You lucky people!

I thought I'd be all smug with my southern hemisphere summer posts. But no. Oh no.

Admittedly it's about 25C here. It's overcast and except for a slight mugginess it's quite like a London summer.

But there's more. I was out for a beer earlier and it was spitting slightly. "Aha" I think, "I am an Englishman. This is a tiny bit of warm rain and I can handle it. In fact, I welcome it as a pleasant change. Tra-la!" So I sat outside and drank, and it was fine. Admittedly the locals seemed to do the same, so I don't get too many smugness points there, but still.

It kept coming and going. I ended up sat under an umbrella later on and everything was fine. About 10pm I left the bar and it was spitting a bit heavier. "No problem", I think, "it's warm rain and it's not that heavy." A couple of minutes later the heavens opened, I was absolutely soaked (but yes, soaked in a warm way, like taking a nice bath in your clothes :-) ) and to cap it all I got lost. I had deliberately not ventured further than walking distance from the hotel tonight but I had neglected to memorise the landmarks at the street corner and I missed it twice in both directions. The one upside is I got to ask for directions in Portuguese three times and was understood, although the second guy replied in very decent English, so some small imperfection of accent must have given me away.  :-) But that small glow of satisfaction isn't enough to dry me out. :-)

I have a change of clothes, but only one pair of shoes, so fingers crossed they dry by morning.

That's the relatively brief sound bite for public consumption. The probably even more tedious waffle intended mainly for me to look back on starts now. Read on at your peril. :-)

The flight left Madrid at about 3am. I filled in the time studying up my Portuguese from the course on my MP3 player in the 24h bar. (As I probably blogged at the time, all things considered I could have had worse circumstances for a delayed flight.) Perhaps amazingly, no-one actually commented on me sitting there uttering random stilted Portuguese phrases out loud every few seconds.

I also met an interesting 50-something American chap (he said he was born in South Africa, although he didn't sound it) while hanging around at Madrid airport. (I should probably say 'at Barajas' to sound like more of an experienced traveller.) He was coming back from Morocco (his wife is from there) and had arrived before I did and was getting the 11am flight out. She was staying on for a family wedding and he was coming back before her, and he didn't want to go get a hotel for the night partly because of the expense and partly because he was worried about visa issues if he left the airport. So maybe that also helped to put my situation in perspective.

I did sleep on the flight, but I have no idea from when until when, I don't wear a watch and my phone was under the seat and I didn't want to wake myself up more by getting it out. All I know is I woke up with a horribly dry mouth and gummy eyelids feeling like crap. Thinking back to previous experiences, that's probably par for the course on an overnight flight.

I don't know exactly when we landed but after I cleared immigration and customs I turned my phone on about midday local time. And the first text I received on my fantastic, once-in-a-lifetime (maybe) journey was a message from my accountants telling me I had to make a PAYE payment. The perfect welcome.

I was bricking it through customs because I was carrying so much stuff. :-) That is, I had 500g of Cadbury's Dairy Milk, some instant cappuchino sachets and three packets of sugar free Polos. I didn't particularly want any of them (although the Polos were a minor help against the gummy mouth when I woke up :-) ) but they were in my possession when I left London and I hadn't been smart enough to avoid bringing them with me. (Note to self - in future, just don't bring anything edible you can't consume on the plane before arrival.) The customs declaration they gave us on the plane said to declare 'food, of all kinds'. I dithered and circled 'no' then scribbled it out and circled 'yes'. Call me an anal wuss, but the way I see it, you don't dick around with customs.

When I finally got there, there was a helpful chap hanging around before you went through properly so I asked him about this. I was gratified that he spoke very little English but fair Spanish, so I felt I was meeting him halfway. :-) He said that the kind of stuff I was carrying didn't count, and when I asked him for a new form so I could write 'no' to the food question, he asked me to wait and disappeared off for a few minutes. He came back with a new form which he'd filled out with all my details. Really nice and certainly turned my mood around. It was only while I was in the queue that I realised his helpfulness had extended to signing the new form on my behalf with a fair copy of my signature. :-) I hastily scribbled it out and signed it myself, just to be safe. ("Is this your signature, sir?") Of course, after a quick question about where I'd come from (which probably served mainly to prove I was a genuine arrogant non-local-language-speaking Brit, not some fake :-) ) they waved me through without looking.

Incidentally, among the expected prohibited items to import (drugs, pirate CDs - a much bigger evil than drugs, of course) on the customs form, it also listed 'alcoholic beverages produced in Brazil' (I quote from memory, but that was the gist). That makes no sense at all to me, but hey, it's customs and I didn't have any so I didn't care. I certainly won't take any out with me in case I cross the border again some time before I go back to the UK. :-)

I withdrew some cash and went to the tourist information office, since a friend had advised me they might book a taxi for me to save me falling into the hands of some rip-off merchant. They were very helpful and gave me lots of information but advised me to get a bus to the hotel, so I figured I'd do as they said. The fact that it was cheaper had no bearing on my thought processes at all in any way. :-) The bus didn't go to my cheap hotel so the tourist advice woman suggested I get off nearby and take a taxi. I asked if I could walk it and she said yes, but you should go down this other road, not the one she indicated before, as it's nicer to walk down. I was so tempted to ask "do you mean it's dangerous to walk down the other road?" but I didn't like to be quite so stereotypically touristy and resisted.

I got the bus with no more than the usual tourist hassle. That said, I was stood around by the bus stop swearing to myself in English while fidgeting with my phone, wallet, passport and bags, so in hindsight I am gratified no one mugged me. :-) I did have to fill in a form with my name and address and passport details on before the bus driver would let me on (it's one thing to get into the country, but we all know the aiport-hotel bus is the main terrorist target), but of course once he saw there was writing on it he didn't look twice and didn't ask to see my passport or anything. I half wish I'd had the balls to call myself Mickey Mouse and write 'club member #1' for the ID details.

I was on the bus for a slow hour and a half, part of that while it crawled through traffic into the city and the rest while it puttered from hotel to hotel. In the end the driver's assistant told me I'd missed my stop and they had announced it. I'm practically sure they didn't, as I had nothing else to do but stare dolefully out of the window, but what could I say? They got a taxi off the street for me - I must admit to being rather an arse at this point, although in my defence I was tired and a bit fed up, ranting in bad Spanish (and therefore extremely bad Portuguese) about being very confused and just wanting to walk, despite having no idea where I was, but either the guy was nice and/or he didn't understand, so I got the cab and it took me straight to the hotel. The bus and the cab cost me BRL45, which is probably not too bad compared to what a taxi would have cost from the aiport anyway.

The hotel seems fairly nice, especially for the money, and if I put my rose-tinted glasses on then even the 'you have to make a PAYE payment' text was a good thing as it made me ask about internet access at reception and it seems they do have it here, hence my being able to write this crap for the edification of my future self and anyone who doesn't have enough work to do. :-) I think it's free but who knows.

There are two slightly odd things about the hotel:
- I have to pay every two days for my room, rather than just paying when I check out
- I gave them my passport to put in the safe and the guy said that was cool as long as I didn't want it at the weekend, as he's not there then, and also asked me to give a day's notice when I want it back. I half imagine some Fort Knox kind of safe, and half imagine him lending my passport to a mate to copy. ;-)

There's no air conditioning, but I knew that when I booked, and there is a ceiling fan which must have a decent placebo cooling effect, given the amount of noise it produces.

As I said earlier, I deliberately didn't go far from the hotel tonight. First impressions of the Av. Paulista area were, to be frank, that it was a joyless, soulless hole. That may be partly true, but I think it was hunger and a slightly stressful day talking. After drinking three microscopic overpriced beers in a just-about-OK bar on Av. Paulista itself, I found a half-decent bar down a side street (just un-touristy enough to be appealing and cheap without being too intimidating) and managed to get some kind of pseudo-empanadas somewhere else (I pointed and said "I'll have three of those" in a mangled mix of Spanish and basic Portuguese, I have no idea what they're actually called), both of which went a long way towards moderating my opinion. Still, I don't think I'd drink or eat round here again if it wasn't near my hotel. As it is, I imagine I'll be as close to being a regular as you can be with only 6 nights in the city. :-)

I don't have much of a basis for comparison, but both from being round here and seeing stuff on the bus on the way in, the city looks pretty much like places I've seen in Mexico. Maybe I'll develop more of an eye for the difference, but for now I'd have to say it just looks Latin American. Some tower blocks, some nice-looking-but-seriously-decayed buildings, a certain style to the lower rise buildings. The one difference I have noticed, which may turn out to be spurious as time goes on, is that the cars here seem fairly European-looking, whereas my memories of Mexico tend towards big American-style cars.

I'm struggling a bit with the language. On the one hand, if I didn't speak Spanish I think I'd be having more trouble than I am, but I'd probably be feeling less awkward as I'd be able to get more of my very basic Portuguese in. As it is, I try to address people in Portuguese (if only to the extent of asking 'do you speak Spanish or English?' in the trickier cases) but I find myself throwing Spanish words in all the time, which I fear may be a bit offensive, as if I think the two languages are the same. I'll have a pseudo-Portuguese conversation with someone and still end up saying "muchas gracias" instead of "obrigado" at the end. Still, no one's actually turned my money down yet or punched me in the face, so it can't be all bad, and saying 'no fala portugues' ("I don't speak Portuguese") in an English accent does seem to put the street vendors off at least, so it's not all bad. :-)

Vague plan for tomorrow is to get up in time for breakfast (which is included in the room rate) - this seems a bit unlikely to be honest, but since I'm biologically two hours ahead (they are on summer time here, so the difference is only 2h rather than the 3 I'd been expecting), it's only like getting up at 11am if I was in London. As I say, a bit unlikely. :-) After that I will probably go over to Parque Ibirapuera, which is probably within walking distance of the hotel and is supposed to be quite attractive and have various museums.

I haven't seen anyone get mugged yet, so maybe it's not quite as dangerous here as the guide books imply. Then again, I expect muggers hate getting soaked as much as anyone, and it's probably hard to intimidate someone while holding a golf umbrella. :-)