Day One - São Paulo and in transit

We arrived in São Paulo in the morning and our flight to Manaus was not until 8:30pm, so we had a good chunk of time to do something interesting. The first order of business was breakfast – which we had at a coffee shop right outside the baggage claim area. We were surprised at how expensive the food was: 60 reals ($31) for 4 coffees, two breakfast sandwiches and 4 pães de queijo - ouch! We always seem to plan our trips when the dollar is weakest!

Prior to our trip, we tried to prepare our children for some of the things they would see in Brazil by explaining that Brazil had a lot of people who were desperately poor. Even so, we were still startled by the little kids that came begging for our scraps when we finished breakfast at the airport and the deaf people who left trinkets or a small amount of peanuts on our table, with instructions asking for a donation for the offering.

São Paulo is one of the largest cities in the world and the possibilities are almost endless for fun and entertainment, but we wanted to do something uniquely Brazilian. Since SP is the city with the largest community of Japanese people outside of Japan, we set our sights on the Liberdade neighborhood ("Japan-town"), which also has a metrô stop and is therefore easy to get to.

Liberdade
As we waited for our first bus, we watched in amazement as one after another bicycle rider hitched their bicycles to the trees in full view of multiple large signs stating that doing so was prohibited. This was Exhibit B in my explanation to the kids about the complex relationship Brazilians have with rules.

Along the way, we passed some of the many Favelas that house the poorest of the poor in Brazil's cities, providing a glimpse into poverty that seems almost insurmountable.

It turned out that Sunday is also a day for the Liberdade street fair in the square and surrounding streets above the metro stop. Score! First stop was a street vendor for hot chocolate and pão de queijo (Brazilian cheese bread), which was welcome fare on a chilly, overcast day. Many of the vendors are Japanese artists and artisans, and we spent hours in the stands looking at the hand crafts and chatting with the vendors. Lilly found a wire artist that made animal shapes and opted for a small dragon, and then we found a young lady and her mother that made miniature origami figures and she bought a pair of origami earrings.

São Paulo’s Guarulhos Airport
We decided to head back to the airport to be sure we were able to retrieve our bags, check in for our flight and find dinner before needing to board the 3.5 hour flight to Manaus. Along the way, Lauren spotted a group of Capybara next to a pond along the highway, which are large rodents the size of dogs only found in South America.

Things are rarely easy in Brazil, so it was a good decision to head back to the airport when we did because it was crowded and many people were gathered around TV monitors, watching a soccer game between the U.S. and Brazil that the Brazilians won (nobody was surprised). Not having slept on the overnight flight, we were tired and succumbed to convenience and had dinner at Pizza Hut. We all ate happily. Speaking of happy, we found a kiosk that offered massages at the airport and Lauren became a happy client. When mom’s happy, everyone’s happy.

Changes in Brazil (part I)
Thankfully the flight to Manaus was uneventful. One thing we noticed had changed in Brazil is how common it is to see adults wearing braces on their teeth – all flight attendants on our flight sported them and it was noticeable among the people we saw in Liberdade. We were left to wonder why, and then we noticed other changes later in our trip that are hopefully good signs for the country.

Hot, Humid Jungle Air
After we arrived in Manaus, and got our bags, the hot and humid jungle air hit us in the face as we exited to the chaotic taxi stand. I don’t know why, but my command of Portuguese and ease with Brazilian culture did not prevent me from having a sense of unease as we sped away from the airport. The cover of night could not mask the fact that Manaus was a sleepy provincial capital that’s very far from the economic power of Rio and São Paulo. While I had never been to the Amazon before, I was not surprised to find it so vastly different from SP. Brazil is a continent-size country and we’d just traversed the equivalent distance (in terms of mileage and ambience) between New York City (São Paulo) and Boise, Idaho (Manaus) – very different places indeed.

Day 14 – Rio to São Paulo

On our last morning in Rio, Djanira came to have coffee with us and see us off. It was so sweet of her to do that, and it was also very sad to say goodbye to her. We really hope she comes to visit us in the states some day soon.

We made it a point to find a “big” taxi and even so, we were off to the airport with suitcases on our laps. Where there’s a will, there’s a way. The sun was shining brilliantly and by time we were leaving at 9:30am, it was already registering 26°C (80°F) and we knew we’d be missing another great day at the beach, but we were excited to see Celso & Marcelle and their kids.

Catching up with Celso & Marcelle
We flew out of Santos Dumont airport on the Ponte Aérea (shuttle) and arrived at São Paulo’s Congonhas airport 45 minutes later. Celso met us there and I told the kids to look for the tallest man around (he's 6'8" and used to be a professional basketball player). Maybe it’s a good thing, but the weather in SP was rainy and 15°C (59°F) so we all felt like taking a nap. The Dorias had just gotten back from their vacation in Maranhão so we were all in the mood to relax and get caught up.

The Dorias have 3 kids – Alex and Lucas are twin boys aged 12 and Juliana is age 10, so the close proximity in age made it nice for our Alex and Lilly. Plus, they are fully bilingual so it was a nice break for our kids to be able to hear English being spoken. We were all very comfortable in their roomy apartment, which takes up the entire 4th floor of their building. We were able to do some laundry, which for some reason was very comforting.

Because of the cold weather, we had fondue for dinner (yum!) and chocolate fondue with strawberries for dessert. Celso and I had to run out to get baguettes and we went to this over-the-top gourmet "food emporium" (along the lines of Southern Season or Dean & Deluca) that only has valet parking. Pretty schwanky. It made me feel all good and smug again about using "Snob" brand paper towels at our apartment in Rio. LOL!

Day 15/16 – São Paulo

The weather was still chilly, but the sun came out so we went for a walk in the park nearby and then went to their club for lunch. São Paulo is an interesting place and a lot of people with means belong to these social clubs, and the Dorias belong to the Clube Paulistano. They have a wide variety of activities – pools, tennis courts, etc. We got to see Celso’s parents again, who we’d last seen at our house in Dallas for new year’s in 1997. We also got to see his sister Ana, who we also last saw in 1997 in Dallas. Her husband Marcos is a diplomat and they are now living in Brasília, so it was a bonus to be able to visit with her, too.

The Book Store
We went to the Livraría Cultura near Avenida Paulista so I could buy the Harry Potter books #6 and 7 in Portuguese to complete the series. The bookstore itself is really cool because it’s entry staircase looks like a bird cage, and the inside is laid out in two large ramps with an undulating handrail and semi-random spindles and a huge wooden model of a dinosaur skeleton suspended from the ceiling.

Changes in Brazil (part III)
We had a chance to talk with both Celso and Marcelle about some of the changes we'd seen in Brazil since the last time we'd been there. They confirmed our observation that many things were changing in Brazil, not the least of which was the greater number of automobiles on the road, including luxury brands such as Audi, Volvo and Lexus. Some of it has to do with the emergence of easier credit, made possible by the relative economic stability of the last 10 years. Some of it can't be easily linked to economic stability, such as all the public service advertisements, people carrying plastic bags to pick up after their dogs and building projects stopped for years because the builders are being held accountable to building ordinances

The demise of jeitinho?
All these changes got us speculating on whether or not the "jeitinho brasileiro" was on it's way out. We hope not, because while "jeitinho" has its downsides in various forms of corruption, I think it's what has enabled everyday Brazilians to cope with hyper-inflation, military dictatorship and various other man-made hazards through the years. It's also what drives the optimism in the national psyche that sets Brazilians apart from their Spanish-speaking cousins and even the Portuguese themselves.

São Paulo’s Sunday Pizza Tradition
Dinner on Sunday night was at the Pizzaría Camelo, which we’d visited the last time we were in São Paulo and going out to these pizzerias on Sundays is a Paulista tradition. SP also has a very large Italian community, so there’s very good Italian food to be had there. Pizzaría Camelo is just one of many. If you visit one, be sure to ask for “alho frito,” which is garlic flakes that have been browned and can be sprinkled on your pizza like parmesan cheese.

Celso is the head of IT for Morgan Stanley Americas for all offices outside New York, which is a big job to say the least. Needless to say, their home office is wired with the latest and greatest, so Alex and Lilly got to watch movies, surf the Web and play video games with the Doria kids until they were all bug-eyed. Lauren and I got to check email and update our FB pages and catch up on the news from home.

Marcelle is a teacher at the American School, where Alex & Lucas are both in school. Because they both are using English all day and the boys are in the American school (Juliana just transferred to another school) they are all fully bilingual.

On our last day in SP, we continued to devote our energies to relaxing, drinking coffee and hanging loose with Celso & Marcelle. We headed out to Shopping Eldorado and a Brazilian arts and artisan store for last-minute purchases and then we packed up to go. We planned ahead to leave plenty of time to get to the airport because of the legendary SP traffic, which did not fail to disappoint as we crawled across town for 1.5 hours.

Leaving Brazil with Saudades
The airport was a complete zoo and to finish off our trip right, the boarding process was somewhat disorderly even though it was conducted in both English and Portuguese. All in all, this trip was particularly special for me because it was as if I went to Brazil for the first time by seeing it all through the eyes of my children. It brought back memories of my first trip to Brazil, when I was much younger. I was in awestruck wonder during that whole trip at the sights, sounds and smells of this phenomenal land of colorful, barely-contained chaos.

That first time leaving Brazil back in 1977 was when I really learned the meaning of “saudades,” which roughly translates to a “longing” or “yearning” for something. I remember being sad to leave, but also feeling as if a part of me was staying behind, therefore creating the need for me to go back again some day. I still have that feeling of leaving something behind when I leave Brazil even after all these years, two extended periods living there and dozens of trips back. It's never a question of "if" I go back, but always simply "when." And the answer is always "not soon enough."