Where the rubber meets the road...

or where the shit hits the fan. I think both could be used to describe the reality that I am currently faced with. I have been staffed. This could be a good thing; this could be a bad thing; it is, with great certainty, a scary thing.

I will be working for a client based in Rio de Janeiro which means I will truly hit quite a few firsts on this next assignment:

• First case in Brazil
  
• First travel case
  
• First case in another language (Portuguese ... not one with which I am intimately familiar yet)
• First case where Adnan isn't my manager

The case topic seems pretty cool, the team members seem pretty cool and being in Rio should be pretty cool. So, overall, I'm definitely excited.

Why do I fing blogging such an effort?

Really, I do. After a week has past, I just don't feel like re-hashing everything that happened in a week. Today, I'll just throw out some of my recent observations in Brazil:

• People in Brazil walk really slowly.
  
• Watched a guy on a motorcyle almost crash as he stared and honked at 3 women crossing the street. He didn't take his eyes off them as he rode past ... 50 meters down the street. It was only when he lost his balance and the bike swerved to within 2 feet of a parked car did he resume paying attention long enough to pull a u-turn to ride by and honk some more
• Out for a birthday shindig a while back, someone ordered some "canapés of milanesa." Sounds incredibly fancy, no? Well, I could barely contain my excitement when they arrived looking like open-faced grilled cheese with a chicken McNugget on top. The McNugget was actully meat instead of chicken, but it was pretty awesome.
• I figured out why people walk so slowly - they're busy staring at chicks
• Time for a quick Portuguese lesson. Chicken = Frango. Strawberry = Morango. You'll notice that they both end in RANGO.
• On Friday, I tried to order a strawberry caipirinha ... I asked for a "caipirinha de frango" three times. Three times the bartender looked at me like I was crazy. I thought he was making fun of me for ordering a girl drink. No, he was looking at me funny because I was ordering a chicken caipirinha.

And for those interested, I got to play lots of squash this week. Just finished a little round robin with Mateo and Andrés. My right foot had a blister that was bleeding by the end. I'm an old man falling apart quickly.

Another week

Remember how excited I was to play squash? Remember how excited I was about my new racquet? I broke it during my first game. I'm pretty sure we didn't get 20 minutes into the first game. I was losing 8-1 (and you play to 9) so breaking it saved me losing my first match 9-1, although I may have broken it on the 9th point. Fortunately, we were so distracted that neither of us are sure. On a bright note, when Andres bought his new racquet, he was left with a backup in his old racquet. It may weigh 2-3 times as much as my new racquet, but it will get me playing and strengthen my arm for when I get my racquet back. On a very bright, and quite surprising note, the store where I bought it said they work with Wilson enough to know that they should admit it is a defective racquet and replace it. It should take about a month, but I have a loaner from Andres so I can keep playing.

Good week overall - still unstaffed but keeping occupied. Went out Wednesday to a pretty cool bar called Skye Bar at the Unique Hotel. It is a bar on the roof of the hotel with great windows and a huge deck. Unfortunately, it had been raining so the deck was damp and most people didn't want to spend much time outside. The view is gorgeous and the drinks were good. Was out a little later than planned, but had a good time. My buddy Mateo invited me to join him in meeting up with some IESE buddies. (Mateo is also the squash buddy who was kicking my butt when I broke my racquet earlier that evening). When I ran into a fellow consultant, Esther, who lives in the same building as me the next morning, she told me I looked tired. I did have some decent sized bags under my eyes. I'm glad she's a friend already!

Friday, I was invited to a birthday party by a co-worker who has been at Bain SP about a week longer than I have. The party was held in the rooftop party room of the birthday boy's apartment building. Very cool setup with a DJ and bartenders - one of whom was quite good at the flare. Had a great time and met some cool people, including a Bainie from the SP office that I hadn't met yet (he too wants to play squash because his girlfriend is into it and keeps beating him). At around 2:30 I thought I might take off. When I told Fernando, he said no worries, they were heading out soon and they'd give me a ride. As you can imagine, one thing led to another and I got home at 4:30. Oops. Amazingly, however, I felt OK Saturday and woke up at 9:45. I did, however, feel the night's activities when I played a tough squash match with Andres. Looking forward to playing him as he and I are quite well matched.

Today, I took a cab to a well-known market Mercado Municipal in SP. Starting there, I made my way through the city hitting various of the sights, including the famous cathedral and central plaza, the Japanese Sunday crafts fair and the Japanese district. I walked for ~8 miles (13Km) all the way back here. With no map, no less. I'm a pretty terrible tourist ... I took zero pictures. I thought about occasionally taking a photo, but none of them felt like they'd be that interesting. I'm going to need to get better at that.

Time for the weekly observations:

• It is awesome to be at a patio party in March
• Doormen laugh when you come home handcuffed in glowsticks
• There must be a lot of TV remote theft or abuse here because the number of vendors that sell replacement TV remotes is staggering
• I'm still struggling to see the complimentary nature of selling DVDs and toothbrushes together
• Awesome mullet of the day: Short in the front dreadlocks in the back

Till next time.

Albums I want to get when I get home (Suggestions welcome)

U2 - No Line on the Horizon (though I don't love Get on your Boots)
PS I Love You Soundtrack
Katy Perry - One of the Boys
Van Morrison Astral Weeks: Live at the Hollywood Bowl
More Al Green
Obadiah Parker - Whatever ablum has Hey Ya
Diana Krall
Gilberto Gil
New Yeah Yeah Yeahs

Specific songs:
Alien Ant Farm - Smooth Criminal
Basement Jaxx - Red Alert
The Flys - Got you where I want you

(that's it for now, but I'll be adding to the list)

Two weeks in

Welcome to my thoughts on my time in Brazil. This will have some notes on what I've done as well as what I think about. I'll try to keep the posts regular so they don't get so long you don't want to read them.

I'm two weeks into my Brazilian adventure and I have many mundane observations that jumped out at me, but nothing earthshattering to report. I have been pleasantly surprised to find that I really like the parts of the city I have so far explored. The people here have been incredibly welcoming which has kept me really busy and helped me explore different areas of the city.

What have I been up to?

I arrived here on Tuesday, March 3rd following an amazing week in Acapulco for my brother's wedding and 36 hours of hectic travel/packing. I made it to my hotel without too many problems. Two small roadbumps:

1. My luggage was wet and smelled like fish (initially I thought it was pee) ... after arriving at my hotel I found some of my clothes inside were stained with what looks like fish blood. Sucks when you're staying in a hotel room and the whole place smells like fish. Continental, however, has been very responsive and not only agreed to pay to have the clothes cleaned, they have offered to pick up my luggage and have it cleaned. Pretty awesome
2. I was unsuccessful in withdrawing money from 4 consecutive banks at the airport. that was very disconcerting. No working bank cards was definitely going to pose an issue going forward. Fortunately, I brought some US cash and was able to exchange at the airport so I could get to my hotel etc. It took a week to find a working, acceptable ATM (look for the international banks like HSBC or Citi). Fortunately, almost everyone here takes credit cards so it was pretty easy to make my cash last a while.

My first week was pretty active outside of work - I met up with folks for dinner and/or drinks Weds-Sunday, went wakeboarding Saturday and toured some of downtown on Sunday. I was catching up with a range of people - some Michigan folks who were down here on spring break, some Bainees and some other connections through either Bainees or Michigan people. That week was really hot - 90-95 degrees. (Of course, except for Saturday, where it was overcast and barely reached 75.)

I got a cold during my second week here, so I limited myself to meeting up with folks to Monday, Wednesday, Friday, Saturday and Sunday. I needed Tuesday and Thursday to rest up. This weekend I moved into my new apartment (google maps link) where I'll be living for the rest of the transfer. It is not huge (~300 sq feet) but it is in a great building, and has good amenities. A washing machine is included, which is pretty rare. It has a balcony and has a TV and stereo. Internet is also included ... I brought my own wireless router and of course that was absolutely the first thing I sorted out after moving in. The building is close to the office, which I appreciate. It has a decent little gym, sauna, pool, "zen" area outside and, most amazingly, a SQUASH COURT!! Given the hassle of having my squash racquet shipped down here, I bought a new one on Saturday with a co-worker. He picked one up and hopes that the investment will drive him to play more.

I love the exchange right now. Overall, this is a relatively expensive city, but the exchange rate moved from $1USD = R$1.6 to $1USD = R$2.3 in the last six months. That makes my dollars go ~50% further than they did in September or so. Case in point, the squash racquet that I just bought. It was R$325 which, back in September when they probably bought it, would have been $200USD. That's $50 more than the $150 I found it online for - about in line for buying a foreign good here. Since the exchange rate has changed, along with some negotiation by Andrés, it cost $125. Not bad in my book.

We went to a pretty traditional Irish pub called O'Malley's on Saturday to honor St. Patrick - it was fun to see Brazilians getting into it as well. There was a good Irish band that played for most of the night. They had a promotion where, if you drank 5 Guinness/Kilkenny/Harps, you could get a short sleeved Guinness rugby shirt for R$20. Of course, I was all over that. Pedro and Bruno both also thought it was a good idea but Lia and Esther (their s.o.'s, respectively) did not think it such a great idea. Instead of 5 beers for a crappy free t-shirt, the extra R$20 actually netted us decent shirts. I'm hoping to find an excuse for all three of us to wear them at the same time ...

One thing I have enjoyed is how easy it is to make connections with people here. On one hand, it is easy with other recent expats here, but even the Brazilians have been incredibly welcoming. An example of connecting with an expat: Yesterday, I met Pedro for brunch near his place. A friend and fellow Bainee, André, walked into the restaurant where we were eating, so we joined them after we wrapped up our meal. A friend of André's, Jaume, joined us. Jaume is from Barcelona, moved here in January, and lives a block and half from me. I'd mentioned going for a run and he said he was planning to go in an hour so. We exchanged contact info and ended up going for a run in Parque do Ibirapuera (big park in town).

OK - now time for the (sort of) short observations I've had since getting here... they are little things I've noticed that entertain me.

• Short sleeved dress shirts are definitely still in style down here
• The whiteboards in our office are really cool & classy - panes of pale beveled green glass mounted on the wall (none of that crappy white plastic crap)
• Out for dinner last Friday, someone ordered what were, by all accounts, really fancy hot pockets. Quente pockets! (that means hot pockets in Portuguese)
• At the restaurant last Friday, there was this really creepy dude lurking around. Creepy but excited smiles straight out of an SNL skit, white t-shirt with a black leather vest, really big 80's hair, significant facial hair capacity (a-la Steve Spaulding). He just lurked around the bar on his own, occasionally approaching tables of ladies. He didn't seem to have much success, but he was definitely committed to the cause. I have to admit, he reminded me way to much of Spauldo gone wrong.
  
• People from Spain really do say all the things my brother and Sofia joke about when they discuss (make fun of) my Spanish accent. I was out with 3 folks from Spain and I laughed heartily at the frequent use of tio, joder... and many more. That said, there is a distinct set of Mexican words too... I hung out with a Mexican dude this past Friday and I could tell he was from there in ~30 seconds. I think someone was arriving ahorita :)
• We have maids in the office here. I think there are four of them. The best part - they make fresh fruit salad every day around 5 or 6. They take a huge pile of fruit, peel it by hand, chop it up, and place it into little containers for us to snack on. I walked in there the other day and was amazed at the pile of fruit in action.
  
• Last Saturday, we went out for a birthday. People raved about how good the cake was. It tasted like raw pasta and marshmallows ... perhaps not my cup of tea
• Hotel employees will giggle a little when you say "Goodnight" to them at 5:03 in the morning

I'll try to update this a little more regularly so you don't end up having to read such lengthy diatribes next time.