SP Night Market

Wednesday 26 September
hosted by Plug N Work

The first edition of SP Night Market will be on Wednesday 26 September. An evening where you can network + mingle amongst specially selected vendors; gourmet food, wine, art and fashion and of course cupcakes!

Entry R$20/ person + chance to win raffle prizes from the selected vendors.

https://www.facebook.com/SpNightMarket

https://www.facebook.com/events/366549233420960/

Through fresh eyes

I've been rediscovering Sao Paulo this week with my friend, Maria, who is looking to move here. She landed a week ago and her first days here have already been filled with so much awe and appreciation (she just moved from Dubai - could you get 2 cities any more different?), and good old laughs as she adapts back into Portuguese.

I threw her in the deep end up on her second day here by loaning her my car. Not only did she end up in rush hour traffic;  the clutch failed on the Reboucas turn off from the Marginal and she had to ask a CET guy help her drive the car up to an emergency bay. All those cars driving in their rodizio who drove past in the 10 minutes the CET man was distracted have Maria to thank if they don't get a fine.

It's been so great to see Sao Paulo all over again through Maria's eyes. She is SOOO excited about fresh fruit and vegetables, greenery, public displays of affection, drinking in a garage bar and not at a hotel bar,... all those things you can't get or do in Dubai of course. It's all about perspective right?

Check out her Sao Paulo blogging here.

And if you know of any company looking to hire a Finance / Commercial Director let us know because she really wants to stay!!

Get in the right frame of mind

Get moving!
Moving countries...cities... neighbourhoods, can all be pretty daunting. I met a lady the other day who is just about to move to Chennai, India with her husband's work. She was pretty happy about moving there. I can imagine having curry every day is a pretty good draw, and there are lots of cultural links with the UK and maybe she might be just plain excited about moving somewhere new. I have to say I'm a little jealous. Not that I want to leave Sao Paulo anytime soon but I love the idea of the unknown.  The running joke for us, is that now that we've got our Permanent Residency, where should we move to next? We have limited options now because the girls will be of (serious) school age in a few years so let's see..

Get some perspective!
I actually wanted to write about all the naysayers; all those people who hate the idea of Sao Paulo before they've even stepped foot in the city. To be fair, GRU is not the best introduction let alone the taxi ride down the Marginal into the city. Crime, language, traffic, cost of things can also be thrown onto the list. I've met people here who have hated Sao Paulo so much it seeps into their every day life... I always wonder if they are only like this in Sao Paulo or will they just move back to their own city and find something else to complain about.

Get in the right frame of mind!

• Make the effort to learn the language, seriously. Make some Brazilian friends. We went to our local bar almost every night and learned a lot of our Portuguese through talking to anyone and everyone. A few caipirinhas don't hurt either. We went on a 4 day holiday as soon as we arrived with 8 Brazilians and the entire weekend was in Portuguese - I didn't understand a thing.
• Find a house / apartment close to work / school so you have some sanity in your life, i.e. traffic-free.
• Adapt and use Brazilian products - I love Granada soaps, Arezzo shoes and Pao de Queijos!
• Make the effort to get to know the city - check out different neighbourhoods every weekend. This big, dirty city has SO much to offer.
• Get out to the beach as often as you can for a breath of fresh air. We're going for the third weekend in a row!

Every city has it's pro's and con's and I'm not saying that Sao Paulo is the best place in the world to live in but for right now, it works for us. Maybe I'm being biaised because I AM a city girl... put me in the countryside and I might be writing a completely different blog here : )

Escocia

My weekend: A night of curry and scottish celidh dancing sandwiched by 2 long lazy Brazilian lunches.

Yes, this is a picture of Brazilians playing bagpipes and showing off their Scottish dancing skills!  Hearing bagpipes always makes me a little emotional - they remind me of special events, weddings, etc   - I want to say I felt homesick but I've only been to Scotland 3 times in my life... The night was hosted at the Brazilian British Center in Pinheiros and it was all about the dancing. I eventually got the hang of it- holding hands running around in circles, clapping and feet stomping though I think I was much too sober for my liking. The Scottish Society also host a Burns Night and the Caledonian Ball during the calendar year which is more about the whisky drinking than the cross legged dancing.

And then the long lazy Brazilian lunches... today's lunch came about as follows. Received a phone call at noon inviting us to lunch at 1pm, made a real effort not to turn up on time so managed 10 minutes late, kissed everyone hello including children and dogs, drank out of a communal glass*, sprinkled some farofa (it's growing on me) on my delicious moqueca and then tried to add something intelligent to the conversation in Portuguese. One of the guests was a stand-up comedian and I think this is the true test of learning a new language. When I can go to a stand-up comedy night in Portuguese and actually understand it AND think it's funny, I will be justified in saying that I can speak Portuguese. Just might be a few more decades before I actually get there..



*I like this style, even if it is with people I've never met before. It means you get to taste all the different caipirinhas / sakerinhas!!  Today there was grape+pear, fresh coconut + passionfruit and lime+orange.

In the news

I try to read the news in portuguese religiously - good for my portuguese and also good for dinner conversation with my Brazilian friends. These 2 links were posted on the INC Facebook page:

A woman yesterday was kidnapped, had a bomb strapped to her and then sent in to rob a jewellery store on Oscar Freire. Sounds like something out of a movie, nao e?

This student was stopped by police for drink driving, tried to light a 50 real note as a cigarette and start her car with a straw. "Canoodle" is one of my funny words here - always makes me think of teenagers "canoodling" in the back of the car when I have to ask for a straw for Sophie's juice. Bad word association.

In my head

Some stuff I've been thinking about this week:

Taxis
I was talking to my taxi driver who is from my local "ponto" and he lives all the way over in Sao Bernando do Campo. I guess as the crow flies, it's not really that far but the traffic! I asked him why he would choose to work so far away but he told me it's the Prefeitura (of the city) that allocates pontos to drivers so no one gets a choice. I guess the pro of this is that it is all fair and equal,  irregardless of where you live. But on the other hand, would the traffic-monitor-people not take into consideration 45,000 taxis driving back and forth to their pontos as unnecessary for an already very busy city? On second thought, maybe these traffic-monitor-people don't actually exist...

Empregada + Feiras
I took my empregada to the local feira for some fruit and vegetables. She was horrified by the prices compared to her local feira. We don't even live in a "bairro nobre" so god forbid if I take her to one in Jardins or Moema...  but I like to buy and eat good quality fruit and vegetables. If I want to pay R10 for a punnet of imported japanese strawberries, I don't want to feel guilty about it. Advice to self: don't take her shopping.


Garotas da Programa
Don't people here care that there are "girls" working right outside the school that their kids go to? I'm trying to imagine that outside my old primary school in Wellington.


Plastic Bags
Some of you may have noticed after all the hoopla of banning plastic bags from supermarkets earlier this year, they have quietly changed their minds and the plastic bags are back in. This wasn't because of some en-masse complaint from the public. I'm being sceptical here... but someone has made a LOT of money selling re-usable bags!

Number 9
As per the plastic bags... someone is making lots of money from apps that insert a "9" infront of all your 011 phone numbers. There is an uneasy history of easy money making -  I say uneasy because it's so obvious but easy because no one seems to care. I've heard of new (now old) laws where every car had to have a first aid kit and luckily there were a few companies that had already prepared the millions of first aid boxes needed, or how about the law that that require employees to sign in and out each day of the office? Again luckily, there were companies already producing fancy new fingerprint machines for people to clock in and out of. I need to figure out a way to pass a law that makes it illegal not to eat 1 cupcake a day.

My new salted caramel cupcake
I've had it for breakfast, lunch and dinner..
www.saopaulocupcakes.com

Aprovado!

Olympic Torch coming through Sloane Square
Sunny London and Happy Londoners!

We have just got back from a month in the UK - enjoying the Olympics, and enjoying an unusually quiet London as everyone was told to stay away. Luckily we also had some sunshine! The Olympics were incredible and I am really excited for Rio 2016 irregardless of how messy and disorganised it might be in comparison.

While I was away in the UK this time I had this constant conversation going on with myself all day long:

Pushing buggy on nice evenly paved pavements...
"Oooh, could I live here again?"
Miserable Londoner snarls at Olivia for just being a baby...
"Sod all of you!" (in my head of course)
Walk past Waitrose....
"Ohhh I really miss Waitrose and all its lovely packaging...I could live here again!"
Pay for food...
"Shit, did I just pay £30 for 4 sirloin steaks!"

But as we landed back in Sao Paulo this weekend just gone the arguments left my head and I thought to myself, it's lovely to be home. And home it is for the while - our permanent visas have just been approved! So the next step is now to book an appointment with the Policia Federal which our agent Renata is organising for us.