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.

General Update

Chihuahua update: he now has fleas.  We had to dose him with frontline and then bleach and spray anti-flea spray everywhere.  Apparently it's something to do with him feeling unwell.  I don't give a flying f*** what it's about, I don't want to be bitten to pieces any more.  Although, it's worse for my mother because she has some kind of allergic reaction to flea bites - she gets a massive swelling about 5-10 centimetres wide.  Ouch.

Portuguese: my spoken portuguese is bollocks due to me speaking english most of the time.  I have a lot of shit to do: find work, sort out visas, other legal crap with our (english speaking) lawyer, make plans...we're really busy and taking the time to "umm" and "errr" through an awful Portuguese conversation is not top of my list of priorities.  I know it's important, I will get around to enforcing some portuguese conversation for a minimum of one hour a day at some point, but at the moment I'm limited to speaking it in shops, cafes/restaurants (which I don't go to very often), and screaming "COM LICENSA!!!" (roughly translated: "EXCUSE ME!!!") when trying to get past all the meandering Brazilians on Avenida Paulista.  On the plus side, my verbal comprehension is very good; i.e, I can understand everything you say but I will talk back to you like a 3-year-old.

Personal life: don't even go there.

Learning Portuguese the way everyone else learns English

This week we got a new Portuguese teacher, which I was quite happy about (normal teacher rotation).  Our original teacher Adonis spoke excellent English.  He studied English Literature at University, spent time in the States, etc.  It was useful at the beginning when he was explaining grammar and stuff to us, but towards the end it was a bit annoying because he liked to talk (a lot) and he would often go off into an explanation or story about something to do with Brazil in English which was very interesting but not particularly useful for our oral Portuguese comprehension skills.

This week, our new teacher was Clarissa.  She speaks next to no English.  This was a little challenging at first, but it's helping me understand spoken Portuguese a hell of a lot better.  It's still difficult if she's teaching a new grammar rule or a new piece of vocabulary, because some things can't be explained easily - but then again, that's what dictionaries are for.

The other two English students in the class (my mother and another lady from Cambridge) are having more difficulty keeping up than the rest of us.  My mother complained that it was a big jump from someone who speaks excellent English to someone who speaks none.

However, as the rest of the students (all non-native English speakers) in the class pointed out, this is the way they learned English.  They didn't even have the first two weeks of someone speaking in their language to ease them in - they were straight in at the deep end.  This is how English is taught to foreigners when they come to English-speaking countries.  Basically, "we can't be bothered to speak your language, and if you want to learn ours, you're gonna have to do it the hard way".

Sounds harsh, but this approach works.  All the non-native English speakers in the school who have learnt English in an English-speaking country speak/read/write it quite well, because they had to.  They had to for economic reasons, they had to because their English teacher wouldn't cut them a break, and now they're learning another language.

I'm personally inclined not to complain.  And besides, the tough approach is doing me the world of good.

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.

Communication blocks, gays and supermarkets!

OK, so I NEED to learn Portuguese.  FAST.  There’s only so many hand signals I can think of for “yes, he’s a very cute dog” (people keep stopping us on the street whenever we take my mum’s Chihuahua out for a walk).  Here is a picture of said dog – named ‘Squirt’ – to illustrate:

Squirt the chihuahua*

The weather is pretty warm here, but it dips right down at night by about 15C.  Being on the 7^th floor makes it even colder.

The supermarkets here are quite impressive – very little processed food.  They never got mad cow disease here because they wouldn’t be daft enough to feed their animals anything other than what they naturally eat.  Vegetables and fruit are plentiful and varied – some things I’ve never seen before and I don’t even know if there are actual English names for them.  Garlics and onions usually have an entire section to themselves – they’re usually surrounded by huge piles of dead skins, presumably because people don’t want to pay for the bits they aren’t going to use. You wouldn’t get away with that shit in Sainsbury’s.

Things are not dirt cheap here, so if you think you’re going to come on holiday and spend hardly any money, think on.  Prices are very slightly less or on a par with London as far as most things are concerned.  Food shopping is slightly cheaper, but electronics cost a bomb.  I’m waiting for someone to fly over from London so I can ask them to bring me a bloody flatscreen.  Screw paying R$1249 (£500) for a not particularly impressive 32” LCD.  I’m more than happy to pay whatever tax the customs want to slap on, and the £70 additional baggage fee – it’s STILL cheaper than buying it here.

There’s something to be said for having a lesbian haircut here – I don’t look like a soft touch (even when I’m carrying the Chihuahua) & every gay guy who speaks English is falling all over themselves to tell me what to do, where to go, where “our people” hang out.  We went to have a look at the Portuguese school the other day to check it out – mostly so we know where the hell we’re going – and one of the teachers there recommended an area in Rio for us to look for flats.  “I think it’ll be good for you,” he said, nodding, “the beach there is very nice.  It’s OUR beach.”  I swear he was doing jazz hands as he said that.

I’m starting to understand what pretty much every Brazilian I know has said to me about Sao Paulo: “yes there’s a lot to do there, but I wouldn’t want to live there”.  The place is dirty, busy, dangerous, overcrowded, and doesn’t even make up for it in beauty the way Rio does.  Or so I’ve heard. 

P.S. These are great, you should try one.

*Squirt is the official company mascot of the website BeARichBusinessBitch.com - check it out!

Observations on spending 5 hours in Guarulhos Airport

The first recognisable sight on landing in Sao Paulo are the hundreds upon hundreds of favela houses, piled one on top of the other like some kind of higgldey-piggldey lego set or those brick-like temporary office structures on large building sites, metal roofs rusting and staining the bright walls underneath a reddish brown.  They go on and on, rolling over hillsides & squeezed against motorways, stopping only at the very edge of the airport grounds.  I would imagine when a plane flies over those houses they’re more concerned with making sure their home is structurally sound enough not to fall down – the very least of their problems would be noise pollution.  Kinda puts the whole extra runway at Heathrow thing into perspective, really.

The airport doesn’t look like it’s been updated since the early 80’s – lots of dark tiling, metal walls, square shapes.  Your path to the baggage pickup is punctuated by open gates, passengers crossing your path on their way to board their flights.  There’s no separate way for arriving passengers, everyone’s lumped in together.  The baggage carousel system is basic, old and really disorganised, with a handful of young men jumping around desperately trying to keep up with the onslaught.  I can’t find my carousel, it’s not labelled so I walk up to the TAM baggage claim desk to speak to someone who might have an idea what’s going on.
“hola, fala Ingles?”
“No, Spanish?”
“Only English, I’m afraid.”
“Ok, only small…”
“Which one is for the TAM flight from London?”
“Uhhh…tres ou quatro…”
“Ah, obrigada!”

I make my way to the front of the crowd and wait.  A few middle-aged women start squawking loudly at a very stressed out 20-something who’s handling the London carousel alone with just a walkie-talkie for company, and a fat lot of good it’s doing him.
Someone has taken what appears to be a driveable lawnmower onto the plane as luggage rather than ship it.  I've seen Brazilians pack surfboards and mountain bikes before but this just takes the biscuit.

Eventually my bags turn up, I head through the ‘Nothing to Declare’ door, past an unimpressed lady collecting declaration tickets, and out into arrivals.  More grey tiles, metal columns, and a solitary central café looking rather unappetising.  I need to get to Terminal 2 and I have no idea where it is.  I head to the Information Desk steeling myself for another painful verbal exchange.
“hola, fala Ingles?”
“Yes, of course.”
“Oh good!  Could you tell me how to get to Terminal 2, I’m meeting my mother there.”
“Just go out of these doors, turn right and follow the sidewalk around.  It’s about a 5 minute walk.” All said in a crystal clear Portuguese-American accent.

Outside it’s sunny, a comfortable temperature with a cool breeze.  I see a car park, concrete everywhere, buses, people smoking and…PALM TREES.  I immediately perk up.

Terminal 2 looks a lot like Terminal 1.  I buy myself a small coffee and sit down, but not before another awkward conversation with the girl behind the till trying to work out how much I need to pay.  I can’t understand what she’s saying so she quickly writes on a post-it note ‘3,50’.  “Oh, ok” I say and count out the change.   She smiles politely as she hands me my coffee.  I look at it.  Jesus, when they say ‘small’ here they really mean it – it’s the size of an espresso and I asked for a ‘café con leite’.  But I sit down and drink it, and it’s enough to keep my very awake for the next three hours.  F*** me, they know how to make a coffee.  I think I’m going to like it here.

Two people come up to me separately and hand me Brazilian schmatters (cheap stickers & a couple of key rings) with a R$2.00 price tag attached, walk off, come back one minute later and take them back again, smiling graciously despite the fact I’m clearly uninterested.  I smile back.  Properly.  I find it a pleasantly unobtrusive way of trying to push their crap on me.

Basically I get the impression English isn’t spoken particularly well by the majority of people here, but they’re really, REALLY nice & helpful about trying to work out a way to communicate with you.  And they smile!  France this ain’t.