It's time for another São Paulo update! Last time I had decided to post an update once a week. That was two weeks ago. Once every two weeks is fine too.
So these past to weeks have been a lot about going to shows and what not. I started off by going to another one of my landlords Monday night shows. The music was the same but the band itself was as spontaneous as I had first imagined it, making it all very much worth it coming down again.
The next day after work I headed down to Rafa's place to get my haircut. I opted for the same style as before but shorter and thus more summery. He did a bang up job for an amateur hairdresser if I say so myself.
Tin Tin
Thursday was the day I had been looking forwards to the most that week as I would be going to a live show of one of my favorite bands of old: Cansei de Ser Sexy. I met up with Joice, Carolina and Henry before the show and we had a few drinks and a few laughs. Good thing too because drinks at the hall were absurdly expensive. The show itself was their first show in São Paulo sinds years, making it a sort of homecoming concert (the band hails from São Paulo). Eventhough this was the fourth time I had seen them, this gig had a certain quality to it I had not witnessed in their show before. I'm guessing it had something to do with the 'homefield advantage' they possessed that night. Also it was the longest show I had ever seen them play. After the gig we took a cab down to Rua Augusta where we continued the night.
On our way to the concert
Joice, Henry and Carolina at the gig
The band
The next day There was another party, this time at my own house. It was huge! Many people came, music was played, moves were busted, booze was drunk! And I slept through it all. I do not know how, as I was looking quite forward to this party, but it happened. Well actually I have a vague notion of how it happened, being really really tired being a major factor in my equation. All in all, it was a shame. My landlords told me it was 'batshit insane'.
But not to worry! The next night I went out to Rua Augusta again where I partied a while with Joice, Henry, Raffa and an old friend of his, Boca. As per usual, it was all extremely fun and 'gezellig'.
I had reserved that sunday to get some more sleep as I seemed to be needing it. My landlords would have non of it though, and dragged me to this jazz orchestra show Nahor was playing in. The orchestra would be playing songs from an album originating from the 70s. Apparently, the album had only recently been getting worldwide attention due to some American DJ finding one of the songs of the album by accident and remixing it. The show itself was quite amazing and had an intense 'Brazilian samba chill' vibe going on.
Forgot the dudes name but it was some fine listening
Monday would not be my day of rest either as once again I headed out to Nahor's Monday night jazz band at The Orleans. This time I attended the show with Joice and my dear friend from Amsterdam, Silvia. She was in town for a bit before heading out further into the country for some anthropological research. It was great seeing her again and it was great to see both of them enjoyed the show.
Silvia and I at The Orleans
Tuesday was my day of rest. It was also the day that official word got out that Chemical Music Festival got canceled. Obviously this bummed me out.
The next day I had lunch with Silvia and we did some snooping around town for some books for her. This was the last time we would meet in São Paolo as she was heading out the next day but I promised to visit her in her cute little house when I got the chance.
The next evening I met up with Henry at this super super wicked cultural center called SESC Pompeias. It used to be an old factory of some sort but now all the storage houses housed some cool cultural thingamajig, from theater stages to concert stages to a brewery to a library to a swimming pool to a indoor fireplace hippie circle thing. It was all kinds of cool. The reason I was there that day was to see a live show by Dean & Britta. They had taken 13 of Andy Warhol's most beautiful screen tests and written songs for them. The music was great, but the stories of the people on the screen were probably what I enjoyed most. How these people's lives intertwined with Andy's, how they rose and fell, it was all very amazing. The screen tests included famous people as well, like Dennis Hopper and Lou Reed.
The band playing to Dennis Hopper's Screen Test
Friday was a relatively uneventful day. My workday had been canceled due to personal issues on their side, leaving the day wide open for me to slack around and try to get a tan. At night I met up with Rafa and a friend of his, Flamarion, at a burger joint right around the corner of my house. It was an 50s America style place and the burgers were actually quite nice. After telling Rafa and Flamarion about my knowledge of cachaça (Brazilian liqueur made from fermented sugarcane) they had a little freak out and opted we all go to Flamerion's house (who turned out to live around the corner aswell ) and taste some of what according to the Brazilian Playboy magazine was the #1 cachaça in the world. And truth be told, it was quite good.
The next day Henry and Joice wanted to take me to a little artisans market downtown where they sold all kinds of stuff from vintage phones to hand made thingamabobs. At the center of the market was a little food court type place with stands selling all kinds of Brazilian foods. Here I had the best brigadeiro (Brazilian chocolate sweet) I ever had. On our way out we passed by a second hand bookstore which funnily enough had a little Bossa Nova band playing in it, assuring you bought your books in the most chillest of vibes?
Sweeeeeeeet
Bossa Nova bookstore
That same night was the night of Virada Cultural. This is a night where the entire center of São Paulo is one big buzzing party place with tons of stages hosting tons of acts across all musical genres. I kicked off the night with an amazing Zappa cover band playing aside a university orchestra. During this show most the people I was with had left as Zappa is not the easiest one to listen to. With only Joice and me left we walked about town looking for a certain stage at the other end of it. During this walk I discovered I had actually seen quite a lot with my dad when we were touristing about the center of town. We arrived at the designated stage where the music was mostly house and whatnot. We danced, had fun and after a few hours got called by Rafa to once again head out to Rua Augusta and chill out there. This we did. All in all the night was amazing and the energy fantastic.
The Zappa cover band
Coconutty!
Parteh!
I thought it was candy but it turned out to be flavored cachaça
Late into the night
To balance out the busy party buzz of the night prior, Sunday I headed to the park with my landlords and the dogs for a day of relaxation. The park was supposedly the biggest in the state. Finding out how big it was would have to wait though, as I planted myself on a spot in front of a huge outdoor stage and I didn't move an inch away from it. Soon enough a jazz symphonic orchestra with Nahor on trumpet started playing from the stage and Joice joined us in the park soon after. It was the ultimate recovery day.
Joice and Amélie
The orchestra after the sun had set
That's it, two weeks worth of stuff I did. Generally I tend to keep out the work related things as they are often 'secret' and the bits that are not tend not to be all that interesting to write about.
Work has been going pretty good so far. At Sulistas I am currently testing one of my builds on mobile and fleshing out a fresh project. This new project will be a 3 week project which we will be doing in about a month, after our current project finishes. The cool thing about this project is that they are letting me come up with it.
At MiniBoss I've been spending most of my day in the hammock avoiding the cats and discussing their current project. We've set up a paper prototype of our current ideas and have come to the conclusion we must take a few steps back and flesh out the core of the game.
Paper prototyping while eating home made lunch
Friday after work I headed out to a shopping center downtown, looking for a optician to buy a festival ticket. And yes I found it to be rather weird that an optician would sell festival tickets. Anyway I bought a ticket to Chemical Music Festival for the early bird price of 75 Real which is about 30 Euros. Another weird thing was that the ticket was nothing more then a flimsy receipt with a bar code on it. When I got home that night I watched a great old Brazilian movie with my landlords and learned a bit about great Brazilian actors.
Flimsy receipt ticket
The next day I met up with Henry, Joice (folks I had met last week) and a friend of theirs to head down to another optician to buy tickets to a CSS concert on april 7th. These were priced at 60 Real but for students (which I am) it's half price, bringing it down to a price I would probably pay for it in Amsterdam. Afterwards we went for a slice of pizza at a famous pizza place where everyone usually goes to after hitting the clubs. At night I met up with my dad who arrived in São Paulo that day to spend the weekend with me before heading back Rio and eventually Amsterdam. We headed out to Villa Madalena (a side of town where lots of musicians hang out and play live music) together and got a bit lost before finding a place with a nice Picanha (very high quality meat). After dropping my dad off at the metro station when we were done I met up with Rafa, Raquel, Pedro and a bunch of other Brazilian game developers to have a drink. We ended up playing that game which they play in Inglorious Bastards where you have a note attached to your forehead with a name on it and you have to guess who it is by asking questions. As we were all game developers we were only allowed to use game characters. Good times were had and eventually we headed home. Once again I spend the night at Rafa's seeing as how my house would be quite a bit harder and more expensive to get to that late at night. I have to mention Rafa has been a great help to me during my time here and I'm happy to have met such a swell guy right off the bat.
My dad walking home after a good meal
Game developers roaming the streets
Playing the Inglorious Bastards game
nerds having fun
The next day I met my dad early at the center of town (where I had never been before) and we did a day of tourist sight seeing, following a walking tour we took out of the Lonely Planet Brazil. We came by lots of old style Brazilian buildings and churches and stumbled upon a little cute open market. We topped it off with a lunch at a random place where I had my first rodisio (waiters come by your table with all kinds of freshly grilled meats on a pike and cut off thin delicious slices for you) since I arrived. When we filled ourselves to the limit we both went back home only to meet up again later for dinner at an area called Jardim. On our way back it started to rain very heavily, insuring we got soaking wet. When I got to my room I noticed my ceiling was leaking. This rain also prevented me from going to a jazz/funk concert of Nahor that night which in the end didn't really matter as the hall he was going to be playing at didn't have electricity for the night due to a car crashing into a power post or something.
Some important building
Some important cathedral
Some cool street art
Cool little shop with very old records, books and comics
Some nice square
Rodisio style Picanha
Sunday my dad came over to my house to have lunch with me and my landlords. He got to see the house, meet the people, pet the dogs, eat the good food and listen to some amazing jazz. We brought him back to his hotel by car with a little touristic detour through town. Later that day I met up with him again for dinner which was supposed to be at a famous Arabic restaurant which turned out to be closed. The nearest thing we encountered was a burger joint which surprisingly had amazing burgers. After saying our goodbyes I met up with Joice, Henry and a bunch of new friends with whom I walked around town a bit.
My first week of internship at Sulistas has come and gone and in all honesty all went pretty well. They entrusted the office to me a few times, handing me the keys and leaving me there alone while they handle important business or sleep in late. The most eventful thing to have happened at the office this week must have been the camera crew that passed by to interview some of my colleagues about games. The funny thing was the fact that they were an ESPN camera crew. Now normally ESPN covers all kinds of sports but in Brazil apparently video games are considered sports as well. The big light they brought with them made the entire office hot as hell though and we weren't allowed to open windows or put on the AC at the time because it would make too much noise.
ESPN camera crew at the office
On my way to and from work I come across this very busy street where it takes forever to be able to cross. Iko showed me a 'secret' passage that goes underneath the street and for some reason I find this passage to be really cool. The walls are filled with art and in the middle there is a guy selling all kinds of secondhand books. The staircases up and down are covered in newspaper clippings and old images and the book guy always has funky music on his audio system. I really dig walking past here every work day! The passage leads me to a very busy street with lots of tall buildings housing banks and what not. Amongst these tall buildings stands a single little house which apparently is the oldest building on the street. It doesn't fit the aesthetic of the street at all as it looks like a little haunted Adams Family house and nothing like an expensive business building. I find it to be quite eerie.
The 'secret' passage
The creepy house
Friday is the day I work with MiniBoss (the other indie studio where I'm interning) at their office not too far from my home. Truth be told it is not much of an office as it is more their house. For me this poses somewhat of a problem as they have 3 cats in their home and I am extremely allergic to cats. However this problem is easily fixed by taking in some allergy pills and working from either the hammock on the balcony or down by the pool. As you can imagine either is fine by me.
My office at MiniBoss
The view from my office at MiniBoss
That night I went out with the MiniBoss folks and some of Amora's old time animation friends to eat at a good but cheap Chinese restaurant in Liberdade, a part of São Paulo where most of the Asian/Brazilians live. As a desert we ordered a portion of 'fried milk'. None of us knew what to expect. It turned out to be a type of fried porridge with condensed milk on top. It was quite good but way too sweet. Afterward me and Rafa headed out to a bar/club called Sonique where I met a bunch of his friends. The music was good (indie/alternative) but not really danceable so we just hung around on the couches talking and drinking. At some point a friend of a friend of Rafa's started a little strip show on the dance floor, referred to as a burlesque show here. We didn't stick around for too long after the show and on our way home we took a last little beer at a little neighborhood gathering at a gas station shop. It all looked to be very 'gezellig' but we were too tired and they were too far gone so after the one beer we opted to go to bed.
Folks I was sitting with whose names I have completely forgotten
Rafa showing the burlesque lady what's what
The burlesque lady doing her thing
The next day we woke up late and Rafa took me to eat lunch for free at his Mom's biological restaurant a few minutes walk away. The weather was extremely hot (34 celcius at some point) and I was dying in my jeans which I was still wearing from last night (I slept at Rafa's so didn't have the chance to change). Afterward I headed home, took a shower, changed and baked myself a bit in the sun, chilling in the hammock on the patio. That night my landlord and her neighbors headed out to a 'boteco' which is a kind of Brazilian bar but different? Anyway I went with and there we met all kinds of family members of our neighbors. It was all good fun and I got my ass handed to me in parlor tricks by a little kid with a abundance of toothpick image guessing games. There, for the first time ever, I ate frog legs. And bull testicles. Both were quite nice and the bull testicles especially if you ate it with some peppers and lime juice.
My neighbor and the toothpick champion kid
Chopped and fried bull testicles and some kind of salty seeds
I didn't stay long at the boteco as I was meeting Rafa to go to a club called Vegas located in one of the nightlife streets of São Paulo. First we hung out at another boteco while we waited for Rafa's friends to show up. A couple of liter bottles of beer later they finally came and we were ready to hit the club. Except we didn't. Nobody really felt like going so we just hung out on the busy club street and talked and drank and I actually had a great time. Rafa's friends were all super nice and it was all once again extremely 'gezellig'. I found it funny to see how beer was sold by individuals from the backs of their cars and how this was extremely normal here. At some point I met these 3 folks who shared an interest in music with me and were planning on going to a concert to which I was also planning on going and one of them apparently had a dream to go to Amsterdam because she loved bicycles. When the sun came up we went back home and ate some breakfast at a 'padaria' which is a kind of mix between a bakery and a mini supermarket.
Nightlife on the streets of São Paulo
Too much nightlife for her
Rafa and one of his friends (I'm rubbish with names, it's terrible I know)
Breakfast that morning
The next morning we woke up late (I once again spent the night at Rafa's) and went down a few blocks to get a killer sandwich when it started pouring. This ruined our plans to catch Nahor's open air performance in the park so we opted to stay in and Rafa forced me to play Zelda on the N64 as I had never played any Zelda game before. When I got back to my own home that night I watched The American with the landlords which I found to be quite a beautiful movie.
Waiting for the rain to clear
On a less fun note, my grandfather was admitted to the hospital this week. After a few days they found out it was Dengue, a type of tropical disease transmitted by mosquitoes. Thankfully he has been released already and he is regaining his strength, but it was quite a shocker nonetheless.
That's it for this week. For more check back next week (I've decided to make this blog thing a weekly thing).
It has been about a week since I arrived and I figured I'm due for a little blog update. Let me start off by showing you some more how awesome the house is I'm staying at.
The house
The road my house is on
On my first real day in Sao Paulo I decided it wouldn't be a bad idea to figure out the transit system of this city, seeing as how I would be using it a lot to get to work and back. I quickly came to the conclusion that it is a complete mess. Bus numbers are unnecessarily long and often look alike, bus stops often don't have the name of the stop on it or an indication as to which buses stop there. Inside the buses it's not much better either as there is zero indication as to what bus stop is coming up. The only way I got around was by asking the driver to warn me whenever we got to a certain stop. And the only reason I knew I had to be at certain stops was thanks to Google Maps. So in short, it was all kinds of fumbling about.
While on one of these stops I did spot my first (and till now only) shemale. Achievement unlocked!
So all that fumbling about with the buses and eventually I found my way to the Sulistas office where I'd start working in a few days. We talked about their game a bit and what I could bring to the table and all that. On my way to the subway station I sat down with my boss at a little bar place thing and had a beer and a cheeseburger and quickly learned never to eat cheese in Brazil again.
The Sulistas office with Iko, Chips and the Japanese
On my way home
The next day I got up early and Nahor (my landlord) brought me to the police station so I could report the theft of my laptop, mainly for insurance purposes. Later I went down in my area a bit and found a cute little shopping street where I bought a TIM (Brazilian phone provider) SIM card (referred to here simply as a chip) so I could call and be called.
Cute shopping street down the road of where I live
Later on I had a super chill time in the sun with a beer in my hand, the sun on my face, the dog on my lap and Nahor's jazz in my ears. This quickly turned to whiskey in my hand, rain on my face but still Nahor's jazz in my ears.
That night I had dinner at my boss' place (which was tiny) with some colleagues. He whipped up an awesome curry and I got introduced to Brazilian memes.
Fun in Iko's mini apartment
Saturday Nahor took me with him to do groceries at a huge supermarket downtown which could be described as a mix between Aldi and Macro (for all you Dutchies). Everything was cheap and in big quantities and generally quite awesome. When we got home Paula's (my other landlord) sister was visiting and brought two puppies which were to be sold. They were of the same breed as Amelie and Dalilah and were absolutely adorable. Later that day one puppy got sold.
Puppies!
That night Nahor and Paula had lots of guests over, including a Mexican couple who used to own a Mexican restaurant in the city. He brought his own guacamole and other yummy dishes. We ate and we drank, we enjoyed ourselves immensely and I discovered not to fuck with real Mexican peppers.
Eating, drinking, enjoying
The yummy food
Chillin on the patio
On sunday I whipped up some self explanatory slides about GDC and the Academy of Art University in San Francisco for HKU. It was all quite simple and obvious and I think they used it as an intro to other GDC stories which will be told by people actually at HKU. After that I went to Rafa's (Miniboss' sound designer) place and met up with Pedro, Amora and Vivi (Rafa's neighbor and all round sweety) to go out for some food and coffee.
Too sweet special coffee at a fancy coffee place
Monday was my first day of work and I got there by subway. Subways are extremely relaxed compared to buses. Everything is clean, safe, fast and well communicated. When arriving at the office I encountered Chips on his way down to get lunch with others from the building and invited me to come along. So instead of working my first hour I had lunch and afterwards we went out for some coffee (they really love coffee here). After a few hours of work we went out for another coffee during which I discussed some of my ideas with Chips. Later that night we went out for some food and beer and I got a chance to discuss my ideas with Iko. All in all it was a good first day.
That night I left work a bit earlier to catch a live performance by a jazz band in which Nahor was playing trumpet. It was at this amazing place called The Orleans which had 3 floors overlooking the stage. The band itself was amazing and we all enjoyed ourselves loads. I even met two girls who are planning to study in Holland!
