Welcome to Brazil 1
to Porto Alegre
Safe and sound at dad’s house deep in southern Brazil. I’ve made the trip here many times but today felt different. The lack of a set return date and the absence of business back home to deal with were felt immediately. I’m relaxed and aware. Arriving in Sao Paulo was a breeze. It’s not even close to being the nicest airport I’ve been in but transferring through there always seems to work easily for me. I enter the country with my Brazilian passport, which allows me to swiftly pass through passport control and customs, and then quickly check in for my domestic flight to Porto Alegre. Waiting patiently in Porto Alegre to pick me up were my father, stepmother and cousin. It lifts the mood to have people waiting inside the airport for you. We’re so accustomed to the sidewalk pick up in the U.S. The drive to Sao Sebastiao do Cai (where my father lives) is about 40 minutes from Porto Alegre but on Friday afternoon the traffic tacks on 30 minutes. On the way my stepmother remarked with some surprise that I wasn’t on my “little machine.” I’m translating that literally. What she was referring to of course was my Blackberry. It was kind of a funny thing for her to notice. The comment amused me, and then made me wince a little as I realized that their memory of me included an attachment to my “little machine.” For the record, I still haven’t taken the “little machine” out of my backpack.
I got lucky on the flight to Porto Alegre. My seatmate was a cardiac surgeon named Alvaro who is doing a six-month research gig at Duke University and was returning home for a short break to visit his wife. Alvaro is a sandy-haired, blue-eyed Brazilian of German heritage that you commonly find in this part of the country. His friendly nature and curiosity about the world is also common. But this wasn’t one of those conversations I get into down here where I’m answering lots of questions about the U.S. and the world abroad. This is a guy who once bought U2 tickets from a scalper on the internet and went to Hawaii to see the show. He knew a lot about American culture and I enjoyed his take on unremarkable things. For instance, he observed with admiration that attending an American football game was something the whole family could enjoy together… women and small children, tailgating, etc. In contrast, attending a soccer game in Brazil can be a bit trickier. The audience is not quite as balanced and paying attention to safety is important. Not that its automatically going to be a bad experience, soccer games are played constantly without incident, but the spread in safety between going to a football game in Giant Stadium and attending a soccer game at Maracana is real.
Yesterday on the way to Houston I was sitting next to a guy with hairy hands who talked loudly on his cell phone until the last minute, then played “Angry Birds” until drifting off with his iPad clutched to his chest. Occasionally, he’d wake himself with a sudden gasping snore. Needless to say, I was enjoying the company of the good doctor much more. We went on to talk about the medical device industry and he turned me on to some companies that he thought were making important strides in heart valves (I know it sounds like I’m working, but I’m shelving the information for later). He also provided me with some great ideas on neighborhoods in Porto Alegre where I might want to look for an apartment. He even named specific buildings where I should look and tipped me off to a new art museum that just opened. I was interested to learn that he just bought an apartment in a good neighborhood in Porto Alegre inside a building with A+ amenities. He verified for me what I had already learned from the management of a Brazilian homebuilder (Gafisa) that I was invested in, that the mortgage market has been opening up in Brazil. I asked him about his mortgage and he confided that one of the reasons he bought now was that he felt interest rates were at a low. A lot of Brazilians seem to feel that with the national elections coming that rates will hold for now, and the risk of an increase will come only after the election in October. So my new friend decided to lock in a loan now… 10.99% fixed 30yr. Ugh! The scary part is that loan is denominated in a currency that has a shot at really being worth something. Makes me want to borrow in dollars and search for some real estate down here – great way to be long the Brazilian Real and short the dollar. Of course the real question is whether or not his apartment was a good value. He gave me the key figures of size and price and I am going to do some more nosing around. I was grateful to have met him – just an excellent guy. It’s exactly the sort of random encounter that I hope to have a lot of. And it doesn’t hurt to have the business card of a local surgeon. He told me to use his name at a particular hospital if the need arises. I hope to see him again, but not at work.
Back at the ranch… dinner and bed awaits. We’re having “carreteiro” for dinner, which is essentially beef and rice mixed in a tasty blend of a light tomato sauce, onions, and spices. Extremely simple, extremely delicious! I haven’t had it in a long time. I’m going to over-eat on purpose and then try to set some sort of world sleep record.