GOOOOAAAL!

14:34 / I  am starting this blog as Brasil are about to play Chile in the second-round knockout stage. Tim has stopped crying over England's loss yesterday and as proud as I am of the All Whites three draws, we are ready to support our newly adopted country. A pinch of green + yellow, big dollop of fireworks and horns, half a dozen caprihinias  and a whole lot of football makes a pretty good party (actually to be fair, a meeting of more than 2 people here is a party!)

Life stops for the Brasilian WC games here... the hours leading up to the KO sees the streets of Sampa filled with traffic as people are rushing to get home, or to a bar to watch the game with their friends, family and colleagues. As soon as play starts the streets are empty but you can hear in the distance the local commentary on TV, the occasional bast of fireworks and the rise and fall of excitement / panic as a goal is almost scored or a player has fallen over a blade of grass.

17:40 / Brasil won 3-0. If, or should I say, when, Brasil is playing in the final we will probably be in the second best place to watch it if not watching it in the stadium.

It's been in the news recently about the exclusion of Morumbi Stadium from the World Cup in 2014. Sao Paulo is one of the most important cities in Brasil and I'm not sure what a Brasilian WC would be like without the tournament being staged here in Sampa. There is alot of work that needs to be done here in order to stage the World Cup - infrastructure, security, lack of English speakers, traffic, the cost of living (its alot more expensive here than I imagined - some restaurants are NY / London prices!). I hope that the CBF can get their act together in time... imagine watching Brasil win in Brasil! Wahey!

Note to the CBF... if you need a super geeky, super organised english speaker with football organising experience email me!

Revitalisation of Centro

I mentioned this in my Mercado Municipal post and I had said 'it's such a shame that there has been no effort to maintain the historic, old buildings in this area'. I'd like to take back my remark as it was made with pre-conceived / misguided assumptions with regards to the local government. Apologies.

I've just been forwarded the link for a an NGO called ITDP and one of the projects they are working on is exactly this, the Sao Paulo City Center Revitilization. Will be very interested in how this project progresses.

Taxistas em Sao Paulo

One of the best sources of Portuguese for me are the taxi drivers. Like most taxi drivers around the world they can entertain you on your journey with stories of their lives and families, their opinions on the economy, their favourite restaurant or football team.

There is a Ponto de Taxi just around the corner from where we live and every morning when I walk by they shout out their 'Bom Dia's' and 'Tudo Bom's' as I've probably caught a ride with almost all of them, if not once then at least a couple of times. I know some of them by name and some of them go to Cesar's barquinho too. My taxi rides double up as portuguese lessons too (that's how I justify it to my husband!).

I have a list of questions that I use to initiate a conversation:

'Você e Paulistano?'

'Você tem crianças?'

'Onde você mora?'

Some of them take into account that I'm just learning and speak slowly, stay on topic and we can have a reasonable conversation. Others lose me on the second sentence and even though I can catch a word or two, I just take a wild guess at what he's talking about. I'll then answer completely off topic which just allows him to either ignore me and continue or start on this new topic. I'll never know!

- One taxi driver told me I spoke really good Portuguese and that he could understand about 50%...
- Another told me about his three ex-wives and how 'loca' they were
- I've discussed the pros and cons of bringing up children in the country vs the city with another
- Tim can get them really going about last night's football game
- I thought one 68 year old driver knew the way until he got out at a traffic stop to walk over to another taxi 2 lanes over to ask directions

The one thing you can't avoid here in Sao Paulo is traffic (well unless you have a helicopter) but instead of getting really stressed about being late (everyone is late here anyhow), take it in your stride and use the time to practice a little more Portuguese!

Embu das Artes

Today we were taken out to a little town called Embu das Artes, about a 40 minute drive SW of Sao Paulo. It was a nice little surprise as I thought we were being taken to see an art exhibition in Centro (the center of the city) and ended up in in the centre of Sao Paulo state instead.

There is a market of food, toys, clothes and all sorts of handicrafts every weekend. There were a few other tourists but mainly local 'tourists'. The streets are covered in paralelepípedos (still one of my favourite words) but they were much more manageable than the roads in Paritay and were able to push Sophie around in a buggy. First stop off was food. They had a range of things - pastels, sandwiches, yakisoba noodles, hot dogs... i had acarajé which is a fried ball of mashed beans and filled with shrimps and onion. It's very popular in Salvador, Bahia and I hadn't had one since our trip there 5 years ago. Our friends were saying how much they dislike the palm oil which is used in most of Bahia cooking which I had forgotten I didn't like either. Funny how hunger can distort a memory!

The market runs over 5-6 blocks and there were lots of different shops. Both shops and stalls sold home made toys, clothes, leather bags, carpets, mirrors, art, furniture and more. We were very controlled and got away with a few wooden toys for Sophie and a couple of beers for us. Apparently there is another road nearby which is famous for beautiful wooden furniture so we might have to go back when we move into a bigger apartment.

I saw some restaurants that were serving food that really reminded me of Fernando's* in Macao. It then it occurred to me that both Brasil and Macao were both portuguese colonies, duh! 

The real reason for this blog is really to describe my introduction to churros. WHY have I never seen or tasted one before!??!?!? They are a spanish doughnut that is fried, covered in cinnamon and then dulce de creme (caramel) or chocolate is piped through the middle. I usually find most of the deserts here too sweet but I think I might have to introduce churros into my daily diet...

* If you are ever in Macao and need a break from losing all your money at the blackjack table you have to go to Fernando's - can't go wrong with chicken and chips! I've made the trip to Macao especially.

Curry

We found a curry-house which is pretty authentic (well certainly better than the US). So if you are in desperate need of a vindaloo, check out Tandoor.

Soup or Salad?

Você e Brasileira?

I was asked if I was a Brazilian yesterday. I love that I can blend into this city and be considered by the locals to be a local. Being a country of immigrants means that you can be blond and blue eyed, brown hair with olive skin, or have black hair and brown skin and you can all call yourselves Brazilian. Being of chinese descent I've noticed this ease of (or lack of) assimilation in some of the other cities / countries I've lived in. I've had some people ask me if I speak English, where I'm from (even when I say New Zealand, they ask me whereabouts that is in Japan!) or been given directions to the airport - all based on the colour of my skin.

Yes, I know I hold the same stereotypes and have made exactly the same assumptions before. Being exposed to so many different people in Sao Paulo has already made me so much more open minded. People here have a strong connection to their history but at the same time they consider themselves Brazilian first. Ask a New Yorker where they're from and you're likely to hear Irish-American, Italian-American, Chinese-American, Japanese-American etc.

I have always remembered this analogy I read once. Some cities are like a salad. All the 'vegetables' live next to each other, tossed together, but still separate from each other.  In a soup the ingredients are not only in the same pot but they are blended together, their lives are intertwined. Sao Paulo is a soup. Despite where people (or the vegetables) have come from they are they all eventually become one and the same.

Kimchi, Sauvignon Blanc and Warhol

We made our inaugural trip to Pinacoteca, the Museum of Contemporary Art, for the Warhol exhibition. It's a beautiful building and the exhibition was great. It's free on a Saturday so I expected it to be much busier (they were all queuing at the Museu da Lingua Portuguesa where they have an exhibit on Machado de Assis, a very famous Brazilian writer- we'll have to come back).

One of the Korean ladies at the ALC lunch mentioned that there were some great, very traditional Korean restaurants near the museum. Stupidly I didn't take the restaurant or road name so we wandered hungrily and aimlessly around Bom Retiro until we happened open Rua Correia (Korea) Melo. There was no time for scouting out all the restaurants - we stepped into the first one we came across; Restaurant Dare, Rua Correia Melo, 117. So if you want to come and hang out with a bunch of Portuguese-speaking Koreans, who eat kimchi and bibimbap this is the place to come to. Food was as authentic as I know and the crowd in there were all Korean / Korean descent. Delicioso!

We had a quick wander around the area after lunch.* There are lots of really cheap clothes shops in this area -  though the clothes are not quite to my taste! We also went to check out Luz Station (see below) which was actually built in England and assembled here. 

Sunday 25th April = ANZAC Day. We were forwarded the invite by Greg (a blogger I read religiously when we first moved to SP). I was excited about meeting some other kiwi's in town and drinking as much NZ Sauvignon Blanc as I could get my hands on (regretting that today....). It was at a bar aptly named Kia Ora which apparently is one of  the places in SP to meet a nice lady friend. I think Tim is already planning to take our first male visitors there.  We arrived right on time (i.e. not Brazilian time) for drinks and canapes, met some of the  embassy staff who had organised a lovely service and a buffet dinner... though sadly no lamb or beetroot or mince pies : (

*I've just read the wikipedia section on Bom Retiro which advises people to only visit this area during the day and in a group as it's also known as 'Cracolandia'. Unfortunately we missed the crackheads and prostitutes...