Biking in São Paulo

I should write about Antarctica, about my final project at the Kaospilots, about my Magic Kombi and about Wind People, or even about my "facing my fears" climbing experience last weekend, but instead I rather talk about BIKES! Bikes in São Paulo!

The motivation: I love biking and I've done it since I was a child. A bit hidden from my parents, who would naturally advised me against, while in reality I was happily building self-confidence in exploring my hometown, Porto Alegre. I loved it. It was dangerous. I moved to São Paulo and continued doing so, without realizing the crazyness of such an attitude. Then, Amsterdam (Netherlands) and Aarhus (Denmark), and the "bikeland", the two most bike-friendly countries in the world. I had reached Paradise :)

Four years later, back to São Paulo, I was going for a 20min ride from Vila Mariana to Bela Vista this morning, crossing one of the main avenues in Brazil, Avenida Paulista, and I met Marcia:

An article on TreeHugger explained: "Márcia Regina de Andrade Prado [40 years-old] was a well-known bike activist who was run-down by a bus last January 14 (2009). Her accident exposed one more time the fragile situation of bikers in large cities and caused great mobilization among the Sao Paulo's bikers." Quite shocking and real!

Another cool website and some background info on biking in São Paulo...

• São Paulo has 6 million vehicles (3 times more than in 1980)
  
• There were 262km of traffic jams in 2008
• Being inside a car in the middle of a traffic jam is 2 to 4 times more damaging for health (pollution) than biking in the same situation
• There are 30km of cycle paths in São Paulo, for 250.000 bikes
  
• One citizen dies every 4 days biking in São Paulo (84 people in 2006)
  

As the CriticalMass movement states (Bicicletada.org in Brazil): (Each bike means) one less car! I recommend reading the Manifest of the Invisibles before calling me crazy, and for a better understanding of what the whole thing is about!

Join the movement... control what you can!

Two tales of a City

The opening lines of the book "A Tale of Two Cities" by Charles Dickens (1859)
go like that:

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times,

it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness,

it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity,

it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness,

it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair,

we had everything before us, we had nothing before us,

we were all going direct to Heaven, we were all going direct

the other way--in short, the period was so far like the present

period, that some of its noisiest authorities insisted on its

being received, for good or for evil, in the superlative degree

of comparison only. (*)

My story is by far less tragic than the French Revolution, but it still has its
charm and drama - I guess. I'm back to Amsterdam, after 3 years, this time for a short
2-month period, until Christmas.

I'm working for the Global Reporting Initiative, starting-off a research on CSR
"landscape", trends and hubs at national and regional level. In my short period I'm in charge
of seeting up the methodology and research on Latin America.

When I arrived I thought my life would be simple, easy and fun - just like when I arrived 3 years ago, which actually also marks the beginning of this blog!!

In 3 years, most of my friends have moved away, or got very busy into their careers. Housing in Amsterdam became much more complicated and expensive. The banks and authorities seem much more bureaucratic then never. Albert Heijn is so boring. De Heffer gatherings do not exist anymore. Nice girls got boyfriends, fiancés and husbands. Yes, the city has changed, but more important than that - I have changed! A LOT over the last three years.

I go to different bars, I listen to different music, I hang out with different people, I eat different food. How can we change so much and be the same person at the same time? I start to realize that I'm more of myself, each day, and to be conscious about that evolution is a revolution by itself! Scary eh? Yeah, sometimes... hard to understand? Yeah, sometimes...

Amsterdam will always be one of my favourite cities, a kind of tricky place that feels like an extremely comfortable couch. You love it, but you might fall sleep too easily. Amsterdam has a similar effect in people: the easygoing, laid back, relaxed and fairly safe atmosphere needs to be balanced with excitement, risks, emotions and danger, in order to keep someone awake (in life) - oh well, in January I'm back in Denmark, back to the Kaospilots, for my last 6 months in the roller coaster! :P


(*) Freely available by the Project Gutenberg:
http://www.gutenberg.org/files/98/98.txt

1 month gone, 1 month to go

Half of my time in Brazil has passed already. Very fast, as I expected. Today is Friday, I can hear the helicopters flying all around Avenida Paulista ("the Brazilian Wall Street"), and in a few hours I'm flying to my hometown, see my family, a few friends and relax.

The days at the bank have been interesting. We have had a lot of meetings and hours of discussions. As the topics of the project are quite abstract, it was not a waste of time, but necessary for creating a shared understanding and a common "working language". During the first week, we spent one day at The Hub São Paulo (ver inspiring space) defining our Purpose and Principles, using Dee Hock's chaordic model. Five weeks later the project has a much better defined shape and we are ready to invite potential partners to join in and create a real network. I learned a lot about the methodology of Co-Creation, and I even facilitated a presentation/training for the Human Development area last week. They loved it and I felt quite comfortable about it.

Besides that, I've been practicing Yoga two or three times a week (offered by the bank for the employees, from 6.30-7.30pm), getting used to longer lunch hours (1h-1h30min) and longer office hours (no earlier than 6pm), and lack of coffee (I reduced the amount of coffee consumed in 95%).

Meanwhile I start to plan my year ahead at the Kaospilot, my third and final year. I need to find a host organization for my internship in October-December, and define my final project (Feb-May 2009). At last but not least, find a way to raise some money to pay Ove, the school money man :)

Clonado no orkut!!! (impersonified!!!)

(no version in English this time...)

Gurizada, essa é de rir pra não chorar... dilemas da vida cibernética-pós-moderna. Fui clonado. Minha identidade usada de forma ilegal, crime de falsa identidade, nessa vida virtual. E o pior, já é a terceira vez em que isso me acontece!!

Alguém criou um perfil do Orkut usando uma(s) foto(s) minha(s)... confira aqui! Como já pedi pra Google cancelar o perfil, ele desaparacerá em breve, por isso gostaria de copiar aqui a introdução do rapaz - sugestivamente chamado "Henrique Raniere"...

Sou romântico, quase um amante a moda antiga, como diz a música do Rei... "do tipo q ainda manda flores"...
Sou do tipo q se apega facilmente as pessoas.
Sou calmo, tranquilo,fiel, não sou muito ciumento, só cuido daquilo q amo e q me é importante.
Sou um pouco tímido, mas estou aberto a novas amizades.
No momento, estou solteiro, e a procura da mulher q vai me conquistar e preencher minha vida por completo. Sei q é difícil, mas sou paciente e sei q ela está por perto. Estou muito carente... alguém se habilita??? (risos)
Sou muito ligado a minha familia e acho q isso é a base de tudo, e tudo q tenho e sou eu devo inteiramente a eles.
Tenho bom humor... mas sem exageros.
Trabalho muito, mas sempre arrumo tempo para me dedicar a pessoa q estiver do meu lado, aos meus amigos, e aos meus passatempos prediletos.
Acho q é isso!
Vlw

É brincadeira, né? Coisa de pentelho cheio de espinhas na cara. O pior é saber que ele tinha mais de 100 "amigos" e uns 40 e tantos FÃS!!! E eu!??

Ainda em 2006 minha amiga Licia encontrou um "Henrique Paulo Vedana", que foi desmascarado antes de poder fazer muitas amizades (embora ele tivesse até testemunhos!). Há um ano atrás, foi a vez do "Sr. Vedana", denunciado por um internauta Baiano "detetive particular", que também me advertiu sobre um sujeito do Acre estar usando a minha foto para seduzir gurias num desses sites de namoro online... sujeito bacana, né? (O Baiano, claro!)

Dessa vez foi minha futura hóspede pelo couchsurfing, que apesar de ser uma guria inteligente e interessante, deixou-se levar pelas palavras doces do solteiro Henrique... reconheceu as semelhanças, pensou que Raniere era meu nome do meio, me avisou, e ainda deve estar em dúvida sobre quem roubou as fotos de quem! ;-)

A foto maldita...


Essa foto foi tirada pela Laura, no inverno gaúcho de 2005. Eu estava gripado tomando um chimas em Santa Maria (dá pra ver a Roberta ao fundo) com velhos amigos. Dois meses depois eu estava embarcando pra Holanda e criei esse blog veds.nomadlife.org para documentar a experiência no exterior... e dei upload dessa foto como teste >>>

E não é que o Google Images "tagueou" a minha cara de doente, e todas as pessoas procurando por fotos de chimarrão passaram a ver a minha lata. Algumas pessoas, que hoje acabaram sendo amigas minhas, me adicionaram no MSN ou mandaram e-mail. Outras pessoas usaram minha foto em PPTs, sites de namoro, Orkut e outras coisas mais... até sobrinho da Mãe Elô eu virei!!!

Não quero assustar ninguém, mas é fato... caiu na rede, é peixe. Botou coisa na Internet, é imprevisível o que pode acontecer. Pra bom e pra ruim. Muitas coisas boas já me sucederam por ter um perfil no Orkut, no Couchsurfing, no Linked-in, no Flickr, além dos blogs no nomadlife.org... mas tudo faz parte dessa nova era e dos seus dilemas...


E ae, já deixou recado pro Henrique Raniere? Vai lá, pode sacanear a vontade... :D

AIESEC, always there

Being in Shanghai is not only a "dejavù" of São Paulo (see previous post) but also a dejavù of Amsterdam. The reason is AIESEC. Although I left the organization as an active member in 2005, 2.5 years ago, nobody can say we "leave AIESEC"... it's always there. Some people don't make use of it, but it's always there.

Before leaving Denmark I contacted some old AIESEC friends like Jingwei Zhou (which was president of AIESEC in China while I was president in Brazil) and she sent me to the local AIESEC list and connected me to other people in town. As we arrived in Shanghai and the Spring Holidays ended, the gang reunited. Over 20 interns, dozens of Chinese AIESECers and dozens of "friends", or people who became part of the network because they knew AIESECers somehow.

The traditional "De Heffer" Monday night drinks are replaced in great style by "Zapatas" free drinks Monday night - and the regulars even become known as Zapatarians ;-). Wednesday is ladies' night at Barbarossa, Thursday fuss ball night at Tequilaz and weekend partying :) Of course I'm not an intern anymore, as I used to be (a rich abn intern by the way ;-)) I have to be very careful with my limited budget...

Zapatas last Monday - Feb.18

Besides the social events, many interesting connections and opportunities also come from the network... it makes me feel quite proud to see such openness and curiosity among interns and alumni anywhere we go.

AIESEC, always there.

Chinese New-Years... the year of the RAT!

Last Wednesday evening we celebrated Chinese New-Years, as part of the Spring Holidays in China. I didn't know much what to expect, after spending New-Years eve in 5 different countries in my life.

First of all, Spring Holidays is "THE" holidays in China. For two weeks, over 300.000.000 (yes, 3 hundred million) people go back home to see their families. As people work a lot in China and many of them live far away from home, this is the only opportunity in the year to see family. For that reason as well the snow storms last weeks were so devastating, because it made most trains and airports slow down or close while millions were on their trips.

New-Years eve seems to be like Christmas eve in Brazil, a moment for the family-at-large get together and eat a lot. In our case here in Shanghai, we also had a fantastic dinner, but with bunches of internationals and expatriates who didn't go home or didn't spend time with Chinese friends (which is also something not very common, but I will write about that later when I figure out more on that).

After dinner we went to a local club for the party, and at around mid-night we went outside to see the fireworks and firecrackers. I must admit that I prefer the Brazilian version, it's noisier and more beautiful, usually. What called my attention was the risks involved with setting up fireworks and firecrackers in the streets, by local Chinese people, while taxis try to go around and people cover their ears for the noise and try to protect themselves against possible accidents. The whole street looked like a war zone with bombs, smoke, fire and people running all around... peaceful, happy but still not very safe, at all...

Later on after a couple of hours I got tired of the music and expensive drinks and together with some colleagues we found a private party, someone met someone and there we went, partying at this amazing flat in a rich building, rented by a French guy who is the marketing manager for another famous top club in town. We left his home at 7 in the morning when the sun was rising, and the year of the rat was just starting...

Last night I was trying to go to sleep, and I was surprised by the fireworks and firecrackers outside... really noisy, actually it seemed even more than during new-years eve... today we asked and indeed it was more noisy. The logic behind is that Chinese people celebrate the 5th day of the new-year (as part of the spring holidays) as much as new-years eve, and by setting up fireworks they "welcome the new to arrive"... so now I can say the year has started!! Or maybe I misunderstood the whole point, which by the way might be very possible :P

Anybody have seen the film Lost in Translation...?? Yeah, that's me!

Shanghai? What the f... are you doing there????

I have arrived in Shanghai yesterday afternoon and I realized I "forgot" to tell some people about it. Not nice... :D

I came here to spend three months, until end of April, and this is part of my Education at the Kaospilots. Every class of students (called Team) goes abroad for three months during their 4th semester, with the goal of exploring new trends and movements outside Europe. Previously the Kaospilots have been to Durban in South Africa after the end of the apartheid, in San Francisco during the Internet boom, Havana and Vancouver. This year the choice was Shanghai, China, with the overall purpose of studying and researching Social Innovation.

Shanghai is believed to be a "mover" in this early 21st century, capable of create changes that would influence east and west societies. Sort of London, New York, Paris of this new millennium... with over 18 million people and being the financial and economical capital of China, host of the World EXPO 2010, we can assume this statement might become true. Anyway, many challenges and many opportunities, and a bunch of young creative hippies from Scandinavia are here to find out - and publish it - in the 12 weeks...

Besides researching on Social Innovation, we will be working for 4 weeks on projects with local clients, which gives both funds to travel to China and also opportunities to work together with Chinese people and learn with them. The project I'm involved with is together with HaPe International, a toy company who has created a unique line of products based on bamboo. Our task is to use our creativity and idea development capabilities and create a new toy for their 2009 catalog, using sustainable materials such as bamboo, cotton, wood... very challenging and pretty interesting task. We will have the chance to visit their factory, their research & development department and even the Anji bamboo Forest near Shanghai.

I made a promise to write at least once a week in this blog, and I am sure I will have a lot to write about. Keep in touch, more to come... :)

Life at Mejlgade street

I got used to be a nomad in Århus, and I'm learning to carry less and less, only the necessary goes with me. Of course I would like to have a place I call "home" for a longer period, but rent is expensive to keep when you are always traveling around. Living rooms and couches became "home" and they will continue to be for the next two years!

Last week I moved again, I think it was the 7th or 8th time in one year I live here. I live together with Daniel, the current LCP of AIESEC UNI - yes, again, AIESEC helping me...

The interesting part is that my daily life got reduced to 200 meters... I live, work and study in the same street: Mejlgade, which also comes to be the oldest street in Århus - over one thousand years old!!

"The original city [of Århus] grew up around the mouth of the Århus Å river. Here the Vikings decided to settle because of the location's excellent potential as a harbour and trading position. The Danish word for "river mouth" was at that time "AROS", and this is the word from which "Århus" of today originates. During the Viking Age a cluster of houses along the river up to Immervad and down to the Mejlgade street constituted a small urban community encircled by an earthen rampart and a moat." (VisitAarhus.com)

I live at number 5, last floor with an amazing sunny terrace (able to climb up to the roof)

I study at the backyard of number 35, Kaospilots.

And and work at the number 24, cleaning a cool bar called Ris Ras. It's easy and I do it in the morning before going to class. The benefits includes "under the table" cash, free (good) coffee and very cheap beers, besides lots of nice staff.

But this is only for this month, in October I'll spend two weeks in Copenhagen and perhaps go to Brazil until January!