São Paulo, Brasil: A foreign land, but strangely familiar

When I landed in Guarulhos Airport, I had convinced myself that I was ready for this. After all, I had been practicing my Portuguese for… maybe two whole weeks? For the first hour or so, I think the only thing I said in Portuguese was, “Você fala inglês?”

I was very fortunate though, because of two friends I had met in Boston. One friend, Julia, from Rio de Janeiro, when asked what a tourist should do in Brazil, replied, “Meet my friends there!” The other, Joana, from Lisbon, Portugal, happened to be in São Paulo herself on business. After dropping off my things at the hostel, I met Joana for lunch along with Julia’s friend Taciana and her teenage son Luigi. Seeing a familiar face helped a lot, and Joana has always had strong opinions, which usually challenged me to think about things differently. Now that we were in a restaurant where I didn’t know what I was ordering though, I had to pretty much accept those opinions as my own!

Taciana proposed that I go to a soccer match with Luigi, whose favorite team, Palmeiras, was playing. When I showed up wearing my black shirt, I discovered that the opponent was Ponte Preta (Black Bridge). Luigi suggested that if I value my life, I shouldn't go into the home team’s stadium wearing the road team’s colors! So I bought a new, green Palmeiras shirt.

Me with my new Palmeiras shirt.

A big Palmeiras banner: A tradição continua. (The tradition continues.)

2014: A year at the peripheries of the world

This has been a busy year for me, personally, professionally, and otherwise. There’s been a lot of change in 2014. Changes that forced me to re-ask the most fundamental questions about my life. I’m not going to write about all of those changes here, for the reader’s sake more than anything, but I will write about one thing that did change significantly: my countries visited list. That list tripled in size during 2014.

1. United States (November 19, 1981)
2. Canada (1984)
3. Philippines (1986)
4. South Korea (1992)
5. Brazil (March 15, 2014)
6. Japan (May 18, 2014)
7. Italy (August 18, 2014)
8. San Marino (August 27, 2014)
9. Vatican City (August 31, 2014)
10. Germany (September 2, 2014)
11. Spain (September 8, 2014)
12. Portugal (September 15, 2014)