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Published: April 13th 2007
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Well here goes nothing, the first blog entry......
After a very nice couple of days in Florida saying goodbye to the Grandparents, I took off from Miami towards Brazil. As most of you know, I took a job with ROGON, the soccer agency I worked with in Germany last year. We recently opened a new office in Porto Alegre and one of my main roles will be trying to setup transfers for our clients to the MLS. Anyways, the flights went very smoothly despite the hectic state of the Brazilian airports right now. I only had an 1 and a half between flights in Sao Paulo and somehow got my bags, went through customs, re-checked my bags, went through security and got on the plane to Porto Alegre with 5 minutes to spare. Of course, there was a mis-communication between me and my friend who was supposed to meet me at the airport but it was no problem, just hopped a cap to the airport.
The first couple of days was just spent exploring the city and trying to get settled in. One of the first stops was the office, we have an awesome location on the nicest
Arrival in Brazil
Saying good bye to the fam street in town, with the best Brazilian scenery. It is surrounded by nice restaurants and cafes and is just a very cool area. The city in general is very nice with tons of different neighborhoods. Porto Alegre is the capital of Brazil's most southern state and has around 1.4 million people. Like in all of Brazil, there is a lot of poverty and you must be careful of where you go, especially at night but so far so good.
As many of you know I have so many wierd connections to this town it is scary and so far they have been so nice to me! A friend of my Grandma's is Brazilian and her entire family lives in this area, so last Saturday her nephew took me out to a traditional Brazilian Steakhouse, Churrascaria. PA is the birthplace to this type of food and the meat is amazing. After they we took a cool boat tour of the river here. Last night, I went out with Suelen, a Brazilian that I met when travelling through Italy who just happens to live here, and a bunch of hecr friends. Today her boyfriend and me went and played soccer for
hours and there was another bbq there afterwards.
I also met another Brazilian friend, Marcos, when I was travelling in Italy. I am currently living with the friend of one of Marcos's friends who lives here, crazy huh? Kassyus and his fiancee have taken me in and are some of the nicest people in the world! It is just temporary until I find something more permanent but I couldn't ask for a better situation. Which leads to a question a lot of you are probably wondering about, the language. Kassyus and Juliany don't speak a word of English, as is the case with most people here, and it is really good because I am totally forced to learn. I am light years ahead of where I was in German after a week for a number of reasons: The people here just have a different attitude and make you feel completely comfortable with trying to speak and it helps that there is not 20 other Americans around like last time to speak English. It is amazing how quickly you pick things up when you are forced to.
Lastly, it wouldn't be right for me to go abroad without a
Arrival in Brazil
Flying to Florida funny running store. If some of you recall, I got lost in the woods my second night in Germany and it took me three hours to get home finally arriving at eleven at night. Well on Thursday morning I got up before work to go for a jog, our apartment has two doors to enter both which lock. I unlocked the first from the inside and walked out only to find out that the second door was locked, the first door closed and I was stuck in between. Basically I was stuck like a cage animal between 2 doors for 45 minutes banging on the door and ringing the door bell until Kassyus finally woke up and heard me. I ran very hard that day.
All in all, I couldn't be happier so far. I love the city, the people are great, the food is great, the women are everything I was told and it is soccer heaven. I hope everything is going well with all of you and I would love to hear from you. Ate logo....
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Eric Boggs
non-member comment
Taking it to the limit...
Great idea to start a blog, Adam. How do you say "take it to the limit" in Portuguese? Later. Eric