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Published: July 27th 2008
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Starbucks
my new home away from home This past week I made an amazing discovery. On Wednesday, while in the car on the way to visit a hospital, my coworker and I drove by a Starbucks! This may seem insignificant to you guys in the U.S. who pass 4 or 5 Starbucks on your way to work in the morning…but here in São Paulo, I had only heard rumors of their existence, but have never met anyone who actually had seen one. If you are wondering why I was so happy to see a Starbucks when I am living in a country known for their great coffee beans…from in my experience, Brazilians drink coffee one of two ways. One, the take a regular size coffee mug and fill a quarter of it with coffee, three-quarters with milk then normally add one or two spoonfuls of sugar to that concoction. The second is to make a pot of coffee but add a ton of sugar to the coffee while in the pot itself, then serve these sweet cups of black coffee in cups the size of cough syrup cups. Neither tastes bad by any means, but one of the things I have been missing most while here is a
being able to drink a “normal” size cup of unsweetened black coffee in the morning and add sugar the way I like. The best part too is that the Starbucks is only about a 20 minute walk (or 2 metro stops) away from where I work so I will be able to go fairly often. The price, with the conversion rate, is about $1 more on every drink than what we pay in the U.S.
I was so happy about my discovery that I decided to take a picture. One thing I thought was funny was, if you look at this picture, do you notice the man in the black suit leaning on the railing? He is like the Starbucks security guard, haha…and I am totally not exaggerating. He has been there every time I have gone and he just stands outside the Starbucks looking up and down the street. He also will open and close the door for you when you go in or out. For the life of me I can not figure out why Starbucks needs a security guard but I guess coffee terrorism is more prevalent than I would have thought :-)
On Saturday,
the family I am staying with had this activity with their church all day, so instead of staying home by myself I decided to take the opportunity to venture to some sites that I have been wanting to see in the city. I decided to go back downtown, near where I work (and coincidently near the Starbucks too) to go to the Museum of Art of São Paulo (MASP, pronounced like “mas-p”). From what I gather, this is one of the most famous museums in São Paulo and nearly everyone I talk to about how I am liking the city asks if I have gone to MASP yet. The MASP was great. It was 2 floors, the top floor had all the famous paintings such as works from Picasso and Monet, and the bottom floor were all sketches from artists such as Miró, Salvador Dalí and more Picassos. Although it was cool to see original works from such famous artists, my favorite exhibit was the landscape paintings of Brazil about 150 years ago.
After the museum I walked through this park called Trianon to get to the Starbucks for a BIG cup of coffee. I took a picture of the park because it was very lush and has been the closest thing I have seen to mimicking the Brazilian rainforest. One thing I thought was funny when walking through the park is that I heard lots of monkeys but when I tried to look for them I did not see a single one. I still can’t figure out if they were real or it was a soundtrack the park played to seem more Amazon-like, hah. Either way it was entertaining.
To change the subject completely, I set a new record this week. I think I explained in an earlier entry that I live very far from where I work. In “good” traffic it takes about 45 minutes to get from my work to where I live, and the average commute home with traffic each night takes about an hour and a half. On Thursday however, I got on the bus at 5:15pm and got off the bus at 8:05pm. That is right; 10 minutes shy of taking me 3 hours to get home! Needless to say my “What I learned about São Paulo” factoid should be pretty obvious: Always go to the bathroom BEFORE getting on the bus to go home. You never know how long it may take!
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Carrie
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Yikes!
Life with starbucks 20 minutes away?? Not sure how I would deal with that. That would definitely cause Mom to come home early....or build her own starbucks. The park sounds fun...watch out for the monkeys - I know they like to fling poop on passer byers. I'm glad the museum was fun but the 3 hour bus ride sounds horrendous. Did you sleep the whole time?