia. And that’s another story for later. I promise I’ll tell you though, because it’s interesting.

. . .