Burgmann Brewery

 Sorocaba has its own brewery.We took the Emerson guys there for a big feed involving ribs, fritos (like chips) with cheese and garlic, and fried mandioca (best guess is a root veg like turnip....), and of course, a bit of tasting of the local liquids. The 'bar' is actually the warehouse floor of the brewery with the big stainless tanks all around you; talk about straight out of the pumps.Appart from lager, Burgmann do a tasty red ale, a really good 7%, and a Black Beer, very sweet - a bit like  Mackeson's. We had a good time - these guys, although young, are a good bunch of people and easy to get on with. We had a bit of trouble getting our heads around portion sizes again and the Brazilian way of sharing meals, but when the supply of ribs ran out we simply order another round...and beer as well. 

Green Stuff

Being sub tropical there is plenty of green stuff around here. Chris is forever stopping to pick up a leaf or bit of strange grass to add to his 'collection' of vegetation from around the world. Not far from the hotel is a small man made park. Its very popular with people 'speed walking' or jogging later in the day when the temperatures dropped a bit. Its full of interesting vegetation, has water running through it (always muddy from the heavy rains and flash floods) and quite a few fruit trees with things resembling apples and small dark 'plum' type things. You quite often see the odd pensioner with a long stick knocking the 'apples' off but nothing (birds included) seems interested in the plums. They smell sweet enough but nobody is going to put the taste to the test. Palm trees are dotted around everywhere, lining roads and streests and forming the center pieces of ornate garden sections out side places.

 For some strange reason we have hardly seen any birds; I cant imagine they have flown anywhere as its summer here; I would have expected the trees to be full of them with all the fruit but no. 

Jean Sizes

Impossible Jean Sizes (by Chris Haines)

At Espresso we renewed our acquaintance with our new best bosom-buddies, the waiters. As it was raining most heavily we sat inside this time, and got a somewhat different impression of the place - it was even better. As usual there was plenty of attractive scenery - no zips this time, but a series of spray-on jeans in impossible sizes.....24 waist, 34 legs....... they can only be made in Brazil. I won't bore you with a description of the endless procession of pulchritude that entered the place, but it was major distraction from beer drinking. The band were the same crew who played last Saturday, called Codigo Cinco, and they were again superb. 

At one point one of them played a 10 string guitar (five pairs with open tuning), and they had the tambourine miked up. Anyone who thinks a tambourine is girly should have seen this guy play it... anyway they worked through a collection of Brazilian rock and forro music with the odd Bob Marley tune thrown in, with the whole place dancing away to it. We enjoyed it so much it was 3 am before we knew it.

On Sunday we wandered down to the Columbia Burger Bar for a late lunch of 'proper' burgers, chips & onion rings before another siesta...... this could be habit-forming. Then I read the Sunday paper - thanks to my Kindle I could download the Independent. Cool.

Siestas

(by Chris Haines)

The Guy Who Invented Siestas..........should get a Nobel prize. On Saturday we started at 6 am to suit the Emerson guys: this required the amazing brain-kick-starting, neuron-turbo-charging properties of Brazilian coffee...... I am measuring up the coffee machine here. I am sure I could get it on the plane somehow. This early start also meant an early finish at 1:30, so we headed off for a large late lunch at a churrascaria (ie Brazilian grill joint). No menus, just waiters wandering round with skewered grilled dead animals. As usual we severely over-estimated the capacity of our digestive system, and shortly afterwards, we staggered forth, clutching our straining distended stomachs, shirt buttons popping. ..........................



(Simon:- One each table is a small 'sign' of sorts with which you turn to tell them if you want 'feeding' again. Big problem is if you forget to turn it while your tucking in you can end up with 2 or more of them at the table at once forcing all sorts of wonderful things at you. Strange - but practical thing in the toilets..big bottle of mouth wash in a holder with little cups and a dental floss dispenser next to it.....bits of dead cow stuck in your teeth must be very common in here.)
We had phoned the Emerson driver, but after 20+ mins, no-one had turned up, and so, assuming a misunderstanding, we asked the restaurant to get a taxi. Needless to say, the Emerson taxi guy turned up just as we were getting in the taxi. My food-befuddled wits were trying to muster enough pidgin Portugese to explain this, when Reginaldo (the Emerson taxi man), sorted it all out a few choice phrases. He is (and certainly would like to be thought of as) a cool dude: always in a smart, well-cut black suit. crisp white shirt, and Aviator sunglasses.
          The hotel lift had an extra hard job carting our bloated bodies up to our rooms, and a swift siesta ensued.  Nearly three hours in my case.......a bit of a backlog to work off. But it was most refreshing, and set us up for a planned short visit to Espresso Sorocabano for the Saturday night band . 

Cheeky Rosie

To avoid getting in a rut, (as Chris put it) when we were told about a different type of place that was good on a Friday night that catered for more of Sean's 'X plop' type of music, we decided to give it a go; and to keep Sean happy if nothing else. Looking at the map we decide it was going to be a taxi job so when we piled into one outside the hotel and asked for the place as the Emerson guys had called it we were starting to get a bit suspicious when the taxi driver didn't seem to have a clue were we were on about. Turned out it was (as always) the accent problem and its pronounced Sheeko Hozer in Brazilian. 
       The place is a modern, plastic and glass bar / restaurant, with a private parking lot next to it with people on the gates ready to take R$10 (~£3) off you quicker that look at you ; the sort you see in Ibiza and other similar parts. It had very uncomfortable plastic chairs, glass topped tables and large screen tv's on the walls. Despite all the bouncers milling around the entrance, we strolled right in and took up a suitable vantage point (with our backs to the wall) down by the front of the main open area.  First contact with the waiters was quick enough and beer and 'snacks' were ordered in favor of a full blown meal and we settled in for a few hours. 
3 things very quickly became apparent :- 
1.The music was crap.
(Chris).... endless house/garage/moron dumshee dumshee stuff . They were playing a DVD of some rave in Holland, where a load of people crowded into a large shed to watch a guy play his records. The needle seemed to have stuck on most of them. This stuff is awful, mostly fabricated by pasty-faced onanists on a laptop, in between drooling and fiddling with their X-box......I have one rule with music: if they can't be bothered to give it a tune, I can't be bothered to listen. So there!
      I of course had the same opinion but knew it was going to be like this and had gone along for the ride. Sean on the other hand loved it.


2. If you weren't female the waiters didn't want to know. In all the bars, the bottles of beer are served in a bucket of ice with the tops on till you need it. Most waiters will open a fresh bottle for you and top it up as he walks past even if your not one of his table. The don't give you a bottle opener so this is how it works. These snotty little gits didn't even want to know when you waved and finally managed to call them over. Very annoying. 


3. Toilets. These were not far from us which was good. Inside was a communal wash basin and only 2 toilets which was bad. There must have been a couple of hundred people in the place (and it was early) and only 2 toilets. Plus when it did start to get busy you couldn't get to either of them cos the place was crowded with woman engrossed in the usual woman's toilet past time of talking to each other via the mirrors. Its no fun queuing for a toilet with 6 bottles of beer inside you. 


Things did get a bit better when they changed all the screens to show various Red Bull Sporting events from around the world. This stopped the music, and of course there was now an increasing flow of young very well-turned out Beautiful Brazilian Babes, (as Chris puts it) coming through the door, but we had to be up at 5am next day for a 6am start, so come close to midnight we dragged Sean out; past the ques of people waiting to get in and taxi'd back to the hotel and bed.  

Air Con Wars

(...by Chris Haines)

Tami and her 'blanky' to keep warm!

We are doing the testing in an area separated with a glass wall from the main controller assembly workshop. This has enclosed one of the building aircon units, thus ensuring a 60 mph gale in our little area if it's on full blast. 
     Some hardy soul sets it at 19C, and this results in Arctic clothing test conditions ( I am sure the thermostat is not right): I have had to resort to using a T shirt as a vest and wearing a jumper....while outside it is a delicious 25-30C. Tami and I prefer it warmer and gradually nudge      
the setting up to 25 ..........but someone keeps turning it down......


(Simon) Tried to down load a infra red remote control program for the IR port on my laptop to try and 'take control' when nobody was looking but I couldn't get the air con unit to recognize the commands it was sending out. Have resorted to the age old trick of hiding the remote - next time I'll have the batteries out of it. 

Work progress

Progress has been slow since we got here...the systems have either not been up to the job or not ready for testing. The only way to change this is to change what the project itself is suppose to do; and that's not an option so we just have to plod on. 
   We had a first attempt at running 'the whole plant' (almost) in simulation with every bit talking to each other. It was all going well until all the little boxes went red on the screen. A swift get together of the Emerson people told us why; the system cant handle more than 11 parts of the plant running at once ......something they should have knew and be prepared for. They are working on it, and as no-one has topped himself yet, we are hoping it can be fixed. This is the big job for this week.
    Things didn't get any better after this. Progress got slower, with more and more errors and parts of the code not even ready to test. Then, on Monday a power cut to the whole site. This resulted in loss of a lot of code that had been entered that day and over 200 controllers having to be reprogrammed. The back up from Saturday took almost 2 hours to reload and most people put the power cut down to the storms that they get at this time of year - another one would really fcuk us up. They do not have a  Uninteruptible Power Supply (UPS) to keep the computers running when the power goes off  which seems crazy as they are not all that expensive. They have asked for one for over a year now but the money seems to have been spent on rather large nice big Volvo's parked outside in the spaces marked Diretores - or am I just being bitchy? Either way we have had to extend our stay. 
         The 10 or 11 hour days are starting to get to us. The chairs are not the best in the world and despite getting up and walking about, sitting on your arse for so long at this altitude seems to have the effect of making your ankles swell. I've started wearing the flight socks you get on the planes and its helping. As for the screens them selves we are starting to see programming code in our sleep and quite often you can see us walking round the car park with a blank mindless expression on our faces.

TV channels

Big TV, lots of channels - none in English. All to be expected but you still have a flip around to see what there is. One of the strangest channels I came across was a shopping channel to buy horses. Various horses, mules and ponies are paraded round a small ring; some are saddled and being ridden, some have baby's with them that nervously dance around always trying to stay as close to mum as possible. The bottom of the screen has various details like date of birth and pedigree information and then the cost on the right hand side.
     Mules seem to cost anything between £10 and £20 and the horses anything over the £120 mark. If your into cute little horses then this channels the one to watch - sorry Rebecca, I wouldn't get one in my bag. 

      

Sport

Not surprisingly the big thing around here when it comes to sport is football. Sorocaba seems to have 2 local teams and, during the season, the bars are filled to bursting point when theres a match on. Luckily for us its not the season, and although some football is on the tv's, nobody seems all that interested in it. 
          What they are interested in is what comes on after midnight ( which is the 'watershed' time for Brazilian tv) and thats cage fighting. 
          When the band stopped playing in our local the other Saturday and everybody turned to the tv's we thought we would be seeing some sort of news flash or something. Instead we got half an hour of 2 blokes knocking shit out of each other while the whole bar erupted in support. 
          I've seen cage fighting on TV in the uk before but its a whole different ball game over here. Nobody seems bothered bout blood getting spilled and its seems to go on until one blokes really had enough. The camera angle switches between the ring; mothers and grandmothers sat at the ring side holding their hands up to their faces in shock, to the trainers who all look like they were the original combatants in the film Gladiator.
       They show training sessions of 12-15 year old kids in between the bouts. The kids are all padded up and they are sparing with a grown up. They dance around for about 5mins and the kid goes in and out trying to get a hit or two, then, as though the adult is think 'i'm bored with this' he lets go with a full force punch or kick that sends the kid flying across the ring, and usually, out for the count. This is supposed to get them use it apparently. You can understand why some people see it as a way to escape out of the gutter but at what cost. Not for me.

More food

(by Chris Haines)

I am sometimes concerned about the impression I give that, based on word count, we spent 97% of our time in bars and restaurants. Of course, nothing could be further from the truth.......it is simply that the fleeting moments of excitement during the long dedicated hours we spend tracking down errors in the sequence are beyond my powers of description. It's the fleetingness that the problem......the excitement is hard work too. 
          Sean and I (Simon decided the attractions of an early night were more compelling) ate at a place called Costelleria Berlin...........I don't know if the predominance of German names is due to the 1945 immigration influx or what - however the Berlinness of the place was not very apparent - indeed it looked entirely Portugese to me. They had a guy playing guitar in the old style, with the guitar held high up, the strap on the opposite shoulder - no thumbs used on the left hand, but every digit used on the right....exemplary. He even played a Brazilian song I recognised, by a guy called Zeca Pagodinho.

       We had ribs with mandioca, and as usual it was delicious and the quantities exceeded our appetites. Even after two weeks practise.
As this place was but a short stroll ( and downhill too) to the Espresso Sorocabano, it seemed natural to pop in for a swift half.........after about 9 pm, you get frisked with a metal detector on the way in. This is something one is not too sure whether to be reassured or worried about....... anyway my Swiss Army knife got past this. Presumably his metal detector is set for AK47s.
             Pretty soon we will be blood-brothers with the waiters in this place - I am now officially an "amigo". Again an excellent band was playing - virtually all these bands have a guy with a six-string bass, playing in a distinctively rhymthic style, right across the fretboard. Unique. Heroically restraining ourselves to a couple of beers, one of our new best friend waiters then organised a taxi for us - this one seemed to be equipped with hyperdrive as he effortlessly swished past everything, only stopping for red lights that really meant it ie they had been that way for at least 5 seconds....perhaps I exaggerate. But only just.

Lost in Sorocaba

(by Chris Haines)
We have continued our exhaustive research into the eateries and hostelries of Sorocab : for myself, once I have found a couple of congenial joints, I am happy to stick to them. However Sean is a Great Adventurer, and has winkled out of the Emerson people a few more places to patronise. We tried somewhere called Mandala - finding it was easy....(we got a taxi). It was a most agreeable place, and our timing was impeccable - 15 mins before the rush - and it was full of normal people having an evening meal. There was no music, as it would have been drowned out by the talking. We had a communal starter called Fritas con bacon....not difficult to guess the main components, but it hit all the right food buttons: bacon, potato and fried. I had Espaguette Puttanesca........ rather overwhelmingly puttanescan, and unfinishable thanks to the fritas. The shine was taken off the place by the waiter's clumsy and unsuccessful attempts to con a tip out of Sean on top of the 10% service charge...... then it was an attempt on foot to discover a place callled Salome's, based on Enrique's (one of the Emerson guys) vague descriptions and our hotel issue map.

               After some time wandering round various quiet back streets with poor street lighting, worse pavements, and no sight of anything that looked like a bar, we sought the help of a couple of women. They fortuitously spoke English, and one of whom generously offered to drive us there. This was a stroke of luck, not least because the number of left and right turns would have been unrememberable....... it also proved Enrique's directions were considerably wide of the mark. Of course, when we got there, the place was packed, and they were only letting anyone in when someone left...... as we were rather thirsty, we gave up and successfully navigated our way to the Espresso again.
To get in we had to go through a strange rigmarole of offering ID, having our photos taken, and being issued with a card with a magnetic strip: after that it was handshakes all round with the waiters - soon it will be first name terms - and a thirst quenching beer. In Brazil the beer is served as several bottles in a bucket of ice, with the bottles being opened skillfully with one hand by waiters who fill your glass continually. This makes it very difficult to gauge consumption...........until you stand up.
        As it was raining by now, and also rather close to our bedtimes, we organised a taxi, jumped in, and said "Transamerica!". Our driver nodded, and whizzed off.......the wrong way. At first we thought this was due to the one-way system, but after several opportunities to change direction had been missed, we re-emphasised our destination somewhat forcefully, adding a few other clues, and he reversed direction. He'd got about BR15 (say £6) on the meter by this point, but as we went past the Espresso (going the right way this time) he zeroed it...... what a star! He even rounded the BR 11:20 fare down to 10 to avoid change. So Brazilian taxi drivers are paragons of virtue, honesty and generosity...... or at least, one of them is.

Too much Tequila

(by Chris Haines)

First I have to say....it wasn't us. On Saturday night at the Espresso Sorocabano (what! Yet again!), I was commenting that you never see any drunken Brazilians........I spoke too soon. The table next to us, with a couple of girls and four blokes, had a bucket of beer and a bottle of tequila. The tequila seemed to go remarkably quickly, and then suddenly one of the girls was rather ill. All over the floor. Oh dear - yet another generalisation down the Swanee! They didn't chuck her out, just swept it up, but her boyfriend had to look after her for the next few hours as she was well out of things. We got talking to them in pidgin English/Portugese and they were quite chummy, and not over-intoxicated.
          The band were the usual extremely high musical standard you get in Brazil: they were all accomplished and well-rehearsed, and played stuff the audience knew and sang along to, although I knew none of it. 
          We didn't leave till three, but luckily could sleep in the next day - a late night, combined with a long week produced Rip van Winkle standard sleeping, and I barely made the 2 pm rendezvous for a stroll with Sean and Simon. I managed to doze off later after only being awake 10 hours..............it'll be another long week.

The Weather

The weather in Sorocaba is classed as sub tropical. What that means is its hot all the time; someday's its bloody hot - up in the 90's. At night it drops a bit, but not that much; or at least it doesn't feel like much.Sub tropical also means its wet. If its not p***ing it down heavy enough to actually hurt as it hits you with only a thin shirt on, its 'heavy' and 'sticky'; almost immediately you can start to feel the sweat forming on your back. We have been caught out in the rain a few times during our end of night 'treks' up the hill to our hotel  but by that time we are usually past caring. Getting a taxis going out somewhere is easy from the hotel and is cheap enough so we use them when we need to and lets face it nobody want to sit in a nice restaurant with a puddle under their chair for any reason. Coming home is more of a problem but we are the crazy English who walk everywhere according to the people we work with, so what the hell. Trying to 

Quick...get in a bar before it starts!

sleep in these conditions can be a bit of pain as the aircon is too noisy to leave on all night and if you open your windows the constant traffic noise keeps you a wake anyway. All you can do is try to make the most of it and take lots of showers and use the hotel laundry service every couple of days.


(the video below is taken at the Emersion site we work at each day - sorry its the wrong way round!)

The Roads

On the way to work each day...

Most main roads around Sorocaba are in good condition with motorway like freeways running criss cross across the city with good quality roads splitting off. It seems the smaller the road the worse its likely to be ( not surprisingly) but we were surprised to see that some of the populare roads in and out of the large industrial area were we are working are in a poor state in places. This looks like its mainly due to the eroding nature of the massive downpours that they get around here. 
     
         The taxi ride to and from work each day has had a few 'interesting' moments but Chris is still climbing in the front so it cant be all that bad. Driving in Brazil I imagine can be quite scary if you don't adopt the same 'attitude' as your follow road users. Distances between vehicles is down to the bare minimum a lot of the time, overtaking seems to be done as close as possible, and changing lanes looks to be done without much of a signal. 
Mix into this small cc motorcycles and scooters with scantily dressed madmen (and woman) clinging to them;nipping in, out and around everything they can while trying to screw as much out of the engine as possible. 
       
             In Brazil they drive on the right hand side. A flashing left signal means that the car ahead is warning you not to pass, for some strange reason. If the car ahead of you wants to show you that it is safe to pass it will flash the right signal. The right signal is the same signal to indicate that you're going to stop on the side of the road, so it means you're going to slow down. But the left signal is the same signal to indicate you're going to pass the car ahead, meaning you're going to speed up. Confused? I am and i'm sat in the back !

The Old Town

Sunday, and we took a stroll round old Sorocaba. Despite the place being founded in 1654 by some bloke called Balthazar Fernandes, only a few buildings are more than 100 years old, and the old part of town has a flea-blown, vacant and tatty atmosphere about it. We had to seek refuge from a rain shower in a tiny bar which looked like a butchers shop once we were in: asking the old oriental guy behind the counter for three beers produced one bottle and three glasses, this gave us an indication of how wealthy the normal clientele were.  Wandering a bit deeper took us into the 'working girl' area which we passed through without incident. On mentioning this next day to the lads at work it seems we were 1 street away from 'tranny heaven' were we could have had a few more problems.

The Bar

The real find has been a place recommended called Espresso Sorocaba, its on the web and has a Face book page:- despite its name it is a full-blown restaurant, and has a band 4 nights a week. We usually arrive early to get out regular seat to watch the place fill up.
All the waiters now seem to know us,
and the bouncers as well. This can be a good thing as over here you can easily get in places but not out. When you have paid for your meal or drinks you get a ticket or card that you have to give to the guy on the door to get out. Without it, and the lack of spoken English means you’re pretty much screwed. All the men are either frisked or ‘metal detector’ scanned; the woman are never bothered unless they look really young in which case they need some id. Brazilian people don’t get drunk; well 99% of them don’t. We did see a poor girl on Saturday night throwing up under the table after drinking too much Tequila but this a very rare occurrence in our local bar. I’m not saying they don’t drink; far from it, but everything is much more sociable. The bar does specials on beer and shorts. The beer involves 4x pint bottles for the price or 3 – about £8.5; served cold in a bucket of ice. The shorts involves a full bottle of either Vodka, Jack or Tequila with up to 6 glasses and tins of red Bull all in a bucket of ice for about £80. It never ceases to amaze us as you often see 2 blokes polish off 4 beers and a bottle of Jack over a Sunday lunch time and not look any worse for wear.

Another Zip

(by Chris Haines) 
It may appear that I am acquiring a bizarre fascination with one particular from of garment fixing,..... but one evening at the Espresso Sorocabano, a Brazilian babe of statuesque and slightly exaggerated proportions entered with a tight black skirt with a highly visible zip at the rear that emphasized an unforgettably lubricious sway. Luckily I poured my beer over my shirt - this distracted me a little. But not very much.
       There was a band playing again: their first set was a wide ranging sample of world pop, from Hotel California to Adele, via Pink Floyd (they attached a stunning guitar solo section to Another Hole in the Wall of jaw-dropping and subtle dexterity), but their second set was a rocked-up version of Forro (pron. Fo-Ho), as sort of Brazilian country music with a fast samba-type beat but simple 4 chord harmonic structure: as soon as they started this the place lit up. 
       Everyone was rocking their hips to the rhythm............ unfortunately this was when we had to leave - we have to get up in the morning and work. Our departure was delayed as the waiters brought a free bottle of beer after we paid the bill, clearly recognizing our sucker status...a nice touch, even if we feel compelled to go again. For whatever reason, involving zips or not........anyway, this place had now become our local.

The Zip

(By Chris Haines)

Brazilian women are not generally ugly, and always well turned out, and the Expresseo Sorocabana has a never-ending stream of them entering. However on Saturday a seriously jaw-dropping, heart-stopping example strolled in, with wind-blown sun-bleached hair, sunglasses and a tight red skirt, zipped up the front. The anonymous guy who designed that zip can never have considered the epicyclic rotating torsional stresses that lucky piece of ironmongery had to endure......we could barely stand them either. I was most concerned she didn't catch her zip on something and be left in a most embarassing condition: for some reason we are now regulars at this joint, and are now recognised by the waiters.

The Wildlife

Surprisingly we haven’t seen much wild life at all. I was expecting to be feasted upon both day and night by giant, flying escapees from Jurassic Parks I, II and III. Maybe there’s something bigger that’s eating them; they don’t seem to be on any of the menus either although so much food is battered and deep fried here, you never know. I’m still keeping my vast supply of DEET handy; just in case though. Up to now, then, all we have seen are the giant ant hills that seem to occupy any vacant plot of land or road side embankments. Worryingly, the occupants have not shown them selves yet; maybe they are just waiting for their chance to drag an unsuspecting, passing tourist or stray dog down into the depths of
their evil kingdom.

The Food

Brazilian food is not for vegetarians or people on diets....burp!. We have been to an Argentinean restaurant and had large pieces of dead cow that have been thrown on a fire for a while, usually for not quite long enough. It is always delicious and tender, with minimal gristle, fat etc, but stomach-straining: as the walk back to hotel is up a steep hill, the extra kilograms of food make quite a difference. We have also found an Italian restaurant that was very smart: the ‘small’ pizzas proved a challenge even to eating machines like us, although the bottle of deep red Brazilian Merlot helped matters. 

          
           We went to another place recently that specializes in pasta. The thing that we quickly discovered about restaurants in Brazil is that almost every item on the menu is for 2 or more people. The number of times we have had waiters look at us with mouths open when we have asked for 3 of something was getting to be a bit of a joke. The pasta at this place arrived in a 2 handled earthen ware dish that you could have bathed a small child in; almost overflowing with the stuff. We managed 2 platefuls each, that was all, and the waiter looked genuinely upset that were leaving so much. 
             
             People eat really late here; around 9pm during the week and anytime up to about 11pm at weekends. As we get hungry early we usually have restaurants to ourselves, and of course, more waiters than you can fight off with a stick. All meals seem to be about sharing and ‘beer nibbles’ are no exception. A popular one in the place we have adopted as our ‘second home’ is a huge boiled onion the size of a melon that’s been scored vertically around the outside then dipped in batter and deep fried. This gives you long strips of onion ring type stuff that you tear off and dip in spicy sauce and devour with a care in the world for your arteries. Another is ‘pasties’  which are little parcels of cheese   

or meat or spiced veg that’s has been deep fried. You never know what’s in them till you bite into them. Another evening we ate in a Brazilian burger joint: this place had real meaty, crumbly, chewy burgers, not the gelatinous and indigestible abattoir floor-sweeping objects you get in well-know places with a misleadingly Scottish name. As we sat enlarging our waistlines, we saw numerous Brasilieros out exercising in the standard expensive trainers and figure-hugging Lycra ( not always well-advised), presumably working off the excesses of the weekend. This seems to be a common thing on Monday & Tuesday nights. 
            The canteen at Emerson is really good with always a wide selection of strange and colorful things to try. Most people will polish off a side plate of salad, a main plat of rice and beans with a lump of steak on it, sausage and/or a omelet or a couple of fried eggs. This is washed down with a couple of cups of fruit juice and either a ‘jelly ‘type pudding or a plate of fruit. As if this isn’t enough we now get a tray of fresh, warm cheese dough balls, coffee, biscuits and fruit juice delivered to the office at 10am each day and potato 
croquettes filled with cheese or meat at around 3 in the afternoon. Its all too much really. 

1st Contact

Its always a bit daunting meeting a large group of people you are going to work with for the first time, but with the added complication of the language barrier, you just end up with a jumble of names that you have no chance of remembering and feel like a bug under a microscope...especially as your probably the only 'white man' in the country with long hair. The Emerson boys are all young, smartly turned out, keen and largely inexperienced. I work with Henrique Ficker, a name that a I have to be careful writing down or things could get a bit embarrassing! He’s a big lad, doesn't say anymore than he has to, likes his beer and food, but has a ‘dark sense of humor and is into heavy rock on the quite, so we get on well.

       Chris works with Felipe, pretty serious most of the time but he’s coming out of his shell and is very good at his job. Sean is with Rhuan (pron Juan), the joker, never shuts up and has a never ending supply of stories and tales – he will actually be very useful when the plant starts up as his English is very good.

There is a girl working on the system too, called Tami, who is lively to say the least, with a quick and wicked sense of humor. She keeps all the lads in there place as she’s quite senior and she’s the only who’s put us on to places to go to eat - see below.

              Progress has been generally slow, as things were not completed before our arrival, and the plan has been too ambitious. But things have picked up at work recently, and we are now maybe only 3 or 4 days behind plan. It is demanding a lot of the Emerson people, who are working 6 and 7 day weeks, and 10-12 hour days during the week. Their continued good humor is a credit to them. 

The Supermarket

The hotel is right by a massive ‘Carrefours’ supermarket, a mini Trafford Center complete with fast food & Cinema. Chris took advantage of the 100 Euros from Air France and enlarged his collection of Brazilian underwear, socks and polo-shirts. Sean is saving his for when he gets home. (there luggage did turn up after 2 days none the worse for wear by the way). We have eaten in there twice so far – once at a recommended German place that we wont be recommending to anybody we like, and at a fast food pasta place that was ok. There are lots of different decent looking fast food places in there so its always an option if we are in the supermarket itself stocking up on beer and nibbles. In the center of  one of the main walk ways is a little kiosk called Beer Me which sells sold exotic beers from around the world, including the UK – I am not going to drink Newcastle Brown on draught anywhere – especially in Brazil – but the weiss beer and a lot of the bottled stuff is good. Chris bought a couple of really good Brazilian Indian Pale Ale’s called Colorado.

The Hotel

I’ve ended up with the best room out of the 3 of us for some strange reason here at the Tran America. Up on the 14^th floor at the front of the hotel I have a balcony, large double bed with flat screen tv, small kitchen area with fridge, microwave, sink and coffee machine; couch and writing desk. The only down side with  being at the front is that the sun hits it most of the day and heats the walls up that mush that they are almost ‘hot’ to the touch when you get in at night. As the power cuts off when you remove your card to leave, the aircon and bath room fan switch off and the room steadily heats up. I came supplied with tons of insect sprays and creams, and started a nightly ritual of spraying under the doors and round the aircon etc but so far I haven’t seen any bugs of any description so now just leave the patio doors open during the day to try and cool the room down. I have a hose pipe with trigger nozzle in the bathroom next to the toilet….I have no idea what its for! Its too powerful to wash your ‘bits’ with unless you wanted them sandblasted to a pulp and doesn’t quite reach round into the shower in case its for rinsing cloths – I wonder about this as there is a retractable washing line in the shower – so maybe it is. 

        We have laundry service too…well, I suppose all hotels have it but I’ve never used it, or had to use it before for that matter, but with the heat and lots of walking your changing 2 times a day usually. The fridge is well stocked with cans of beer and soft drinks and there is a tray of ‘snack’; all hellish expensive but that’s the way it goes with minibars. The hotel has a small gym and sort of communal ‘bath’ they call a swimming pool down in the basement. I haven’t ventured down there yet (if ever) but Chris has used the facilities at around 6am a few days – don’t you just hate these fit energetic people. 

     Breakfast is a decent spread with loads of local bread products, fruit cakes, fruit, scrambled egg (which is good for a hotel) and a vast selection of hot and cold meats. Meats a big thing in Brazil, surprise, surprise. The little restaurant serves tinned beer at night and a decent selection of meals so its always an option if you cant be arsed going down the town.

       The walk back to the hotel from our local involves a stretch up a fairly steep hill - Brazilian pavements appear to be the responsibility of the person whose house or building is next to the road, so the pavement is constantly changing in type, quality and levelness, and where there is a vacant lot, there is no pavement. This makes for an interesting trek.

The Trip....

Flight out of Manchester meant getting to the airport for 4.30am for boarding even though we were travelling business class which I thought would have awarded us with a  bit of a lie in.  As it turned out, I couldn't sleep the night before anyway, and awoke around 3am to hear the wind and rain slamming the windows and panicking that flights would be delayed Jill got me to the airport in good time though, despite the weather, and I soon found myself gazing over all the goodies in the Air France business lounge, waiting for the boys to arrive.

          Our original flight plan had a 60 min connection in Paris CDG: the late departure and headwinds reduced this to a arse-twitching 40 mins. Chris, of course, knew the secret short-cut between terminals E and F that avoided nail-biting waits for buses, and we managed to make the gate just in time: they had closed the flight, but made an exception for us. Despite being a bit 'frazzled' at this point, once on the plane, a free glass of champagne in hand, lots of buttons to play with on my fully reclining seat & video screen and the promise of some really nice food to come, I soon settled down for the 11 or so hour flight to Sao Palo.

Very soon, Sean and Chris were dead to the world but, despite the comfy chair and masses of leg room, I couldn’t sleep and spent most of my time watching films and staring into space listening to music.

Yes Jill, you were right...I should have brought my Kindle!

                Air traffic problems at Sao Palo, meant we had to circle a few times before we managed to land. Passport control was pretty quick and I received my first every stamp, together with paperwork to remind me I was a foreigner; something else to carry with me at all times together with my passport and yellow fever vaccination card....or else! When the carousel stopped turning, and everyone else had toddled off with their bags, Sean and Chris were left bag less: strangely my rucksack had made the transfer at Paris. Names and addresses were taken at the Air France desk, promises of prompt delivery made, small overnight kit bag and 100 Euros handed over to each of them in composition and we picked up the driver to take us to Sorocaba, a 1.5 hour journey. 

             Around midnight (local time) I had a nice, large, double room on the 14th floor, complete with aircon, microwave and fridge in the Trans America hotel, 1 of only 2 large hotels in Sorocaba ; it had only taken me 21hrs to get there !. There was car a picking us up at 0730am, so bags and clothes were dumped on the couch and I collapsed into bed….zzzz 

The destination

1st trip to Brazil. Working here for 3 weeks (or so) testing software for a PVC plant we are building out here. - long way from home. This is in Sorocaba in the Sao Palo province of south east Brazil where the computer system supplier, Emerson, is located.

          Sorocaba is a fairly characterless place, rather like some Mid-Western Nowheresville in the US, apparently (having never been there) with freeways (bigger than a duel carriage way but not quite a motorway) , tacky modern buildings, chaotic planning and numerous ‘don’t go down there at night’ shanty towns only a block away from the main drag. However, it does have some redeeming virtues.......as you will see below. 

       On this trip I am with a couple of lads called Chris & Sean. Chris is the 'old hand' at all this; in his 60’s he's built more plants around the world than he's had hot dinners and has the international travel down to a fine art, making every effort to lean the language for a new job location at least 6 months in advance. His next challenge, after Brazil, will be China and he's already taking lessons in Mandarin! He looks all the English gentleman walking around with his hands behind his back and his bush hat on keeping the sun off his bald head. 

        Sean has done this sort of thing before too ,but mainly in Thailand. He’s a aficionado of X factor and all things ‘pop’ so to me his choice of music is shite but as I work for him there’s’ not much I can say about it.  I, of course, am the ‘baby’ of the outfit, normally  confined to the limits of  the lab, or the shores of the Uk , apparently my constant 'oh look at that !' is a bit of a breath of fresh air to the 'old lags'.