Johannesburg should have prepared me for crazy big city, but there’s crazy and crazy. And Sao Paulo is definitely on the top of the scale. Well, my very first contact, at the tourist information in the airport, was actually very nice. Then buying the ticket for the airport shuttle bus into the city brought the immediate realization that even in tourist-heavy places English is no option. And high tolerance for weird bureaucratic procedures, reminding me of Italy, is essential. The first bus on my line was half empty, but I had been sold a ticket for the next one, and wouldn’t be let onto the first one to leave… By the way, I think Sao Paulo has the largest Italian population of any place outside Italy.

Well, the more difficult the official way of things is, the more nice people you always encounter to smooth your way. The entry to the apartment complex of my first host already familiarized me with the security procedures which seem intense even after Johannesburg. I was waiting to be picked up in between two electric fences, a moat-like structure, where the two gates would never be opened at the same time. So this is my first picture:

[…]

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