Brazil: São Paulo

We landed in São Paulo on Wednesday afternoon, and dumped our stuff in our hotel in Santo André, which is the neighboring city where Faurecia is located. Then we walked from the hotel to work, which was only 4 blocks away. I’ve always wanted to be able to walk to work!

Unlike almost every other company site I have been to, Faurecia Santo André is in the heart of the city. The company has 4 floors in a tall building, which ended up being a bit of a hassle because we were constantly running up and down stairs trying to find each other.

Santo André from the 10th floor

Behind the hotel was a beautiful park that we passed through every morning. I wanted to spend more time there, but we were always going to and from work or to and from dinner and I never had any time. That, and I wasn’t allowed to go anywhere alone after dark.

José on the way to work

After a few days this really irritated me. I appreciated the concern, but I hated having to have an escort everywhere I went after dark. The Brazilian work day ends at 6 pm, which is also when the sun sets, so I was stuck.

Every night after work we would meet with various program managers and directors for dinner, and every night I played Russian roulette with the menu to try to guess what wasn’t going to make me sick.
Finally on Friday I was done with work by 16h and escaped from work during daylight hours. I took advantage of my freedom and took a walk through the park, then visited a shopping mall near the hotel. The mall was a big bummer, but at least it wasn’t far out of my way.

That night I took a sketchy cab ride into São Paulo to meet my colleague Christine for dinner. Christine spent a few months working in Detroit and met Katie there, so Kate put us together for my trip to Brazil. Anyway, the cab got lost, I got car sick, and showed up at the bar grumpy. But soon a samba band started playing and people started singing and dancing and I couldn’t help get caught up in the cheery atmosphere.

For dinner Christine ordered me a plate of fried polenta. I had been perusing the menu for vegetables, but she shook a finger at me: not here.

I learned that eating fried food in South America is safer because the food is cooked in such high temperatures and kills off the bacteria. And there is a lot of fried food in Brazil. There is also a lot of meat. Not exactly steaks or hamburgers, but fried meat or bits of meat tucked into other fried things. By the end of the trip my stomach felt heavy and I longed to get back to the small portions and raw vegetables of France.

Breakfast and lunch in Brazil is funny because in most places you are assigned a number that the waiter uses to keep track of what you order. Or you go to a buffet and are charged by the weight of your plate.

Drinking in São Paulo is also different than drinking in any other city in Brazil. If you order a beer, as soon as the beer is done the waiter or bartender will replace it with another one. He keeps tally on a piece of paper on your table or in his pocket, and this goes on until you tell him to stop. Convenient, but dangerous. Good thing I don’t drink beer.

Anyway, after several samba sets and several more drinks, I finally grabbed another cab back to my hotel. This one got lost, too.

On Saturday I forced myself to get up earlier than I would have liked and checked out of the hotel. I was picked up at the door by Alex, another colleague, and we went for breakfast in a local bakery.

Alex, like Christine, is French. He lives in Detroit but will be transferring to Brazil very soon. He had been in Santo André for a week, which made him barely less of a confused tourist than I was. Between the two of us we mimed and giggled our way through the challenges of ordering breakfast, then getting the car filled with gas.

With the help of a lousy navigation unit from his car rental company, Alex drove us into the city of São Paulo while I read a map and gaped out the window. São Paulo is a rather ugly city, and has a reputation for being unsafe. We passed dilapidated parks full of homeless people, entire communities living below bridges, and the most destitute slums I have ever seen. As we moved into the city, Alex asked me to put away the map and hide the navigation unit and avoid eye contact with people. He said, “You already look too rich.”

“Now how do you propose I remedy that?” I asked, trying to figure out if I’d just been offended or complimented.
Finally we were in the heart of the city and parked the car in a guarded garage. We walked through a lovely square and a market, then wandered our way through some back streets to a pretty little cathedral.

Afterward we met Christine back the market and walked together to a nearby tower. We took an elevator to the top and took in a beautiful view of the city before learning that the bar that we were planning to visit was closed for a wedding. So we went back to ground level and lunched in a small bakery. I guess “bakery” is the term for a café plus small store, so an activity like buying cigarettes at a local bakery is perfectly normal.

Lunch was nice. We spoke in English and basic French, and Christine threw in little Portuguese lessons for Alex. I thought about how the French people I meet living outside of France are always so nice and friendly.

Christine et Alex

After our meal we walked back to the car park to retrieve my luggage and meet the cab that Christine has arranged. In Sao Paulo it’s not advised to take a cab anywhere unless you know the driver to be safe. Therefore, anyone who gave me instructions to go anywhere via cab told me, “I know somebody”. It’s like the cab mafia.

As it turns out, our company has a favorite cab driver whom everyone knows and loves. “Julio has saved me many times,” Alex told me. So it was Julio that picked up and drove me to the airport. He let me sit in the front seat and adjust the temperature controls. He spoke a little English, and we exercised the extent of his vocabulary with talk about football and movies.

In the airport I learned that my flight was delayed by four hours. I sulked for a while, wrote some postcards, then stalked off to the VIP lounge to sulk for the rest of the wait. The VIP lounge was overcrowded, but I snagged an armchair near the pianist and typed out most of this blog post.

And now finally I’m home, and still not sick. I’ll give myself another two days before I claim the trip to be a success.