The last two months

Oi Gente,

It is almost two months ago since our last blog, shame on us (!) But it also means we can tell some nice stories!

In those two months a lot of stuff happened. We found our apartment (which is still not ready), bought our car, arranged a lot of administrative things, travelled to The Netherlands and Greece for a wedding, went to Rio and Buenos Aires and we received our first Dutch visitor with whom we travelled to the Amazon.

Looking back we can say that the most time consuming (and sometimes frustrating) was arranging the basic things like a bank account (Ronald and I spent quite some hours at the Bradesco counter), a car (in contrary, this went quite quick) and an apartment (see description below). In the Netherlands you would probably finish all this in one month, but NOT in Brazil.

Why? They are in our opinion a bit slow, not very efficient and have difficulties in managing expectations. A good example is that every shop you visit seems to have an overload of employees standing, hanging, talking…..actually doing nothing. At supermarkets you have employees packing your groceries using a bag for almost every single piece, at restaurants you have somebody who writes down your order, who gives this to another employee who hands this over to the kitchen and who comes back with your order, which then will be served by the first person himself. But, we need to be honest; it also provides jobs to those millions of people living in this country.

Our new car

Another example regarding managing expectations is our apartment. We found the apartment mid September, but it needed some renovation. We set the deadline on the 28^th of November (already 2 weeks more than the original planning). Three days before the movement we got a message from the owner that the apartment was not finished yet and that we could move in the 29^th.  Just some small things needed to be done, he said. On Monday the 28^th we went there for the final inspection and for signing the contract. You can guess, it was not ready at all. The whole outside area still needed to be done, the painting of the second floor and some final things in the bathrooms. We, Dutch people, ask ourselves then “why didn’t he tell this before!!!” Why didn’t he set the right expectations?” We experienced many times that something was supposed to be ready or almost ready and it wasn’t. Especially for me, having quite a high trust in people, this is sometimes disappointing and a lesson in Brazilian way of life. Well, we now hope that we can move in next week. This would be nice, especially, since we will get a new guest, Ronald’s brother.

Besides the lessons in Brazilian culture we enjoy this country a lot. First of all, these people are the most positive people we have ever met, they can party as the best and enjoying life is something they are born with. I always say to people when characterizing Brasil “It doesn’t matter how poor people are they at least have three things: a big television (on high volume), music, a hammock and some (alcoholic) drinks”.

Second, this country offers one of the most beautiful natures on this planet. This we saw recently when travelling to the Amazon. Together with Suus (my former roommate in Amsterdam) we went on a six day adventure to the Amazon. Imagine: no internet or phone connection possible, no noise of traffic or people, only the sounds of the birds and insects of the rain forest. Ronald and Suus needed to adjust themselves to relaxing and doing nothing (I was already used doing nothing…) We have seen amazing animals like the Amazon dolphins, piranha’s (no toes where bitten off), flying Ara’s, monkeys, a black scorpion (that almost stung Suus), a tapir and one of the most dangerous snakes in South America.

The snake who was taken a refuge on our veranda



How we were sleeping in the jungle...



Our view from our room



The Tapir



Scorpio



Piranha fishing



After the Amazon experience Ronald went back home and we travelled further to Rio de Janeiro, Ilha Grande and Paraty. At this last spot Ronald joined us again and we celebrated his birthday together. We and the rest of the restaurant together sung “Parabens pra você” for him. This is also typical Brazilian, when somebody celebrates his birthday and people start to sing, everybody joins and claps. So nice!

Well, this was is it for now. In our next blog, which I promise will not take that long anymore; we hope to tell you more about our new apartment and to show you some pictures.

Beijos

Ronald & Sanne

Our first weeks in the big city

Oi!

It’s already a couple of weeks since our last blog. A lot of things have changed since then.

The temperature is slowly climbing (we have reached a lovely average between 22 and 30 degrees, often a clear blue sky and no rain) in contrary to The Netherlands (poor people). AND…. we are now living in Sao Paulo city in an temporary apartment with our own small kitchen in a very nice neighborhood with lots of fancy restaurants!

After weeks of eating pizzas with layers of cheese and desserts which make your teeth fall out (Brazilians love sweet and heavy food) we can finally cook ourselves. How happy we are with this you can’t imagine. We were already imagining ourselves developing rolls we don’t want to appear. We now also understand why the people and especially woman over here have quite round curvesJ. The kind of food is not only quite strange to us, for us it is also way too heavy. Apparently our Dutch digestion system cannot handle this! So now I’m playing the perfect housewife cooking every day healthy dishes and waiting for my husband to arrive ;)

Our street

Our view from the hotel

Our hotel room

Our hotel

The Brazilians also managed to surprise us positively (other surprises, see our previous blog). Why? Because they can be very inventive in finding a solution and they did. The prove? They have almost put Ronald already on the payroll (!!) Normally it’s not something to be so happy about, but for us it means that we can now look for our own lovely Casa. It was supposed to be December or even January due to all the bureaucracy here. Thus I’m now spending a great part of my day searching the internet for this dream house which we hope to find soon. An activity I enjoy a lot! Hopefully you can meet our new home in the next blog.

Off course we (read: Ronald) are not only here to work, so two weeks ago we booked our first trips: one to Ubatuba, a small coast village 3 hours from here and one to the famous city of Rio de Janeiro. The last one was a pleasure to visit. As I was still used a bit to my backpacker’s era I booked, with the best intentions, a double room in a hostel (because it was a lot cheaper than all the rest of the hotels in Ipanema and available. Yes, I’m still Dutch). This was the last time I  did so. A shared bathroom, being part of your neighbors feelings and curtains which were almost falling of the sealing were not really appreciated by my travel partner J.  BUT the rest of the trip was great! Rio really gives you that summer beach feeling and I compare it a bit with Barcelona. Both have a kind of tropical vibe with its palm trees, beach & see, nice restaurants and relaxed people standing outside in the evening breeze with their drinks. Things which are different from Barca? Yes, there are. Men are completely focused on their body and want to show it as often as possible (in contrary to what you would expect women to do) as they are walking up and down the Ipanema boulevard with bronzed bodies and no shirt! Not that bad if you are a womanJ.

As well, here it is also possible to get half drunk and have a headache next day of only two Caipirinha’s.

View on Rio

Copacabana

Ipanema boulevard

Well, our next trip is already planned: Ronald is heading off to New York tomorrow and I will go to Ilhabela (a pretty nice island) with some people I met here.

Ate logo!

Lessons in patience

Ola nossos amigos!

Tudo bem? Connosco tudo e otimo! Thanks for all the nice e-mails we already received. Especially for me it’s nice, due to the fact my days are not yet that filled as Ronald’s J

Let’s give you an update of last week experiences. As expected sooner or later, we got our first lessons in being patient. Not the easiest one for us, Dutch people, we can tell.

Lesson 1: Don’t have expectations and don’t plan

The first thing we needed to deal with was our hope to have our own apartment around October. As some of you know, we need to get a number from the federal police so that Ronald can be put on the payroll. Only then you can rent your own apartment. It was supposed to take around 50 days. Well, last week we got the news that it now would take around 110 days, which means that we can rent something from January onwards. Off course!

Lesson 2: Brazilians always make things more positive then they are

As mentioned in our previous blog, we were expecting to get a car last Friday and leave this ´lively´ suburb of Alphaville that weekend. We should have known that this wouldn’t be the case. After several times of sending e-mails, calling and passing by on Thursday and Friday we still didn’t get an answer at 5 pm Friday afternoon. At 6 pm we got the information that we probably would get a car on Monday and that they still didn’t found a place for us to stay in Sao Paulo centre. So, we needed to stay a bit longer in this vibrant place. Ok, …..we could deal with that.

That weekend we went to Ibirapuera parc (you can compare it with Central Parc) and we had a goodbye party of a Dutch couple. It was really nice to see the Dutch clan over here (a group of around 25 people between the age of 27 to 36). Very nice people. It is quite easy to get in touch with the Dutch, because there is most of the time already a link that goes back to the Netherlands (working at the same company, having same friends and off course sharing the same experience). Getting in touch with other nationalities or becoming really good friends with Brazilians is more difficult one says. Let’s see. We want to face this challenge and would love to put our effort in it. Then we will see what the result will be.

Bamboo in Ibirapuera parc

Lesson 3: Be flexible and live NOW

Last Monday we got our third lesson: Ronald heard at 5.45 pm that he needed to pick up the renting car before 6.30 pm, impossible due to the heavy traffic at this time of the day! He didn’t make it. So we needed to pick up the car the next day. Ronald also got the message that we needed to leave the hotel before 12 pm the next day. Ok, no problem! We are flexible. Where are we going then? They didn’t know yet. Ok, fine, we can handle it. Next day we first went to the renting car company. ¨Sir you needed to pick up the car yesterday, now I don’t know if it is still possible. Why not? We rented the car for at least a month! Yes, I know, but the policy……¨ After 1 hour we finally got our car. Pffff, at least one thing arranged.

Back at the hotel, still no news of our new place to stay. 12 pm: no news. 12.30 pm: we got the answer that our check/out would be extended until 2 pm. 2 pm: we finally got the news that they found again a temporary (for a few days) hotel, just on the corner of the previous one. Still not in Sao Paulo centre, which means still no Portuguese classes, not visiting people, not exploring Sao Paulo etc. Pfff, more filling my days with internet, reading books, doing some Portuguese exercises on my own (swimming pool/tanning was not an option anymore, no facilities). I really wondered how all those expat woman were spending their time!

Checking out was also challenging our patience, which was in the meanwhile disappearing more and more. The week before Ronald had checked several times with the guy from Philips if he could take care of all the payment for the hotel (Ronald is still not on the payroll in either Brazil our Netherlands so he can’t declare any expenses). ¨No worries, everything is arranged¨, he said. While checking out, nothing seemed to be arranged. Calling this guy several times, not picking up. Waiting, waiting in front of the hotel desk with all the luggage, after 40 minutes he finally called back. After Ronald still paid a certain amount, we arrived at our new place at 4 pm. We needed a break…….a relaxing massage was the ultimate solution. So we did.

Our lessons of this week:

1) Have NO EXPECTATIONS and DON´T PLAN

2) Brazilians always make things more positive then they are

3) Be flexible and live NOW

I need to tell, we also got one positive surprise. They found a way to get Ronald on the payroll before October. Well, as lesson number one says, we have no expectations anymore. First see, then believe.

Beijos!

We arrived!

Finally we are here in Sao Paulo! Months we have waited for this moment. A waiting which can be characterized by hope, extension, hope, extension, hope……But now this is over, or maybe this is just the beginning of what we can expect here. We will see.

After almost a month of saying goodbye to everyone, we arrived here on the 6^th of August. A warm welcome was waiting for us: Mr. Marques (our faithful taxi driver who had picked us up the last time and other times when Ronald was on business trips) and a very nice temperature of 29 degrees. How awful to know that this is just wintertime….

Ronald and I are spending our first week close to the Philips office, which is in a suburb outside Sao Paulo. We have a nice hotel with swimming pool and a fitness centre. I was already looking forward spending my time at this swimming pool in the next couple of days, reading some books, tanning…. Well, this plan was a bit disturbed. Since yesterday there are grey clouds moving by and a bit of rain is falling(still 21 degrees though). With this weather this place is a bit boring and reading books, using the internet and doing some Portuguese exercises is satisfying for some time, but not for days. So we needed some action! Today I decided to visit some hotels in which it is possible to stay after this week. They are located more in the centre of Sao Paulo. Philips offered us this option so that we can find a nice and lovely place for the next two months. An offer I accepted with pleasure!

Another thing Ronald and I would like to give notice of is the way how Brazilians do sports. IT IS VERY FUNNY! They all dress up with their most fancy sport outfits and then…… there is almost no activity or progress. They are as slow as slugs. If they run or bike, it’s all the same. No progress. It is so funny, haha. We have put a picture of the running cycle just in front of our hotel which is a small 1 km run. They are walking on it over and over again. Running on the streets is a bit uncommon here.

Well tonight we are going to have dinner with Anniek, a Dutch girl and a colleague of Ronald, here in Alphaville. Hopefully we can move to the city centre this weekend. The weather forecast is at least very good (28 degrees). Still a topic a Dutchie is fond of talking :) Speak to you soon!

Some first pictures below

An impression of Alphaville suburb

Philips Head Office

How Brazilians do sports: slowly

Skyline Sao Paulo