Never got the hang gliding video to work, but here are some pics...

went hang gliding Sunday!

So Saturday was relaxing- watched the U.S. v England World Cup match, and not much else, but Sunday was totally awesome- went hang gliding off Sao Conrado. I hope to get the vid up soon, though I've been having trouble uploading.

Post for Wed. thru Friday 6/9-6/11

So I've been working really hard with the rest of the crew over the last few days on our paper and presentation. You can see the final product of the paper here: http://www.docstoc.com/batch/uABnLmB_FtysykeakTNm8A==/Andre-Lipinski/2010-06-12

We've been a surprisingly efficient machine, and everyone has contributed in a unique way. We divided our analysis into six categories: environment, transportation, housing, social development, safety/security, & marketing. I was a part of the safety and security team, and we were so efficient I was able to go to the beach for part of Wednesday. There was this mini christ redeemer statue also, which I thought was a great photo opportunity. The restaurant behind had the best mango juice-totally fresh and blended right there.

Anyway, back to the paper and presentation. The view from the classroom was great (pic below), and they took the scaffolding off of the Cristo statue. The presentation went really well on Friday. Along with two professors from FGV, Ruy Cesar, the Special Secretary for the 2014 World Cup and 2016 Olympics, was able to make it. It was difficult to find a unifying theme for every section, but we tried to tie things together with the idea of Rio as an Eco-city of the future. Whiel this is evident in the paper, my main focus did not have a whole lot to do with this because my group's focus was safety and security. So, similar to that section in the paper, I gave a talk about Community Oriented Policing (COP) Strategies and the possibilities of implementing a Compstat system similar to those in U.S. cities. Rio is not nearly as network capable as U.S. cities, so this provides a challenge to fully implementing any kind of public database for crime tracking, but this is something that could be very beneficial to Rio and help it grow into a "Eco-city of the future" as our paper attempts to posit. The COP strategies could also help relations between the police department and the majority of citizens. Organizations like the BOPE and others have a reputation for creating adversarial relationships between the police and communities. The most publicized effort in this area has been the creation of the UPPs (Unidades Pacificadoras de Polica), which attempt to partner with community leaders to help with their image as community civil servants rather than simply agents that react to and track crimes. This represents a shift in policing philosophy from one that is mostly reactive to a more, proactive, community oriented approach such as has occured in cities throughout the U.S. This has mostly happened in the favelas, however, and, after talking to some of our Brazilian student guides, they feel there is no reason this model could not be used in average middle class neighborhoods and throughout the rest of the city. This was something they felt passionate about, and is an aspect of crime prevention they hoped the politicians and bureaucrats would take note of. While there are several stats that show crime in Rio is not nearly what it was at one point, this is definitely something that I hope those planning the games will come up with a creative and effective solution to. The wide publication of the UPPs, as well as the scholarship incentives for law enforcement officials interested in improving their technical and communication skills seems to be a start in the right direction. However, as Leslie Kikoler said, "if it bleads it leads," which points to the time it takes to change public perception.

Blog Post for Monday June 7 and Tuesday June 8- classtime again

So for the last two days we've had classtime and more esteemed presenters. The first presenter on Monday morning was Savio Neves, president of the Business Council for Tourism and the director of the Corcovado train. I wanted to mention that I had gone to Corcovado to see the view from the Christ Redeemer statue the day before, and that the train wasn't working, but I thought it would come across as more of a pointless complaint than anything constructive.


So Savio discussed Brazil's rail system, and I couldn't help but think that my brother Richard would have loved this stuff (wouldn't be surprised if you've already tried to find info about this online, Richard). A major part of the discussion focused on the push to use the rail for tourism, and Savio mentioned a new federal law that specifically emphasizes the role of the railroad in Brazil's long-term plans for tourism. He elaborated, and explained that Rio will be beginning an ad campaign that will emphasize that Rio is much more than sun and surf. There are over 2000 "tourist attractions" in Rio alone, and this number will increase with the development of the Port Area in Gamboa, which will include a new aquarium, a 90 meter high Ferris wheel, 12 new hotels, and the refurbishment of 4 existing hotels. The redevelopment will be based on a model Barcelona used, and Rio will be hiring the mayor of Barcelona as a consultant. Much of this redevelopment will center around a business tourism model used in Chicago- when people travel for business they tend to spend more because they can charge portions of their trip to their employer. Currently, the U.S. and Argentina are responsible for the majority of tourism in Rio, but that this could increase if Visa requirements for tourism were easier and cheaper to obtain. For example, there has been a push by those in the tourism industry to pressure Brazil to find a way around reciprocity laws.


Savio also touched on Rio's desire to revitilize domestic tourism. He claimed that 10 years ago it was cheaper for Cariocas to go to Florida than the northeast of Brazil, and that Brazil is trying to change this by improving its rail system. He also mentioned Rio's interest in turning its downtown into a commercial and residential area similar to Manhattan, and has created a number of tax incentives to help facilitate this. Downtown has suffered ever since Brazil moved its capital from Rio to Brasilia and Sao Paulo became Brazil's financial center. While Rio expects an increase in rail usage of about 30% during the mega events, it projects it can still rely on an increase in domestic tourism to meet demand for this new development if the global economy continues to hinder international tourism.

Savio also mentioned plans for a $ 21 billion high speed rail system, though it will not be done before 2016. It should be interesting to track its development alongside the one planned for California.

The next speaker was Prof. Sergio Ferraz Magalhaes, President of the Institute of Architects of Brazil at the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro. Sergio underlined the complementray aspect of Sao Paulo and Rio, and explained how Rio is the capital of innovation. As examples he gave the high education HDI, the highest number of PhDs per capita, the only latin american business schools listed in the Financial Times global rank (e.g., COPPEAD), and large R&D clusters. He then spoke about Brazil more broadly, and mentioned that, while Brazil's GDP did not increase during the economic crisis, it did not decrease like other countries. Like many speakers, he brought up the topic of oil and its transformative potential for Rio- he claimed $70 billion is exepected to be invested in the state of Rio between 2010 and 2012.

Sergio then turned to social issues, and the difficulties involved in solving Rio's crime problems. He mentioned that recent law enforcement initiatives have brought homicide rates to their lowest level in 30 years. While Rio had much success with the 2007 Pan Am games, Sergio claimed they did not have as great a legacy as they could have, and that the upcoming mega-events leading up to the Olympics in 2016 should be transformative in unprecendented ways. He mentioned some projections for this legacy- the creation of $ 38 billion in public transport
projects, 120k jobs per year until 2016, and 60k new homes for people living in areas that are at high-risk for flooding.

The next speaker was Leslie Kikoler, who was very influential in the development of Rio's bid for the Olympics. He explained how his group is now transitioning form the bid commision to the organizing commission and that this is keeping him very busy. He described the bid and selection process, and explained how surprised he was when Chicago was eliminated after the first round- leaving Tokyo, Madrid, and Rio. Due to Obama's high involvement, Leslie thought the decision would come down to Rio and Chicago in the end.

Leslie's major claim was that Rio is not only ready to host these types of mega-events, but has been hosting at least two large gatherings of people for years: Carnival in March and a gathering of 2 million people on Copacabana beach for New Year's Eve. He then discussed the plan for the use of 70k volunteers in 2016, total youth participation, and social transformaiton thru sport.

Leslie then moved to the bid dossier, and explained how it was built on 3 pillars: 1. Technical excellence in all areas (up to par venues venues), 2. A unique experience for all participants (i.e., parties in streets, private beach for athletes), and 3. The transformation of a city and a nation (new transport, new airports, and the renovation of Rio's port similar to the model used in Barcelona- its port transformation made the city the 6th most visited city in Spain, while before it was obscure)

He also discussed the seemingly bureaucratic process for the bid dossier, and how any bid for the Olympics must have 52 "guarantees," which are like legal statements ensuring the city will be able to comply with IOC demands. These cover things like doping, security aspects, venues, and a variety of others. In April/May 09 an IOC committee came to Rio to interrogate the bid committee over three days. This committe included Rio's mayor and Lula, Brazil's president. Leslie claimed the decision ultimately came down to the potential for the games to transform Rio in a way the other cities did not need to be trasnformed. Chicago, Madrid and Tokyo were obviously ready, and are not in need of the same changes a mega-event like the Olympics can bring. Also influential, according to Leslie, was the map showing where different Olympic games have been located. Showing none in S. America, this underlined that the Olympics are long overdue in this region of the world.

Discussing safety, and perceptions of safety, Leslie brought up the widely publicized establishment of the UPPs (Unidades Pacificadoras de Policia, or Peace Keeping Unit), and that this is the biggest PR effort to change the image of Rio into a safe city. The UPPs are an effort by the state of Rio to create a police force that is better able to partner with community leaders, and not simply react to crimes in a strictly adversarial way. While the focus for the UPPs is on the Favelas, from the people I've spoken to, there is a great demand to introduce these elements into the policing of middle class neighborhoods as well.

The next speaker was Dr. Alvaro Bezerra de Mello, from the hotels and hospitalty industry. Alvaro mentioned his surprise when he found out Rio is to host both the World Cup and Olympics, and pointed to the benefits from stabalization of Brazil's currency 16 years ago. He mentioned that this is especially significant because the currency was not stable for the vast majority of his life. He then discussed his excitement for the 40,000 hotel rooms that will be needed by 2014, and claimed his organization is doing better than it ever has (8% better than last year).

We next heard from Romulo Dante Orrico Filho and Eduardo Fredrico Cabral de Oliveira- Sub secretaries for transportation and regulation, respecitvely. Romulo reitereated a number of the basic stats for Brazil, including population, gdp, gdp per capita, and HDI. He then talked about the differences in public transit use between cities in different countries. The US was way below almost all the other countries, as expected. He then discussed the key challenges for urban mobility in the the BRIC countries (Brazil, Russia, India, and China, though sometimes South Africa is included in this). His common recommendation for all four BRIC countries was that public transport can be well organized enough to minimize transportation investment. As the BRICs develop, those in power will want to take a private car philosophy to transport, which will put pressure on people like Romulo, and so he and people like him see their role as needing to make public transport a viable competitor in the overall transport market. He then summed up Rios trasnport problems with three main points: 1. 50% of the area of the city has inefficient public transport, 2. Pub transort is expensive, 3. There has not been enough supervision in the implementation process of public transport. This implementation issue is one that seems to come up repeatedly in discussion. Nearly every speaker emphasizes this gap between planning and implementation. While the bid document is exciting to read and very well organized the speakers' continuous reference to implementation difficulties is worrisome.

Next we heard from Eduardo Cabral de Oliveira, a member of the military police, who was hired by the mayor to help with the planning for public transport over the net few years. There is a huge lack of regulation of taxis in Rio. Lot's of corruption and crooked practices. It's so bad that the Government decided that they needed to hire this member of the military police to do something about it!

On Tuesday, June 8, we heard from Antonio Camilo Branco de Faria from the Specialized Security Consultancy. As with many of the presenters, Antonio began with a discussion of some stats about Rio. He described the larger metro area as the 23rd largest in the world. He then mentioned the hue investments Rio will be making in security ove the coming years. He noted the creation of PRONASCI, a Federal Governemnt Crime Reduction program that will have had $3.35 billion US dollars invested in it by 2012. There will also be scholarships for peace officers that participate in crime-control technology education, as well as those who participate in the UPPs.

Antonio also described the broad structure of security efforts in Brazil. This is built into the constitution, and include 4 categories of police and outlines their duties:
1. Federal Police, who patrol borders and national threats
2. Federal Highway Patrol,
3. Civil Police, who investigate and prosecute crimes, and
4. Military Police, who are charged with discouraging crime, Military Firemen, and Municipal Guards, who are charged with controlling traffic. The municipal guard's recent role in prosecuting small crimes has freed up the military police

I was a little confused by this last category, but supposedly there is harmony between these groups, and that this has only recently been achieved. As Leslie Kikoler and others have done, Antonio then went on to describe Rio's successful experience with large national and international events, including the Rolling Stones in Copacabana in 2006, NYE, and Carnival, and special trainings security personell are going thru to make the better able to deal with tourists.

Our next speaker was Antonio Henrique Borges de Paula, and spoke about the growing trend of international tourism to Brazil. He emphasized the imporatnce of sustainability in the develeopment of Rio's tourism industry, and that this sustainability has many components: ecological, cultural, social, and economic.

Our next speaker was Pedro da Luz, and spoke about urbanism and architecture. He advocated the idea of not expanding the Barra da Tijuca region, but rather making better utlilization of Centro and downtown. He concluded with a discussion of the current negotiations surrounding the movement of part of the Media Center to the port downtown. The port redevelopment project is one of the most heavily debated issues for the city. On the one hand, development in Barra could be very lucrative, but at the same time, development in Rio's port could help the nearby downtown area.

So we've begun thinking about the project and presentation our class is going to put together, and have separated into different groups. I've included myself with a study of safety and security, and did a great deal of research tonight. Supposedly we'll be giving a presentation to Ruy Cesar, who has the title of Special Secretary for the World Cup in 2014, as well as the 2016 Olympics.

Touring the City of Rio

This is my blog post for Thur.-Sunday, 6/3-6/6

So over the last four days I've been back outside seeing sights again. The classroom time was good, but being outside and (attempting) to interact with the Cariocas is what its all about. I really feel like I should have learned more Portuguese before coming here. It would have made things far easier. However, I have had a few miraculous successes. On Friday at the beach in Barra one of our classmates lost one of the lenses of his glasses in the ocean. I went with him and some others down to an enormous mall in Ipanema to see if we could find an optometrist, and somehow were successful. While the majority of the communication was in the form of body language, it was still satisfying to see such a complicated transaction completed successfully. However, my interactions with the Cariocas most commonly involve a cashier saying something to me and receiving a blank stare from me in return. Then they usually get annoyed, and I feel like an obnoxious tourist. Not pleasant.

On Thursday and Friday USC had students from FGV show us around the city on a bus tour of different venues. They were excellent guides, and I've attached some pics here. The city is huge and transportation is already a world-famous problem. Rio surrounds a rainforest-Parque Nacional da Tijuca- and this makes for special transit challenges. However, it sounds like there is a plan for the Olympics that will provide Rio with lasting imrovements, such as new highways and metro stops.

At Maracana, a world famous football stadium, there was a sort of "hollywood walk of fame" for
the stars, including Pele and Ronaldo. They had this funny foot print thing that you can see pics of here. I'm not the biggest soccer fan, but I also got a pic of me high-fiving some star on the wall. Maybe someone can tell me who this is. Anyway, I had already been here last Saturday for the football game we went to, but it was good to come back. This is where the opening ceremony will be. I wonder what the theme will be. Brazilians have a ton of pride- there's green and yellow everywhere in this city. Way more than the red, white and blue in a typical city in the U.S.

It was also great to see the stadium where they hold Carnival-which will be the site for the start and finish of the marathon, as well. I can only imagine the kind of insanity that must take place here in March. While it must be overwhelming, supposedly the event goes off relatively crime free. Hopefully the same will be said in 2016.

At the Lagoa Rodrigo de Freitas we got to see the site for the rowing events. It seemed polluted, but the surrounding area was very nice. Located just north of Ipanema, the Lagoa is a very expensive place to live. There was also a helipad with tours departing constantly- theres a pic of the copter flying above the lake below.

We also got a chance to tour a nearby park, where I got a great picture of a monkey. These are almost as common in Rio's parks as squirrels are in California. I think they're called Caputin monkeys.

I don't yet have the pictures because my camera ran out of batteries, but in Barra da Tijuca we got to tour the swimming facility and indoor bicycle track. We also got to see a model of the Olympic village and press village they're planning on building in the area. Hopefully they break ground soon, because it didn't seem like any work had begun. I also heard there's pressure to be sure the gentrification of the area will only create benefits to the nearby favelas.

It was great walking to the top of the highest platform (40 ft. I think) at the swimming facility, but I think we got our tour guide in trouble- I guess it was a major liability for us to be up there. Below is a pic from the top of the platform. Anyway, I felt bad about it, especially because our tour guide's been really good to us. On Friday night she took us to the Rio Scenario- a dance club in Lapa. It was one of the best nights I have had so far. The place was huge- numerous bars and floors, cool decorations, and an amazing band. It was some kind of mix of samba, reggae, rock, and other things. I tried my best to dance, but the Brazilians move their feet in very intimidating ways and it was tough to keep up.

We finally had some beach days on Thursday and Friday, and for a short while on Sunday, but it was cut short due to high winds. These pictures are mostly from Copacabana, but the beach at Barra was beautiful as well. I went for a run with a classmate down the beach in Barra and saw some cool sites, not to mention lots of beautiful people. The Cariocas sure love to show off.

On Sunday I got up to the top of Corcovado mountain where the Christ Redeemer statue is located. I heard a tour guide make the joke that, in Rio, there's so much plastic surgery even Jesus is interested in getting a face lift. These pictures show the restoration efforts.

The view from the top of Corcovado mountain is great. Here you can see Guanabara bay with the bridge to Niteroi in the distance. I asked if its worth going over to Niteroi, but supposedly there isn't much there other than a good view of Rio.

Here's a view of Maracana stadium. Its a huge stadium and definitely worthy of the glory of the World Cup and Olympics. There's also another stadium nearby- Estádio Olímpico João Havelange- that I didn't get a picture of. Supposedly they will build temporary seating for approximately 20,000 people around it. This is an example of how Rio will handle the influx of people for their upcoming mega-events without buidling beyond demand.

Here's a view from Corcovado with the Lagoa to the left (the site for rowing). To the right is the forest.

Last Saturday I remember our tour guide saying somebody had grafittied the Jesus statue and that it was a really big deal. I don't know if this is related to the restoration efforts, but graffiti in Rio is definitely worth mentioning. It's literally everywhere. Here's a couple examples. Sometime I'll recognize the same characters. I may not always understand it, but some is very creative. If I see something really good I'll try and take a picture and post it here.

Rio has very creative people and a huge informal economy. The combination can make for some strange sights. By the beach in Cobacabana there was a lady justting in a hoop, moving around every now and then. I also have this picture of a guy juggling in the street. Nearby our hotel in Rio there was a guy selling ice cream to kids at around 9:30 in the morning. He must have been hung over or something, because he was completely sound asleep. Nestle sure must have struck gold finding this salesman. I also saw a guy shining someone's shoes in front of the Copacabana Palace. This guy just had his foot on a waterbottle while the shoe shiner did his thing. You can see a short vid of it here, but you have to look close:

On Sunday I went to a fair in Ipanema called the "Hippy Fair" to buy some souvenirs. You can see a photo of the sign below. The characters on the poster are hilarious caricatures. There was even a guy playing the guitar, and was actually pretty good. You can see the vid below:

Next three days-yay classtime!!

This is my blog post for Mon.-Wed., 5/31-6/2


Over the last three days we've had a variety of speakers and discussions at EBAPE, the School of Business and Public Administration at the Fundacao Getulio Vargas (FGV). Supposedly Wes Bjur, a retired USC Professor who I had lunch with in Sacramento a couple weeks before leaving, was instrumental in EBAPE's establishment. Given that we talked about Jeitinho during that lunch, I'm not at all surprised at how well the EBAPE folks seem to be handling the constant schedule changes and improvisation. If something similar happened in the U.S. people would likely be throwing temper tantrums by now.

My favorite speaker of the first day was Dr. Janaina de Mendonca Fernandes. She was captivating and energetic throughout her discussion of social justice and politics in Rio. She explained how Rio has suffered from a great deal of discontinuity in planning- supposedly they must design a new master plan every four years when they elect a new administration. Also interesting is that there is no party ideology- whether or not a poltician is elected seems based almost solely on charisma. Also, its required by law to vote, and people often vote only for who seems to make the best promises. However, even given these circumstances, Brazil has electronic voting- something the U.S. still doesn't have.

The next speaker, Isabel Cataldi, discussed the state of social networking in Brazil. She explained how Orkut (similar to facebook) is the most popular social networking site in Brazil, and totals about 71,000 people. Orkut, facebook, and others were widely used to transfer people to the official website and recruit volunteers for the 2007 Pan Am games, and will likely be used again for the upcoming events over the next 6 years.

The next morning's presentation started with Marshall Eakin, a fullbright scholar from Vanderbilt University. His cross-cultural comparisons between the U.S. and Brazil were particularly enlightening given yesterday's presentations from FGV folks. His three core points were 1. Brazil is notorious for poverty amidst great wealth (its the world's tenth largest economy, but has massive inequality; 2. Brazil is both western and non-western (its land is American, facade is European, and its soul is African); 3. Brazil's color and race occurs along a spectrum as opposed to the U.S.'s categorical '2-tiers system" (either black or white), and this makes racism far more subtle in Brazil. He also discussed Gilberto Freyre (1900-87), who wrote Master and the Slaves (1946). According to Eakin, this book has had more impact than any other on the development of the West's perception of Brazil.

The next speaker was Paulo Martins, who provided some geographical, demographic, and historical information of Brazil since its encounter with the Portugese in the 16th century. It was very sweeping and general, but it was interesting to learn about the history of a country I know very little about. I took some brief notes and I'll try and summarize them here, though I wasn't able to create anything with much continuity:

The Portugese encountered the natives starting in April 1500. The focus of the economy during this time was the import of slaves to help with sugar export. With the export of sugar starting to decline, the focus became gold. The slave trade decreased from 29% to 5% between 1823 and 1887. On August 29 1825 Brazil gained independence from Portugal, and the first constitutiton was enacted on March 25 1824. While the monarchy was overthrown on Nov 15 1889, the early republic was little more than a military dictatorship. The 1920s saw rebellions caused by young military officers. By 1930, the regime was weakened and demoralized, which allowed Getulio Vargas (which FGV, the school we are visiting, is named after) to lead a coup and assume the presidency. Brazil forced Japanese, Germans, and Italians into concentration camps during WWII. Vargas was overthrown in a military coup, but then was democratically elected not long thereafter. He then, confusingly, commited suicide in 1954. I'll have to fill that gap in later! In 1985, power shifted back to the people. There was unusualy high inflation during this time. The peacefull pass of power from Cardoso to Lula in 2002 shows Brazil may have finally achieved its long sought after stability.

OK that was kind of crazy. I found it funny though that this speaker played the same music video (Jorge Aragao) that was playing in the van on the way from the airport to the hostel. Martins (this speaker) also argued that Brazil is best known for its music- even better than soccer. I guess this Aragao guy must really capture something they value down here.

The first speakers of the next morning were Steve Rimmer, a British Mergers & Acquisitions consultant from KPMG, and Roberto Haddad, his tax structure specialist. They summarized their role as performing due diligence to their clients' shareholders during the M&A process, and how complicated this can be when the laws, regulations, traditions, and customs of companies from a variety of different countries are involved in one M&A. Due to the recent oil discoveries (see pic of rig) and boom in Rio's tourism over the next few years, they claimed to be very busy lately. They mentioned the challenges of working in Brazil. Some of these included the informal nature of business, lack of audited financial statements, heavy reliance on cash-basis accounting, and deferred taxes on the balance sheet. Deferred payroll taxes can be especially significant given the fact that they are around 60% of a worker's pay in Brazil. I also found it interesting that, even in a society where the power is so greatly divided by wealth disparities, the onus of proof in labor disputes is most often on the employer. He also claimed that 99.9% of people who file a tax return do it thru the internet. However, I remember our tour guide unapoligetically saying he doesn't pay his taxes, and this leads me to wonder how indicative this stat is of anything bey0nd the stat itself.

Next we learned about the 2011 CISM (International Military Sports Council) Military Games. This was interesting to hear about, and the presenter, Comandante Marcio Agnese, focused part of his discussion on the increases in security that will need to be in place for these games, which will be larger than the 2007 Pan Am games- they're expecting 6000 athletes, 2000 delegates (I assume this means people other than the athletes and spectators), and 20 sports. Within each venue there will be at least 3 security perimters, coordinated with eachother, and Agnese highlighted that a centralized communication system for security will be a major challenge. Concluding his presentation, Agnese underlined the importance for the legacy of the games, and the importance for continuity in planning for them and the subsequent mega-events Rio will be hosting- a global warming summit called "Rio + 20" in 2012, the 2013 FIFA Confederations Cup, the 2014 FIFA World Cup, Rio's 450th anniversary in 2015, and the Olympics in 2016.

In the afternoon we had a x-cultural training with Elizabeth Columa. She was a fascinating woman, but I felt we should have been out exploring Rio and interacting with "cariocas" (people indigenous to Rio) as opposed to staying in the classroom. I found it funny that, when we were writing an answer to a question about what characteristic of Americans differentiates us from Brazilians, the majority of us said "individualism". We also discussed differences in communication styles- the American custom of getting to a point early and supporting it as opposed to discussing and then making a point towards the end of a discussion. The discussion kept returning to the idea that Brazilians are better at multi-tasking, more present-oriented, and less focused on planning, and I couldn't help but worry about the challenges this will present for the Olympics. She mentioned how it is common for Brazilians to take advantage of indirect communication styles in business settings to get what they want, that business is often treated like a social event, and that business is made between people and not companies, (she used the theoretical framework of high context and low context communication in a book called The Silent Language by Edward Hall to explain this). She concluded with a list of 5 things North Americans should not do while in Brazil: 1. Do NOT rush visits, 2. Do NOT get down to business, 3. Do NOT expect punctuality, 4. Do NOT get impatient, and 5. Do NOT be aggressive

first four days of journey coming to an end...

This is the post for May 26 thru May 30. I'm just getting around to posting it now:

Alrite so a lot has happened in the last 4 days and only now do I feel like I'm beginning to collect my thoughts and find a rhythm. The red eye from Sac to Houston last Tuesday/Wednesday threw me off and I've been constantly doing something or going somewhere ever since. We went to Rice University, which was much smaller than I was expecting- only about 3400 undergrads or so. The best part was definitely the big bucket of crawfish Wednesday night. The weather was so hot and humid that this was probably the only time it was really bearable to be outside.

So I arrived at the Rio Hostel Friday morning around 10 AM. We had a bit of confusion at the airport. I arrived on the same flight as a classmate but we had another classmate coming in at a separate terminal. We had arranged for the hostel's taxi to come pick all three of us up, so while we were walking to the other terminal, the driver had already picked up our other classmate and was making his way to our terminal. After waiting for eachother, we eventually figured out what was going on, but it was a good first lesson in improvising- something that we're learning to develop as a class, and something Brazilians are notoriously good at.

The Rio Hostel was great, especially the view of the city. Here's a pic to the left. After getting settled I went with four classmates to navigate the neighborhood and find some food. We went to a place a few blocks away called the Novo Republica. It had a great spread of food, and a pay-by-the-gram system. The meat is amazing here, but a bit on the salty side. We then came back to the hostel, got further settled, and went back out to explore. Rio is a fascinating place, and I don't have a great deal to compare it too (I've never been south of San Diego).

So after returning from the walk around Rio we settled in a little more, then went out for dinner and wandered Lapa which was full of people, bars, and insanity of every variety. At one we found some people who spoke English. I had a great conversation with some locals and finally learned some Portuguese - generally, I find it hard to correctly pronounce the words I read. It's definitelty harder than Italian and Spanish in this respect. Perhaps French is a good comparison.

The next day I went with some classmates on a jeep tour of the Corcovado. On the jeep ride out of the hostel we saw people continuing the party in Lapa even at 8 AM. Supposedly stuff like this happens all the time- very unlike the U.S. where bars usually close at 2. It made me wonder who has to clean up the mess, and how Rio will deal with this during the upcoming increases in tourism. It seems like events like this would be a good place to start and to practice the types of processes that will need to be in place by 2016.

Our tour guide for the Corcovado was awesome. Funny, honest, and helpful, he did his best to answer all kinds of crazy questions we threw at him. He talked a lot about the income divide between the rich and poor, and used as an example the workers who come to the wealthy areas to be nannies, maids, and workers of various undesirable jobs. He said they generally come from different favelas and make 400-600 Reais a month while those employeeing them make five or six times this. He discussed the increase in hotel buidling that has occured in the upscale areas of Ipanema and the speculation that has caused people to buy with the hopes of turning them for a profit in the next five years. Also during this tour, we went on a walk through the rainforest, and the guide knew a great deal. I asked him if he was excited about all the tourism Rio is expecting over the next few years, and he said people in his position will probably be overqualified because the majority of the hiring for positions like guides and event assistants will go to people with lesser skills. Successfuly integrating knowledgable people like this will be key if Rio is to come up with a successful strategy for the upcoming tourism spike, so it was enlightening hearing his response.

Anyway, the excellent guide made for an excellent trip, and hopefully people like this can be the ones facilitating this mass of tourism coming. During the walk through the forest he talked about the evolution of the flora and fauna, and asked questions like whether we liked the smell of the tobacco plant, which I didn't, but I suppose that's because I don't smoke. I've attached some pics and a vid of him here (the big spiky thing is a jackfruit). The drive by the beach was especially awesome- there were a ton of skydivers and paragliders jumping off a nearby mountain. Maybe I'll try to be one this upcoming weekend.

After returning to the hostel we went out and ate another meal at Novo Republica, and then went to a soccer game at the Maracana stadium. We joked that it would have been a lot better if the beer had alcohol and it didn't end in a one-one tie. The stadium was surprisingly empty - we coudn't figure out why this was, and it looked like the ticket only cost 15 reais, even though we paid 80 at the hostel for the van ride and ticket. Dinner at the hostel was probably the best meal I've had thus far. I never knew rice and beans could taste so good. The chicken was amazing as well. It souded like the cook, Kasha (sp?), was a local woman who comes by and cooks almost every night.

On May 30 I went with some classmates on a boat trip to some nearby islands south of Rio. It was a great deal and I saw some beautiful sites. Got to go swimming off the boat, too, which was especially nice given the heat. I have some cool pics here: