We have arrived!

Much to our delight (and slight surprise), we made it to Brazil without any trouble whatsoever. We were expecting an inquisition at customs, but they let us right in.

The first thing we noticed upon exiting the plane was the fact that it was 80 degrees outside. Pretty nice, considering it was about 5 when we moved out of our apartment in Minneapolis. Speaking of which, Kim’s parents were our saviors, and we never could have done it without their help. Kim’s dad somehow managed to cram all of our possessions into a 10-foot by 10-foot storage unit.

Anyway, São Paulo is great. It’s not exactly a pretty city, but it has a certain charm. There are high-rises everywhere you look, but there are also a bunch of quaint, two-story houses on many of the side streets. And it’s crowded, which is what you might expect in one of the world’s largest cities.

On our first day in town, we settled into our hotel and took a walk down to Avenida Paulista, which is one of the city’s major streets. It’s the financial center of the city, and it’s also where Kim’s school is located.

Avenida Paulista

The language barrier has been more amusing than troublesome, so that’s a relief. We were a little nervous about it before we left, but it should be fine. We still can’t understand 99% of the things people say, but at least we can make ourselves understood. Mostly, people just laugh at us when we mangle the pronunciation.

The next order of business is finding a place to live. Our hotel is pretty nice, and we have Internet access in our room, but we can’t afford to stay here forever. All of the exchange students are paired off with a Brazilian “buddy,” so we’re hoping Kim’s buddy can give us some tips on finding an apartment. Ideally, we’d like to live with Brazilians so that we can improve our language skills.

Today we took a walk to the Centro neighborhood, which is the city’s historic center. The Banespa Building is one of São Paulo’s most famous buildings, and the Municipal Theater is supposed to have good classical music.

Banespa Building (the white one)

Municipal Theater

Well, that’s about it for now. We’ve only been here for 24 hours, though, so we’ll add updates as we discover more of the city!

Also, feel free to leave a comment. In particular, ask us questions and/or suggest topics for future postings.