I don’t know if I’d go so far as to say I’ve got a soft spot for São Paulo – it’s too overwhelming a place for such sentiment – but it was here, back in 2010, that my international recruitment career began in utterly inauspicious fashion: with me throwing up in a Brazilian steakhouse. No, that’s not a metaphor.
In 2007, when I began recruiting for the University of Calgary, I figured I’d be out of the game within two years. Tonight, I’m flying to Sao Paulo for the first trip of my twelfth recruitment season.
Two takeaways here. One, I suck at math. Two, I’m still one of the lucky ones who gets to make money by doing something they genuinely love. This calls for a soundtrack – and so, without further ado, I present the triumphant return of Travelling Songs! My phone isn’t very big, but thanks to the wonders of the internet I’ll be juggling these selections over the coming week.
It’s a quick trip: I’ll be back early Friday. I’ve got a grand total of 14 nights in hotels this fall; that would’ve constituted an average international trip for me back in the day (in 2011, for instance, I had a 20-night trip to Trinidad and Tobago, Colombia, Peru, Ecuador, Jamaica and the Cayman Islands; at one point I spent six consecutive nights in six different cities in four different countries on two different continents, and no, I can’t believe I used to live like that either). I much prefer this new arrangement that’ll have me home to Sam after five-and-a-half short days.
Tudo bem!
I’m listening to the new Bruce Springsteen album for the first time, in a hotel room in Brazil’s capital city Brasilia. I doubt I could’ve envisioned my present reality three years ago, when I fell asleep while giving Working on a Dream its inaugural listen, but here we are: I’m underneath the covers in a king-sized bed with the lights off and “Jack of All Trades” playing through my earbuds. It’s a good life. And it’s a bit of a weird one.
I’d been to Brasilia a couple years ago when our group flew in from Sao Paulo, visited a school, toured the city, and flew back. This year we checked into a hotel, which is actually more like a compound; it’s also one of the more unique places I’ve stayed, partly because there’s a giant zeppelin-like structure hanging over the lobby area. We’re technically staying two nights; I say “technically” because my alarm’s set for 2:40 tomorrow morning (it’s 8:36pm right now…hey, that’s six hours from now!) and I’ll be on a flight bound for Lima before sunrise. These are the less-glamourous aspects of what I do. Among the more glamourous ones: eating dinner at a restaurant abutting the Pacific Ocean, which is what I’ll be doing tomorrow night. Again: it’s a good life. It’s just a bit difficult wrapping my head around it sometimes.
More this weekend! Boa noite!
Greetings from Sao Paulo, which (so far) has been much kinder to me than in previous years. I just walked about a mile uphill to a music store that didn’t have the new Bruce Springsteen album–and so I’m now sat in my hotel room listening to “Midnight Rambler” and downloading Wrecking Ball from the iTunes Store. The trip officially starts in sixteen minutes; this, then, is necessarily a short update, but it’s also the first of what will hopefully be many updates as I traipse about Latin America for the next couple weeks.
As for Rio: it’s one of the best places I’ve ever been. There’s more life in a single block than in most entire cities, and we barely even scraped the surface. I cannot wait to go back.
And so it ends, or the first leg at any rate, in an overpriced Sao Paulo hotel. This city didn’t intimidate me as much as it did last year. Then, I was overawed by it size. This year we had time to explore, to gain at least a sense of how the city lives and breathes. And, well, eat a lot of meat: tonight’s was my third churrascaria meal in four nights.
Tomorrow I leave for Argentina, where I’ll be spending four days alone in Buenos Aires. For now, here are some of the highlights of this first part of the journey.
I…
With that, I’m off to fill in my tour evaluation and sleep. Last night I managed four hours; tonight I’m aiming to double that, because this time tomorrow I’ll be wide awake in Buenos Aires. See you then!
Greetings from Campinas! I was here last night, too, and in Sao Paulo the night before that. I’ll be in Sao Paulo again tomorrow; it’s been that kind of trip. I’ve eaten churrascaria two of the three nights I’ve been in Brazil. I don’t know the literal translation of “churrascaria,” but I do know what it is: Brazilian meat buffet, which literally has you sitting at your table while waiters waltz by with one skewer of meat after another. It’s basically the greatest thing ever.
My trip is “officially” underway, but because being in a place like Sao Paulo without taking advantage of the city itself would be pointless, a group of us spent the latter part of this afternoon in Ibirapuera Park, an oasis of relative calm amidst the chaos of the world’s seventh-largest urban centre. For the equivalent of C$5 we rented bikes and explored; it wasn’t quite the Ride to Conquer Cancer, but it was still a nice break (or, well, “break,” since we haven’t really gotten going yet…although we will be shortly, and I’ll be posting itineraries to prove that this is not all fun and games). Sao Paulo itself is a fascinating place. I wish our schedule allowed more time for exploration, but it’s looking like I’ll have to settle for a final stab at attending a football match tomorrow night (we were planning on seeing Santos F.C. this afternoon before getting held up in Campinas). Also tomorrow, another personal first: an embassy function! Be afraid, people – be very afraid.
It’s now level between Sao Paulo and me: I figured out the lights (or, well, had the lights explained to me), then managed to keep down solid food. Last night I dined like a king at an authentic Brazilian steakhouse, although not before walking in and uttering an unironic, “Restaurant?” I’m now officially outside my comfort zone and (this’ll surprise those of you who know me) thoroughly enjoying myself; it’s scary yet stimulating, and in this newfound spirit of adventure (albeit within the confines of a fifteen-person English-speaking group tour) I’m off to go webcam shopping. The number of people who, upon learning that I’m Canadian, have responded with some sort of Vancouver/hockey comment: three. I’ve even had a full-blown conversation–with a Brazilian, no less–about Ryan Miller’s goalie mask. I’m further afield than I’ve ever been before, yet seldom have I seen so powerfully illustrated how the earth itself is shrinking.
Greetings from the Blue Tree Morumbi! For those keeping score it’s now Sao Paulo 2, Steve 0: firstly, en route from the airport, I developed such severe motion sickness I had to get our driver to pull off the road, whereupon I ran into a fancy Brazilian steakhouse and, uh, “prayed to the porcelain gods,” for lack of a more eloquent description; and secondly, now that I’m in my hotel room, I can’t figure out how the light switches operate (although, in my defence, neither can my neighbour, so either it’s complicated or we’re both a bit stupid). I have no concept of where I am; my room faces north, but that’s all I can really tell you. Sao Paulo: the mind blows.
Tomorrow is an off day, a chance for us all to acclimatize before the tour kicks off Sunday morning in nearby Campinas. Tomorrow afternoon Palmeiras, one of the local Campeonato football clubs, has a home match against bottom team Sertaozinho. I really don’t know how I’d go about getting into the game…but the stadium (called, somewhat deceptively, the Palestra Italia) is less than 10km away, so it’d be silly not to investigate further. In the meantime, I’m off to nourish myself before a Skype date with a lonely–yet nonetheless fetching–Calgary blonde. Oh: and in unrelated news, I watched The Blind Side against last night. I enjoyed it more than I did the first time…but still, if you’re even vaguely intrigued by the movie’s premise, go straight to Michael Lewis’ astonishing book The Blind Side: Evolution of a Game, which is even better than his other well-known sports book, Moneyball.
Evening, chaps, and greetings from my basement bedroom in Calgary. It’s my last night in town; this time tomorrow I’ll be on board a Continental Airlines flight bound for Sao Paulo and, with luck, asleep…although that’s doubtful since I can’t sleep on airplanes (sleeping pills ho?). Also tomorrow I’ll be back at George Bush Intercontinental Airport in Houston, replete with its horrific, larger-than-life statue of the senior Bush. I’ll be there for three hours, long enough to eat a steak, pick up a gratuitous piece of Longhorns garb, listen to the new (well, newish) Bob Dylan song “If You Ever Go To Houston,” and board the aircraft. Total travelling time: twenty-four hours.
Brazil. The mind boggles.
Stuff and Nonsense 
