My arrival: After saying bye bye to my Mexican friends and family I left another part of the world – to Brazil, to Sao Paulo. My plane went well – I flight 6 hours till Peru and then 5 hours till Sao Paulo. When I arrived to Sao Paulo, no one met me in airport. I knew that someone is going to meet, but it was frustrated to not receive hug in the same time as I exit (as it was when I arrived to Mexico). I walked a bit inside airport looking for blond girl (CCP is blond girl from Australia), but didn't find, tried to call and send message from my Latvian phone number, but it didn't work out, but after some 15-20 minutes blond girl arrived J From this moment started my 3 months in Brazil.
I exit from airport and there was a lot of trees and very nice territory (as you imagine Brazil – green). Then we took a car and went to MC home. Here I found out that Sao Paulo is not exactly Brazil as I imagining it, but it is pretty grey city. Then I got explanation that Sao Paulo is city for work, nothing about too much tourism or relax, so it's fine. Arriving to home was interesting. It is small HOUSE, with 4 floors, with 8 rooms (3 of them are MC and CC offices) where lived at that time like 20 people. When I arrived there were all the house was sleeping, because night before they had MC bye bye party, so no comments J Thanks God it was in the bar not at home, so home was not destroyed.
I left my bags and told, "OK, now I want to go sightseeing", after some negotiations I found some guys to go with sightseeing. We went by metro and … metro cost 2.40 Reais and it is like 16 pesos. So each metro/bus ride is painful for your pocket, but nothing to do. We were walking half of the day – went to Japanese town, watched center, the most important street and it didn't make for me too much expression. At that day I already started missing Mexico J
New things: In the night we went to bar next to home to watch football Brazil –Uruguay and it was boring, because Brazil didn't score, but received 2 goals. Interesting is the way they drink beer here. Bottles are 0.6 litres (not 0.325 l like in Mexico), they order 1 for all people and they share it. When it finish they order another and in the end they split the price. Another interesting thing is how they count how much people ordered. On the table waitress put one special paper, where after each beer you order they put mark and in the end they count how many marks has table and give the bill. You might ask, what if I just "lost" the paper. Then you have to pay like 200-300 Reais that is like 150-200 USD, so you don't want to lose this paper J In some bars they give individual paper and after you order something, they put their mark and in the end you go and pay it. Also in many places you can pay separately. For example, you sit with friends in the bar and when you need to pay, who has credit cards can go and pay some amount of money and then bring a cheque to common bill. So no problems if many people want to pay with cheque.
Work. Our office and house are very close, it is just another floor ;) From the next day I started my working day. I woke up, but woke up late and went almost directly to my team Monday Meeting. It was pretty organized and effective, after that I went to take my breakfast. In the beginning I even didn't have my own table, but later I got one for me to work. Work in Brazil (at least in my team) is organized. According to plans, deadlines and you don't need to remind many times to people what you need from them. I liked it a lot.
AIESEC Brazil: In the world rank AIESEC in Brazil is 5th or 6th with more or less 400 exchanges and more than 25 LCs (including extensions). MC every year has transition even, when they invite all partners and alumni to present very brief results of the year and new MC team. There I got to know LCP of extension PUC - Lucas, who was actually doing EB CEED in LC Veracruz 1.5 years ago, it was great to talk about Mexico, common friends, … Then he invited me to the barbeque party. It was happening on the roof of one skyscraper in the city center. Very fancy place. There I met a lot of trainees from different countries and was all the time speaking Spanish, because so many people speak Spanish J There I met also 2 trainees from Mexico from LC Veracruz and LC Culiacan. It was amazing, we had a lot of fun with them and other trainees from Latino America. In Brazil they also have a lot of trainees from Colombia. Next week Lucas invited me to LC meeting of his LC to give some motivational speech to the members of his LC. It took from me 40 minutes and everyone was listening me, laughing and got a lot of energy and motivation by the end.
Brazil: Here is winter now, so it is kind of cold now, especially in the house. I didn't know that Portuguese and Spanish languages are so similar, I don't have too many problems talking in Spanish and see that people, who speak only Portuguese, understands me.
I already did 2 trips in Brazil (outside of Sao Paulo). First one was to Serra Negra, which is nice small city and there is museum "Disneyland of robots", pretty interesting museums of robots. There I went alone and I didn't know that you have to buy tickets very in advance. So I didn't get ticket to the bus back to Sao Paulo, they finished. Because of it I had to go back through another city to get to Sao Paulo and again my Spanish knowledge helped me.
Another trip was to Campos de Jordao. I went there with Mexican trainee from Culiacan and that city is magic city. It is like Switzerland. During the day there was warm, I was going in t-shirt, but in the 6pm it became cold - 8 degrees. We rented bicycles there and enjoyed the day a lot.
In the night we went back to Sao Paulo (we arrived at 10:30 pm). We took a metro, then train and then bus to arrive to another house in another city. There we were invited by my college Laura to make rappelling from the bridge next morning. Next day we went to make rappelling from the train bridge and it was amazing.
Yesterday I moved to the hotel del Verde, where we will stay for next 1 months until IC starts and where will stay also all team leaders and teamsters, who will arrive in 1 week. Here is amazing place – nature, sun, far from everything, swimming pool, birds are singing, … I enjoy this place a lot.
This weekend I'm going to Foz de Iguacu to visit world famous waterfall and also will cross to Argentina to get new Brazilian visa, because this one will expire in 1 week.
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