Grafica Fidalga in São Paulo

Pronto do São Paulo?

Are you ready to do São Paulo?

After threading ourselves through the city many times there are a bunch of things you need to consider when coming to São Paulo aside from avoiding the intense level of automobile traffic surging daily through the streets. These are practical problems you will encounter day-to-day unlike any other city in the world.

First, each car in São Paulo is restricted from driving in the city during rush hour one day a week. For instance, if you have a license plate number ending in 3 or 4, you cannot drive between 7:00 AM and 10:00 AM and from 5:00 PM to 8:00 PM in the inner city zone of Sao Paulo on Tuesdays. If you do, you will get a ticket even if it is the day you plan to fly out and need to get to the airport. Know your restricted day and plan around it.

Second, in most outlying neighborhoods, you will need to pay someone to watch your car when it is parked on the street. This is a kind of bribe to protect your car gifted in the form of a tip. The strange thing about this is that the parking monitors have no official status or license. The unofficial guardians are often unemployed guys after a tip and their administration of duty might be spotty. Also, it can be difficult to ascertain which guy hanging out on the sidewalk is the unofficial monitor for the street where you wish to park.

The upside: these parking monitors usually give great customer service unlike the particularly unfriendly and unhelpful staff at the art museums, shops, banks, and indifferent waiters at places you might reasonably expect friendly service and instruction. Parking monitors understand good customer service can reward them financially.

Third, in the inner core of São Paulo the parking monitor system isn't in effect. However, posted next to the street where parking is allowed, you will find a blue box that says you will need to purchased a ticket (the paper sheet resembles a lottery scratch card) with days, hours, months, etc scratched out.

But unlike the lottery, there is no fixed price for the parking and you don't always know where to purchase these parking vouchers. On two different occasions we paid 3 reals and then 2 reals and hour to park near Ave Paulista. The blue tickets are usually not in effect on weekends and only during business hours during the day depending on the street.

Go the the nearest bar, restaurant, or street news vendor and ask where you can buy the parking voucher. Hopefully they speak Ingles or you are carrying a Brazilian Portuguese phrasebook. Be warned, having a blue card does not offer protection from breaking and entering like the monitors do in outlying districts. Always hide anything of value in the trunk of your car or take it with you.

Fourth, when driving in heavily congested São Paulo traffic, you will quickly notice a swarm of motorcycle messengers who fly around your automobile like locus in West Texas in October. These motorcycle dare devils drive very fast down the center strip between cars stalled in a traffic jam. São Paulo is quite unlike any other city for the numbers these drivers running all day and night. You must be hyper-alert to everything going on around you to keep track of the danger they pose to your car and themselves.

Fifth, banks both private and state run in São Paulo are very difficult offices to access. Due to high security, going to a bank is probably one of the most harrowing experiences you'll encounter in Brazil. You will be thrilled by the polite and courteous help from the unofficial parking monitors and happy to give them a bribe after experiencing the extremes of banking customer service. It is just wrong to call the treatment "customer service."

If you need to go to a bank, plan on spending and afternoon or at least a couple of hours. When you walk up to the bank you will notice a bunch of guys standing around with guns. Do not yell at the guys with guns. When you enter the vestibule they will ask you a series of questions and type a bunch of stuff into their computer terminals. More guys with guns. Remember, if they have a gun and a uniform, it is their job to shoot and kill people who act strange, erratic, or angry.

Essentially, bank employees are trying to determine if you have legitimate business and an account with the bank. If you do the will pass you onto a checkpoint more daunting than TSA at airports and these guys also have guns and banish them visibly. Don't taunt them.

You will then be forced into a revolving door that traps you like a rat in a cage if you have metal items on you. You should have placed all metal items in a basket to pass through the system separately. There are far too many false positives and customers get enraged.

Once inside the employees are reluctant to help and provide prompt and polite customer service - not all that different than American banks frankly. The bank tellers are amazingly lax about money and you have very little privacy. If you are exchanging cash be careful because people are watching and you could become a target once you leave the bank.

Patricia told me about customers getting so angry trying to pass through the cage that they stripped all their clothing off down to being completely naked.

Now that's Brazilian Caraval!

Comida de rua

In any large city, London, New York, or Tokyo with a foot mobile fast-paced hardworking population you'll find comdia de rua (street food). For New York it is pizza-by-the-slice, bagels with smear, knish, babka and other wonderful Jewish deli delights. In London you will find fish-and-chips, sausage pasties and rolls, and Greek gyros. Tokyo has its sticky buns. All items you can buy on-the-fly and eat on the go.

In São Paulo you will find exactly the same items that make for an inexpensive lunch between appointments or just off the subway. If anyhting, Paulistas prefer the savory to the sweet. This list of items will cost you approximately a buck a piece and go very well with a visit to the barraca de suco (juice bar) for incredible manga, passion fruit, pineapple and watermelon drinks.

Coxinha -- chicken and cheese inside deep fried dough

Empadinha -- pie-like crust filled with heart of palm and baked similar in name to Chilian empanata, however, can very widely depending on preparation

Pão de batata -- a potato bread baked with spiced chicken

Bolinho de queijo -- cheese filled dough that is deep fried

Pão de queijo -- cheese mixed with a bread-lke dough (no four however) and baked until golden and crispy on the outside and gooey on the inside

O PÃO NOSSO DE CADA DIA

Every morning the padaria makes crusty little loaves called pãozinho with an exquisitely golden brown crust that splits across the top and has a light soft white fluffy interior.

These bread loaves are so much like bread sold in France, Mexico, and that I remember most distinctively from living in England. Even the smell wafting down the street in the morning is as warm to the senses as sunshine. Wrapped warm in small brown bags, with blue inked crested logos and sayings like "Give us our daily bread" there is nothing like this bread to feel you've finally left America and with good reason.

On Mauro e Odelva's street you will hear each morning a variety of sounds and melodies as street vendors come selling aqua (water), propane gas (this truck plays a distinctive melody you might associate with ice cream trucks in the US), and tamales. Odelva tells me there are two different tamale makers and she listens to the call from the better of the two. Patricia laughs when I marvel at the convenience of having these mobile vendors come selling.

AQUA DE COCO

Coconut water is the magic rejuvenator of life. For roughly a buck and a quarter, a street vendor whether on the beach in Rio or walking the sides streets near Ave. Paulista will grab a green coconut fresh off the tree and using a Facão (machete) will whack off the head and foot, then cut a vee-shaped wedge to make a hole in the top and slip in a straw. With this in hand, the desperate feeling of heat and humindity seems less overwhelming. A good vendor will chill the coconut prior to cutting so tha water is cold.

Ah, the joys of big city life!

Chegamos Vivos no Brasil

Driving in from Guarulhos International Airport you´ll see a bunch of vendedor de rue selling products to cars, trucks and taxi stranded in traffic waiting to change lanes. The vendors sell cell phone chargers, seat beads, steering wheel grips, jumper cables for your car as well as candies and munchies for your stomach. Our taxi drivers tells us the current São Paulo Mayor is cracking down on the vendedors, sending the polícia out to confiscate their product inventory.

Motorcycle messangers speed between the lanes of stalled traffic in acts of daring that leave us with shock and awe. Our taxi driver also tells us that deft motorcycle thieves drive by the car windows slowly trying to spot any bag that looks like it might contain a compuiter. If stranded in traffic, the thief will point a gun in the window and demand the computer bag be handed out and then speed away. I will test my theory that I can negotitate with them, if the opportunity presents itself, and if it works. Standby for proof of theory.

São Paulo has one of the highest crime rates in the world.

The roads this Friday morning in December are hectic. São Paulo has just experienced one of its legendary downfalls of rain that causes traffic crisis and locks up the highways and city streets. Drivers trying to get across the city are very aggressive. Motocycles messangers live an extremely dangerous life under the best conditions. Patricia´s father Mauro tells us 3 are killed everyday in São Paulo.

After bringing Mauro back to his newstand business, we arrive safely in Taboão de Serra at Odelva e Mauro´s casa and, of course, Odelva has prepared a banquet of food.

Carne (meat) is prepared in a roll and roasted with vegetables and bacon rolled inside. Arroz (rice) is served with every meal including those already heavy in starch like pasta and potatoes. Fruta is kept aside for the dessert course.

Bicycle Ride on Sunday in São Paulo

Our new friend Toni Nogueira is taking us on a bicycle ride through São Paulo and the Big Worm Flyover, into the Republic Square and invites us to eat a traditional snack from Bahia called Acaraje and a fresh coconut milk to put out the fire. Then, further along on the trip Toni stops at a padaria for strong Brazilian coffee, grilled bread, and a strawberry tart. Obrigado Toni! Carb load dude!

Vila Madalena

One of the many sections of São Paulo is a district called Vila Madalena. Located on the west side of São Paulo, Vila Madalena offers visitors a vibrant nightlife, lively markets, unique craft stores where the owner might just be offering Cachaça in anticipation of the ample opportunities to hear authentic Brazilian music as night falls.

Entrada do Mercado Municipal

Toni Nogueira, a musician living in São Paulo, takes us on a walk through the cities famous Central food market. Not only is the municiple market a fabulous place for buying spices, fruits, vegetables, meat and fish - it is a great reflection of the Brazilian culture and history in its architecture, the diversity in wealth in the prices for Cachaça its national drink, Brazil's national dish Feijoada and the savory temptations of its street food from Brazil's special preparations of Norwegian cod fish to the famed Mortadela sanduiche. The Central Municipal Market in São Paulo, Brazil, is a microcosm of the country's ethnically and culturally diverse people and food.