Been there, done that

Since there is less time till the end of my trip than has passed since my arrival in São Paulo, or, to make it simple, I’m more than half-way through, it’s time for a summary. What have I actually done in those two months and what have I yet to do? I’m kind of thinking aloud, if you will. As you will have already figured out, I AM coming back to London after all. I miss it!

Let’s have a look at what I’ve done first. It seems that my main activities have been eating out  and going to music shows (I warned you, didn’t I). I’ve tried, repeatedly, wonderful Japanese food (sushi rodizio – eat as much as you want!), Brazilian feijoada (I owe you guys that one, pictures coming soon!), countless salgados (savoury pastries, such as pastel), invariably accompanied by cerveja gelada. See? Your Portuguese is getting better!* I have to reiterate – gastronomy in São Paulo is of top-notch quality, with even the crudest corner bars serving fresh food and following all hygiene requirements, let alone fancy restaurants. Most dishes I’ve tried were absolutely amazing. The only thing you have to watch is your wallet; first of all, because you don’t want it to disappear, secondly – not to get carried away. Some might want to watch their weight. I decided not to worry about that.

As for music, I have been to six or seven excellent shows at Teatro FECAP (Francis & Olívia Hime, Tom Jobim Festival that included the likes of Zimbo Trio and a few other bands I can’t remember) – they’ve got amazing sound there, seen a beautiful instrumental performance of Swami Junior at SESC Consolação, had fun watching friends play samba rock. I even got to sing. A song or two here and there. And I have to say that the pressure is high; after all, a gringa venturing to sing samba in a country where it was born, in a Portuguese that, unfortunately, still sounds a little foreign, is no common sight. Let’s say I got positive reviews and motivation to continue learning. I have tried paulistan nightlife too. The best area to go, and I may be repeating myself, is Vila Madalena. This is where you find the best music bars the entrance to which won’t ruin your pocket. I’ve been to  Ó do Borogodó, Pau Brasil, Traço de União, Bom Motivo and can easily recommend all of these. I left the best bit for the end. The already mentioned roda de choro** at the Contemporânea music shop is in itself an experience worth coming to Brazil for.

As every day brings new events, twists, turns and last-minute invitations, the what-I’ve-done list is getting longer and what-I’ve-yet-to-do is shrinking at an amazing pace and will hopefully come to a point where I can safely say “I can go back now”.

*my dear Brazilian friends will hopefully understand that my main focus (target audience?) were people who don’t speak the language

**for details, see an earlier post (Next station: Contemporânea)

The market – take 2

Whether out of boredom or a desire to please you, yesterday I went to the Mercado Municipal again to explore it better. And guess what! I found that bar where I’d had my heavenly pasteis. It’s called Hocca Bar. So now you know the secret. Save this information for some time in the future when you don’t know where to go for your holidays and you decide to follow my track. Also, I found that the market only gets ridiculously crowded on Saturdays. During the week it’s a completely different experience; I could actually see/smell/touch what they were selling at the stalls and even take a few photos. So here we go:

Don't let this photo fool you, these were not just ordinary prawns. 

They were XXXX-large, the size of your palm, to be precise. 

The area near the market is known for cheap shopping, especially Rua 25 de Março. I was hoping to get some affordable summer clothes. Wrong. 99% of shops (roughly calculated) in the area sell jewellery, or carnival costumes, masks and all sorts of trinkets. The closest I came to clothes was a lingerie shop, tucked somewhere in between the glaring samba outfits and huge Chinese bags. Actually “lingerie” is an overstatement. There were rows of racks with plain knickers, briefs and thongs with prices exceeding Oxford Street best. Cheap they said, hey? A petite shop assistant beamed her forced smile at me as I crossed the door, offering help. It’s normal in Brazil to be assisted by an overly friendly employee, who typically gives you a card or a slip of paper with their name so that you can call them at will, and then another less friendly one when you want to pay so that you can collect what you chose from the first one. Complicated? Well, I didn’t feel like I needed anyone’s help choosing my underwear, so when I saw Denise, Daniele or whatever her name was,  approaching me again, I hurried to the door. Some cultural differences take time to get used to...

Eat before you read (A visit to the market)

São Paulo is not a beautiful city, far from it, but it has got some hidden gems. If you try hard, you’re going to find places definitely worth visiting, be it for their unique character, historical value or for their cosmopolitan flavour. Mercado Municipal (Rua da Cantareira 306, Metro São Bento) is an example of the latter, literally. This city market is a hive of activity with food stalls, selling delicacies from all over the world; Italian Parma ham, Spanish olives, Portuguese salt-cod (ubiquitous!) as well as heaps of Brazilian dried meat and colourful pyramids of local fruit and veg - everything you can get somewhere else with a little effort, but for an adequately higher price. This doesn’t not seem to deter the crowds who fill the alleys to the point of absurdity. Forget delightful strolls among  aromatic mangoes and smelly cheeses; to cross the market from one end to other will take about half an hour of tiny steps, meandering among other hungry souls, with your hand firmly on your wallet. I may be turning neurotic, but living in the centre does make your eyes go around your head in search of potential thieves.

What made my day last Saturday afternoon, was, surprise, surprise! - lunch. I had read about the famous mortadela sandwiches to bite which you wish you were Mick Jagger, but having thought about it, I rejected the idea of paying 15 reais for what you can easily make at home for 2 and opted for pasteis instead. A pastel* is a deep-fried rectangular pastry typically filled with meat or cheese, available at virtually any bar.  But it wasn’t any bar my boyfriend took me to. He would be very unhappy to find out I didn’t give him credit for leading me to the pastel paradise. The menu boasted a staggering number of more to less typical pastel fillings, just reading about which made my mouth water. In my excitement, I decided I would have two – one with prawns and one with bacalhau. I may have been hungry, but I surely overestimated the capacity of my stomach; the pasteis were enormous! You needed two hands to hold them (I mean to hold one at a time!). And, yes, they were the most delicious ever! Crispy outside, soft and creamy inside. Sheer heaven in my mouth. Now, forgive me, but having stood in a lengthy queue, once I devoured the pasteis, all I wanted was to get out, so I didn’t record which bar it was. If you ever want to go there, you’re going to have to do it by trial and error, or get yourself your own Brazilian boyfriend to take you. I ain’t lending you mine.

* read more - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pastel_(food)

Oh, and here’s a video I made during the visit! No eating without music ;)

Getting square(d)

Friday night, time to party. We take a taxi to the other side of town to see a friend play; this time it’s samba rock. The bar is not packed, so we even manage to get a table near the band. Unsurprisingly, we sip some cold beer as we listen. Every now and then a bigger or smaller shaking bunda* obscures the view - in Brazil, virtually everyone knows how to dance (more or less effectively). The show ends early and, due to a problem with the computer system, we spend much more time queueing to pay our bill** than we did enjoying the covers of Seu Jorge, Djavan, Jorge Ben Jor and Tim Maia. The friend, a bass player, offers us a lift home. In a city like São Paulo, that’s something you don’t refuse as there are only two ways to go back after a night out: a taxi, easy and accessible but not always cheap, especially if you go far; or a car, preferably someone else’s (so that you can enjoy your beer!). You want to avoid walking the streets at after dark at all costs. So, we gladly go with João; the boys sit in the front, while I doze off at the back seat, hugging the bass guitar. It’s going to be a while before we reach our destination. At one point, we seem to be very close, I start to recognise the buildings with my sleepy eyes, but then, a wrong turn and we end up having to make a huge circle. “I’ll take another nap!”

Uh-uh. Behind the corner flashing lights make us slow down and harsh voices tell us to pull over. It’s the military police. I’ve heard a lot about these middle-of-the-night stop-and-searches and, trust me, they were never nice stories. I instantly have scenes straight from Tropa de Elite*** in front of my eyes, but I decide to keep my calm. It can’t be that bad. The boys leave the car slowly, hands at the back of their heads, ready to be searched, while I’m still inside, fully woken up by now, thinking “What the hell do I do?!”. A policeman summons me too and politely tells me to wait on the pavement as they check the documents. Oh, by the way, do I have mine? I think he’s surprised to see my Polish ID (for safety reasons, I leave the passport at home, but it’s obligatory to have some sort of an ID with you), but doesn’t bother me with any more questions after I tell him that I’m a foreigner.  A couple of minutes pass and my teeth start to chatter. I wonder if it’s because of the cold or ...fear and then a thought strikes me – I’ll have something to write about in my blog! How comforting. Another few minutes later, we get back our IDs and hit the road again. Among nervous smiles I learn that we have just been enquadrados, or “squared” by the police, and we’re luckier than we think. First of all, a blitz**** rarely goes as peacefully as this, and, secondly, João’s ID is out of date and he’s forgotten the car documents at home. But you don’t have to believe any of that.

*your or somebody else’s rear

** I’ll explain the paying system in a later post

*** a film about police brutality (among other things), the English title is Elite Squad (2007)

****another name for these police traffic stops

Some like it... stupidly cold

Brazilians love beer. It’s no secret. In a hot climate like this, there’s nothing that quenches your thirst better than a cerveja gelada (cold beer). I can personally confirm that. In most bars and restaurants, when you order a big bottle (600ml), it almost always comes in a heat-proof flask. If it doesn’t, you have to ask for it. After all, you don’t want to be drinking beer with a temperature of your body. The idea is that it comes cold and stays cold (the beer, not your body).

Freezer da mesa. Image source:  http://guaiamunsbar.blogspot.com/2010/09/frezzer-de-mesa.html

But what does “cold” mean? For Europeans, like me, it simply means “after considerable time in the fridge”, or chilled. Here, it’s not enough. The ideal beer is not just cold, it’s stupidly cold, as Brazilians themselves say (estupidamente gelada) – on the point of freezing. One sip of that from an equally cold glass (straight from the freezer!) and you feel as if you had dived into a pool of ice. Refreshing. Two sips more and your tongue starts to burn, teeth turn to stone and eyes pop out. It nearly freezes your head off! Continue like this all night, with endless refills of your copo (small glass), and you wake up considerably chilled out. Or, in a negative scenario, with a stinging sensation in your throat, runny nose and feeling like staying in bed for a few days. Well, it’s been a week now. Saúde!*

Image source:  http://diariodooprimido.blogspot.com/2011/11/licao-de-marketing.html

 *literally: health, or “to your health” when making a toast

Next station: Contemporânea

That samba train has really taken off! Stopping at various more or less glamorous venues around São Paulo. And it looks like it’s an express train as I go to shows almost every day! No remorse. No sooner had the sounds of pandeiro stopped ringing in my head (not least because I got one to practise in my “free time”) than we* were clinking beer bottles at Traço de União. (http://tracodeuniao.com.br/) A more glamorous venue, if you want to know; more airy, with a proper stage for the artists and... a no-flip-flops policy. Much to my disappointment as I can’t seem to part with my havaianas.** Good job we knew in advance.

There were a few people performing that night, including Deyse do Banjo (because she plays banjo***), Carllão Maneiro and, again, Aldo Bueno, providing the crowd with a good dose of samba rhythms.

With only a few hours’ sleep, we dragged ourselves out of bed the next day to see roda de choro at a music shop round the corner. Every Saturday morning, the shop Contemporânea, hosts a gathering of vintage musicians (the guitarist is 85 years old!), the crème de la crème of the local traditional music scene. As in every roda, they switch places and instruments to play choro, as well as samba. Choro is a popular music (largely) instrumental style, originating in the 19^th century. You can read about it here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Choro, but don’t take wikipedia’s word for certain as I have heard from a trustworthy source that it was actually born in Argentina, not Brazil. Leaving this debate aside, the weekly event is truly unmissable. A few wooden benches in the shop’s back room, walls adorned with drawings portraits of great choro masters and faded pictures of them playing with friends in that very shop.

By midday there’s barely room to sit, but as there seems to be a roda of the audience as well, I eventually manage to squeeze in. And the most authentic sounds of Brazil’s tradition start to seep into my ear, raising the hair on my skin and silencing my tongue. I dare not breathe fully in case I let this air of emotion out too soon. I survey the room. Senile gentlemen share the space with young fathers who decided their sons needed a more sophisticated musical education. Mature ladies smile at the mesmerized tourists whose shaking hands try to grasp every moment of greatness. After a few pieces, my initial stupor lets go and my body begins to sway rhythmically. Hands start to clap and don’t stop until the show’s over two hours later. OK, I do take breaks. For filming.

*my BF and I, and a few other jolly people
**the most popular brand of flip-flops, or chinelo, in Brazil.
***you might want to look this one up for yourselves, eh?

Samba time!

Finally! After weeks of waiting, I got to see live samba. It had been rather difficult when I was staying outside the city, but now that I’m in the centre most music bars are a stone’s throw away. On Wednesday night we headed for Vila Madalena, a rather posh area where every corner bustles with activity, like lifting glasses of beer to the sounds of guitar, cavaco, pandeiro and/or some other noisy instrument. At a place called Pau Brasil, there was roda de samba. It’s a very old Brazilian tradition of playing this particular genre, which involves musicians sitting in a circle (roda) or sometimes round a table and taking turns to play/sing until dawn. Depending on the venue, this can take the form of a friendly gathering or is more like a show, with artists keeping their distance from the beer-sipping crowd. By the way, I have been told (warned?) that samba and cerveja (beer) always go together, so unless you’re pregnant or under-age, there is no excuse. Not like I was looking for one, but just so that you know. Great sambistas are invariably great drinkers too.

What I loved about that night at Pau Brasil, is that it felt like one big party, with musicians so close to you that you risked getting elbowed in the stomach. And if you got too excited dancing and singing like everybody (!) else in the club, that beer bottle that you’ve just accidentally knocked down ended up at their feet.

Unfortunately, it was too dark there to film properly but at least you can get an idea about the music. It’s Aldo Bueno performing "Mas Quem Disse Que Eu Te Esqueço". More videos coming soon.

Feliz Ano Novo!

I hope you had a fantastic New Year ’s Eve and a good start of the year. Here in São Paulo things didn’t work out perfectly. I’d had to abandon plans of spending 31^st December on the beach because the prices were exorbitant and I would have been left penniless, or centiless... Plan B meant going to Avenida Paulista (the city’s main street) and rubbing shoulders with thousands of live music lovers, paying 4 times worth for a can of beer and then hunting for a taxi. As it had been pouring down with rain since afternoon, this imperfect plan also had to be abandoned in favour of a romantic evening at home, with a bottle of bubbly and a guitar. At the last minute, not literally, but very much in Brazilian style, a friend invited the two of us to join his family and so...we ended up in the middle of a marital crisis wondering whether getting soaked in the street would have been a better option. Ironically enough, we came to try that too when, on New Year’s Day, we got caught up in a heavy shower on the way to a family lunch and arrived dripping, in desperate need of a dry T-shirt and a hot meal. So, as you can see, not everything is like in a dream, but things can only get better after this, can’t they? Happy New Year to all of you.