First impressions

I love Brazil so far. Belo Horizonte is the 3rd largest city in Brazil with a population of 2M. It's called the Bar Capital of Brazil by the NY Times. I'm here to work with Googlers in our engineering office on a couple of projects. Last night, I enjoyed getting stuffed at a great churrascaria and later went out for caipirinhas and a jazz club.

Tonight, there was a football game between Brazil and Uruguay, rivals after the heart breaking loss in the 1950 World Cup final. Fans were paying less technical attention to the game than fans I've seen in other countries. But they for sure had a better time as the drinks kept flowing all night and the conversation between people was often louder than the announcers screaming 'Gooool'. I guess that's what happens when you have the most talented players in the world.

I had borrowed a couple of Portugese languages tapes from the library but never had a chance to listen to them. It's hopeless to try to learn a language in a week. It's certainly not as easy as understanding Spanish. Lucky for me, people think I'm a local until I have to open my mouth to speak! :)

Finally, as usual, my bag of jokes translate well after doing a s/{tork|norwegian|santa-singh|blond}/portugese (this is an inside joke for some and a puzzle for the rest of you)!