That Paulistan feeling

I’ve been back from Brazil for over two months now and the memories of my 4-month-long trip really seem like a dream... It looks like London life has sucked me in and is determined to keep its clutch on me with the cold, wet and jobless reality. My BF still in São Paulo (according to the latest news, he should be coming back to London in three weeks’ time, yay!), I have to resort to browsing through my facebook photo albums to remind myself that it all really happened. And my saudade is not just about him, it is, strangely enough, about the city, too. Just the other night I had a dream that I was going to perform as a singer with a group right there, in São Paulo. I woke up disappointed it wasn’t true. But then again, who knows; maybe someday!

Is it indeed that strange that I should miss Sampa, as it’s colloquially called? A city with lines of cars longer than from here to the moon, more rain in a week than London had this April (and trust me, it was a lot) and thousands of skyscrapers in an apparent fight for the last bits of sunshine, like thirsty plants in this urban jungle. I remember when, on my first, four-day-long, visit to this city, I asked my host: “So what is the landmark? Where is that place that everybody instantly recognises as pertaining to São Paulo, where people meet, the heart?” He seemed puzzled. What, no Paulistan Big Ben? I silently wondered. No Eiffel Tower? Not to mention Cristo Redentor. Let’s not even go there (there is a fierce competition between SP and Rio de Janeiro that I will talk about a bit later). I just couldn’t believe there isn’t anything characteristic that would help me create a mental image of São Paulo by means of just one token. “Avenida Paulista is quite famous” my friend didn’t give up. Right, a big street that runs through the whole city like a pulsating vein, never stopping pumping more traffic in and out of its borders. That didn’t even come close to meeting my expectations of this specific something.

I discovered what it is during my second trip which was ten times longer. It’s just not where I was looking for it. You know, with such Rio it’s easy; the overwhelming statue welcomes you from the top of the hill with its arms wide open (and says goodbye in much the same candid manner), the extreme heat hits you in the face right after you get off the plane, and walking along the ridiculously and undeservingly famous Copabana beach is bound to leave you with sunburn you won’t quickly forget. With SP, things are rather intangible. Relatively far from the sea, much colder and flat as an ironing board, it doesn’t have much to offer. At the first glance. But it’s enough to start walking the streets to notice. Or to feel, I should say. And four days are not enough to discover what I’m talking about. You need to come, take a bus, visit the MASP, gorge a coxinha*, get lost, lose your flip-flop when running in the sudden downpour, have a cold Brahma in a corner bar or dig into a feijoada after a roda de choro on a Saturday afternoon, get stuck in a traffic jam with a full bladder, leave for a party at 1AM and be sure you’ll still get there before the show starts, have another beer, chat with a taxi driver, watch at least one episode of Ratinho**, have a shot of cachaça to recover from the shock, see your friends play a gig with more swing than all your dance and music teachers put together, visit Museu da Lingua Portuguesa, sink your teeth into an indecently ripe mango and let the juices run down your chin, have one more beer, find out what guioza, hashi and shoyu mean, see live samba somewhere in Vila Madalena, eat in a kilo bar, forget what time of the year it is... and then we’ll talk. For the time being, enjoy this HD video (not mine) with views of the city and please, please, ignore the extremely naive music.

*a kind of pastry filled with shredded chicken (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coxinha)

**Programa do Ratinho, a Jerry-Springer-type TV show for the dumb masses

8 or 80

The longer I’m here, the quicker time passes. I’ve barely got three weeks till my departure! Now, just to make things clear, this blog is not going to be abandoned; I will continue writing about my Brazilian adventures and experiences after my return to London. And hopefully you will continue to follow me ;)

Now what was it that I wanted to tell you? Was it that São Paulo is much less Brazilian and much more English than I’d thought? OK, only in one area: the weather. I was convinced that gloomy grey sky was a feature typical only of Britain. But if you think that glaring sun welcomed me here, think again. For most of the time whenever I looked out the window in our flat in the centre, apart from really ugly dilapidating buildings that probably remember the city’s more glorious past, I saw a seamless silvery screen blocking any attempts of the sun to illuminate the metropolitan reality. And that was on a lucky day. At other times it felt as if the sky had been torn apart and just burst into a weeping fit that went on for hours. Little did I know that São Paulo used to be called “Terra da garoa” or “a land of drizzle”. That was before they poured concrete over the numerous canals and small rivers that had run through the city, messing with its climate, but not ridding it of the rainy inclinations.

I remember one Sunday, somewhere in December, when the weather let go. Beautiful sunshine shone through the thin clouds making the world smile. We headed for the swimming pool in the hope of passing a relaxing afternoon. I got so excited I immediately found a deck chair, arranged my towel on it and took great care that my 50 UV sunscreen (for kids) covered every bit of my bare skin. I didn’t want to repeat the bad experiences from a Rio beach last year when filter 30 proved not enough and left me sore for a week. Still remembering the cool air of London, the idea of sunbathing in the summer heat of São Paulo really tickled my buds. I lay down, closed my eyes and... felt the first drop on my stomach. Dazzled, I looked up and this is what I saw:

Within minutes it was pouring down with rain. And didn’t stop for days on end. They said it is the coolest summer that this city has seen in years. Unconsoled by this, I started praying for some heat. After all, what was the point of crossing the damn ocean if I was to experience the same shitty weather?! Well, all I can say is be careful what you ask for, you might just get it. Because when, after weeks of cold gloom, the sun suddenly hit, it was relentless. I didn’t dare leave the house without sunscreen on, even to go to the supermarket. I tossed and turned at night, unable to sleep in the stuffy room. Opening the window was not much of a relief as outside it was almost just as hot as inside. Three sleepless nights made me scrape my pockets to buy a ventilator. Three delightful ones later, I was again hiding under a duvet for fear of catching a cold. This is what São Paulo weather is like, either 8 or 80.*

* to be 8 or 80 – an expression in Brazilian Portuguese (oito ou oitenta) meaning that something/someone is between two extremes, without middle ground