Kermit the Vlog

Exactly a year

2009-01-05T17:26:00.002-02:00

You know how it is: you make the jump to an exotic, tropical country. You start blogging about your experiences. And then... you get caught up with actually living where you are. And the blog slides into oblivion.

I'm guilty as charged.

It's been a year since I've fed Kermit. A pretty full year. And you know, I was just going to let it evaporate. Just another blog started with good intentions but with insufficient determination to see it through.

But then, for the first time in a year, I opened my email box and saw a pile of messages from people who had actually been reading my initial missives. Gratifying stuff to know that blogging is not all about whistling in the dark.

And so I reckon I'll give it another whirl.

Kermit's back, at least for now. Let's see what I can do with this thing. Having the word "vlog" in the title of this page seemed to predestine me for posting videos, but I've fallen well behind there. The fact is, Brazil isn't really a place where you want to be brandishing a camera when you go out. So moving pix proved to be an impossible ambition. Also vlog seems more and more démodé now, don't you think? I'm stuck with it though, for now (even if I am considering migrating to a new blog title with a different slant).

So what did the past year bring? Travel was a big component. I've been off to Peru and Argentina and northeastern Brazil. And Paris. And Australia. Also a few romantic ups and downs, but they've settled into a glide path with a beautiful Brazilian gal who, as it turns out, lived just around the corner from me right from the start.

Right now, it's a rainy day in Rio which means I was sufficiently stuck indoors to rediscover my site. And to post this up.

A belated Champagne toast for 2009.

Sampa's Passion for Fashion

2008-01-19T16:42:00.000-02:00

Where does sexy end and vulgarity start? That’s a fuzzy border familiar to Brazilian girls, especially the ones here in Sao Paulo. There are three places on this planet you can see women dressed as walking, talking living dolls apparently dressed by (lecherous male) artistic directors for Maxim or GQ or one of those men’s magazines which make you think “women just don’t look like that in real life.” Well, in Beirut, in Moscow and, dear reader, here in Sao Paulo, they most certainly do look like that. Fashion and fetish, sexiness and spectacular overstatement are rife – with the bonus that they are so many incarnations of samba swinging so cool and swaying so gentle.

There is an odd dimension to male-female relations here that I am only slowly becoming aware of, one of Latin femininity mixed with the urban sophistication of great capitals. In Europe or the United States, the political movements to empower women have created a justifiably laudable even playing field in many areas, notably in the workplace. But in the social arenas where flirting or the simple superficial physical appreciation of those around you is an option, that we’re-all-the-same mentality has come up distressingly short. Brazil’s softer sex has much to teach its sisters in many other countries. Sure, the women here may take the plastic surgery and the weekly (daily?) trips to the hairdresser’s to extremes. And that obsession with high heels obviously demands a certain sacrifice. But the injection of a bit of aesthetic fantasy into the humdrum of everyday of life works a treat here. It’s a joy merely to go to the supermarket, given the catwalk parades along the dairy aisle.

Genetically speaking, the Brazilian men obviously come from the same pool as the women. Beauty here is not as segregated as it is in Moscow, for instance. But it’s the women who dress up (a lot of the men probably want to become clotheshorses, too, but obviously bow to the greater wisdom of not making themselves ostentatious targets for the ever-present armed robbers; thus t-shirts and jeans pretty much make up their casual attire). And when the women – OK, the wealthier women – trot out their party threads, it’s as if a Jay-Z music video clip has come to life. They’ve obviously been doing it since they were little girls, because there’s no self-conscious pulling of dresses or tottering on the heels that you see when girls in other countries try for a glam party look. Here, they glide like goddesses through the room.

Naturally enough, there’s a fashion industry commensurate with the obsession for short, shiny clothes. Brazil is teeming with labels, a few of which are starting to become known, mainly in NYC. And this week was the week when the top 40 of them got to show off their winter collections, in the Sao Paulo Fashion Week.

Now, fashion shows are hardly representative of what the woman in the street wears. At least that’s the maxim in Paris and NYC and London (Milan being a slight exception, at times). But in Sao Paulo, what you see up on the catwalk is not that far off the mark. For the women. (The men’s wear is purely an imaginary jaunt, I’m guessing – unless the numerous gay clubs here have a door policy that encourages some pretty bizarre choices of outfit.)

On that note, here’s a sample of what was showing at this year’s Fashion Show.

For the record: yes, the women on the catwalk do look like the “average” women in the clubs around town. Only being models they’re not allowed to smile at work.

Click To Play

Otimo

2008-01-14T13:05:00.000-02:00

Portuguese is a delightful language.

When I close my eyes, slip my sandals off and hoist my ears to the conversations going on around me I imagine being in a comfy barrel surrounded by drunk mosquitoes. It’s all jjjjj and zzzz and waves rolling into each other of vowels that couldn’t care less where one word stops and another begins, a melty-cheese of a language that belongs in a cartoon world of languorous ducks swimming backstroke while blowing kisses. I don’t understand a word, but it soothes.

Speaking Spanish does not help. Or at least that’s what I’ve come to believe from my not-so-unique vantage point of not really speaking Spanish. Sure, you can muddle your way through a page of text while remembering those Berlitz tape conjugations used for a trip to that Mexican Club Med sometime in the late 1990s. But literate functionality is of little help when you need to order a drink, get cable TV installed -- or insinuate to a pushy driver that it would be redeemable on his part if he took his self-regarding ways to a parthonegenic state impossible for all animals except earthworms and, it appears, sharks. You simply cannot ask a Brazilian to wait while the conversation is scribbled out on whatever parchment is at hand. Even preparing yourself – Pillow Book-style – won’t cover all eventualities.

And throwing Spanish around can be risky. Just try reciting the alphabet and watch the Brazilians sidle away when you hit Q. And the incompatibility of Portuguese using ‘no’ to mean ‘in the’ whereas Spanish-speakers instinctively take it to mean, well, ‘no’ (one wonders why?), creates all sorts of opportunities for misapprehension. Particularly if you’re on a date.

Naõ, there are too many pitfalls in relying on Portuñol. The only way forward is immersion into the language. Dive straight on in and join those punchdrunk mosquitoes and wacky ducks.

It was in that spirit I bought a ticket to the movie “Elite Squad”. Sorry: “Tropa de Elite” (pronounced TRO-pah jay Ee-Lychee – if you don’t speak Portuguese and someone’s recommended the film to you, you could be forgiven for figuring it’s a mystical tale about eating way too many Asian fruits. It’s not, trust me.) The film is apparently a riveting exposé of community relations as employed by those civil servants beloved the world over: police officers. Acts of kindness are legion in the script. And the warmth of human natures just kind of shines through, sparking up the screen. Er, or maybe those illuminations were from the canon explosions of the arsenal of high-calibre weapons wielded by the flak-jacketed cops.

In any case, that celluloid assault did wonders for my grasp of the language of Brazil. I didn’t catch all of it, or even most of it. But I now feel much better qualified to engage in conversation with law enforcement officers or proponents of the country’s unofficial economy. Bring ‘em on. It would be kinda like Quentin Tarantino addressing the UN. Only with even more cocaine influence.

Of course, the path to language mastery is long, and I’m not even at the first petrol station. In the meantime, my tactic is to repeat the four magic words that make it sound, simultaneously, that I am both fluent and hip:

“Otimo.” “Legal.” “Belleza.” "Bacana."

With those four words, doors have opened, taxi drivers have launched into soliloquies about their families and barmen have been prompt with my order. I’ve participated in whole conversations where my sole contributions have been repeated offerings of "otimo" and "legal". I’m not sure, but I think I even navigated my way through the opening of a bank account by smiling and effusively offering that the manager was "belleza". Which he certainly wasn't.

Once I get to the stage of stringing sentences together, I'm sure I'll be able to find some creative ways to get myself into trouble (with the escape policy of blaming any offence on my poor grasp of the lingo).

In the meantime though, it's drunken mosquitoes in my ear and an otimo smile on my lips.

Recap

2007-12-15T01:44:00.001-02:00

As a regular caipirinha drinker with a small collection of Gilberto Gil tracks in my iTunes library and some colourful t-shirts, I figured I was part-way prepared to move to São Paulo from Paris. Hell, if the job came up, I was clearly qualified to be an advisor on Brazilian stuff to the Bush White House. Overqualified, even, given that I once went out with a Brazilian girl and with her help I could more or less point out her country on a world map without resorting to Google Earth.

OK, so I couldn’t point out São Paulo on that map. And back then, adapting my very limited Thai linguistic experience to Latin America’s biggest country, I thought you said “obrigado” to guys and “obrigada” to girls. And, come to think of it, I knew of no other Brazilian movie other than “City of God”. Oh, and as a gringo hailing from a country that most definitely wasn’t the US, I felt hurt being labeled a “gringo”.

So, all in all, it was with a great deal of excitement and ignorance that I packed my bags and skipped across the ocean to what all the guide books comfortingly referred to one of the great homicide capitals of the planet. (I laugh in the description of danger, of course – especially when it’s in a book featuring prominent pictures of such dire perils as lithesome beauties wearing little more than fake diamonds and dental floss.)

That was two months ago.

Now, while I’m not a hardened Paulistano able to shake my booty in a samba contest, I have been able to sit back and take stock of the large pile of misconceptions that I had foolishly packed along with my Indiana Jones hat and bullwhip.

Here they are:

1. There are no palm trees in Sao Paulo, and the beach is a long way away. I still get calls from friends and colleagues who think they can detect a slight whiff of coconut tanning oil and surf crashing when I speak to them down the line. They are, of course, misconstruing the rain and gridlocked traffic in the background. Understandable, perhaps, given that their poor little ears are frostbitten in the French winter that I am not experiencing.

2. Every Brazilian woman is not a cousin of Gisele Bündchen waiting to ravish passing gringos. My Parisian exes were convinced that matrimony in the form of a seductive siren of unbelievable proportions enhanced by surgery was to fall upon me as quickly and stealthily as an Amazon python, or a scalper at a Corinthians game. It took me a couple of weeks to be introduced to the places where such sublime examples of femininity hang out, but my imaginings that they lurked behind every tree and desk were greatly overstated. Well, a little bit overstated. They still obviously come from a different planet where Barbarella babies are mixed with Jennifer Lopez genes. But they are not everywhere. And they do not jump gringos willy-nilly. For the very good reason that their male counterparts come from the same DNA soup and have better pecs and tans than even Calvin Klein dares to exhibit in his ads. And Brazilian men, having been inured since childhood, don’t drool.

3. Sao Paulo is not cheap. Sure, you can laugh as you knock back four-dollar cocktails and one-dollar beers (not recommended, though, as an open windpipe at this point could require medical attention). But I’ve come to believe the prices of cars have been set by Greenpeace, mobile phone roaming tariffs are intended to double up as telephone numbers in themselves, and apartment rentals must include subscriptions to daily masseuses, cooks, drivers and gardeners who somehow lost their way to my particular address. Some residents take their helicopter to work.

4. Life is not easy. Life is a four-letter word (in Portuguese, too) that requires three trips to the Federal Police office with authenticated copies of the origins of each of the letters co-signed by a translator who looked up their symboligical representations in a special tome held in another office on the other side of town that requires two forms of ID and 250 reais to access before being confirmed that, yes, it actually exists as an entry in the dictionary. Said dictionary may only be consulted once you have found a guarantor and a bank line of credit opened in your mother’s maiden name. Repeat for all other words in the sentence.

5. Sao Paulo is not Brazil. What it is, is Bladerunner-goes-to-Beirut. Times 10. Make that times 100. 1,000? I’ve heard rumours that somewhere, beyond the diesel-filled rainbow at the end of the city’s limits, there is a lush tropical paradise of pristine beaches, verdant jungles and third-world prices. Only it requires driving for several days to get there. OK, so I’ve only just arrived. I will be getting out there. Once I work out which way is south and get a GPS.

So much for the misconceptions. Delightfully, there was something that held up from my long list of expectations. And that’s the gentleness and solicitude of the Brazilians. I swear, this is the first metropolis I’ve ever been in where a hefty proportion of its inhabitants take the time to talk, to get to know you and, if you need it, to help. So far, my attempts to communicate are limited to 20 words in Portuguese and Mr Bean impressions. But the Brazilians are unfailingly ready to step forward. I haven’t been here long, but I know for this alone, I’m going to be loving life here.

Andean dislocation

2007-12-13T00:01:00.000-02:00

Now Peru. Getting tired of hotels, and looking forward to getting back to what I'm slowly starting to consider home: São Paulo.

Here, one of the things I notice is the aggressivity of the drivers. Peruvians generally seem a little more passive than their Brazilian and Venezuelan counterparts. There's less eye contact, and their city is lower-rise and seemingly less freewheeling. But they most certainly are Latin when it comes to driving.

Whereas the Brazilians have a sense of kingly entitlement behind the wheel, and the Venezuelans are just intent on sucking up as much of their ultracheap petrol as they can, the Peruvians seem to have a chip on their shoulders that weighs them down all the way to the accelerator. Like anywhere, you just have to calibrate to how much machismo to show when you drive. Here, it's an 8 on the scale. Similar to the way the Syrians careen around, looking to rub bumper bars and creating lanes when they feel like it.

Another similarity between the three countries is the way people walk. On the sidewalks, they're not aggressive as when they drive. But they are supremely unaware of other pedestrians and are quite capable of sauntering along in a zig-zag fashion at whatever pace they've set themselves. And they seem delightfully surprised when they discover someone at their shoulder trying to step past them.

Or maybe I still have lingering Western impatience in my system. When I walk, I tend to zip along in a straight line, stepping around obstacles and crazy people when necessary, but it's motion with a goal. I realise I have to take in the wandering pace of the New World and relax into the oblivion of putting one foot in front of the other. Not there yet though.

Hot air

2007-12-01T16:03:00.001-02:00

Caracas. It's been about eight years since I've been here, coincidentally the same amount of time Hugo Chavez has been Venezuela's president. I remembered him on television back then as a charismatic guy babbling on in between the telenovelas. This time, his babble has gotten longer and, dare I say it, a little more desperate. He still breaks out into song, is hugely entertaining with his theatrical gestures and the way he rolls his Rs, but the anti-US tirade is getting a little tired. It's like he's exhausted his bag of tricks and has nothing left.

This time around, I'm spending almost all my time working. But I do manage to get in time some evenings to take in what is probably the city's best bar: the 360 on top of the Altamira Suites hotel. The number refers to the uninterrupted view of Caracas from the rooftop of the hotel, unhindered by anything but a safety rail as you sit around on deck chairs and get (so-so) Mojitos or (OK) whiskey served. A wealthy hang-out, but somehow grungy foreigners like me in cargo pants manage to be accepted.

The society here is odd. Buying anything (nail clippers for instance) at the pharmacy requires them keying in a mobile or passport number into their computer. God knows why. And the insecurity that I felt the first time has worsened. The taxi driver from the airport strongly recommended all bags going into the trunk of the car, away from prying eyes. But after chatting -- or, more accurately, listening -- to Venezuelans of several walks of life, I've come to the conclusion: Chavez is not an exception. They all like to talk. I mean, Brazilians can go on and on and on (especially in planes for some reason), but the Venezuelans have them beat. A Venezuelan girlfriend I had a while back was of the same breed -- when I met her I didn't speak Spanish, but she still managed to fill hours with talk as I sat and daydreamed.

Talk isn't just cheap here. It's patriotic.

Supercharged

2007-11-22T13:44:00.000-02:00

This month is flying by. Where to start? I feel like it's been an express train ride through some very different landscapes. If I don't get some of this down, the next bout of adventure will just sweep it all away.

OK, so the blur goes something like this:

- First of all a chopper ride over São Paulo. Followed by some pistol shooting (I'm better than I thought; nicely grouped in the carboard target -- a good performance, though there was a lingering distaste that the whole experience was an imagined blasting away at a human being). Then I got to see a car shot up by a much more expert gunmen, the type that swagger around. Luckily not a criminal experience, at least not directly: it was a controlled display by an armoured car company, of which I hope to post some video sometime. The bullets smacked into the windshield but didn't go through.

- Then came a dawn flight out to some country town that is home to all these farmer millionaires. The local airport was basically a garage for shiny new little choppers that these agri-rich dudes use to get around. All I got to see was a factory where biofuel is made from sugarcane. I never realised how big that is in Brazil. Almost all the cars on the road can take sugar alcohol, petrol, or both. Hmmm. I remember when the down-and-outs used to sniff petrol from cars. Now I guess they just dunk donuts in them in Brazil.....

- On to the Amazon after that. Not the way I wanted to do it (ie. backpack, weeks to get around, sidle up to the locals). This was a tourist ride up a river, a quick look at a sort of jungle area, back to the five-star hotel

then back to Sao Paulo on a Brazilian air force flight. As I said, a blur.

- Quick trip to a nearby beach -- my first in Brazil. Crooooowded. But kind of fun. People as friendly as I'd been led to believe, apart from the rip-off taxi driver. Got sunburnt, of course. Still can't believe my once-Aussie tan has whitened to European chalk over all these years.

- Back in Sampa and it's been a lot of paperwork and hassle, but also exciting. This week saw Black Consciousness Day... a celebration of Brazil's black roots laid down during its days of African slavery. Gotta love the black Osama bin Laden.

- Finally I moved into an apartment last night. It's clean, spacious and pretty well situated. Best of all, it had a monkey scampering around in the street out front. But apparently that's an illegal act for simians, so the police came today to arrest him. At least it looked like that's what they planned to do. Despite the fleet of motorbikes, the long ladder and the studied air of reflection on the faces of the armed and flak-jacketed officers standing around under the palm trees, I kind of suspect the critter will be around my place for a while.

- Today was my umpteenth trip back to the Federal Police for a bunch of paperwork even Brazilians didn't know existed. A last attack on bureaucracy before I catch a flight to Venezuela, where I'll be back in a hotel for the next two weeks. Actually, make that three weeks -- I just found out I'll be ducking down to Peru straight afterwards.

Time management takes on a new interpretation down here. I'd been expecting a bit of a slower pace. Instead I barely have time to log on and update this thing. Here's hoping I get a bit more leeway soon.

Globo

2007-11-04T18:25:00.001-02:00

Brazil’s biggest television network is TV Globo. I used to think that the name came from some serious reference to it covering the planet, like the newspapers Le Monde or El Mundo in Europe. Now, having watched it intently for days, I think I can safely pronounce it to be more concerned with the spherical attractions exhibited by the scantily clad women models and dancers who strut in front of the camera in ways pretty effective in driving ratings up. In its own way, I guess it is a universal claim on attention.

Those sorts of globes are very much on display here off-set, too. A foray into one of the trendy bars around town left my eyes watering as exotic creatures who looked like they stepped out of Canderel ads wandered around. Following the Portuguese conversation at my table became increasingly difficult and I was reduced to sucking desperately on my caipirinha in sage assent as woman after woman glided by, their globes stuck before them as proud examples of plastic surgery or impossibly gifted genes.

A walk in the park the next day did little to return my brain to its usual mode of ice-clear thought. It seemed the entire city was out jogging along a path in a pretty good rendition of a samba line whose rhythm was dictated by the unheard tunes of hundreds of MP3 players wired up to ears that were also serving as pegs for designer shades. The jogging globes resisted gravity and jiggling and pushed firmly up against the Nike tops being worn only as to mock modesty. Thousands of pairs of them rushing at me. I felt like Patrick McGoohan in The Prisoner, when the mysterious white beach balloon of his island prison come to get him. I felt like Austin Powers let loose in Brazil. I felt like I’m going to be taking up jogging pretty soon.

Backfire

2007-11-02T11:25:00.000-02:00

The detonations in the tunnel were three sharp claps, whose echoes were distinct.

I looked quickly across at my taxi driver, thinking, Do I ask him or not? I mean, I've heard gunshots before, though the last time was a few years ago. Was I imagining things? In another city I would have dismissed them automatically, but here I keep thinking about all the crime stories I was fed before arriving.

My driver looked unconcerned. I asked.

"São disparos, não?"

"Não," he replied, explaining that they were in fact from a motorbike backfiring.

Funny, when one of my motorbikes backfired it didn't seem to give off such clean, separated bangs. But I guessed the driver knew what he was talking about.

"You know the difference?" I asked.

He nodded in an off-hand way. "Sure. Gunshots are much more focused, not as broad-sounding," he said. It sounded expert. It sounded like he knew from experience.

It sounded like I will probably be given the opportunity some time to be able to distinguish the two types of detonations just as quickly.

Sampa heaven

2007-11-01T01:15:00.000-02:00

Oh. My. Deus. This is great.

OK, so the day didn't go so well for the most part. Back to the police station to register -- only to have them tell me to go the foreign affairs ministry to get a special number on my visa. Which apparently will take three days. Without the special number, no police registration. No police registration means no social security number. No social security number means no bank account. It's a merry-go-round that highlights the anecdote about how Terry Gilliam thought up his "Brazil" script about bureaucracy gone made while on a trip to Sao Paulo.

But let's not dwell on the little men in grey suits, shall we?

The big news if that I believe my life is coming together. And it's looking princely. I do believe I've found a place. Sure, there's no swimming pool. And it's not a penthouse. But I think the fact that it's roughly three times bigger than my Paris pad (and comes with three bedrooms, two bathrooms and security enough to scare Freddy Kruger) it's a find. In any case it fits the bill and looks pretty damn near what I was looking for. This is a pad made in heaven, or at least in Brazil. Video soon, maybe.

And tonight was the first real night out on the town... and damn but this city resembles Beirut. Headed off into the nether regions down a street near my (new) place, to a fantastic hotel with an amazing view where all of Sao Paulo's skyline twinkles in the night above a linear pool with trendy white sofas thrown around. The girls are glam and sexy, and the drinks probably cost what a labourer here earns in a week. But it is cool, cool, cool in a way that only Beirut ever managed. God, this place is going to be a blast. I see a lot of blurry, over-the-top nights looming.

Watch out Sampa, I'm settling in.....

Jungle Jim

2007-10-31T00:03:00.001-02:00

Well that was quickly put to rest. No Antarctica for me. A bureaucratic problem that had nothing to do with me.

It turns out that instead of hobnobbing it with the penguins and icebergs, I'll just have to settle for a trip to the Amazon.

Heading up there in just over a week, for a lightning visit to the jungle.

Which hopefully will give me just enough time to find a temporary shelter here in Sao Paulo. I've spent only effectively three days in this town, but already I'm stressing at not having found a place. Not that I'm getting any help from work. It's all up to me -- which means, to hell with it, no choice but to tell the bosses I'm taking the rest of the week off to go flat-hunting. I mean, what else do they expect me to do?

Happy feet

2007-10-25T19:59:00.000-02:00

This is becoming a roller coaster. After learning Spanish, then getting my Portuguese underway, I now find I'll have to speak.... penguin.

I made it Buenos Aires, where all was sunny and nice (compared to the drumming rain of Sao Paulo as I left), and started about my work when I got a call from the regional boss.

Was I interested in going to Antarctica?

What a question! I mean, not only do I get to put foot on the world's only continent without a McDonald's, but I'll also get to plant a flag on my Facebook "Places I've been" window on a place that was a little off my normal path. The best thing, is that, if it happens (all yet to be confirmed), I'll be flying in just long enough to get my teeth chattering at minus 20 centigrade, then I'll be back on a plane to my 35-degree new home.

Fingers crossed. Going from tango to the south pole, I'm as excited as Mumble.

O primeira dia

2007-10-22T20:46:00.000-02:00

First day at work, and my head is reeling. This language stuff is a bit of a struggle. I'm trying not to be too hard on myself, but it's frustrating as all hell not being able to dive right on in, getting bogged down in focusing hard on sentence construction as well as trying to pick up the content of a conversation and react to it. The day pretty much started with a welcome phone call from one of my regional bosses in Rio. In Spanish. A few mins later it was a conference call in Portuguese in which I did my best to imitate a KGB-era bug, just sitting on the phone and emitting the occasional click so they knew I was still there. When I did talk I think it was some confusing mix of Spanish and Portuguese, which luckily for me is fairly common for foreigners and is called Portuñol or similar.

After that it was a lot of adapting and ordering up equipment I'll need and doing some simple stuff on the basis of Spanish or French text in front of me. I thought some baby steps for the next couple of weeks would be the best way to ease my way into this new life and language. Maybe reward small progress with a drink or a good restaurant.

That was the idea, anyway.

Instead, I'm being sent off to Buenos Aires on Wednesday, and will be there for the weekend, working hard. Any rewards will be of the Argentinian variety.

At least I speak the lingo there.

Second impression

2007-10-21T15:05:00.000-02:00

A caipirinha by the pool later.... and I was thinking I might have to revise my evaluation of the local talent. Lying across from me, wearing those g-string bikinis that the Brazilians delightfully call "dental floss" are two garotas with bumps in all the right places. Things were looking up, I thought.

As the shade stole across their deck chairs, they decided to come over to the vacant ones next to me. A small conversation ensued with the brunette, who looked all of 21 and who presented herself as Erica (I think). Tips on where to go out, their explanation that they lived in the one of the serviced apartments in the hotel. OK, so what do you do, I asked, having exhausted other queries and landed on the one question I never really like to answer myself.

"Garota de programa," she said.

Hmmm.... My Portuguese is slowly coming along, but there are a few key phrases I manage to retain. This is one of them. It's the etiquette slapped on lasses who exercise the oldest profession. She seemed fairly open about it though, even explaining that the two of them had the afternoon off because all the prospective clients were off at the Formula One race taking place elsewhere in the city. I asked a few questions, as you would of anyone when asking about their job. But I was also thinking, damn -- so cute and yet so far....

So no, I didn't.

I did get slightly sunburnt though. And sipping a cai by the poolside is almost as good as.... ah, OK, so it's a far-off second. But still, the view was nice. I'm appreciating dental floss.

First impressions

2007-10-21T11:45:00.000-02:00

A first glance only, but as my brain tries to click Brazil into some pre-existing category I can't help but think that this metropolis feels somewhere between NYC and Beirut. I mean, the sprawl is more LA, but the canyons formed by high-rise buildings and the mix of ethnicities on the street and the sort of organic development that has obviously occurred prompt an easy comparison with Manhattan. The skyline isn't as concentrated with skyscrapers, sure, but given that the skyscrapers are so numerous as to shrink away into the pollution haze filtering the sunlight, the comparison still seems to stand. The summer temperature and slow, laid-back strolling juxtaposed with the aggressive driving and that disdain for rules owes more to Beirut, however. It is a real city.

Trying to get a feel for the place (akin to closing my eyes and letting the Force do the describing) I sense the sort of human element that is present in places like Lebanon. There's eye contact, smiles, the time to address someone properly. It's not village-like, as in Paris. But it's interconnected, with the emphasis on people rather than objects, unlike the US. A 'feeling' anyway. I may yet be proven wrong.

Wandering around for a couple of hours, here are some snapshot impressions, in no particular order:

- I'm pleasantly surprised to see quality literature in the news kiosks dotted along the main roads. Sartre, Fitzgerald, Kafka.... even the "Sin City" series by Frank Miller. Not even Paris had this. I know that Brazil's constitution bars the government taxing books, so maybe this is a pleasant result. I can see I unnecessarily shipped all my books. I also see where a significant chunk of change will be going in the future.

- The traffic is not nearly as bad as every one said. It is Sunday, however, so I'm still girding my self for gridlock tomorrow. If that doesn't measure up to the dire predictions, I reckon it's going to be full steam ahead on the purchase of a motorbike to get around.

- So far, no major sense of the place being unsafe. I'm still the paranoid gringo (even hid some of my cash in my underwear last night as I strolled up unfamiliar streets). But the forecasts may have been exaggerated there too. Let's see what it feels like farther afield, outside of this chic little district I've landed in (the hotel has a full gym and an outdoor pool that I fully intend to dive into later today).

- Dropped by a metro station, which looks as clean and modern as those in Madrid. Tickets are sold for single trip only (none of NYC's metrocard or Paris's Navigo), and priced at R2.30 (around one euro or 1.4 dollars).

- The Trianon park near my office is delightful. The heat of this place means the trees are all tropical or semi-tropical varieties. It's a bit like the Botanic Gardens in Sydney, though smaller, with no grass and no harbour.

- The fresh fruit is all they say. And that was just from my hotel buffet breakfast. Wow. Summer-intense taste to them all.

- The girls just wandering around on the streets and in the shops aren't as pretty as I was led to believe. OK, a few glimpses of flesh over tight jeans and some tight bodies, but a lot of average sorts running around. EXCEPT at an upmarket restaurant which I walked by, where glamorous doll-like creatures were spilling on the sidewalk. I think I may have found my canteen.

- The occasional helicopter flies overhead. Civilian choppers. It seems Sampa has the second-biggest fleet of commuter helicopters in the world after Manhattan. The rich use them as we'd use taxis. I am so going to get a ride in one of those babies, and soon!

- Some stalls selling antique trinkets was set up under the museum at Trianon. The prices weren't that sweet, but some decorating ideas in there, especially the old maritime oil lamps....

- Finally, the people seem friendly enough, though it's not over the top. The sort of laid-back coolness that comes from living in a sun-drenched country.

I took a walk looking for my office that I'll be heading into tomorrow. No luck. I did find an address that matched up, but that certainly wasn't the place, as the lobby guard (on a Sunday!) let me know. More hiking tomorrow, I think, and probably a few frantic mobile calls.

I'm feeling slightly out of it after the trip. Wanted to do a witty sort of rundown of the new country I've landed in. But that'll have to wait till later, when the caipirinhas take effect (actually had my first in-situ one last night -- how is that the barmen in Paris can get them so wrong? They are pretty damn good here.)

In-flight meditation

2007-10-20T23:32:00.000-02:00

What is it that pushes out of home to live somewhere else? Why do some of us give up a lot of what we’ve built up over years, decades to start over?

The flight to Sao Paulo is full. That artificial darkness has taken over the cabin, but people are milling around the mid and rear, chatting, stretching legs, drinking water. For a change there are no kids screaming or heard at all. Cramped, but not stressful. An average economy trip to my new life.

The first time I left somewhere, I got bumped up to business. I still appreciate it when it happens, but it’s rare and I’m not going to obsess over the differences. A confined journey in an aluminium can is all this is. We’re all breathing the same air. The people up front get a better wine, free champagne, and leg room. I only drink water anyway on long-haul. The leg room would be nice though.

The first time I left somewhere, I left Australia for the US and Canada. It seemed like a rite of passage. I was young, graduated from university just a couple of years earlier and using the savings from my first real job to launch myself across the Pacific into North America. The first of many, many solo voyages. It seemed exciting, but in a safe, modern way. Going to America is more like revisiting the sets of TV series and movies that we’ve all grown up on than actually discovering a new land. America back then was like walking around on the other side of the screen. A strange but familiar experience.

Canada, where I ended up, was hardly exciting. The snow up to my knees was a bit of a novelty. Well, to see it in a city anyway. I’d been skiing in Australia many times. But I saw through a few months before moving on with my backpacking and making it to Europe. There was where I found home, Paris, though it was to be four years before I was finally going to claim that city.

I moved to London out of financial necessity the second time I made the Big Leap. It dealt me some great experiences, opened my eyes to some directions I wanted to go in, though it was clear from the very start that that city and I were destined to be only on nodding terms, like two acquaintances who don’t share a lot in common and probably don’t approve of the other’s lifestyle.

Moving to Paris, it felt like a personal arc had reached its natural destination. All the moves were done for personal reasons, without the safety net of a job to go to or an apartment or family. They were deliberate, thought-out choices made possible because my upbringing had shorn me of many of the attachments that make it difficult for others to uproot themselves and recreate themselves.

This time feels different. For the first time I’m leaving a place that I loved for an unknown land of promise. And I have a safety net. I’ll have a fascinating job, a lot of travel, and I’ll be living in one of the great leisure spots on the planet. Paris was part of the mythology of culture and sophistication and urban leisure. Brazil is the mythology of wild nature, gorgeous inhabitants and sun.

But the real reason I made the jump this time was to forget a part of me, to leave the last two years back in Paris and to start again. To mend insides that had been torn up by a private tragedy as devastating as it is banal.

Maybe this time, maybe this move, I’ll rediscover that vital, spontaneous part of me that had been knocked silly. It sure looks like a great place to try.

Le dernier jour

2007-10-19T11:25:00.001-02:00

Last day in Paris. And boy is this weird. I can barely believe I'm leaving my city, the one place on this planet I call home. The welling up of emotions damn near paralyses me, and it feels like a dam holding back the memories of the last 12 years spent here is cracking, spraying bits and pieces of recollected life all over me as I walk along cobbled streets or look at buildings that I know I won't be looking at again with an insider's eye for a long time, if at all.

One face keeps coming back at me. And no matter how much I try to push her away, she's there, damn it. What does it take to kill chagrin? In the interests of pushing memories of her away again, I shan't dwell on it here. I'll leave that for another time when I feel strengthened from my South American sojourn, when I can prose on her from a distance. Not there yet.

Another big change. This makes the third or fifth in my life, the way I count them. This is walking through a door and knowing that you're being redefined -- again -- by doing so. The thrill is heady, scary and sort of mystical.

My flight leaves tomorrow. Early. A long swoop across the Atlantic, and there I'll be, in Sampa as the natives apparently call it. Saturday night in Sampa.....

Brazil bound

2007-10-18T06:14:00.000-02:00

It may have been my lucky jacket, or possibly Armani Code is more seductive than I ever imagined. Whatever it was, a day that looked to be fraught with bureaucratic obstacles went ridiculously easy. It was like the administrations of France and Brazil gave me a free pass.

First up, the lady at the Paris tax office smiled and immediately gave me the little voucher thing that usually takes three days to deliver. Then the woman at the welcome desk at police HQ went looking for the person I had an interview with (rather than calling a perpetually busy number and giving up). And I had a cursory meeting with the official who just ticked a few boxes and said my French citizenship papers should be in my hands sometime late next year if all goes well.

Then off to another police station to get my international driving licence. OK, there they'd lost my application. But instead of telling me to come back in another four days, one of the women just did it on the spot.

After that, it was the Brazilian consulate's turn. I went in, took a number and prepared to wait it out. But the lady behind the counter called me and just handed me my passport over the heads of the two people she had in front of her. A peek inside confirmed a four-year visa for the land of caïpirinhas, samba and homicide. I was on my way.

How is it that luck shines so brightly some days?

I'm thinking the run is continuing. Today, the removalists turned up an hour early, meaning they were gone at 10am, after expeditiously throwing my years of accumulated junk in boxes. That on the biggest day of strikes Paris has seen in years.

Now if I can only find some technique to ensure this run of good fortune for years to come....

Diplomatic mission

2007-09-29T17:36:00.000-03:00

The best moments in a courtship, a new restaurant or the purchase of, say, a video game (Halo 3 anyone?) is often in the anticipation -- the brief period before the novelty is unwrapped and experienced.

It's the moment imagination hoists itself into the saddle of its nervy steed and gallops off to the promised horizon. A moment to be relished because, as we all know, reality has an unwelcome talent of setting marshland under imagination's hooves.

Right now, I'm in the pre-honeymoon stage of getting to Brazil. Sure, I have flashes of anxiety at the thought of saying goodbye to Paris's cafés and museums and parties and the comfortable life I've built up over more than a decade in this gracious city. But the idea of diving into a new metropolis filled with unexplored delights and terrors and surrounded by The-Land-That-Time-Forgot lushness (and perils) fills me with the sort of enthusiasm I would have reserved for a date with Jane Fonda (circa Barbarella). If you get the mixed movie metaphors. I'm excited.

So it is in that frame of mind I went to the Brazilian embassy to lodge my visa request, pressing the pen firmly to say, yes, I was looking for a four-year stay in the land of Ronaldo, Indiana Jones and the City of God. Signing my way to the LatAm way of Life.

A week later, I was back, called in to at last drop off my passport. But the procedure ain't over yet. I'll still have to go back in a couple of days to pick it up. A foretaste of the bureaucracy that ties Brazil up in knots and frustrates locals and foreigners alike. It wasn't so bad this time, but I've been told to brace for the paper morasses once in the country.

Gathering no moss

2007-09-17T13:30:00.000-03:00

In her glass was a bleeding man
She was practiced at the art of deception
Well I could tell by her blood-stained hands

For some reason, Mick Jagger was going around in my head. One song in particular: "You Can't Always Get What You Want". Which was so right. Some people have mottos they throw around as if they were wearing a t-shirt with them emblazoned on it. And too many times they are some variation of Carpe diem. I never had any problem carping my diem. But getting what I wanted while carping was something of a headache from time to time.

So: "You can't always get what you want / But if you try sometimes you might find /
You get what you need." That seemed about right. At the time, I was in a buoyant mood though one informed more by frustrated desire than acquiring basic requirements. I wasn't getting what I want, but I was working on ways to deal with it. The diem-to-diem existence of many people, I guess.

And then, out of the blue, I got satisfaction.

I think I was pottering around the house, trying to step away from the Internet and my nascent Facebook addiction and not succeeding.

The phone rang. And the voice on the other end -- a boss at work -- was congratulating me. But for what? I thought. Had I got a good dose of kudos in a management meeting for the work I put into my last assignment, a crazy dash across to Peru to cover the aftermath of an earthquake?

"You don't know? No-one's called? You've got Sao Paulo," he said.

Sao Paulo? I figured it was a joke. And said as much.

But no -- it was the unexpected result of a job transfer application that had been entirely forgotten, so certain was I that it would never come my way. Brazil was one of those job postings some serious corporate climber got, and I was not of that mould. I was more a corporate tourist, who took one look at the heights to scale and went off to get a nice cuppa chocolate. Climbing those sorts of ladders requires all sorts of qualities I just never picked up. Like smiling and saying nothing.

And yet Brazil was mine. Saint Mick had come through.

You can't always get what you want, no!
You can't always get what you want (tell ya baby)
You can't always get what you want (no)
But if you try sometimes you just might find
You get what you need
Oh yes! Woo!

The more I thought about, Mr Jagger and I weren't so far apart after all. Well, if you forgot about a few million dollars and worldwide fame that one has and the other doesn't (hint: not me). But the penchant for Brazilian beauties, the occasional strutting, the partying, the travel and a big honker... yeah, my buddy Mick and I were Paulistanos at heart after all.

And the guy was talking to me!

A few minutes before that phone call I was learning to get along as that bleeding guy in the glass. And after I was pouting and thrusting my hips out in a Stones impression that will cut no ice in sambaland but that more than expressed my enthusiasm for the new chapter opening up before me.

Sao Paulo, here I come! (Woo baby!)