A very Fall day in São Paulo - 60 degrees and full cloud cover - but so far no rain. Stephen and I took in the Mercado Municipal and enjoyed the Costa Rica-Italy game at a corner neighborhood indoor/outdoor restaurant. Here are some random thoughts from today in São Paulo:
MORE TRAFFIC OBSERVATIONS:
Pedestrian safety is an important area of focus in downtown São Paulo. They employ strict enforcement of Pedestrian safety. If a pedestrian violates safety standards they get hit by a car or a motorcycle. For minor violations you might just clipped and break a bone or two. Major violations only happen once for each pedestrian.
LEARNING THE LANGUAGE:
It wasn't really my plan to come to Brazil without learning even one word of Portuguese, but work was really busy and the departure date from the Bay Area kind of snuck up on me. I went to my Plan B which was to simply be immersed in Brazil and learn the language that way. Plan B has worked pretty effectively as I quickly learned the key words and phrases to survive and even thrive in Brazil. From my experience you can get by with:
- Bom Dia
- Obrigado/Obrigada
- Adeus
- Arrumacqo Depois das Uma
- Cerveja Pilsen
From there you can quickly move to key phrases that help you realize value in commercial transactions such as: "No Compra de 2 Skol, a 3rd e por nossa conta"
LOOKING AHEAD:
US Families head out at 6:45am tomorrow morning on our trek to the Amazon Rain Forest. We have a 4 hour flight to Manaus where we will settle in for 2 nights - coming back the day after the Portugal game. We'll come back to São Paulo before heading back out mid-week next week to Recife for the final group game.
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