February 18, 2004
The Adventure begins!
Brasil
A few word on my new favorite country! Brasil (they don't use a "z") is a huge country - slightly smaller in area than the continental US, with over 140M people. i think the natural american bias is to assume 2nd world when thinking of South America but Brasil is far from it...a country of that size can afford its independence from the affairs in the northern continent - which is pretty refreshing...
Janet, Melanie and I kicked off our Brasilian adventure in Sao Paulo, Brasil where our good friend David Lee was kind enough to put us up (and put up with us :-)). Sao Paulo is the world's second largest city boasting over 22M Paulistos in what is truly a mixing pot. for example, it has the largest Japenese population of any city outside Japan...which made for some good sushi a day later :-)
the city is literally a sea of skyscapers - more so than manhattan. it's so congested that license plates ending in certain numbers cannot drive into certain sections of the city.....crazy
after struggling through a bit-o-jet lag, we met David's friend Mike - more of a friend than co-worker and someone we felt immediately at home with (the cervajeshelped of course!). headed to Santa Gula for our first Brazilian meal. The place was quite authentic, tasty and like most eateries in Brazil, extremely reasonably priced. Had agreat vibe – outdoors and eclectic décor.
Brasil
A few word on my new favorite country! Brasil (they don't use a "z") is a huge country - slightly smaller in area than the continental US, with over 140M people. i think the natural american bias is to assume 2nd world when thinking of South America but Brasil is far from it...a country of that size can afford its independence from the affairs in the northern continent - which is pretty refreshing...
Janet, Melanie and I kicked off our Brasilian adventure in Sao Paulo, Brasil where our good friend David Lee was kind enough to put us up (and put up with us :-)). Sao Paulo is the world's second largest city boasting over 22M Paulistos in what is truly a mixing pot. for example, it has the largest Japenese population of any city outside Japan...which made for some good sushi a day later :-)
the city is literally a sea of skyscapers - more so than manhattan. it's so congested that license plates ending in certain numbers cannot drive into certain sections of the city.....crazy
after struggling through a bit-o-jet lag, we met David's friend Mike - more of a friend than co-worker and someone we felt immediately at home with (the cervajes
