Boa Tarde

This trip has been a lot of work, but a lot of fun. Sorry, still no pictures (can't read my SD card). Yesterday we met with our existing partner, interviewed a marketing candidate, and met with two potential PR agencies. I skipped dinner and just crashed. All the meetings except one were 90% in Portuguese and it is mentally exhausting to translate in my head for that long.

Today we met with three potential partners. All in Portuguese. I've gotten plenty of comments from people on my Portuguese, but I've also had times when its been really bad. One funny one (all happened in Portuguese)...This guy asked, "how did you learn Portuguese?" I said, "I lived here thirty years ago." He said, "how long did you live here?" I said, "oitenta mezes." He looks at me funny, then says, "oito mezes?" I reply, "Nao, oitenta mezes." He switches to English and says, "Eighty months?" Instead of saying "eighteen months," I had said "eighty months." I made many more mistakes, but I think most people I met with liked the fact that I tried so hard. Its rare for Brazilians to meet Americans that speak Portuguese. When I told one person that I learned as a Mormon missionary, she said "we had a great experience with a Mormon!" Turns out that one of their clients had been a Utah company that I know quite well.

Now I'm in the Delta lounge in Sao Paulo waiting on my flight. I'm excited to come home. My guess is that I'll come back sometime early next year.

One more story...most of the time we are in the middle of Sao Paulo, a city of 15 million people (Manhattan has less than 2 million), but for one meeting we were in a suburb. We had to walk a couple blocks. For whatever reason, I felt like a missionary again walking the streets. It was a "take me back" feeling.

That's it. Two posts in a short trip. Hope everyone is doing well.

Love,

Dad