There Are No Early Nights In Sao Paolo

May 27th, 2007 Posted by Tiff

Got up today and shockeroonie… it was raining! What??!!! Oi, Jorge Ben I want my money back, pais tropical…? You’re avin a Steffi Graf my friend. Oh well, a perfect day to upload some files edit content and erm, generally do the dull stuff that gives you, our beloved Trocabrahmistas, the sexy web content experience you’re right at this second enjoying. What we didn’t know was the we were about to enter phone hell.

I hate shopping malls. I hate them everywhere and anywhere. It’s universal. They are all godawful even the word ‘mall’ sounds like someone wailing. When we had waited three hours, yes that’s three hours to get a SIM for our phones my W**t Pl**a experience was complete.
The saving grace was the fantastic Italian food we had for lunch when we persuaded our intrepid guide Julio to have pizza for lunch. I say guide, he’s really become more of a guru, he has many names like a real deity: Julio, o meu bem, a lenda…

Faced with a life crisis now I often ask myself, ‘what would Julio do?’

Julio had never had pizza for lunch. ‘That’s craze, you just don’t do this. Pizza for lunch?’ It was as if we had asked to run down Avenida Paulista in a chicken suit (hmm, now there’s an idea) so after some cajoling and saying that we’d have the first piece… he agreed. We tucked into a great salad, palm heart pizza and taught Julio how to speak like a Glasgow ned (chav). He was a natural. I think it’s the nasal tones Portuguese has. Put it this way, by the time we’d finished our pizza, he was saying ‘how no?’ instead of ‘why’. Aaah, our work here is done.

In the evening we hang out in a cool area called Vila Madelena which has lots of little bars. We hang out and watch Tita Lima play with her band. Brahmas are flowing and once again Brasil is hitting cruise control. Live here? I definitely could.

Quote of the day: Julio o meu bem de espirito santo ‘yes, Bruno, I am a ned’.

Entry Filed under: Stories