First Week in São Paulo

I arrived in São Paulo on Friday morning, which gave me Friday and Saturday to get acclimated to the area. I was living in a great area, Jardins, on the Avenida Rebouças. It is only 6 or so blocks away from the Avenida Paulista, one of the main streets in São Paulo. On the first day, I went up to Paulista to walk around and walked pretty much from one end to the other. It was a cool feeling because I felt like I was in the middle of the action, kind of like being in New York. On Saturday and Sunday, I walked to the Parque Ibirapuera, a big park in an area of the city. It is really pretty and it was a great place to sit and read Les Mis (an amazing book!). My first few days were focused just on Paulista, Jardins, and Ibirapuera. The downtown area can be pretty shady, and especially at this time of year when it gets dark early down here. So I didn't get there yet, but I made it later.

I only had about a ten or fifteen minute walk to the chapel for church, which was very nice. Church was good, lots of members, lots of people from different places, etc.

On Monday I started working. I wanted to get a subway/bus pass before I went to work because it saves money. If you have a card, you can get on a bus and then make a few transfers for free within 3 hours. If you do not have the card, you have to pay each time you get on the bus. So I walked up to the Consolação subway station, got some pães de quiejo on the way (really really good), but then found out when I arrived that the system was down. I had left really early, so I thought--no big deal, I will just walk toward work and get the card at the next subway station. By the time I arrive, the system will probably be working. I arrived at the next station, and the system was still down. Now I was a little more worried because traffic gets bad, I had never been to work before, etc.

Traffic here is the worst I have ever seen. There are so many people here and so many drive--it causes long delays. Luckily the buses have lanes they can use, but taxis carrying people can also use them, and that means that sometimes it is not really better to drive in those lanes as compared to the others. I think one of the reasons why traffic here is so bad is because the city continues to expand geographically and has no limits on how many roads it can build and how many lanes it can put in each road. This isn't a criticism, it is just an explanation of my own theory. The traffic is not great in New York, but the roads in Manhattan are as wide as they will ever be, unless you tear buildings down. And because it is an island, the city can't go anywhere but up.

Here it's different. The towns that used to be suburbs become part of the city because the city keeps growing and expanding. So they keep building roads. Since the subway system is not as extensive as in New York, for example, people would rather drive than take the bus. And many people don't have to pay to park their car in São Paulo because there seem to be more houses than in New York, where there are mostly apartment buildings. Anyway, people seem to drive if they are able, and even with tons of roads, they get clogged up and it takes forever to get places.

So I was worried about making it. And since I have been living on the slimmest budget possible, I only wanted to pay for one bus ride (the card would have let me take two buses). An American intern from church put it into great perspective a week or two ago. I had gone somewhere the day before at 2:30 or so on the bus. I was coming back home at 5:20 or so, and wanted to make sure I got on a bus as fast as I could so as to not pay again--it was within my 3 hours to make transfers. So one came and I knew it would get me relatively close but I wasn't sure how close. I ended up having to walk 8 or 10 blocks, which for me is relatively close. But it was funny because he said--you'd rather get lost than pay $1.15 for another bus ride? It was pretty funny, and pretty true when you put it in those terms.

Anyway, I took the bus down to a big street where I would have connected with another bus. I got off, and had about 30 minutes to get to the building. I have almost gotten into a lot of trouble in the past when I say to myself: yeah, of course, I can just walk here, take this bus, or do that, and it will all work out great. When I was on my internship in Belgium, my boss paid for me to fly to Scotland. I thought I could just walk out of my apartment and find the bus, but then realized it was like a mile away. I had to sprint in the terminal to catch the plane. Things like that seem to happen periodically. Something to work on. Anyway, this walk was longer than I expected, but I walked into the lobby of the building right at the time I was supposed to be there.

I got checked in, went upstairs, and met the people at the office. I started working with the international trade group right from the start. We had a group meeting that day, which I really enjoyed. I learned a great deal about international trade, and also had a lot of fun doing all of these things in Portuguese. My boss was explaining to me all these concepts of international trade and I wanted to laugh out loud, not believing that I was understanding everything and not really having any problems communicating with the rest of my team. It was great. I got some projects right off the bat and was able to start working.

I was able to go to court that week too. Our firm represented a big international client against a law suit. It was really interesting to see how the process worked. The two sides met with the judge, who decides the case based on what they say in those oral arguments (which only lasted 10 minutes or so) and mostly based on what their written arguments say. It was very interesting. I especially liked the poster of the judge's favorite soccer team on the wall of his chambers. The courthouse is in the downtown area, which was nice because then I could go back on Saturday and be more or less familiar with the area.