Arrival

I was thinking about starting a blog to scribble down my 'adventures' in Sao Paulo for friends and family back home but along the way figured nobody would bother reading it so why should I bother writing it. The many people that urged me to set up a blog anyway proved me otherwise and so here it is. My Sao Paulo blog called Bosa in Sampa. To clarify: apparently Sampa is a nickname the people here have given the city.

I'll start with my trip here. It was utterly horrible. It all started when I was still at Schiphol on the bus that would take me to my aircraft. The driver announced that Frankfurt Airport was on strike and thus we could not fly there. They rebooked me on a flight to Cologne that left 10 minutes later, making me rush down to another gate.

When arriving in Cologne I wasn't shocked to find out that my bags hadn't arrived. There was no way they would have had enough time to take my luggage out of the original flight and dump it on the new one within 10 minutes. They assured me the bags would get to me eventually though. So then they put me on a bus to Frankfurt anyway because apparently the strike only lasted 4 hours.

Once in Frankfurt the last flight to Sao Paulo had gone so I had to stay the night. Thankfully the kind KLM folks gave me a hotel voucher with dinner/lunch/breakfast and rebooked me on a TAM flight for the next day. So the next day I head down to the TAM desk to find out they had for some reason canceled my reservation on that flight. Not only that, but the first available flight would be in 2 days and there was nothing they could do about the cancellation of my reservation, telling me I should go back to KLM at the other terminal and talk to them.

Down to the terminal I go, grumpy as fuck. I throw down my passport on the table and am about to yell at the lady when she goes: 'There you are! We called the hotel to tell you TAM inexplicably canceled your reservation and that you should come to me first thing! The hotel staff should have given you that message.' Well they didn't but I admired to which lengths the KLM folks went through to take care of me. The kind lady booked me on another flight for later that same day and even let me go in the back to let me check where my luggage was at. Apparently it was on a KLM flight straight from Amsterdam to Sao Paulo and it would be waiting for me there. As a last kind act KLM gave me a voucher for a dinner at the airport which I used up on a pretty good California Burger.

This KLM service lifted my spirits and eventually I got on my new flight (Lufthansa) which was fine. There were no little TVs in the seats and the guy next to me smelled sourly of sweat but I couldn't be bothered anymore and pretty much slept through the entire flight.

When arriving I immediately went to the baggage folks and asked them about my bags. Only problem was that these baggage folks were from Lufthansa and there were no KLM people around this early in the morning but if I left my contact information and a description of things that were in the bag they assured me they would let KLM know and I would get my luggage back either later the same day or tomorrow.

To my pleasure my bags arrived that same night. To my horror my laptop was no longer in it.

This place I'm staying at though...it is amazing! The house is quite big and has its own back patio where they often do jazz rehearsals (one of the landlords is a jazz trumpet player and has many jazz musician friends). There are two border collies here who are amazingly adorable. One of them is blind but somehow always finds the ball when I throw it. My room is quite spacious and has all the basic things I need. Close by there is a very cool area with lots of bars, cafes and restaurants. My landlords tell me it is amazing there at night with lots of artistic minded folks hanging there making music and what not. I'll probably be heading there lots on Monday as my landlord plays there on Mondays with a jazz band. Raquel and Pedro, folks from one of my internship offices came by in the evening and we had an amazing dinner together (they cook so nice here!) Afterwards we shot some shit about the internship and such and I made them light up when I showed them the stroopwavels I brought for them. Nahor, the jazz trumpet player, also seemed to very much appreciate the gift I brought for him, which was a cd from an underground dutch jazz guy.

Thats it for my first post. Let me finish it off with some pictures.

My Room

Living Room

Living Room

Kitchen

Kitching/Dining Table

Patio

The Landlords, Paula & Nahor

Enjoying fresh fish and beer on the patio with Todd

Amelie