New regulations for tourist / business visas

As alot of you know the visa process can be a maddening one, especially when the rules and regulations change during the time your process.

Below is an update I got today:

REF: PERIOD OF STAY: TOURIST / BUSINESS VISA – NEW REGULATIONS

Dear Clients,

In order to permanently keep you well informed, we inform that the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, according to the practice of International Treaties and Reciprocities, changed the period of stay of tourist and/or business visas of the countries part of the Schengen Agreement (treaty between European countries), as to the List of Visas attached. The countries are: Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Cyprus, Denmark, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Estonia, Finland, France, Greece, Hungary, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Czech Republic, Romania and Sweden.

In the cases mentioned above, the maximum permitted stay is 90 days every six months, counting from the first day of entry in Brazil and not per calendar year. 

SP Night Market - Second Edition

The last SP Night Market was a success so we've decided to organise more! The next one is this Sunday 28th from 5-10pm, hosted by Plug N Work again (Av Nova Independencia 1061, Brooklin, just around the corner from Fogo de Chao

http://www.spnightmarket.com

entry fee is R20 per person

I'm really excited as we have confirmed Chez Pierre, the french pate / foie gras man and Deepali, the indian chef who is bringing her famous samosas and also testing out her new chicken biryani dish! Of course there will be cupcakes, sausages and beer as well as a group of new vendors who we have been sourcing over the past couple of weeks. Check out our website for more information.

Hope to see you all there!

Permanência

So we are almost there! (I feel like I've said this already some stages ago..)

We had our permanent visas approved a month ago, and went to the Federal Police 2 weeks ago to get the stamp in our passports, hand in our Temporary RNE's and pick up the RNE Protocolo - the piece of  paper with your photo and a stamp. I say "almost there" because it will take another 9 months before we get our Permanent RNE's... but it's the start to the end (of the process), or I should say the start to the start of living here properly.

You can't just turn up to the Federal Police. Renata, our agent, made an appointment for us as soon as she was back in the city. The Federal Police were (are) on strike so I thought it was going to take forever - and it did. We were the first to arrive for the appointed time - though we would've been pushed to the front of the queue with the girls (rent-a-child-for-federal-police-visits would be a great business idea). It's up on the second floor still but they have opened up the office so it's so much more spacious. You can watch the process taking place over half  They said only one person could go in so Tim took all the documents assuming they would process everything together.

45 minutes later after a lot of shoulder shrugging and questions he walked out and then it was my turn, with Sophie. It turns out we had the one trainee who had to question everything (i.e. you were born in England but you are British, is this the same question... and unsurprisingly, she asked the same question for Sophie). The delay was because my first visa was stamped in my old passport, but since then it's expired and I obviously have a new one. There was a big discussion about where my new visa should be stamped. To me it was common sense that it should be in my new one, since the other one is technically expired and I don't want to carry it all the time.. but of course, it went in my old one.

It took 3 hours but in comparison to my first visits when I use to leave in tears, out of frustration, this was a walk in the park. Straight after we were interviewed by Band FM Radio. They dedicate their Thursday evening sessions to interviewing expats who live in Sao Paulo. I was quite nervous as it was going to be all in Portuguese and the questions were off the cuff but she reassured me that the listeners love all the silly mistakes foreigners make... It ended up being a lot of fun talking about our lives here, how much I love Brazilians (my Brazilian friends told me off for that), traffic and food. They are always looking for people to interview, so if you think your Portuguese is up to scratch drop me an email and I can put you in touch with them.

In the meantime we'll be working on driving licenses and registering my cupcake company, so this is not the end of my blogging about Brazilian bureaucracy!

Lançamento verão 2012/2013 - GomideChic&basic

My beautiful Brazilian friend Priscilla is launching her new clothing collection tomorrow evening. Sophie & Theo's Cupcakes will be sponsoring the event so please drop by to check our her elegant designs and eat cupcakes!