Making it work

I was going to post a very cool bit about my recent fling with French Onion Soup. I have pics and everything.

But for some reason I cannot get the pics off our camera and onto my computer. I just did this a month ago with our Peru pics, but now the wires don't fit. WTF?

So instead you get my mini rant and another thought.

Life has been good and Luiz is thriving. (Me too, for that matter.) Everything except the camera has been great.

One observation here at home is that I can tell the time by the sound of the traffic outside our window. Speaking about after dark...

Laying in bed, trying to sleep, I know the time by the sounds I hear.

It's not yet 1:00 until the adolescent chatter calms across the street at the pizzaria,

It is 2:00 when I hear the soft (yet quite audible) rumble of plastic wheels of a small army of night shift street cleaning workers rolling by with their trash containers, on their way to their stations.

Just about 2:30 the private trash pickup company pulls up to the restaurant across the street. For a good 20 minutes we are treated to the sound of clanging trash containers and the mechanics of a truck compacting its load. Nice...

Then on most nights - Friday and Saturday excepted - we have relative quiet from about 3:00 - 5:00.

Starting at 5:00 the busses start their rotation. Now, I love me some busses. They are my saving grace when I want to go anywhere. But we have somthing like 10 different bus lines passing in front of our apartment. That's good when you want to go somewhere, but not so good when you want to sleep.

So I don't need an alarm clock. But the good part is I have no reason to wake up early. I just roll over and let the sounds wash over me until I am ready to get up and take a walk along the beach.

Why we don´t own a car

When we lived in San Francisco we first had one car each, then later sold off one and just had our little wagon. Even that was a hassle, with no off-street parking. We got occasional tickets for parking during street cleaning times. But it was actually more car than we needed.

Luiz and I are city folk. We walk. We take the bus. We ask our friends for a lift. We occasionally take a taxi. We do not envy car owners.

When we travel we take busses or planes. No problem. Busses in Brazil are NOTHING like Greyhound in the US. Nothing. Very comfortable and safe.

Our apartment location is PERFECT for all our daily needs - AND we have about 15 bus lines that pass within three blocks that can take us to either our nearby friends´ or to numerous spots in Rio, or elsewhere.

Even better [sic] is Luiz´s free bus pass for him and a companion (that would be me) because of his chronic health situation. So we pay nothing to use the bus.

Buying a car in Brazil is not only fraught with peril - it is rediculously expensive (not to mention the price of parking, taxes, insurance -- and gas!) We prefer to put the $$ in our travel pig and make an adventure.

More details about the perils of buying a car in Brazil here.

Buses and bundãos

One big improvement of late among the various urban bus fleets here is the law requiring all buses to be accessible to the disabled by 2012.  You can see the transformation in process.  One by one new buses are coming online with wheelchair lifts and special seating.

Yesterday, when returning from Luiz’s doctor appointment I enjoyed a little more space without my butt straddling two bucket seats. (yes, I am wider than a typical bus seat.  Two of me could not sit next to my selves.)  Now the special seating has been extended to gordinhos.  Really.  My very own double-wide single-cushion seat on the bus.

There is even a new decal on the window above the seat that legitimizes one person occupying the whole seat.

Sad but true.  Brazilians (along with some expats) are getting fatter, such that now public accommodation law includes consideration for the morbidly obese.

Driving and congestion

Anyone who has traveled the roads of Brazil knows that they are dangerous, filled with scofflaw drivers in the extreme. The number of traffic accidents seems to climb to ever higher levels each year over holiday weekends.

There are some people in our circle of friends with whom I refuse to be a passenger in their car. They drive too dangerously and refuse to slow down or stop weaving in and out of fast moving traffic. Sorry, I would rather take the bus.

Busses have a reputation for being driven by crazy drivers as well (municipal as well as inter-municipal) but I have to say that in the past 10 years or so I have noticed a big improvement in safety on inter-municipal busses: slower speeds, less aggressive maneuvering, etc. I feel safe traveling by bus.

Given the growth of the middle class, the greater access to consumer credit and the government’s tax holiday on car purchases, Brazil has seen a real explosion in personal car ownership in recent years. This has definitely translated into way more cars on the road and heavy traffic.

[This classic photo of gridlock in São Paulo makes the rounds whenever this topic comes up. Click to enlarge.]

When you combine all these cars with minimal road capacity PLUS drivers who see no reason not to use the shoulder as an additional lane, or to turn right from the center lane, you’ve got trouble. Congestion is a serious problem in urban areas.

But then I saw this article about a traffic jam in China that has been going on for 9 days (and counting) and stretches more than 100 kilometers. I thought we had it bad.

Uh oh - we do have it that bad.  This morning's news reports 99 kilometers of congestion in São Paulo due to an accident.  Oh well, at least there will be vendors walking between the lanes selling biscuits and beverages.