Orr Fellowship - Brazil (Day 4: State Department & free afternoon)

Oi,

     Thursday we heard from David Arnold, the Environmental Science Health and Safety officer stationed by the U.S State Department in Sao Paulo. His primary function is to track, understand and report the economic/business climate of Brazil to Washington. From his findings, the necessary appropriations are made to capitalize on our stately relations with Brazil. It was interesting hearing his take on Brazil's economy (7th in the world, projected 5th after next year's World Cup is hosted here). They have a far greater disparity in wealth distribution that we do in the U.S and the state of Sao Paulo accounts for 40% of it. The Sao Paulo consulate is the largest US-visa throughput in the world. Interestingly, because of the Brazil Cost referenced from "Day 2", Brazilians travel to the U.S (often Miami or Disney) and spend $6B on consumer goods that would be much more expensive in Sao Paulo, Rio, etc. David has lived an interesting life starting with the Peace Corps out of college which landed him in a very remote area of Honduras, then into the U.S State Department for two years in Columbia executing visa interviews, then Mozambique as an eCommerce officer, Kabul for 13 mos., and now Sao Paulo.

After our meeting with David, we had a free afternoon. In that time, a group of us headed back to Ibirapuera Park for a good jog, a light workout and frisbee capped off with a maracuja (passionfruit)smoothie. Late lunch put us at a pizza place close to our hotel where a group of 11 tore through 5 large, interesting pizzas with everything from egg and proscuito to tomato and pineapple.

Thursday night got a little out of control with us all taking the subway to an area of Sao Paulo that would've compared to Broad Ripple in Indy, with a strip of bars for us to enjoy as a group. We never found that area, but we did establish ourselves as a solid 75% of some other divebar's revenue. We shot quarters and shared family/school/work stories as the hours rolled on and found ourselves back to the hotel all accounted for around 12:30am.

Obrigado,
Barry