Sao Paulo – Day Two
May 28, 2009
The second full day of our trip started bright and early, at least it seemed. This was to be an interesting day as we were to take a trip to BM&FBovesap (the Mercantile exchange of Brazil) and learn some Portuguese. The day began with a simple trip to the breakfast at the hotel. Again, the breakfast was the same as the day before and just as filling as then. We then met Claudia for our trip to Bovespa.
Brazilian Mercantile Exchange
Claudia is our contact for the trip. She hangs with us as we go to class and take our field trips as our sort of guide. She has been a great help in everything that we need to get taken care of. She coordinates things between the school and us.
We met Claudia at the hotel and began our journey for the day. We took the Metro again in the morning so that we could head to the city center (Centro) for our arrival at Bovespa. We got off at the Sao Bento stop on the Blue line of the Metro. She walked us from the Metro to the Bovespa buildings. We had a brief movie about the exchange and what it does for Brazil. We also got to see the old trading floors for the exchange. At this time, only 8% of all trading is still done by hand. In July, all trading will be done electronically. We were taken to a private VIP room so that we could watch the trading on the floor. We also got to walk on the old trading floor since it was no longer used after Bovespa’s merger with BM&F.
Last trading floor in Brazil
Following this tour, we ended up going to the top of the old Bank of Sao Paulo building. This was at one time the official bank of the state of Sao Paulo, but was now a private bank. From here, you were able to go to the top and look out over the entire city. It was amazing how vast the city was. There was no other way to explain it. I ended up creating about a two minute movie of the city walking around the top of the building. This video does not really show off how big the city is though.
View from the city center
We were only given five minutes to take in the view. We then went down and ate lunch at a local restaurant neaby. This place was called Salvo Jorge. Here they also offered the plate lunches with a meat, salad, rice, beans and French fries. It was again great food. We got to eat with Claudia and get to know her better. The location had some interesting art work, ceiling fans and lemons, limes and oranges in the urinal filled with ice. This was a very unique set up.
Cool artwork in the restaurant
The afternoon session for the day involved learning or “Surviving” Portuguese. This class had high hopes for me. I was very interesting in becoming a little less reliant on Michael to do all of our translating. We went over vowels, gender of words and then some common terminology to help us get through our day. I have found pronunciation of Portuguese is very simple and reading it isn’t that bad as well. However, as with any foreign language, hearing and translating on the fly are very difficult. I do think that I would like to learn Portuguese more fluently in the future after I get back. It seems like a cool language as well as being in Brazil and able to come back and speak it.
Anyway, back to the class. This class for me was a little bit of a disappointment. It was more about pronunciation than about actually learning conversational Portuguese. We did learn some phrases, but these were no different than what my Fodor’s guide had in it. I was hoping to learn more and be able to use it more. I will get better through the week, and we had some cases to try it out which will be talked about later.
Following class, four of us decided to take a trip to the local Wal-mart equivalent. We were told it was right down a street. They were supposed to have blue smiley faces instead of the yellow ones. They also were to have the full range of products from TVs, computers, food and beer. As we walk down the street that the store is on, we keep going further and further. Also, we end up passing two other little markets on our way – but still no Wal-Mart. We eventually found it. We purchased our items and then started to make our trek back. We really didn’t realize it at the time we headed there, but the trip was all down hill. So we then had to go back uphill. This was not fun. We also realized we could have bought all of the items we purchased at one of the other two markets without a huge difference in price, but a lot closer and further up the hill. We referred to this trip as our Boondoggle. Of course, Kyle (the person who told us about this) couldn’t believe we didn’t take a taxi back. Neither could we after we were done. However, we got a great workout.
Outside Bar Brahma
The night’s food and beverages ended up being at Bar Brahma. This is a popular after work spot. It was also a recommended must see by Fodor’s guide. The music was light jazz and the atmosphere was mid 20th century. Here we ended up having 10 of us to start. This was different from our typical posse of 8 that travelled around together. In the end, another 5 or so people joined us to make for a huge group of people. We arrived at Bar Brahma after taking the Metro to the Republica stop. This stop was actually the first time we felt that we were not 100% safe. I would say it was typical of any other place where homeless sleep and congregate. We walked about two blocks and found Bar Brahma on the corner.
Jazz Singer
One group of five ordered two pizzas: a margarita and a four cheese pizza. These were delicious. Again here, the bar used the numbering system to figure out what you would pay and order. It seemed in theory this would work well, however it did not. We had four different servers who could not really communicate with each other. One girl kept telling me I ordered a Black Brahma, when I know I did not. She was quite insistent. Finally we were able to tell another server this and he took care of the problem. I finally received my Brahma long neck. Brahma is a very good beer. I ended up tasting the Black Brahma and it was quite good, so my next beer was one of these. I am sure the little girl was upset when she finally brought it to me after she had already taken one back. Oh well.
Three of the Four Musketeers
This was a fun night of drinking, talking and just having fun. We learned a lot about each other and about Brazilian nightlife.
Drinking at bar Brahma
The words of the day: Cougar, boondoggle
