Running Vacation February ’08, Part 2

(São Paulo, from the 23rd floor of my hotel.)


I arrived in São Paulo after an eight hour plane ride, and airport customs was not so bad and actually easier to get through than it is back home. It shouldn’t have been bad anyway, because the damn visa to get in the country had already cost $130 along with two days spent at the Brazilian consulate in New York. The weather was warm (it’s still summer), but not horrible, and rain was imminent. Later I was told by a local that it rains all day, every day, in March. Nice.

Well, the next day included some business outside of town… though you wouldn’t know it was outside of town, because the city is gigantic and sprawling in a Southern California kind of way. Recently I heard São Paulo described as what you’d get ‘if New York threw up on L.A.’, and that’s not far from the truth. Twenty-story high rises are clumped by the dozen far off into the horizon, while every so often you see some random green space. And the traffic is, I am told, worse than in L.A.

Luckily, the fitness center in the hotel was one of the best I’ve ever seen, as in more than one machine left over from the 80’s… there were at least eight treadmills, ten bikes, every weight machine they could get in there, and most exciting of all, the room had huge windows. These people take fitness seriously. Now, I’m usually intrepid when it comes to running on city streets, but this time I had to reconsider. First off, there were NO pedestrian walk signs on 95% of the intersections. The guide book I brought explained that driving is a hazardous sport in Brazil, and quite often drivers feel that obeying red lights is, well… optional. Plus, scooters and motorcycles constantly cut in and out of sitting traffic, so they are the main cause of pedestrian death. Great. So after walking around the city, I observed all this mayhem on the streets, along with the gridlock, and decided the (I can’t believe I’m saying this) treadmill was the way to go. At least I got to watch American sitcoms with Portuguese subtitles.

A day and a half later, it was off to Rio, an hour away by plane. But before I forget, I’ll lay on you some facts and figures and odd info about Brazil; having never been there, I decided I’d at least learn something about the place:

Population of Brazil: 185 million. Judging by the bathing suits I saw in Rio, that’s about 30 meters of cloth divided amongst the entire population. But interestingly, women going topless at the beach is a real no-no. Apparently, going topless is only for heathen Europeans.

Geographically, Brazil is larger than the continental U.S. You find that out fast when you’re flying over the country for hours and hours and still haven’t gotten to where you want to go.

With 18 million people, São Paulo is the most populous city in South America. That’s bigger than my hometown. And that’s pretty big.

You knew this already, but they speak Portuguese. The recipe: two cups Spanish, a tablespoon of Italian, an teaspoon of Arabic, and a dash of Klingon. Hmmm… I just moved this blog up four million notches on the Google search result list for ‘klingon’. Anyway, half the language rhymes with ‘Nike Swoosh’. Since they are foaming-at-the-mouth soccer fans, that’s rather appropriate.

São Paulo has the largest Japanese population in the world, outside of Japan. Which means there are Japanese/Brazilian fusion restaurants. OK…

Brazilians LOVE pork. The national dish is a bean stew with every imaginable part of a pig thrown in. Like in Europe, I don’t know how vegetarians handle going out to dinner.

And yes, there’s a level of poverty unlike anything you can imagine. It’s very strange, on one block you’ll see an expensive office building or ritzy high-rise (both with armed guards standing in front, glaring at passers-by) and a few blocks away you’ll see shacks and slums, and empty, one- and two-story windowless buildings. And shoeless kids, sleeping on the sidewalks. And we think OUR social safety net sucks…

On that happy note… more later…