Número Quinze - Bem-vindo a São Paulo!

So, in order:

Canada, The Bahamas, England, Greece, Italy, Mexico, Jamaica, China, Japan, Ireland, Spain, Austria, Czech Republic, Australia, annnnnd BRAZIL.

In what would turn out to be my last project for Bastian Software, I was sent to the country of Brazil for about 35 days in November and December of 2013.  Brazil would be my 15th country, and my fifth continent, all before I turned 30.  I feel so blessed that I have been able to have these experiences - I firmly believe that travelling outside of your comfort zone forces you to grow as a person.  This trip to Brazil was CERTAINLY outside of my comfort zone.  It's a trip that I wouldn't necessarily want to repeat, but am glad that I can say that I lived in a remote area of a third world country for a while.  The trip was so eye opening for me - both personally and professionally, and while I'm certainly not looking at vacation areas in Brazil, I'm really glad I went through it.

I was sent to Brazil to put in a warehouse control system for a third party distribution company called Columbia, who was fulfilling distribution in South America for Puma. The Columbia facility was in a small city called Cotia (pronounced Co-cheea), about an hour and a half outside of Sao Paulo city.  My hotel was in a nearby artsy district called Embu Das Artes.

Below I have included some notes on the areas I was in and the experiences I had, followed by lots of pictures from the trip.



Sao Paulo

Sao Paulo is a huge, huge city.  The citizens there told me that it's the third biggest city in the world.  (Google disagrees with that, depending on where you look, but all the sites have it in the top 10).  It was just really really huge.

The major downtown area that I saw was when we went to buy some things for the project.  We went to the "electronics district", where people were selling everything you can imagine out of the back of their car (most of it stolen).  Even the "stores", which were more like kiosks in an open street corner, were questionable at best.  We bought several major software packages (including Microsoft Project and Autocad 2012) for $5 a piece on burned CDs that were labeled with a sharpie.

Other than that, the city was pretty typical to what I'm used to seeing in a major international city.  Pickpocketing is very prevalent there - in fact, the Brazilian I was with noticed when we got to the train that his backpack had been completely unzipped.  He was smart enough to not have anything in there, but if there would have been a laptop, camera, cell phone, etc, it would have definitely been gone.   People ask me if I felt scared while I was down there.  That answer is complicated - I have a lot of experience travelling, and I was always with someone from Brazil, so I felt ok most of the time.  However, I would not go to Brazil with a family, and I would not go on vacation where I would be in the city walking around without a Brazilian.

Cotia / Embu das Artes
The cities that I worked and stayed in were in direct contrast to Sao Paulo.  They were both complete third world towns that were very, very poor.

Embu das Artes was an art focused city, with lots of local places and art gallery shops along a central square area.  It had cobblestone streets so steep that walking up and down them was taxing.  The restaurants were creative, mostly outdoors, and the central square was a well populated place during the day that got pretty shady at night.  My "hotel" in Embu (which was more like a bed and breakfast) was actually very nice, and had a great breakfast.  I didn't feel safe walking around Embu, and only did so once (at the suggestion of some of the Brazilians I was working with).

Cotia was even more desolate, with hardly anything but the massive industrial park that we were working in, and a handful of shops and restaurants that support the people that work there.  Even those were spotty at best.  Putting it bluntly, Cotia was a slum where the government force-built an industrial park to try to drive economy.  It failed to do so, and what was left was a very poor area with a bunch companies that had logistical and transportation problems.


Here are some cultural notes on Brazil and my time there.

• Infrastructure
• Many Brazilians know the English word infrastructure, because they don't have it.  Anything you rely on the government or public service for is terribly underdeveloped in Brazil.  To name a few:  the power grid, the safety and reliability of water, the roads and public transportation, cell phone towers, food safety regulations, hospitals, and on and on and on.
• The power went out in the entire industrial park that I was working in multiple times, sometimes for days at a time.  Roads were eroding out from under themselves, and in some places, major roads weren't even paved.  Everyone there has a $500 cell phone, but can't receive calls because there is no cell coverage, and where there is, too many people are using it.  It was a crazy, crazy place.
• Food and Drink
• Brazilians eat a small breakfast and a huge lunch.  I don't see how any business gets done in Brazil in the afternoon.  Dinner was also small, and late (around 9:30pm).
• The famous Brazilian drink is called a Caipirinha (Kipe-er-eena).  It is made with the famous liquor from Brazil, called Cachaca (Ka-sha-sa), as well as sugar, lime juice, and a few other things. Cachaca is to Brazil as Tequila is to Mexico.  A Caipirinha is both delicious and dangerous.... :)  
• You cannot drink the water in Brazil.  Brazilians don't even drink it.  I told them that I occasionally drink water in the shower in the US and they thought that was completely outrageous.
• Most people think of Fogo de Chao when they think of Brazilian food.  That style of food (where meat is cooked on a skewer and brought to the table, nonstop, until you explode) is called a Churrascaria (shu-haska-ria), and is from one particular region of Brazil.  However, it is very popular all over, and it is baller.  We ate this a couple times, and it was bomb.
• Food is priced by weight in Brazil.  You get what you want buffet style, and then your plate is weighed and you pay by the gram.  Because of this, eating in line is frowned upon.  Who knew...
• Soccer riots.  
• There was a major soccer riot while I was in Brazil.  It got so bad that police helicopters flew in and multiple people were shot with rubber bullets.  Hundreds and hundreds were involved, several were hospitalized and I believe a couple were killed also.
• At least two soccer related beheadings occurred in 2013.  One was of a player, and one a referee.  This link gives you some info, and there is also INCREDIBLY graphic footage online elsewhere if you search for it.  
• When asked about the riots, the people in Brazil basically said 'Yeah, soccer is a big deal'.  This blows my mind, especially since the World Cup in 2014 and the Olympics in 2016 are both in Brazil.  Hard pass.   
• Traffic
• I had a driver at all times in Brazil.  There is no WAY I would want to drive there.  It's not because traffic is bad.  It's because driving in Brazil is absolutely ludicrous and there is a 100% chance that it would end in an accident.
• Almost every vehicle in Brazil is manual because of the incredibly steep inclines.  They all drive small hatchback cars. 
• The traffic is so bad that depending on your license plate number, there are certain times of the day and days of the week that you aren't allowed to drive in the city of Sao Paulo.  When I went downtown, the standstill traffic was so bad that people had kiosks on the side of the road selling food, newspapers, drinks, and cell phone chargers.  
• The roads were crazy in the small towns.  No one follows any rules, including speed limits, so they put giant speed bumps everywhere.  I counted one morning and there were 71 speed bumps between my hotel and the facility.  In addition, there were car-sized pot holes and roads that were literally falling apart.
• I witnessed a motorcyclist get hit right in front of me.  I have no doubt he was killed.  
• People
• Although Brazil is not all that safe for tourists, the people of Brazil that I came into contact with were all incredibly nice and hospitable.  They all went out of their way to make me feel welcome and safe - and I owe them a huge amount of gratitude for all they did for me.  
• Most of the guys I worked with spoke some degree of English, but the general public did not, at ALL.  I was able to hack my way around with the Spanish that I know (using mostly vocab, because verb conjugation is totally different in Portuguese).
• There was no contact whatsoever with Blanka.  I was disappointed about that.

Now its time for the good stuff.  I'll apologize in advance for the lack of detailed information about whats in the pictures.  Keep in mind, there is a major language barrier...  Roll the pictures! :)

High Rises downtown Sao Paulo.  You can drive 100 miles and see buildings this size.  The city never ends.

A church downtown.  I believe this was a catholic church, but don't hold me to that.

More buildings.  As you can see, Sao Paulo is similar to any other major city on the surface.  It has a high frequency of pick-pocketers, but other than that, most areas I was downtown weren't bad. 

Theatro Municipal de São Paulo - a very popular place for local music and theater events.

Parque Anhangabau - a fountain and park downtown.  This was a really cool area across from the theater.  

This is the parking lot we parked at to get on the metro.  You had to leave your keys.  Our car was in the very back on the left side.  When we got back, I kid you not, they had 3 drivers that went straight rubix cube, and had our car out in less than 5 minutes.  It completely blew my mind.  

This is the warehouse that we were integrating a system in.  It is relatively new, and looks really nice.  However, see the next picture for a shot of the industrial park that this building was in.

Industrial Park in Cotia, where the Columbia facility was located.

Hillside in Cotia.  This view was from the second floor of a restaurant.

The coolest place in Cotia.  This was a little restaurant in the valley between two mountains.  It was a fish house, and they had a giant fishing lake adjacent.  You could pay to fish, and then pay to have them serve the fish you caught.  You could also just eat there, and the food couldn't have possibly been any fresher.  This was def. my favorite place to eat.

Traditional lunch in Brazil.  Salad (no dressing, just olive oil), a fried egg, a piece of tilapia directly out of the adjacent lake.  Of COURSE, it comes con arroz y frijoles (I didn't have any meals in Brazil without rice and beans).  All topped off with a Guarana Zero, which, as far as I can tell, is the single greatest thing that Brazil has ever accomplished.    I probably drank 200 of these while I was there.

Embu Das Artes - the small town where I stayed.  It was a very culturally interesting area, with neat restaurants and bars, along with a lot of art shops, however, it wasn't safe at night.  I only left my hotel once by myself.

The one time I went out on my own - on Sundays in Embu Das Artes, they have an art show in the streets where people sell all kinds of really cool art.  Paintings, carvings, tapestries, everything you can imagine.   

Kiosks for all the art.  Unfortunately it was raining on this day, so everything was a bit covered.  

My "hotel", called Pousada o Garimpo.  A pousada in Brazil is not really a hotel, but more of a bed and breakfast.  I think this place has about 15 rooms, and serves breakfast each morning.  This was the only entrance, and it was surrounded by these walls with barbed wire on top. 

The inside courtyard of my hotel.  As you can see, it was actually pretty nice on the inside.  My room is the one with the window open.  

Belas Artes is a restaurant that we ate at a couple times in Embu das Artes.  This, my friends, is the single greatest cup of cafe I have ever had.  It was so hot, and so strong, that they serve it with a shot of agua con gas (fizzy water, blegh) and a sugar biscuit.  It was 4 and a half ounces of an Italian/Brazilian mixed coffee pressure-brewed into pure deliciousness.

I wish I had more pictures, and had gotten to do some more site seeing and travelling while I was there.  Unfortunately we worked long hours and I wasn't able to get out that much.

Like I said, this project was really great for me professionally - I definitely now understand why being able to check off the box that says "Managed International Projects" is a big deal in my industry.  The complexity of managing in a wildly different country, with the language barrier, the politics, and the cultural differences, was quite difficult, and I feel like I grew a lot during this project.  So, it was a good experience.

And I'm glad it's over.  :)

Cheers!