Home Sweet Home!

So we arrived back in Sao Paulo yesterday.  Because it's us, something went wrong.  The coach broke down on the motorway about 10-15 minutes from the Rodoviaria (coach station).  We had to wait about 30-40 minutes for them to send a replacement coach which was supposed to take 10 minutes, while the inside of the broken down coach got increasingly hot because the driver had to switch the air conditioning off.

When the replacement coach came, it came complete with two Military Police officers.  They oversaw the transfer of the luggage from coach to coach.  It seemed to us that the coach driver had waited until he was through the ring of favelas surrounding Sao Paulo, before he parked the coach on the hard shoulder.  Interesting.

When we got on the replacement coach, we met a very nice Brazilian lady who spoke English, who was travelling with her mother and young daughter to whom she was just beginning to teach English.  The little girl was overjoyed to be able to show off her knowledge of numbers and basic words in English.  After going through a few phrases, she then said to me:
"Vocês moram em São Paulo?" ("Do you live in Sao Paulo?") 
"Sim, nos moramos em Sao Paulo" I replied ("Yes, we live in Sao Paulo") 
"Vocês devem falar Português, se vocês vivem em São Paulo!" she exclaimed. ("You must speak Portuguese if you live in Sao Paulo!") 
"Eu sei, eu falo um pouco de Portugues" I responded. ("I know, I speak a little Portuguese")


Anyway, the very nice lady (who was called Andriana) took us to the taxi rank and helped us get a taxi, which was very nice of her.  I'm convinced that taxi drivers hear my accent and charge me at least 50% extra.


N.B. For anyone who reads my blog and thinks I have a very low opinion of Brazilians, that is simply not the case.  They are capable of great feats of helpfulness and kindness on a scale that I am not accustomed to in the UK or Canada, possibly in some parts of the US you might experience it.  No matter how many assholes I come across in Brazil who try to screw me or my mother over, I would much rather be in Brazil dealing with Brazilian "nuances" than in England dealing with the English.  For every dickhead here, there are at least five lovely people.


I have to admit I'm really glad to be back in SP.  Rio was beautiful, I had a really nice relaxing holiday, experienced some amazing sight and sounds...but somehow coming back to SP is a bit like coming back to civilisation.  When I saw the skyscrapers and highrises in the distance I felt relief.  And a bit of excitement.  I'm finally starting my new life proper!


I've thought about a few things that make me prefer SP to Rio:

1. The weather - in Rio the heat is sweltering.  It gets far more humid and it also feels hotter in Rio than it does in SP - and it's the kind of heat that I just can't handle.  I was running errands today and it was the same temperature here as it was in Rio, but it felt a lot fresher.  I know Paulistanos complain about the humidity here, but it's really not that bad.  Now I've been to Rio, I appreciate the weather more in SP. 
2. The transport system - Rio has 2 metro lines, SP has 5...and 6 CPTM lines (overground).  Also, bus drivers in Rio drive like lunatics.  I thought they were bad in SP, but they're positively slow in comparison.
3. The service is better - when you go to a supermarket, restaurant, shop, etc the staff are far more helpful and welcoming in SP than they are in Rio.  Shop assistants in Rio sometimes make you feel like they're doing you a favour by doing their jobs.  Shop assistants in SP on the other hand, though they are far less likely to speak even a small amount of English, will try much harder to help if you have a problem.  They seem to be far more interested in providing a good service and doing a good job than they are in Rio.
4. Things just...work better here.  Don't ask me how or why, they just do.

The new apartment is great.  IT IS SO GOOD TO HAVE INTERNET AGAIN.  And cable TV.  And a washing machine.  And a service area.  And a kitchen that you can just about swing a cat in.  And a bed that doesn't give me backache.  And an actual table with chairs.  And STORAGE.


The only bad thing is that I've completely lost the muscle tone in my legs that I had built up over two months of walking up and down the steep hills of SP every day.  Copacabana is completely flat, as were most of the places we visited, so the next couple of weeks in Bela Vista are gonna be a bitch.

The difference between English and Brazilian customer service

This is what happened in a pharmacy in London a couple of years ago when I was waiting in a queue:
A young Spanish-speaking woman was trying to buy something but didn't know the word for it in English and she was trying to work out the name by saying it slowly to the cashier, then using quite clear hand signals for body moisturiser.  The cashier rolled her eyes, looked sarcastically at someone behind the spanish-speaking girl as if there was some private joke going on, didn't even attempt to understand or help the girl and said "Look, there's a queue, I have no idea what you're after - maybe get a dictionary or something, yeah?"
The cashier then motioned as if to go to the next customer, when I piped up: "Hold on a second, she's clearly after body moisturiser - see?" and I mirrored the spanish-speaking girl's hand movements.
"Well, why didn't she say?" the staff member replied in an insolent tone.
"Because she doesn't know the word in English, obviously - do you know the word for moisturiser in Spanish?" I replied, staring her right in the eye.  Someone in the queue coughed.  I turned around to look at them and they immediately looked in another direction.
"Well, if they're going to come here they should make an effort, innit...."
"...so I assume you brushed right up on your Spanish when you went on holiday to Tenerife or wherever it was you went last summer?" Someone in the queue giggled.
The spanish-speaking girl got her body moisturiser in the end, but the cashier gave me plenty of evils.

Similar situation in a Brazilian drogaria last week, involving a lady in my Portuguese class:
Again, the non-Portuguese speaker is at the front of a reasonable-sized queue.
"Bom dia, um...Eu gosto...uhhh....cream, for cuts?" (makes cutting movement on her arm)
"Eu nao entende...voce poderia repetir?" The cashier is genuinely interested in hearing what the English-speaking customer has to say, doesn't cut them off, waits patiently and makes a hand movement to repeat.
"Ummm....cream? antiseptic cream?" (more flailing hand movements)
The staff member looks puzzled for a couple of seconds, then brightens up.
"Creme anti-septico?"
"Ummm....possibly..." (N.B. the pronounciation of Portuguese is far more confusing to an English-speaker learning Portuguese than actually reading the words - just because you understand the words when read doesn't mean you'd be able to if they said it)
"Sim, temos." Staff member comes out from behind the cash desk, gets someone to replace them, personally takes English-speaking customer to where the antiseptic creams are, helps them pick one out, then escorts them back to the beginning of the queue to complete the purchase.  No one in the queue is annoyed.

I think I've made my point clear.