Paperwork

Hallo Ben! Schön dass Du auch da bist! ;)

I had thought I would never get to that point, but: all necessary paperwork is done. Now, thats not completely true as my drivers liscence and a home are kinda necessary too, but I can receive a salary now, I am fully legally here, fully employed and on payroll.

I will look at three more apartments this afternoon, and as me crossing my fingers seems to not have been enough effort for my house hunt so far, I ask you all to cross your fingers too!
I still do not have an adapter for my PC, so I will let you know tomorrow if your efforts in fingers crossing and Daumendrücken have helped.

First Days in Goiania

On sunday night I left Sao Paulo to go to Goiania. I flew from Congonhas Airport, which is the crazy airport I wrote about some days ago. It is really crazy. The way to the runway looks like your in a car or bus, driving down Calle Serrano / Hohenzollernring / Grande Cote...

The first night was awful because I litterally got the worst room in the hotel. It was so loud, you cannot imagine.
However, I was supposed to start monday morning with house hunting, so that was something to look forward too while trying to fall asleep everytime a big truck passed by and woke me.

House hunting started off really terrible. The first place didnt get the keys, the second place didnt feel right, the ones we found by chance didnt feel good either. In the end, we passed another company and just went in to ask if they had something, and they did.
I looked at two possible new homes which both were really nice, though the first one just felt "right"...
Now, guess what? It AGAIN did not work out. I really really could bang my head against a wall right now. Again I had two days to be happy about it and feel good, and again I learn later that unfortunately its not possible. This time, because the landlord apparently changed his mind and wants to sell it now instead of renting it. And, as if that wasnt enough, the other pretty place (which I thought would be a good alternative just in case) will not work out either, cause its around 360 Reais above my budget(about 125 Euros) and he will not move a little bit at all. And well, I am not willing to pay above budget for the back-up choice, therefore the house wasnt perfect enough... so, househunting can start all over again.

But there are good news as well.
The people here in the office are really nice and all very helpful. So far, I am not of much use to them, because I still dont have access to all the systems (but at least I have a pc and a phone and a seat)!
Yesterday I spent nearly all day doing paperwork for my workbook (which I think is a bit like the Lohnsteuerkarte in Germany) and for my bank account.

Hopefully tonight, I get to buy an adaptor for my PC at home. The batteries are empty and there is no place in the hotel room where the plug fits... I went to one shopping mall yesterday, but unfortunately they didnt have one...

Lets wait and see.

The Crazy Roadtrip

As we couldnt spend the whole nice weekend in Sao Paulo while nobody is in the city, we decided to follow the traffic jam and head to Campos do Jordao.
Luckily, Sandra got a car and a navigational system, so we thought it would not be a big deal to drive where everyone else is going too.

What we did not know is, that our GPS had no freakin idea about reading maps and finding way that are "usuable". Thats how we were lead from the highway through a little city and against a oneway street. Now, we wondered, but did not think that just because of one oneway street the GPS would be totally wrong. Afterall, there were NO SIGNS for a one way street and if it wasnt for a coconut dealer that waved at us like a berzerk, probably nobody would have noticed us. Not even ourselves.
So we turned the car around and followed "Uschi's" (thats what we called our GPS as it is the stereotype name for a dumb german girl) advice. We headed towards the road "SP 50" of which we thought it was a highway. Well, let me get straight to the point: It is not a highway. Barely even a real street. But we were supposed to drive on it for "more than 40 kilometers".
I can tell you, it was an adventure. It was a tiny street full of holes and red earth, partly the street fell down the cliff, the curves were extreme and when Sandra and I did not stay silent because we were concentrating so hard on the street, all we would ever say was "oh my god", "do they always go this way? there must be another way?!" or "they should use that as Formula 1/Rallye/DTM racing track". Sandra was driving, I was the co-pilot... "careful, sharp right".
But: We were really really happy about the view we had from there. We went very high up and due to the way the street went we really had the view of a lifetime.

Here is a little video (dont listen, we talk weird):
[oooops, this follows tomorrow. not enough battery]

In the end, the trip took us 3.5 hours instead of two and when we finally arrived in Campos do Jordao. You must imagine it like this: We came from the left, down a hill and lined into a huge traffic jam with cars from Sao Paulo. So there was another way! And it was apparently very full (while our way was empty...) Probably we would have stood an hour in the traffic jam if we had found the right way right away, so whatever.
The town is really cute. Its a bit like the St.Moritz / Aspen of Brazil where people just go to show of their expensive cars and clothing. Against all stories it was not cold at all, though it is higher than 1000m. Noone cared though, they all were wearing fur, and hats, and gloves, and boots. Only Sandra and me were in T-Shirts :)

On the way back we decided to lock "Uschi" away in the glove compartment and to just follow the Sao Paulo signs, in order to find the other way. Following signs really wasnt easy as mostly there weren't any, but we made it.
It was faster and a lot more comfortable to go this way with police lined up everywhere and many people on a three lane road. But: It was kind of boring compared to the start.

What a crazy adventure this was. And one thing is for sure: Der Weg ist das Ziel!

And now some pictures:

Sandra's Housewarming

Sandras Air Shipment arrived faster than thought in her appartment (and she packed a whole lot more than me... I should have packed more... ;). As it is also partly furnished she has a bed, a kitchen and table and chairs, but best of all: She has a Churrasco on her terrace!
As she had packed pots and pans and plates in her air fright, we decided it would be a great idea to spend the evening at her appartment to have a little housewarming party. Unfortunately everyone we know here is away for the weekend or had to work today, so we decided to cook some spaghetti and open a red wine and relax.
As we were shopping we looked at the meat and I asked her if she by any chance had a churrasco, more jokingly, but she said yes, so we decided to put a big piece of meat onto it, just like I was taught by Gerwin (my former boss who had spent years in Argentina practicing how to grill meat).

Her appartment is really great. It is over two stories and very open with a big terrace. On the terrace there is even a jacuzzi which unfortunately is not cleaned yet. From the terrace on can see a faked Eiffel Tower all across the city and tons of big houses of course.

As it is still very rainy we decided to not go to the beach this weekend, but rather go out in Sao Paulo tonight and then make a day trip to the mountains on Saturday. More about this later.

Hortitec 2009

As I was pretty much done with all organizational things in the office, I did not go to Bayer on Wednesday but joined Franziska (whom I know from Bayer CropScience in Germany and who is here since 2007) to go to Hortitec, an agricultural fare, in Holambra.

We left at 6:15h in the morning to avoid the heavy Sao Paulo traffic and got to Holambra around 08:30h. Holambra is supposed to be a little Holland Colony with windmills, hollad style houses and, get this: they have "drempels" and the funny signs for them too but they forgot the one and only famous holland holiday sentence "let op drempels!" :D Okay, I know you wont understand this if you are neither called Elli nor Toni or Lucky but whatever ;)

The fare was a little outside the town so we started to take a look at the fare. Bayer had a very nice stand there and one could look at many many nice flowers and vegetables from seed breeders and at big agricultural machinery too.
It was actually very interesting and I learned a lot, especially about the cotton and tomato markets.

After the fare we checked out the little town, but really, the whole Holland thing is a bit of a marketing joke. They basically built normal flat bungalows and placed a holland look alike front before them. It looks like they forgot the movie set there when filming was over :D
Still, it was really fun! And of course, they have wonderful flower shops.

On the way back it started to rain very very heavily and we stood a little in the traffic jam, but it was still okay. At least comparing it to Sandras first driving experience that same day: It took her over 2 hours to go from Bayer to the hotel, in the rain and when everyone leaves for the long holiday weekend...

Here you can find some pictures:

Lazy Sunday in the Park

My sunday was really easy going.
I woke up not too early and the sun was shining so I decided to go for a nice walk around the area after breakfast. I found a sunday vegetable and fruit market in the roads not far from hear and strolled a little through the stands, of course not forgetting to take care of my wallet... It seemed really calm though and the market was really nice.

When I came back to the hotel my room was just being arranged, so I grabbed my Lonely Planet and sat down in the café next to the hotel entrance to wait for Sandra.
Sandra is also from Bayer CropScience and Germany and arrived in Sao Paulo only two days before me, so we are having the same troubles and issues with bureaucracy and the same experience of being completely new in the city.

We decided to go to the Parque Ibirapuera, which is not far from the hotel and can be compared to the Central Park in New York. It is the biggest park in Sao Paulo City and about 120.000 people (apparently) visit it every sunday. We were two of those today :)
The park is really nice and full with families on one end, and full of kissing and flirting teenagers looking like Emilie the Strange an other Emo Figures on the other end. In between one can find a couple of Oskar Niemeyer buildings and museums. We looked at the Ibirapuera Auditorium (which is also known as the "tongue") and we went to the Sao Paulo Museum of Modern Art of which the temporary exhibition is always free on Sundays. Most of the time though, we spent chatting and sitting in the sun.

Later on we decided to go have a nice drink and go to a Sushi Rodzio (aka "All You Can Eat"). So we drank a Sake with fresh Lytchee (or however you spell that) and had what felt like a ton of great Sushi and Sashimi.
And as I learned from Kaoru how to behave like a good Japanese, we took pictures of the Sushi ;) No seriously, I only took those pictures for Kaoru answering to her picture series of the Bento del Dia in Tokyo.

Here are the pictures from the park and the Sushi:

Feijoada and Caipirinhas

On Saturday I went to have a typical brazilian lunch: feijoada. It is a stew made of black beans and with meat. All kinds of meat, but in the restaurant you could chose whether you want tongue or ear or just sausage in it :D
With it I had Caipirinha, but not like we know it at home. I had it with Maracuja and it was soooooo yummy! And then I had one with red berries which was also soooooo yummy. Basically one can have Caipirinha with whatever fruit one likes and I love it =)

Later on we went to Matthias place, a friend of Susi. From his balcony I had a crazy view over all the high buildings of Sao Paulo, it looked insane! Especially when a plane flew by to land in Sao Paulo Congonhas, which is in the middle of the city (and the lights to lead the planes' way are built on top of the buildings!).

Here you can find a video of it: