What to Bring/Buy When Moving to Brazil

One of my lovely readers, Simone, is making her way back to Brazil this week, and will be coming to São Paulo! In giving her advice as to what she should be prepared for, I completely forgot about telling her what to buy until I asked her to bring me mascara (L'Oreal Double Extend - don't know how I survived before discovering it) :-)

So I decided to write a post on what I think are important things to bring when you're saying goodbye to the US for an extended period of time, listed per category! And please let me know if you have anything to add - if there are enough comments, I'll give you all credit (just don't forget to post links to your blogs in the comment) and write up a part 2!

1. Food - A Recipe for Feeding Industrialized Foods Cravings:

- 2 boxes of Kraft Macaroni & Cheese

- 1 box of pancakes + 1 tube of maple syrup

- Movie Candy (i.e., Raisinets, Swedish Fish, & Sour Patch Kids)

- 1 box of double fudge brownie mix - There are brownies here, but they're not the same...

- 1 jar of peanut butter (jelly won't be necessary)

- Dubl Stuff Oreos & Any package of Keebler cookies

- Willy Wonka brand candies (i.e. Nerds & Laffy Taffy)

- A bottle of jack and a 6 pack of Blue Moon

- Cranberry Juice

2. Toiletries & Beauty Supplies - The Epic "CVS Run"

- Makeup Favorites - especially if you can't find them at CVS and only at Nordstrom or Sephora. This includes any and all blush, mascara, cover-up, lipstick/gloss, & facial creams.

Your favorite brands are bound to be super expensive here in Brazil, and until you figure

out which Brazilian brands you like, you'll have spent tons of $$ on the stuff you're used to if you don't bring it.

- That expensive perfume you like - Diesel, Armani, Ralph Lauren, Chanel, etc. Bring one for yourself and one for you to sell on MercadoLivre!

- Toothbrushes & Dental floss - This might be not because we never paid for dental floss in my house in the US since one of my mom's clients is a dentist, but I paid R$5 for a box the other day!

- Sunblock - but get the strong stuff because the sun here is stronger - no matter where you go.

3. Electronics - Bring as much as you can without looking like a peddler.

- Anything made by Apple - it's just not worth buying here...

- An unblocked cell phone - but first research plans here - some give you deep discounts on phones. And if you're going to bring a phone, make it a smart phone, will ya? - data plans are becoming more and more accessible (as expensive as they'll seem when you get here).

- A Laptop & Laptop Case. The laptop's a given, but I'm serious about the case. The one I paid US$20 2 years ago is R$150 here. You might want to bring a couple of those to sell too.

- If you can, ship Television sets, phones & kitchen stuff here. If money's not that much of an issue for you, don't stress it.

- Real fancy cameras & overall photo equipment.

4. Clothing & Accessories - Raid the Sales Racks

- Jeans! - I still have my parents send me Express jeans. It's tough finding a favorite brand of jeans, and if you're as "lucky," as me, they'll run you R$200 in Brazil.

- Sneakers & Athletic Gear - Get your Nike sneakers, Adidas sportswear, and North Face all in the US (and yes, if you come to São Paulo or any further south, you'll need that North Face) because the quality to price ratio here doesn't cut it!

- Stuff on Sale!! - Hit up the Forever 21, Express, H&M, Gap, Marshalls, & Outlet sales to stock up on good cheap clothes. The regular priced stuff just isn't worth your time, energy, or money. Brazil has lots of cute clothes that are fairly priced if you look for them, so if you bring clothing, make sure you paid dirt cheap for it. This counts for shoes & jewelry too.

- Kids' Clothing - If you have children, buy their clothing in the US - for some reason, baby clothes/toys, etc. is super expensive here.

5. Randoms

- Musical Instruments & Equipment

- Home decorations - Placemats, Curtains, photo frames, small vases

- Batteries (Duracell's a frickin fortune here!)

- Notebooks & folders (I saw a Staples notebook "on sale" for R$3!!! What do they cost, like, 10 cents?)

- DVDs & CDs - You know the $5 DVDs at Blockbuster & the bins at WalMart? Those...

So I know that sounds like... everything? But you'll thank me in the end :-) And if you per chance forget to bring some of this stuff, don't stress it, you'll find great substitutes (fresh fruit juice & deep fried goodness instead of cookies & mac & cheese), or find deep discounts randomly (TVs are apparently dropping 50% after the World Cup - only in Brazil...). So buy as much as you can from the list above, but don't decide to not move here if you can't, haha.

Hope this checklist helps and DO let me know if you have any input!

beijoossss.

Entertainment on the Public Transportation in São Paulo

Recently I’ve abandoned my ipod on my commute because

a. I decided to try not to get run over pay more attention to where I was walking

b. I wanted to listen to the sounds of the city :-)

c. And then when I wanted it back it stopped working… boo.

Because of this, I’ve been doing a lot of people watching and been overall observant on public transportation in SP lately. With this also comes frustrating and funny experiences… Here are a couple “public transportation” moments.

1. Since starting to take the metro to work (I used to take the train – both a 20 minute walk from my apt in opposite directions), I’ve been observing how people’s behavior differs from stop to stop. It’s really quite entertaining. I live in an upper middle class neighborhood where the stereotypical profile of residents is “bohemian/artsy, eco-friendly, politically engaged, and beer loving” (I’m clearly looking for my future husband living where I live). When you walk into the metro station, and get on the escalator, the left side is clearly for who walks up/down and the right is for who wants to just stand there. And then, to get on the train, everyone waits for whomever’s on the train to get off before getting on. For those of you who have experienced Brazilian public transportation, this is pretty cool, haha. And definitely not something I would see getting on and off the train station where I used to work (in an upper class and commercial area). And when I get off 5 stops later on the metro, I’m on Av. Paulista, the center of it all in SP. And where people come from all over the city. So you have those who walk on the left side of the escalator and those who don’t care much for whoever’s behind them. And you have people who run into you when you’re getting off the train and others who wait. This mini social experiment has made me want to study human behavior and societies even more so :-)

2. When I started school, it was great because the building was literally a couple of blocks from my job. Now, I work considerably closer to home but that much farther from school. And I get off work about 40 minutes before class starts. I was taking the bus to class and it was taking me at least an hour (so if you do the math, I’d be at least 20 minutes late). And unlike many Brazilians, I hate being late. So on Monday I decided to take the metro to a stop where there’s a free (and quick!) bus to the train station on the line that goes straight to where my class is. No traffic = Get the faster. I did the math and I’d be at most 5 minutes late if all went well… Well, it didn’t. I get to the metro station and there’s a HUGE line I wait 25 minutes in before getting on the bus. And then when I get to the train station, I get onto this packed train car which keeps getting fuller, and I honestly don’t know how that many people could physically fit in there. When it got to my stop, I was the only person getting off, and had to negotiate with the super nice people around me to TRY to switch places with me so I could get to the front of the car (btdubs, I was on the side close to the front and on one stop a slew of people was pushed in and I was taken into the car by the wave)… Long story short, I was nearly an hour late. Tuesday I took the bus again.

3.This one’s quick but funny. Last night, as I was waiting for the metro, idly looking around and observing people since I had nothing to read or dance to, I casually look to my side and catch out of the corner of my eye this guy who I’d drunkenly made out with met on Friday. You’d figure in a city of 20 million people… Of course I looked terrible – I was wearing khakis & sneakers, had my hair up and no makeup on… And when I pretend I didn’t see him, of course he comes up to me, gives me a kiss on the cheek, says hello, we chat for a minute and then he walks away and says “See ya later.” Awkward much?

These kinds of things make me not want to buy a car in São Paulo. My commute wouldn’t nearly be as entertaining. But I have decided I definitely need my ipod back to pass the time…

Do you have any funny public transportation stories or observations?

Clube Berlin & Recent Happenings!

Hey Kids!!

Alright, so I was going to write a huge post about Virada Cultural, this great annual event here in SP and was this past weekend and of which I write about every year (?), but this time around, I’ll just point to relevant posts :-)

The first is in Portuguese, and it’s my friend Gi’s blog. She was my partner in crime (and usually is my partner in crime for fun happenings) at the Virada and put together a GREAT recap of our 24 hours frolicking around downtown São Paulo and witnessing great shows and events!

The second is a post I wrote for The Portuguese Blog about Virada Cultural and Zélia Duncan, one of the artists I saw there and who I <3. There’s a video of her performing at a show in the post which shows how great her on-stage presence is!

But what I realllyyy want to talk about today is this great little bar I went to last night (I know, on a Tuesday, tsktsk). One of my new buddies from work invited me to go with him and some of his friends and I’d heard of the bar before and how it’s great for jazz and blues on Tuesday nights, but had never gone.

So I decided to risk going out on a Tuesday night and hit up Clube Berlin accompanied by quite a few handsome men (the girls were being losers last night) ;-)

The place is ADORABLE, decorated all retro-like with fun chandeliers and wallpaper.

And the band that played was incredible: Staxploitation

The DJ was even better! Made me miss my little brother who DJs and would have loved it.

(His name was DJ Waltinho Abud, I couldn't find anything on him - if anyone does, let me know? :-))

The downside was they started playing at midnight or so and we left around 1ish, because after all… it’s Tuesday.

But for those in SP City, I highly recommend hitting up Berlin in Barra Funda on a Tuesday night and inviting meee.

"My" soccer team, Cruzeiro, is playing tonight against São Paulo for the Libertadores Cup elimination round and it's my friend Dan's birthday so I'm going to the bar again, but this time I'll get home earlier - I hope!

beijosss!

How to Get into SEO

Hey kids!

First of all, thank you to all of you for the kind words and congrats on my new job :-)

I owe you all major updates - but long story short - I went to Minas for a week or so, came back and this past week was my first week working at Catho Online, and it's been great so far! It's definitely different than the agency. I have to clock in and log what I did during the day, and it's a much bigger company with bigger departments and such. The work, however, has been really great, my manager's given me a lot of responsibility up front and the coworkers whom I've met and hung out with so far are awesome!

One question a lot of people ended up asking me this week though was, "How did you get into SEO?" I mean, it's not something you really go to school for, most people have just kind of "fallen into" the field. SEO, howver, has been growing more and more and in my last post and a couple of others, readers have asked me the same thing, so I thought I'd give those interested a little 5 step guide!

1. Read, Read, Read. Read blogs, books, whatever you can get your hands on in terms of SEO. It's a field that's rapidly evolving at all times and you need to know if it's something you're willing to get into or not and if you want to keep up. You don't need to have a degree in a particular major to be an SEO (I mean, hey, I majored in International Relations!), but you do need to be internet savvy and want to learn everything from the IT to the marketing sides of the search industry.

2. Network. Since SEO is still a relatively small field, SEOs are super friendly and helpful (in general) when you have questions about strategies for your site or are just curious as to what the field is like. Good ways to network are:

- Attend conferences! There are hundreds of SEO or overall Search conferences all over the

world and you can usually find out when and where they're going on through Search blogs

or sites. And when you get there, talk to people. You're all there because you want to

learn more about search, so there's no reason not to, right?

- Join online communities related to SEO. LinkedIn, Search Engine Watch, and Google

Webmaster Central have great groups & forums that have all sorts of fun SEO discussions.

- GET ON TWITTER & LINKED IN. You have no idea how many SEO buddies I've made

on Twitter just by twitting tidbits on SEO and on LinkedIn just by having it in my profile

that I work with it or am at least interested in it.

3. Build your own site or blog. I'm guilty of not putting too much effort into my own blog (but that should be changing soon!) in terms of SEO, but if you have a site or want to put one together, try doing some of your own optimization by following ideas you read about in blogs and books, and then when you go to look for work in the field, you'll have your own little portfolio to show your future employers. Also offer to help your friends who are just starting up their own sites. And don't forget to use Google Analytics or another free analytics tool so you can track your results!

4. Look for niche job opportunity sites. IQ Workforce and SEO Jobs Finder have great listings for SEOs and Analytics jobs all over the world, the latter having a lot of entry level jobs too :-)

and finally

5. Have fun with it. SEO is a fun field to be in right now. As the internet grows, it's growing right along with it. And as search engines are changing, so's the field. So like I said before, make sure you're up for the challenge, but at the same time, don't kill yourself doing it. You want to do something you love!

I know this wasn't one of my regularly themed posts, but since so many people were asking about it and I'm on fire after this week, I thought I'd share.

beijoosss!