Culture Shock, Sao Paulo Edition
It’s been almost a week, and we have some things to report. Here is a report on all the wonderful discomforts we have experienced thus far.
We stick out- Two blonde American girls in a city filled with 90% Brazilians. Its like we’re famous... but in the annoying, uncomfortable, everyone-is-always-staring at you famous. Sucks.
We can’t talk to anyone- Literally can’t ask for help, directions, how to get hot water, how to get from point A to B…nothing. They know absolutely zero English. And Spanish… does not translate due to an EXTREME difference in pronunciation, as well as vocab and grammatical discrepancies.
3rd World - Favelas, ghettos, poverty, it is definitely intermixing with the first world city life. It’s not developed like it is in the other continents we’ve been. You never know what’s going to happen when you turn the corner, or what you’ll see. Crazy crackheads, or cobblestone mansions, Sampa has it all.
Culture- The city has so many things to do it has our heads spinning. Luckily our friend at work, Rafa, gave us a great itinerary for the weekend, and we got a taste of the city. We hit up museums, city parks (which are actually like mini rainforests), Japan Town, and the old Central Mercado.
Friendly Paulistanos- The people here are so nice! They have great energy, and always smiling. They are patient with us when we attempt to communicate, even if it’s only sign language.
Crime- Tons of it! Its super dangerous around here*! As soon as we got off the plane, people couldn’t shut up about how we need to be careful about getting mugged on the street.
*So we are taking every precaution possible. I’m talking pepper spray, money belt, rape whistle, taser gun… you name it, we got it. Ok, maybe not the taser, but you get the point, we are watching our backs. I am even carrying around a decoy wallet. It's filled with random CVS cards, old student IDs, and a few small brazilian dollar bills, so that if anyone comes up to me, I hand over the fake and get the hell outta there.
Yeah, its rough, but we knew this going in. And you know what, not every place is a wonderful carefree-haven like the US of A. Some places you have to get a little down and dirty with the locals. Makes us appreciate our homeland seCUURRity even more!
Here are some pictures from the first few days in Sampa.
Note: the pictures might seem a little off, and a little less spectacular than the last few places we’ve been. Its because we have to be discreet and sneaky when taking pictures so that we don’t scream tourist, and draw anymore attention to ourselves. I even put an ugly piece of ducktape over my camera so it looks like garbage.
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