Sao Paulo

This week, I spent 4 days in Sao Paulo, meeting customers and spending time with one of our partner companies. It is my first time in Brazil and has been a great experience, both personally and professionally.

Sao Paulo is a massive city – 17 million residents and more cars than I think I’ve ever seen. The traffic is known locally as the city’s most famous tourist attraction; at almost any time of night or day you’ll be stuck in a traffic jam alongside hundreds of other small, noisy cars. No wonder Sao Paulo has more helicopters than anywhere else in the world!

The food was bountiful. I had two trips to Brazilian steakhouses, the first of which was on my own, due to my colleague’s work commitments. After a salad of haddock carpaccio and caviar, waiters began bringing skewers of meat to my table to carve – not being one to turn down well-prepared meat, I went through salted beef, sausage, steak, lamb spare ribs, baby pork, and chicken hearts! Needless to say, there wasn’t much change left out of $75.

Also had a massive sushi platter at Nakombi, where the chefs work out of an old Volkswagen Beetle-van. Was encouraged to try guarana, which is a Brazilian soda that is very sweet. Later in the week, I had an acai smoothie – the acai being a purple energy-delivering fruit from the Amazon.

I’ve picked up a few Brazilian phrases (“Bom dia” – good morning; “tudo bem” – I am good”; “Nao falo Portuguese” – I don’t speak Portuguese!) and try to use them whenever I can – I think it helped break the ice at some of the meetings.

The customer sessions seemed to go well and I look forward to the opportunity to spend more time with each organization. I also presented for two hours in front of our partner company - they broadcasted a video conference of the presentation to their executives in the Rio headquarters, meaning I didn’t get to spend any time in Rio.

The meeting this morning was with an airline company. One of their offices is in a hanger next to the domestic airport. We walked out of our customer’s office and stood right next to two executive jets waiting to depart. Then, a passenger plane rolled past, no more than 50 yards away!

Overall, it is an interesting place to come to; even though there aren’t many obvious tourist attractions and the city has a reputation for petty crime, the energy is hard to miss and the people I met were great to be with. It’s also impossible to believe that this sprawling metropolis is in the same country as the largely uninhabited Amazon rainforest!

Back to Ann Arbor tonight…