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!

Forget Travel Buddies - Hit the Road Alone

This article is fantastic. I decided to copy (steal) it and publish it here. I wish I had written this. It's so true!! Well, enjoy it... the bold parts are mine. My "rite of passage" was back in 1998, 11 years ago, during a 7 weeks trip into Bolivia and Peru together with 2 friends from college. My life has never been the same since then.

Myself traveling in China, alone, April 2008

You don’t need anyone to hold your hand.

Written by RoadJunky, published at Road Junky Travel, yesterday.

One of the great things about the Internet is that it’s brought travelers together; in forums and on social networks, backpackers and vagabonds can share experiences and tips, discover new places and ask questions about destinations they’ve yet to hit.

But in the end, the only real travel is done alone.

When you head out on the road by yourself there’s no longer anyone around to define you, no one who knows your personal history, no one who knows where you’ve been and where you’re going. You’re forced into the Now.

And unless you make the mistake of carrying a GPS phone and check into internet cafes every ten minutes to report back to friend and family, you digest your experiences by yourself. There’s no one to hold your hand when you get scared, no one’s shoulder to cry on when things go wrong. There’s no childhood buddy to help you decipher the train timetables and no one to introduce you to the cool bunch of travelers sitting at the other end of the hostel.

Travel should be a rite of passage, a sacred journey, a vision quest. It’s about leaving behind the cloying emotional support system of family and friends and learning to stand on your own two feet. Then, later on, you’ll be able to support others in their time of need.

Although we do our best to deny it, filling all our quiet moments with Messenger updates and shuffled tracks on the Ipod, life itself is actually pretty scary. It’s a blank slate for you to make what you will of it and no where is that more true than when you travel. You could get lost or injured, you might get married or change religion. You might even die: the greatest journey of all and one which is almost certainly a solo trip.

You can only find yourself on your own terms and that’s why just about everyone should leave home and head out on the road for a year. Your prejudices and values will be challenged, you’ll have to get by on your wits and find out who you really are.

Compare such a voyage of self-discovery with the gaggles of school leavers who head off i groups of 5, all armed with Eurorail cards and guidebooks, collectively bumbling their way from train station to hostel to local bar and back again. Each time something out of the ordinary happens they shrink back into the safety of the herd and they carry with them a mini-world from home with them as they go. Why did they bother leaving in the first place?

When you travel alone you’ll meet more people and move at your own pace. Sure, you’ll team up from time to time with other travelers and find yourself sharing a train carriage with an Israeli, a Finn and a couple of locals. Spontaneity and variety are what it’s all about.

Hitting the road alone you’ll grow in ways you never imagined. You’ll experience stuff that your friends and family will never be able to understand.

And nor should they. It’s your trip and it’s entirely up to you to make sense of it.

The Dash (a poem)

The Dash (Copyright Linda Ellis 1996)

I read of a man who stood to speak
at the funeral of a friend.
He referred to the dates on her tombstone
from the beginning... to the end.
He noted that first came the date of her birth
and spoke of the following date with tears,
but he said what mattered most of all
was the dash between those years.
For that dash represents all the time
that she spent alive on earth.....

So, when your eulogy is being read
with your life's actions to rehash...
would you be proud of the things they
say about how you spend your dash?

I'm going to Antarctica!!

Today I got some news that made me jump from the chair, and I still can't stop laughing and dreaming, even 10 hours later... so I decided to write about it!

I applied last November to the BP-sponsored Expedition Antarctica, where 50 students from all around the world will gather in Ushuaia and travel to Antarctica, over one week, from 25th of March until 5th of April. The goal is to explore and "see" the changes and challenges to our planet happening, and together "act" upon it. Well, not that I need to see Antarctica to believe we are in deep s**t, and yes, probably BP is also contributing to it (not alone, of course), but the opportunity to visit the most remote continent in the world (which only reminds my inspiration Amyr Klink), and connect with (potentially) 50 other people like me is what makes me jump from the chair.

I didn't get in when the final results were announced, in December. The e-mail from today was an invitation for a few extra participants... "In discussion with advisers such as Peter Senge, we have decided to extend a number of invitations to candidates who have demonstrated particular credentials in the area of youth or student networks, or organisations dedicated to exploring innovation and change especially related to climate, energy and inter-related issues."

I also found out that Max Oliva is one of the participants, which means a great start!! :D

Peter Senge is advising on the project, which is led by polar explorer Robert Swan.

I can't say how happy I am!!!!

Powerpoint

I got this message from a friend. It reminded of so many PPTs that I have seen (and have made myself). In a simple way, this is so true, the naked truth. Keep your eyes closed if you prefer, and enjoy your Christmas shopping! :P

Originally published here.

Click here to read Google's translation...


Vou fazer um slideshow para você.
Está preparado? É comum, você já viu essas imagens antes.
Quem sabe até já se acostumou com elas.
Começa com aquelas crianças famintas da África.
Aquelas com os ossos visíveis por baixo da pele.
Aquelas com moscas nos olhos.
Os slides se sucedem.
Êxodos de populações inteiras.
Gente faminta.
Gente pobre.
Gente sem futuro.
Durante décadas, vimos essas imagens.
No Discovery Channel, na National Geographic, nos concursos de foto.
Algumas viraram até objetos de arte, em livros de fotógrafos renomados.
São imagens de miséria que comovem.
São imagens que criam plataformas de governo.
Criam ONGs.
Criam entidades.
Criam movimentos sociais.
A miséria pelo mundo, seja em Uganda ou no Ceará, na Índia ou em
Bogotá sensibiliza.
Ano após ano, discutiu-se o que fazer.
Anos de pressão para sensibilizar uma infinidade de líderes que se
sucederam nas nações mais poderosas do planeta.
Dizem que 40 bilhões de dólares seriam necessários para resolver o
problema da fome no mundo.
Resolver, capicce?
Extinguir.
Não haveria mais nenhum menininho terrivelmente magro e sem futuro, em
nenhum canto do planeta.
Não sei como calcularam este número.
Mas digamos que esteja subestimado.
Digamos que seja o dobro.
Ou o triplo.
Com 120 bilhões o mundo seria um lugar mais justo.
Não houve passeata, discurso político ou filosófico ou foto que sensibilizasse.
Não houve documentário, ong, lobby ou pressão que resolvesse.
Mas em uma semana, os mesmos líderes, as mesmas potências, tiraram da cartola 2.2 trilhões de dólares (700 bi nos EUA, 1.5 tri na Europa) para salvar da fome quem já estava de barriga cheia.

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