Viva Brasil

 

The So Ho of Sao Paolo: lots of graffiti art and hippy chicks. 

Greetings from São Paolo! 

We flew from Lisbon to here and landed in winter. It is not cold- far from it, but it gets dark at 6 pm and this was a surprise. One hears that the southern hemisphere faces the sun at a weird time of year, but you just don't believe it. 

First thing: SP (takes too long to write it out) is big, really big. It is about 13 million people and that is not counting the outskirts of town. Charlie was amazed when he landed, at the sight of building after building; high rise after high rise as far as they eye could see. Since I am now in the actual jungle which is a more interesting entry, I will keep the Sao Paolo entry short. I loved the city- it is huge and tropical and looks like a very fun place to be rich. The rich live in enormous houses with enormous tropical gardens  all surrounded by gates. Most have barbed wire and armed guards in little buildings too. Basically this town, and all of Brazil, used to be rather dangerous, and perhaps they haven't gotten out of the habit. From what we read, if you stay in your prissy little neighborhood, you are perfectly safe, but the concierge told us not to walk around with jewelry on. SP is the New York of Brazil- all about the money and movement: the older accountant brother to the scantily dressed, never made it out of high school younger sister that is Rio de Janeiro. I half expected to be met at the airport with a caipirinha and a lei but it was all rather business like and the neighborhood remarkably quiet for a Friday evening. 

Here are some things I learned from the fabulous tour guide we had one day:

The place is so crazed over soccer that they no longer allow both teams' fans to attend the local games. Apparently they killed each other a few too many times and now is like going to see a warriors game, i.e no dissenting voices in the crowd. 

They make a little cheese puff that I can't stop eating...they eat it all the time, even at breakfast. In fact they are very pro bread in general. 

Brazil was this fun beacon of freedom to the world..a sloppier US so during times of trouble, so they had tons of immigrants. Now they are home to the largest populations of Jews, Italians and Japanese anywhere outside of their home countries. 

The McDonalds have armed guards. 

They have incredible architects...the most famous of them, Oscar Niemeyer, (of UN building fame) lived until he was 104 when he dropped dead while working. 

The highlight was this tour by this wonderful man who used to be an engineer, then banker; but he wanted to become a tour guide. He got the idea when he was told by his bosses at the bank to take a client out and "show him a good time". He told us that meant girls and bars, but the guy was a 75 year old Canadian, so that plan was out. When he picked him up he said the client was so shy he would not look at him and just said he wanted to go to the library and look at books about the communal aspect of sports. Our man then made a rather Brazilian decision and decided instead to take him to a local soccer match. But he didn't tell him because he thought he would say no. So they get to the parking lot and he says "I have decided to take you to a game" and the client says: "I can see that." They sit in the cheap seats with the crazies to give him the real effect. Score is 1:1;  they all stand up except for our client who stares at his hands.(our guide was basically going to be in deep doo if the guy didn't come back happy..so he was stressed) Then home team goes to 2:1; crowd is sharing beers and client takes many sips. Score goes to 3:1 and it is mayhem...people are kissing strangers. Score goes to 4:1 and it is a cacophony of joy and love and insanity..so much so that our guide thinks he better pull the plug and get poor Canadian home. But when he looks, the entire section- including the Canadian- has their shirts off and are waving them around. 

The bank gets the deal.

When the Canadian is preparing to leave he is in a meeting with our friend's superiors and asks for him to come in. He comes in a starts to apologize for dragging him to this game, but the Canadian stops him and says: you changed my life. I wanted a book, but you put me in a book. I wanted to read a story and you gave me a story. You made me a part of life, and I will never forget you. True to his word, years later he died and our guide gets a call from Canada. It is this man's son and he says..my father wanted me to call you and tell you he never forgot you. I don't know what you did but you made him very happy. 

The guide said that is when he decided he just wanted to do this for a living: give people these short magnificent experiences. Only trouble with this kind of enthusiasm is that when you are jet lagged and sign up for a four hour tour but say you only need to be taken through traffic for two hours, he will have none of it. He is fanatical about you not forgetting Sao Paolo. At one point I wondered if we had been kidnapped.

So there you have it, cheese puffs, and glamor and soccer and lush tropical gardens and incredible kind happy people.  Sao Paolo is a very fine place indeed. 

Hotel pool

Landed at night from Lisbon..happy room service er

Blood really is thicker than water

 

Vintage Portuguese postcards I found. I do not know this cow. 

The human body functions best at 98.6 degrees Fahrenheit. When it overheats and bcomes dehydrated, the blood thickens. The heart has to pump harder and it and other organs can be seriously damaged. When core body temperature rises too high, everything breaks down: The gut leaks toxins into the body, cells begin to die, and a devastating inflammatory repose can occur. Part of the insidiousness of heat related deaths is how quickly they can happen. 

So HOW ARE YOU GUYS??? The San Franciscans have won the lottery this summer with the fog; we are drooling over the beach pictures sent by Janette and Albert. Here we had a few days where we felt the breeze from the blessed Atlantic Ocean and thought we would escape the worst. Then we were slapped with a few days of hot, smoky hell and reconsidered our life style choices - specifically the ones that involve coming to Southern Europe in July and August. Thomas has taken to reading magazines with Yachting in the title, and brochures of Finnish real estate. 

When you live with 91 year old war survivors who don't cool the house, but diligently heat the pool, you develop a sixth sense that is part spiritual and part thermodynamics. (The latter is of course the study of the relations between heat, temperature and energy.) We are experts on many things: we know how long we can play at high noon on a hot tennis court and how much Gatorade will be required. We know there is not enough Gatorade in the country to get us to play at 4 pm. We know the exact path through the golf course that has the most shade, and the most breeze. We know now that an area of heat next to an area of greenery will create a breeze that makes you want to keep living. Most importantly, we know which restaurants have have air conditioning. 

The good news about heat is you pay attention. You pay attention to the exact moment before you enter a cold, familiar ocean; and the bliss of entering the only room in the house that has air air-conditioning (snuck in by Thomas a few years ago). You pay attention to the song of ice cubes landing in your glass, and marvel at the amount of sweat on the front of your hands and under your eyes. You pay attention to any news story that says we will fight climate change. 

Things are better now, I am sitting in the office here and there is a little breeze coming from the open door. It is a regular summer day in the Algarve: I don' t have a wash cloth on my head and there is no smell of smoke. 

Luckily we are heading to winter soon. I enthusiastically bought cashmere sweaters here in preparation and then learned that Sao Paolo in winter is basically like San Francisco: 65-70 in the day and 55 at night. The packing is going to be its own blog entry. I have three nights at semi sophisticated restaurants in Sao Paolo winter- including the 7th best restaurant in the world that is devoted solely to pork, They raise their own pigs apparently and then kill them. (pray for me). Then we go into the Amazon jungle where I am required to wear beige and sweat a lot. In the form required for the hotel there (called the Cristallino lodge) we were asked how much we weighed (for the life preservers) and what animals we were afraid of. (I wanted to ask how much time they had; but settled for crocodiles).  Thomas and Frederick left it blank thinking that they were indeed afraid of certain animals but didn't want to miss out on seeing them. Charlie probably wrote strawberries and left it at that. Lastly we go to high altitude - dangerous sun during the day and freezing cold at night where I will be standing outside. 

In my next life I want to start a travel clothing store where you can input your trip and they send you every thing, already packed. 

Did you all know that we had the shortest day every recorded? Apparently the earth spun faster than it has ever before. Also, if one person fires a bullet horizontally, and another person drops a bullet at the exact same time, the two bullets will hit the earth simultaneously. 

OK I have to get this up because I am presently in Sao Paolo and it is amaaaazing. Tomorrow into the jungle we go, so I have to write fast. 

até à próxima Portugal