Back in Latin America – São Paulo, Brazil

Almost 2 years ago I left Santo Domingo and with that the ground of the Latin American continent. Now I am back in Latin America, now I am the first time in my life in Brazil. I will stay in Latin America for around 10 months so its time to continue my blog. This time it will be in English, that it can be understandable for everyone. Only my parents will get a personal version, cause there are not that good in English. Hehe and everyone knows that English is not my native language, I am sure that there will appear several mistakes – I am sorry for that…

Well now I am back to the continent I love so much. Last time I stayed for around 14 months here, I worked in total 9 months in the Dominican Republic and in Mexico and used the 5 other months for discovering 14 other countries. Those who can understand German, can read the old stories of my blog… Well and for me it was somehow sure, that I will come back one day, but I did not know where and when. So one day I was watching this documentary about the derby of the two famous Brazilian football teams in Rio Flamengo and Fluminense. This documentary was also about the country Brazil so i decided that my next destination in Latin America will be Brazil. Thanks the great student organization AIESEC I was sure that I can find an internship there which could give me a great opportunity to start again a great unforgettable time. So I found a job – in São Paulo.

Haha honestly from the beginning São Paulo was not my first choice, because I really wanted to live in a city next to the ocean, so I tried to manage it to come to Florianopolis. But than people told me, that the south of Brazil is very German and I wanted to get to know the Brazilian culture. So probably São Paulo is the best place for that. I have to find this out now!

My arrival at the airport

Well now I am since 6 days in this city and people where asking me, what I am thinking about São Paulo. My first answer is „its just big“. Concerning Wikipedia there are around 20 million people living in this city, which makes it to the sixth biggest of the world. When I was landing in São Paulo at 5 in the morning, I just was seeing a huge ocean of lights and when I got the opportunity to be on a high point where you have a nice view over the city, I still cant see where it ends. My second answer about this city is, that people are very friendly. Also the AIESEC system worked perfect, starting with picking me up from the airport (Thanks to Fernanda and Caio), following with finding a flat for me (Thanks to Raquel) and last but not least giving me a warm welcome (Thanks to AIESEC ESPM). Everyone was very happy to get to know me, telling me something about the Brazilian culture or showing me some typical dishes and drinks. They are helping me with the Brazilian paperwork (OMG the bureaucracy of Brazil is worse than the German one – I never believed that…)  and are showing me the city and the night life of São Paulo. Next thing I can tell about São Paulo is the traffic. Damn there are to much cars for this big city. From the airport to the city center we needed around 2 hours (From the city center to the airport at 5 in the morning they needed 20min…) motorcycle drivers seemed to want to die as soon as possible concerning the way the drive and even if big signs in the street are remembering the members of the traffic about the rules (don’t ever use your cellphone while driving, only cross the street when its green, always use your seatbelt) everyone gives a damn about it, honestly nothing new in South America. And another significant thing about São Paulo – Wow is that expensive here! Its weird coming to Latin America and realize that everything is more expensive than in Germany! In the supermarket you spend almost the double what you would normally spend in Germany and if you want to go out at the weekend, you should have some cash. Last Friday I had the most expensive party in my life, spending in total around 60€ for an all inclusive chic party. Well the party was really cool and the DJ was great, but concerning my German mentality I had to find a way to find a good cost-use-realationship so I took as much Mojitos as possible what I regretted on the next day. I really can’t understand how poor people can live here, okay I admit that I live in the most chic neighborhood in the street of Oscar Freire, but also in other areas everything seems to be overpriced… So I guess for my trvel plans I should save some money…

Sao Paulo Park next to Paulista Avenue

Well my first days here were very nice. After I managed to leave the Jetlag feeling I met a lot of people, most of them trainees from Colombia, Venezuela, Mexico, Japan, Germany, Argentina and Costa Rica. I live in a very nice apartment with 4 guys from Brazil and one Japanese guy, with is also that guy I am sharing my room with. He is really nice and is not snoring, so there are no problems. The apartment has also cable TV so can learn Portuguese while watching The Simpsons.Well and Portuguese is hard to learn. It helps that I can speak some Spanish, so when I read Portuguese I can understand a lot, but when people here speak fast or I should say something, I am most of the time pretty much lost. The worst thing is the pronunciation which is driving me from time to time absolutely crazy. I was discovering some parts of the city, and I preferred especially this small little park next to Paulista Avenue and MASP museum which is like a little tropical forest in middle of this huge city. Today I was first with Fernanda and Raquel from AIESEC and my roomie Tatsu in the city center (dirty streets, a lot of homeless people) in the very nice Mercado Muncipal where we could try a lot of fruits and enjoy good Brazilian food. After it I went with Tatsu and one of the Brazilian flat mates out to see the game Corinthias São Paulo against Bahia Salvador in the football stadium which is only 20 minutes walk from our house. The game was somehow boring, but our favorite team Corinthias was wining 1:0.

Mercado Principal

Well thats it from the beginning. Tomorrow starts my work. The AIESEC guys will show me the way to the work (damn at 8 in the morning…) and then I will find out what are my tasks. What I know until now is, that I am going to write web applications for social media monitoring…

Last but not least I recommend everyone who is reading this blog to watch these short movie here: http://vimeo.com/5842415. I watched it in the museum MASP (The rest of the exhibition was boring) and it was one of the best movies I’ve seen showing the live in the Favelas (very poor neighborhood) of Rio de Janeiro… The 17min are really worth the time!

Some pictures can be find here: https://picasaweb.google.com/captainmathi86/FirstDaysInSaoPaulo

Reiseliteratur

Mathias Verfasst von:

Ein Kommentar

  1. 11. November 2011
    Antworten

    Congratulations for your new internship! Maybe one day you can come to Asia!! Have a lot of fun, learn Portuguese, dance zamba and play a lot of futebol! Keep up with the blog!

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