My First Several Days in Brazil

Sorry for not posting sooner. I've been very busy. I think I'll need to play a little catch up.

I started out by catching a train to Penn Station in NYC... uneventful. I had a last night in America with my friends. We watched the Elementary School Musical episode of South Park. It was hilarious. You should all check it out if you have the time.

Friday morning, I flew out of JFK airport heading for Sao Paulo. I sat next to a very nice Paulistana, very cute. She is a bit of a world traveller who has done similar exchanges in english speaking countries. She told me that before long, I would start having weird dreams. She couldn't have been more right.

I arrived in Sao Paulo. No problems with customs or anything. The line for $$$ exchange was a long wait. Tiago, the oldest son and Osvandir, the father of my host family picked me up at the airport. Osvandir is a big joker and a samba master. On the drive back to Jau', the city where my host family lives, we stopped at what I can only describe as a food bar. You stand at a bar and get served Brazilian fast food. It was good.

I'm very impressed with the infrastructure in Brazil. I was expecting the roads to be not all that great, but the highway from Sau Paulo to Jau could have been the NYS Thruway. It was a very nice highway. All of the city roads are good to. I notice that stop signs are treated as yield signs. Jau and surrounding the areas remind me a lot of Southern California. I guess Sao Paulo province is more developed that other regions in Brazil. The southeast is the most developed region.

When we got to Jau', we saw some idiots racing motorcycles past us on the highway. They weren't going SUPER fast. Instead, they were riding in a superman position, with hands on the handlebars, stomachs on the seats, and legs extended out behind the bike. Tiago told me that one of these morons dies every week. They race every night, and a lot on the weekends.

Saturday was the first time I got to see Brazil in the daylight. Brazil is a very beautiful country. Saturday morning, I helped out with the shoe factory a little bit. My host family has a couple of small family businesses. They've got a potato, onion, and garlic produce business; and they have a shoe factory (women's shoes of mostly, of course). I've posted a picture of some of the shoes they are very nice shoes :)

Anyway, Tiago is closing the shoe factory for the time being. Business is slow with the american recession. He'll rent the building out for a year and see how things are next year.

Saturday, I ate lunch with my host family. They are such nice people! Soooo hospitable. The food in Brazil is great. Everything is fresh, lots of fruits: mangos, pineapples, etc. The food is cheap too. After lunch, we had a bit of a siesta. After that, a bunch of friends and employees came over for an afternoon game of futbol (soccer). I played with them for a while and embarrassed myself and america. I also got a nice ball in the chest. Check out the picture. The sun is very strong. I should have no problem getting a tan here.

Saturday night, Tiago and I went over to Angelica's apartment (Angelica is Tiago's girlfriend). We had dinner with Angelica and some of her friends.

Sunday, Tiago, Angelica, and I did a lot of sightseeing. I've got pictures of some of the places we went. Sunday night, Tiago and I made a late night poatao delivery to the supermarket. 3,000kg of batatas. That brings me to this morning. Sorry for not posting sooner, but my friends here have been keeping me busy. It's a good thing.

Check out some of the pictures. I'll try to post pictures and commentary regularly now.