After a 10 hour flight in coach (middle seat), I arrived to a rainy Sao Paulo. Didn't think much of it until I quickly learned that rain (just like in Atlanta) makes traffic worse, only much much worse here. It was over 3 hours before I arrived at my apartment ("Post Sao Paulo"), it was a rough ride, jerky stop and go driving that made me motion sick and annoying music (not Brazilian music by the way some kind of early 90's American soul music cover band). Despite the ride, I was just SO THANKFUL to be able to finally stand on my own two feet and walk around. A WONDERFUL lady named Daniela was at the apartment to greet me and basically spend the day helping me out. She was AMAZING, seriously could not have survived the day without her. I stopped into the office for a little bit to meet everyone and take care of some administrative stuff but then left to go home and get some sleep (since I didn't sleep well on the flight and still felt sick). Still too overwhelmed to get into any of the details yet so for now I'll leave you with -
Lessons learned from Day 1:
1)When people say traffic is horrendous in Sao Paulo, what they really mean is traffic is truly indescribable, a word doesn't exist to convey the horror of it.
2)Learning how to say "excuse me do you speak english" was a complete waste of time since 98% of the time the answer is "no speak english" or just a stare.
3)I am convinced I will be fluent in Portuguese before I leave because there is no way to survive without learning it.
4)You will be the joke of the day if you ask why you have a washing machine and not a dryer. Seriously, I think every one in the entire office was told the story.
5) Delta people are nice everywhere! Everyone in the office here is sooo friendly, they are mostly sales people. One could argue they are nicer than finance :)
I miss Atlanta already, definitely looking forward to going home next weekend :) I have already developed a new found appreciation for all things American!
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