Earthquake! And True Italian Food...

I'm in Parma, Italy, this week, 25mi from last night quake epicenter! 6 degrees strong, 7 people died! Some beautiful nearby old buildings are cracked, specially in Bologna. I hope the Italian people can find a way to restore them. At Parma's Duomo, where I am now, everything is fine.

Let's go to dinner now! Yesterday I had tortelli di mortadella, grigliata mista, tiramisù and Nero D'Avola wine. Excellent! And everything for less than 40 euro in a renowned place with only 6 tables. Very exclusive...

The best Italian restaurants in São Paulo are light-years behind! That's not a surprise for me, since most São Paulo chefs at Italian restaurants are from northern Brazil and they carry their influences from their native land and not from Italy.

In January, by the way, the most prestigious Parma restaurant, La Greppia, boasted a truffle festival. Five courses meal plus fine red wine for 76 euro (all included). At the same time, Fasano Italian restaurant in São Paulo had its own truffle festival for R$690, NOT including parking, taxes, wine, water etc... The cover is 6 times pricier than the original thing. And, for who that doesn't know it, Parma region is the top place to get the top Italian food on Earth...

Not so Brazilian Things Perceived as Brazilian by Expats

I love reading expat blogs and their daily discoveries. Maybe because I like to share my own experiences as well.

Whenever I go to some new place, I almost immediately get that feeling I'm not in Kansas anymore... It's inevitable to compare the new surroundings with the places I was before. For each new experience, I wonder if it is a typical local one or not.

But what makes a typical local experience? Being locally developed? Taking place just locally? Being free of foreign influence?

Born Again Brazilian has been writing an extensive list of Brazilian experiences. Over 100 for now! One can find many other Brazilian experiences in other expat blogs. Nevertheless, I've noticed some experiences are not so "Brazilian"...

So I decided to make a list of things perceived as Brazilians by expats, but not not found only in Brazil or not native from Brazil.

THE LIST (PART I)!

1. Not refrigerated eggs in supermarkets. Yes, eggs are sold not refrigerated in Brazil, but not only here! Eggs are sold not refrigerated in Italy too, for example...

2. Passion fruit mousse. Passion fruit, or maracujá, is very Brazilian, but mousse is French. Yet I think passion fruit mousse is a Brazilian creation, you can find it in France (mousse aux fruits de la passion)!

3. Pavê. Very popular in Brazil, it's a French dessert with a French name (pavé).

4. Hot dogs for breakfast. Commonly found in Brazilian hotels' buffets, and nowhere else! Brazilians think Americans have hot dogs for breakfast, so they serve them at hotels...

5. Sweetened condensed milk. It's a Swiss invention by Nestlé. In 1893 Nestlé opened the first factory in Cham, Switzerland, to market the first condensed milk, MILKMAID. Brazil has the highest consumption of sweetened condensed milk worldwide, however. It seems the Brazilians have been the most creative people worldwide in developing condensed milk recipes!

6. UHT milk. Ultra High Temperature processed milk. It's very popular all over the world. The only exception is the US. It can last up to 6 months with no refrigeration, until opened.

Common Sense

So you moved to Brazil, the land of samba, tiny bikinis and so on... Once in Brazil, social behavior, family relations, general attitude towards sex, the food, the overwhelming red tape, the human diversity etc., all of them seem so strange, different and new that you don't know if your hardly developed common sense still applies.

Well, there may be some striking differences between your home country and your new home...

But, be sure: if your common sense says some situation is wrong, strange or very unusual, probably it is! 90% of the time, the same standards apply to Brazil, the US and Europe. At least, if you stay in the more developed and cosmopolitan centers...

Read this post from Jana and you'll know what I'm talking about!
http://mypaperplains.blogspot.com.br/2012/04/crazier-things-have-happened.html

Are Brazilians Latinos?

Of course we are, at least if Latino means Latin American!

I'm always puzzled by some American doubts! Here in Brazil, people unaware of US made definitions and succeeding cultural dilemmas, call Latino any culture or people whose language has Latin as its major influence.

My personal perception is that the US made definitions of LATINO and HISPANIC are just bad generalizations, just like GRINGO is a Latin American one. Why? Because Latino and Hispanic are neither races, nor cultures. In fact, Latin America is a geographic definition: Brazil plus all Spanish speaking countries in the American Continent.

While you stick to North American stereotypes (trying to find more or less common ground from Rio Grande to Ushuaya), you will be in doubt for ever...

Car Thefts in São Paulo x US

I was so sure that Brazil had a much higher car theft rate than the one in the US...

Then I did an online research and what have I found out?
It depends on what you drive and where you are!

The Brazilian Private Insurance Supervision Board (SUSEP -- www.susep.gov.br) publish car theft statistics every semester. The results are available online and are very reliable, since they come from the insurance companies and not from local police departments. The statistics cover only insured vehicles and theft rate per 100 vehicles per semester is presented for each Brazilian region and car model. In São Paulo, there are roughly 1 car per 2 persons, so the theft rate per 100 people per year is approximately the same. One can suppose also that the same rate applies to insured and not insured vehicles as well.

The US data I retrieved from Wikipedia at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_cities_by_crime_rate.

And the winner is...
Of course, Brazil has more car thefts, BUT depending on WHERE you are and WHAT you drive, Brazil may be safer than the US. Believe me...

Some results. If you live in:
1. Detroit, there are 1,400 car thefts / 100,000 people per year.
2. Los Angles, there are 450 car thefts / 100,000 people per year.
3. The São Paulo state countryside and have a Citroen C4 (as I have one), the car theft rate for this car model is only 180 thefts / 100,000 people per year. VERY civilized! Very low even for US standards...
4. São Paulo capital and have an affordable, compact car (like VW Gol), the theft rate can be as high as 2,500 thefts / 100,000 people. WOW! That's dangerous and compact cars are more than 50% of São Paulo's fleet!!
5. São Paulo capital and have a Ford Focus, the car theft rate is below 1,000 car thefts / 100,000 people per year. Better than Detroit!
6. São Paulo capital and have a Toyota Corolla (an average car for US standards), the car theft rate is below 800 car thefts / 100,000 people per year. Not worse than many US cities!

I was almost forgetting: car theft rates in Rio are 30% to 50% higher than those in São Paulo...

So now you have a choice: buy a cheap car and get robbed at gun point and loose your property or buy a more expensive one and get carjacked!

So Many Years Reading Expat Blogs...

And now I decided to start my own blog. Why? To give my contribution to the community. I always read posts I would like to talk about. So, from now on, I'm going beyond the comments sections. I would like to find your comments here too. Bem vindos!