Brazil - Travel with Samantha

Have you ever wondered what it is like to uproot your life and move to an entirely different country? Join us on a refreshing  journey with our guest, Samantha, an attorney who shares her experience of relocating  her fully remote law firm to Brasilia, Brazil.   We get a taste of Brazilia's architectural genius, masterfully designed by Oscar Nehemiah and recognized as a UNESCO World Heritage Site.  From there, we virtually venture into the captivating city of Salvador, rich with West African culture and brimming with history.

Next, we whisk you away on a virtual exploration of some of Samantha's favorite  traditional Brazilian dishes. We then end with a fun discussion on some of the unique Brazilian customs and the adrenaline-packed experience of surfing on the many beautiful beaches. Trust us, this stimulating conversation with Samantha is one you don't want to miss!

Find Samantha:
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Inline Legal website

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:15

Hi, welcome to our podcast. We're Next Travel with Kristin and Carol. I am Kristin and I am Carol, and we're two long-term friends with a passion for travel and adventure. In each episode, we interview people around the globe to help us decide where to go next. Welcome, Samantha, calling in to talk about Brazil today. Thank you so much for joining we're Next Podcast.

Speaker 2: 0:40

Thank you so much for having me.

Speaker 1: 0:41

So how do we have the pleasure? I'm just meeting you for the first time and I don't know the history. How did we end up connecting you on our podcast?

Speaker 2: 0:50

The wonderful world of the Internet.

Speaker 1: 0:53

Fantastic.

Speaker 2: 0:56

So did you find us.

Speaker 1: 0:57

Did we find you? Carol and I found each other. Oh nice, it was on a podcast networking club, uh-huh.

Speaker 2: 1:04

Exactly. They have a networking event every month for podcast hosts and podcast guests. I happen to be both of them. You guys bounce around too, so it's just a fun community of people and Carol and I I don't know we started chatting about everything. You get a few seconds to introduce yourself and generally I go around on podcasts to talk about my law firm, but the end of the introduction I'm like you know, my my cats beat diabetes and cancer in the past two years because of the really affordable healthcare in Brazil and Carol was like wait, hang on Brazil.

Speaker 2: 1:37

I'm like oh yeah, I live there.

Speaker 1: 1:41

So wait, you said your cat has. You said diabetes and cancer in Brazil's healthcare. Did I hear that right? Yeah, no, that's exactly what you heard. So you moved to Brazil for your cat.

Speaker 2: 1:57

Not for my cat, but it's been incredibly helpful because of it, and now, if I ever have another pet or companion creature that that has some serious healthcare issues, we will definitely not be like we'll find some way to leave the US and go somewhere else. That's a lot more affordable outside of the US. A whole lot more affordable. Wow, that's so amazing.

Speaker 2: 2:19

Yeah, it's really cool. His name's Napoleon, he's 12 and he is full of personality and one of the most talkative cats I've ever met in my life, and he has literally a team of doctors and cat sitters in Brazil for the cost of what it would take me, just for to take him to a visit in the United States.

Speaker 1: 2:38

Have him do a checkup.

Speaker 2: 2:39

He's got an oncologist. He's got the doctors who specialize in diabetes. He's got a general doctor. He's got like three cat sitters that literally fight over him to get to watch him when we leave. He's a pretty nice life in Brazil.

Speaker 1: 2:56

Okay, I wonder what that? What does that stem from and come from to be, and is it all animals or cats and dogs?

Speaker 2: 3:06

or I mean there's. There's a lot of veterinarians in Brazil and I think, like all veterinarians, they really care about their patients. But as for my cat specifically, he's. He's not shy, he actually he goes up to people like he greets strangers at the door, which is very like not traditionally cat like, yeah, but we like to joke that we call him American sized. He is American by birth. At this point, he speaks in like six languages, or at least knows the word for food and treats in six different languages. And because he's American sized, he's huge compared to all the other cats.

Speaker 2: 3:42

And funny for the vets that have seen him in Brazil and prior to that in Lebanon actually. So they get really excited when they see something so big in Brazil. Every time we walk in they actually call him like all the big cats here, got down is here, it's very good Right.

Speaker 1: 3:59

So you lived in Lebanon for a while. How long was that and how?

Speaker 2: 4:02

long ago. I was in Lebanon for five years, from 13 to 18.

Speaker 1: 4:08

Maybe have to do that too. Maybe I have a friend who's from Lebanon, or her family's Lebanese.

Speaker 2: 4:16

Yeah, it's a great country. I know this one's focused on Brazil. The Lebanon's amazing too.

Speaker 1: 4:22

So okay, I am curious, how many pounds is your cat?

Speaker 2: 4:26

Oh at his, at his biggest, he was 16 pounds. Wow, he's down to like 13 now, which they're like he's actually it's. They're like that's the appropriate weight he should be, so he's still. He's a big cat. Yeah, like he's about two feet long.

Speaker 1: 4:46

Yeah, oh, my gosh, my dog's a little bigger than he needs to be and he's 11 and a half pounds, yeah, so.

Speaker 2: 4:52

Yeah, At 16 pounds he was a little bigger than he needed to be, but at 13 pounds they're like no, this is good, this is fine, he's still here.

Speaker 1: 5:01

Yeah, so you said you practiced law or you have a law firm. I do, is it?

Speaker 2: 5:07

remote fully. It is 100% remote, 100% virtual. We don't have a physical office of any kind, which works out very well and probably a lot of people listening are like but how does that work? My whole thing is I don't want to go to court. So we represent small business owners to make sure they don't go to court. So I don't need a physical office because we never need to be in a courtroom if I'm doing my job, right, yeah?

Speaker 1: 5:32

Exactly, and do you do US or international?

Speaker 2: 5:36

Yeah. So the way that the US works is and we're the only country in the world that still does this it's very irritating. You must pass the bar in each state that you wish to practice in, unless you're doing kind of federal law, which would include trademarks and copyright. So we do a lot of trademarks and copyright, but I'm actually licensed in Virginia, so the firm practices primarily in Virginia. I think we're going to be picking up Maryland. I was licensed and I was approved to get my license, but then COVID hit and I never got sworn in in the USBI. So that would have been fun. That was my backup plan of like no, I'm just going to go hang out in Virgin Islands. That sounds like a good time.

Speaker 1: 6:13

Yes, that sounds fantastic.

Speaker 2: 6:16

Then I found my way to Lebanon and forgot all about St Thomas.

Speaker 1: 6:21

So how many people do you have? It's your firm, and how many people do you employ?

Speaker 2: 6:27

We're a small team. There's five of us.

Speaker 1: 6:30

That's good. That's more than mine. I have one. I've been in business for three years, only remote two. So you were US, then Lebanon and then Brazil. Is that how you've gone so far?

Speaker 2: 6:43

Well, so my education was all in the United States. I left right after I took the bar exam, actually for Beirut in Lebanon. I hung out there for a couple of years, met the man who eventually became my husband. While I was in Beirut he drug me back, kicking and screaming, to the United States. For a couple of years. We rolled through the pandemic in New York City, kind of as that was wrapping up. His job required that we move back to Brasilia. He's Brazilian and so it's kind of headquarters for a little while. I don't know where we'll go next, but it'll be soon. Probably within the next two years We'll head somewhere else.

Speaker 1: 7:23

I am curious also about your childhood. Growing up Did you travel, live in different places. How did this stem where you do this lifestyle?

Speaker 2: 7:31

My family is overwhelmingly military and my husband is actually Brazilian Foreign Service, so I like to joke with everybody that I just upgraded, because it's the same lifestyle we just have better wine.

Speaker 1: 7:42

There you go. That works out, perfect, it does, it does.

Speaker 2: 7:49

He was really worried about it when we first started dating too. He's like are you sure? Are you sure you can do this? I was like, sir, I've been doing this longer than you push, oh that's fantastic.

Speaker 1: 8:02

So family, do you have kids? Or just you, your husband and your cat right now?

Speaker 2: 8:07

It's me and my husband and the diabetic cancer. We got a kitten. Well, we fostered a glitter of kittens street kittens from the private high school in Brasilia. Their mother was totally feral and they were trying to keep down the feral cat population on campus. So once they were weaned, we took the litter of kittens and started finding homes for them, and we foster failed highly. I would be lying if I said it wasn't part of the goal, though, to foster fail. We took in this litter of four kittens and the idea was, if the diabetic cancerist kitten didn't hate one of them, which he's super friendly with everything except for male cats he's got an issue with male cats Whatever he hated the least wouldn't be upset if they had stuck, stuck around for a little while.

Speaker 2: 9:01

So there's this beautiful little kitten that's still hanging around at my house. She's. She looks like a Persian I don't know exactly what she is or Malaysian, but her fur is all white and she's got little gray tipped ears and little gray tipped paws. She's adorable. Her name is Upsy Daisy, so now we have Kapoleon and Upsy Daisy.

Speaker 2: 9:20

So your family is growing. So our family is growing, our family is growing, we're getting new fur balls and the hope always was to kind of pick one up when, when my cat turned 10, to help keep him young and we had to delay that a little bit because, you know, cancer and chemo can't have a new kitten around that kind of stuff. He was immunocompromised for a while but we get to go ahead from one of his many vets, from the oncologist actually, and she's like, yeah, no, he's good, now we can, we can have him around other cats.

Speaker 1: 9:49

Wow.

Speaker 2: 9:50

Then the foster team.

Speaker 1: 9:52

Fantastic. So when did you come to Brazil?

Speaker 2: 9:56

We moved to Brazil in oh, it's 2023. We went there in 21.

Speaker 1: 10:03

Okay, so two years, and how long have you been back in the States?

Speaker 2: 10:07

Oh, I'm just here temporarily, okay. Yeah, just checking up on some stuff here for the firm, some properties around the area, stuff like that. I'll be going back to Brazil within the next week or two.

Speaker 1: 10:16

Okay, and where we're in Brazil, do you typically reside or do you move around?

Speaker 2: 10:21

Brazil. Yeah, I'm in the capital.

Speaker 1: 10:23

Oh.

Speaker 2: 10:23

Brazil yeah.

Speaker 1: 10:24

Oh, look at that. Yeah, brazil is so huge it's like two thirds the size of the United States. I'm it is did not realize that I love. That's why I love these podcasts. Wow I know you were saying Brazil. Yeah, I was like I never heard that before. Actually didn't, I didn't know. Yeah, that's why I thought that that was just like you know, like Espanyol, you know that was the way to say Brazil and Brazil. Brazil.

Speaker 2: 10:48

Yeah, yeah, because I know the way to say Brazil, yeah, the way to say Brazil and Portuguese is Brazil. I change the Z to an S or the S to a Z. It's Z in English, right, z changed the Z to an S. Whatever, I mess it up my Microsoft word like, like editor, it gets really angry because I don't know how to spell it anymore, depending on who I'm writing to.

Speaker 1: 11:14

Oh, right, yeah, oh yeah, this is VRA SIL too. Yeah, the Brasilia, brazil, so that looks pretty inland. Huh, that's kind of it is.

Speaker 2: 11:28

I live in the equivalent of Oklahoma. No offense to the people in Oklahoma, but when I, when I first moved there, my family is like oh my God, that's amazing, you're going to spend so much time at the beach and all of that I was like I'm a two hour flight away from the beach Right now. Now, granted, it's something insane. I think it's like 92% 91% of the Brazilian population lives within 20 miles of the coastline. So, statistically, that was a really fair assumption on my family's part. But Brasilia, the capital is actually. It's a created city, not from not terribly long ago. One of the Brazilian presidents ran a campaign specifically on the promise that he was going to create this capital that would be central to all of Brazil, which is why, if you look at the map of Brazil, it's literally in the middle of, like the big fat chunk of it at the top, which inevitably wound up with him placing it in the middle of no way.

Speaker 1: 12:21

So it's now Orlando accessible to everyone.

Speaker 2: 12:25

You got it right.

Speaker 1: 12:26

You should have just placed it on the coastline, the beach in the middle. So the previous capital was Rio, that's where I assumed it was yeah, yes, justine.

Speaker 2: 12:39

How Brazil has been around, for I think they just did the 70th anniversary, so I mean, let's be safe. 80 years ago that was the capital.

Speaker 1: 12:48

Okay, got it. Yeah, because Sao Paulo, I don't know how to pronounce that. Yeah, rio de Janeiro, those two I've heard, I definitely know that, but Brazilia.

Speaker 2: 12:59

Brazilia, brazil Ia, brazilia.

Speaker 1: 13:04

Salvador. I've heard that one that's on the coast.

Speaker 2: 13:07

Salvador is great. I heard and I don't know the truth behind this, but having been there a few times now I can see that Salvador was actually the inspiration behind kind of the set not set creators, set designers, something like this when they were trying to get an idea for what Wakanda could look like, they wanted to see the closest thing they could find to what an African city would look like, with as little colonization as possible. Of course, that's really really hard to find, but Salvador is really rich for this history and culture that's very unique to them. So I heard that the folks in Salvador at least like to say that this was a huge inspiration for the folks who helped create that film.

Speaker 1: 13:51

I know, okay, wow, I'm just doing a quick check on Salvador and it well, the pictures they're showing kind of actually reminds me of Cuba when I was there. There are a lot of buildings, a lot of old architecture, a lot of old architecture Wow, and some.

Speaker 2: 14:09

There's more than there's more than 365 churches within, just like the historical touristy district. Like you can go to a different church every day of the week for a year. Wow, beautiful churches and a lot of folks who practice candemble, which is this uh? Candemble. It's a religion. It's a religion, spiritual practice. How do you spell it so what?

Speaker 1: 14:32

does it start with a? C Contemplate Almost like contemplation.

Speaker 2: 14:38

Wait, how do you spell that?

Speaker 1: 14:40

It's like I've never, I've never had to write this down Religion?

Speaker 2: 14:45

No, it's. It's C-A-N-D-O-M-B-L-E.

Speaker 1: 14:49

C-O-N-D-A-N-D-O-M-B-L-E Candemble.

Speaker 2: 14:54

So, yeah, it's this. It's this blend of a handful of different religions from West Africa, along with Roman Catholicism.

Speaker 1: 15:02

Wow Interesting.

Speaker 2: 15:03

Yeah, so they have all of these West African gods that have been super imposed almost onto Catholic saints. It's, it's beautiful and they have all of the their. It's still heavily practiced, just in the area, heavily practiced. I have friends who practice it actually and it's just, it's a beautiful thing to watch and they're very it's a very open, a kind of spiritual practice religion.

Speaker 1: 15:29

I gotta look this up, Because I just I'll send you a link you can drop it in the show notes to the community. It's so funny. I accidentally whatever I spelled, it was cannibalism and I'm like I don't know.

Speaker 2: 15:38

Oh no, no, stop that, it's not, that it's definitely not cannibalism.

Speaker 1: 15:43

It's just curious. Cuisine and calories is what I'm saying After that, oh God, no.

Speaker 2: 15:50

I can't even go there. Oh no, I mean for Americans listening, it would probably look something similar to what they imagine Voodoo is in New Orleans, because that's a similar idea, right. West African religions from slave diaspora that was kind of super imposed upon the religious practices that were around them at the time, so you'll see some similarities. I don't practice, so I do not pretend to be the authority on this in any way, I just it's heavily prominent in Salvador and it's really beautiful Wow.

Speaker 1: 16:22

Would you say. Is it more just in Salvador? Is the country just the country, embrace it.

Speaker 2: 16:26

Oh, it's all over the place.

Speaker 1: 16:29

Oh, yeah, okay yeah.

Speaker 2: 16:31

I mean we have religious houses for the for Cundamble in in Brasilia, like two hours in London, yeah.

Speaker 1: 16:41

Oh, my goodness. And then it looks like when I'm looking at the map, you know, it's kind of like a nothing upside down. Oh, and then this whole the inside inland looks like it's all forest.

Speaker 2: 16:54

We do have, I mean the, the Amazon that was in the, or the books that we got as kids, those little they always send. So good chunk of the Amazon is in Brazil, up in the northwestern part, uh, where I live in. Brazilia is actually a tropical savanna, so we have a dry season and a rainy season.

Speaker 2: 17:15

And during the dry season, all of the red dirt is all I see. Like the whole city turns red and dusty and we have uh Fires all the time Small ones, random ones, but the fire department spends a lot of time. There's probably a lot of effort putting them out. Uh, generally, if you go up on a rooftop of your building or something, it would be weird to not see like two fires at least burning off in the distance that they're is it because of like um lightning strikes and things, or no, it's just, it doesn't there's no lightning during dry season.

Speaker 2: 17:44

It's just that dry. They're random, spontaneous fires. Okay occasionally there's an idiot who threw you know it's still kind of lit cigarette, but into, like some dry bush, because it hasn't rained. It doesn't rain for six months of the year.

Speaker 1: 17:57

And what time the year is that?

Speaker 2: 18:00

Now, actually it just started the dry season, and but so now I say now it's june, for the June through like November. Uh, rainy season generally ends in april. Okay but oddly enough, it just rained in brazilia last week for the first time in decades, and everyone's in a bit of a panic. Actually, I'm getting all these what's that? Videos of. Oh my god, look what's going on. Wow, everyone's in a bit of a shock. But yeah, so from like april to october, something like that, that's the switch when it goes, okay, I need to dry.

Speaker 1: 18:32

Wow.

Speaker 2: 18:33

At least in brazilia. It's different if you go to baía.

Speaker 1: 18:37

So if you had to choose, would you rather go in the rainy season or the dry season? I kind of see like pros and cons of each Our shoulder.

Speaker 2: 18:44

When, when I say rainy season, dry season and again this is specific to brazilia because it's as you guys said, it's a really big country what I'm gonna say now doesn't apply to salvador, doesn't apply to baía doesn't apply to the amazon. They have different climates and rainy seasons, and all of that entirely. Okay but at least in brazilia. Honestly, temperature wise, it doesn't really seem to matter whether it's rainy season or dry season. It gets up to like 80 ish during the day, drops down to like 65 at night you can add on.

Speaker 2: 19:17

You know some some five degree swings left or right on either of those to account for, like our colder days or warmer days. But that's, that's generally about it, and the rainy season is just that it rains, and the dry season that doesn't.

Speaker 1: 19:31

Yeah, it kind of looks like maybe it's equal to like mexico or texas as far as how far it is from the equator. That makes sense.

Speaker 2: 19:41

Weather sounds like.

Speaker 1: 19:42

California to me like 80s, 60s.

Speaker 2: 19:45

Yeah, is it humid?

Speaker 1: 19:47

or dry.

Speaker 2: 19:48

Can be during the rainy season. During the dry season, it's so dry that your nose will bleed. Oh, okay, yeah, looking towards the end of it and like august, septu, not august, but by september. You're looking around, you're like, oh dear god, please rain, please rain. Yeah, okay, I'm looking at the pictures of brazilia and it's uh, lots of buildings there.

Speaker 2: 20:09

Looks like there's a big river canal kind of thing so brazilia uh, like I said it was, it's a created city based on the promise of a brazilian president, and it was actually. It was completely not completely Was overwhelmingly designed and planned by oscar neymeyer, who was a famous mid mid century modernist architect, um, who actually designed the united nations building in new york. He also designed what was supposed to be I think it was supposed to be for the world fair In triply in lebanon, but never opened because the civil war got started. He's very famous for for his architecture and if you look at any of the buildings in brazilia, they're very it's Nice. You've ever been to like the? I think it's the world of the future or something in disneyland, where it's supposed to be futuristic but it already looks old. That's brazilia, it's very unique.

Speaker 2: 21:03

It's very unique. You'll never see anything like it anywhere else in the world and it's actually unesco world heritage site, the entire city.

Speaker 2: 21:10

Because, of the urban planning and because of the architecture. And so for the folks that are listening, who aren't looking at pictures of this, like while we're talking, there is a cathedral that looks like somebody took a hanger, cut it in half and like laid them all up to each other, so they're all pointing up to a, a centerpiece in the middle, and then they come out again and you have all these little stabby things.

Speaker 1: 21:29

Going. I'm looking at that right now.

Speaker 2: 21:31

Interesting what is that, and there's a cathedral, it's a cathedral, it's the national cathedral. There's um, there's glass panels in between each of these, like hanger bits that get wider as you go towards the bottom, so it creates this almost pyramid shape that, oh, it looks like a volcano. Right, it cut, it's real wide at the bottom, comes up to a tip and then it almost looks like a volcano exploding at the top. But on the sides and between these huge concrete pillars Are massive stained glass that are all in blue. So you walk into this place and on a sunny day, the entire church is just covered in like this really soft blue light. I googled it.

Speaker 1: 22:07

All right, but it looks amazing. I'm trying to see like what is? It looks like a meringue yeah, that's a good way to think of it too. Like a lemon meringue pie that just kind of whoop in the middle, and then the stained glass is this beautiful, like Different colored blues yeah, it's really stunning. Yeah, yeah. It's like, uh, really beautiful, yeah, and, and he designed that as well.

Speaker 2: 22:35

So I believe he was the lead architect on on most of the main buildings, um the cathedral, the presidential palace, the foreign service palace which is where my husband works uh, the national congress, the president's house, the, oh, the defense I think it's the defense ministry. They're building is beautiful. My husband gets really mad at me when I say this. I'm like their palace is prettier than yours On the outside. On the outside they have Basically like the bottom half of a circle and there's a bunch of them, uh, staggered across the front of the building that they're just hanging off and they actually have water coming out of them. So there's a bunch of waterfalls hanging off of the building that drop into this beautiful receding pool and it faces the, the, the building my husband works in. So I'm like, see, look, they got the prettier one, so at least you got a better view.

Speaker 1: 23:25

When it looks like at the bottom of the cathedral around, it looks um, like there's water, it's like there is a bit.

Speaker 2: 23:33

Yeah, it's uh they struggle to keep the. There's moats around everything in brazilia for some reason. I don't know why they really like these like standing waiting mirror pools. There's a bunch of them around.

Speaker 1: 23:44

Yeah, definitely has that. Looks like it's, maybe like I don't even know if it's a foot, you know like six inches or something.

Speaker 2: 23:51

Yeah, it's not much. No, none of them are much, it's it's. It's a really beautiful place and the the way that all of this was designed. Oscar Nehemiah wanted people to feel and I'm paraphrasing this but to feel somehow both small and accessible. He wanted them to feel that government was bigger than them, but that government was accessible. So if you look around at the city, uh, the way it was designed at least not the way that security has, like, put up all these gates and everything there are no gates anywhere. There's massive open fields. You can see from the cathedral path, the cathedral, the national cathedral, all the way to the presidential palace. It's just a big open field.

Speaker 2: 24:31

And it's designed to give you that feeling that government is, is, is bigger than you. But the openness of the field, the lack of walls, the lack of gates In this man's design is also meant to be like we don't need security. This is all accessible. This is all open, this is transparent. You're meant to be part of these spaces.

Speaker 1: 24:51

Well, and I'm curious also about the well two things, is the lake man made? Because it looks pretty big.

Speaker 2: 24:59

The lake is a dam that they actually put up on the river, so there's uh, it's. It's not a huge lake, but I'm really glad we have it. Especially during the dry season, it's really helpful. Yeah, do our boats on it too, or is it so many boats? There's more boats I looked this up once like there's more boats registered in brazilia than brazilia has any means of having registered, and there's huge.

Speaker 2: 25:21

There's yachts there's like three bedroom yachts on this lake. I'm like. It's like 82 miles of shoreline. Why do we have three bedroom yachts? It should just be a bunch of pontoons and jet skis. Guys, what are we doing? What?

Speaker 1: 25:34

about the wake surfing I'm a big wake surfer behind like natiq and boats and stuff like that, I'm like, oh, that sounds fun. Well, and then another one is agua mineral, brazilia. It looks like it's the national park, nationality Park, nationally, um the agua mineral.

Speaker 2: 25:51

Yeah, it's a natural pool in one of the city parks. So part of the the world heritage site designation based on the urban planning is that the city feels like a park.

Speaker 1: 26:05

Mm-hmm.

Speaker 2: 26:06

There's tons of green space absolutely everywhere, and particularly in in brazilia. I mean, there's there's mangoes and papayas and and I don't know weird berries that don't exist outside of brazil Growing and and rod. There's so many of them growing that they're actually rotting on the ground. Outside of my house we have a big apartment building and it's the same apartment building copied however many times throughout the city. Everybody lives in kind of the same thing. It's a little like communism with a little sea, but it's really cool.

Speaker 2: 26:37

But part of that is making sure that there were park spaces accessible to absolutely everybody that lives in the main part of the city that was designed by by oscar namar and that includes actual parks in the middle of the city. When we think of big parks in cities like central park right, we're like, okay, there's this big block, but it's really only accessible to the people who live right around it. It's not really accessible to the people who live down in one of the villages and, like southern Manhattan, it's hard to get up there. The way that brazilia is designed, not only do we have, like, the designated parks, but everybody has these little Little parks in between, I think, like six, maybe eight buildings, depending on what your block is composed of. Share one, but then we have these bigger ones that include places like aguas minerals. The running joke is your as a human. You can't be in there after four because the monkeys come and they will chase you out.

Speaker 2: 27:29

That's because they're used to that like it being their pool. Uh, so it's just. It's a natural pool that they've left existing in this park and we can go there in the mornings as humans. But you must sleep by four because the monkeys will show up.

Speaker 1: 27:43

Oh, my goodness, oh there's, I see them. Do you see the monkeys? Ah, that's great picture. What kind of monkey is that?

Speaker 2: 27:50

Yeah, your guess is as good as mine. I don't know. They're little thieving things that my cat likes to chirp at.

Speaker 1: 27:55

Oh my gosh.

Speaker 2: 27:56

I know there's my answer.

Speaker 1: 27:58

What are they Not the holler monkeys? I was in Costa Rica and in the afternoon they would all come down and you know, they've come to the open restaurant, bar, ish area and Mm-hmm, want to be bad or something. But but yeah, they're everywhere on these pictures and I'm just seeing how, how populist it is. Says about almost five million in Brasilia.

Speaker 2: 28:25

That's the, that's the metro population, which includes, like the, the Set, kind of satellite cities that popped up around us. Okay, I believe the population actually within Brasilia and we call it the plano because it's plano piloto is the, the phrase for Brasilia proper that Nehemiah are designed. Okay, I believe there's only like a quarter million people in plano piloto. I live in that and it's if you look at a map of it from above, the whole proper city, it's an airplane.

Speaker 2: 28:59

So the fuselage of the airplane, the center part, includes this big, all the government buildings that we were talking about, where you can see from the cathedral all the way to the Presidential Palace that's up like the cockpit area. The back of the fuselage has Some monuments and parks and all of that, and then the wings are where everybody lives, and I live in one of the wings.

Speaker 1: 29:21

We see it now. Oh my goodness, it's going like out towards the ocean Like good West. I think that's it.

Speaker 2: 29:30

The wings run north and south.

Speaker 1: 29:32

The fuselage run. Oh, and it actually says north wing and then, yeah, north wing, south wing. As a Norch, as a soul, I'm like trying to see it I guess it's like it's like one of those things that you have to look at, you have to stare at it and then it just pops. Yeah, so where it's where I.

Speaker 2: 29:48

If you search plano piloto or plan o pilot o. Okay that's all you'll find it.

Speaker 1: 29:55

I know I oh, there goes, oh, okay, so within the wings.

Speaker 2: 30:04

You can see in the wings there's this like central highway that runs down the middle of each wing and there's probably two blocks on either side of that central highway. We call those super blocks and within each super block we have somewhere between I think the smallest one I've seen with six buildings, but I think I saw one with like 12 somewhere between six and 12 apartment buildings that are Replications of typically each other within that super block and they all circle around this own little Super block tiny park. There's a little park in the middle just for the people in that super block and this super block. Depending on the design of it, each super block has a slightly different design, but they look really much the same to to most people who come there. They're like I'm so confused it all looks the same.

Speaker 2: 30:51

We don't have names for all any of these, they're just numbers. So you can live in super block 203. You can live in super block 204, 205, 206, and these numbers all mean something on the map, so the numbers become directions as well. So that's super helpful. But the super blocks games. Yeah, we come from district 12.

Speaker 2: 31:15

Yes, yeah but the super blocks. So once they have this block form they're all the same amount of space and they just repeat them back to back across the entire plane wing. And In between every two super blocks there's a commercial road that has Somewhere between four and eight Buildings that are generally like two, maybe three stories tall. That will be where your salon is, your dog walker or dog spa, your Pharmacy, and at the edge of it, like in the the edge of these to this commercial road, there will be one big building, one big building. Inevitably. It is almost always a school, a grocery store or a church or religious place of some kind, and that's, that's where those things belong. So it's, it's this very repeatable city. Once you understand the format, becomes very easy to find stuff.

Speaker 1: 32:10

Interesting.

Speaker 2: 32:11

Oh, my goodness.

Speaker 1: 32:12

I definitely want to talk about some of the other places as well, which is? This is super interesting. I had no idea that's fascinating in terms of the. I have to ask about the Amazon rainforest Because that I remember green emerald. It was a movie. I watched it Religiously as a kid and it was about this boy who got lost. His family moved there and he his dad, was maybe the main person Think they were tearing down trees to build stuff or something like that. They were people eaters and and then he got lost and In the forest and the natives took him and raised him and then they ended up finding him in High school age I know as many years later and he returned. But it was really just, I don't know why. I was just captivated by the movie as a kid and I watched it a lot of times and I was just, yeah, I just remember it like a lot. But I'm looking at the rainforest and I don't know if you ever been, or I'm assuming. I mean it's pretty remote. I remember also hearing something like the.

Speaker 1: 33:16

Amazon rainforest produced a lot of first oxygen or something to that effect, and we were tearing it down and and a lot it was being Destroyed and I don't know if they've stopped that or if there's been. I just curious about about that.

Speaker 2: 33:33

Oh, okay, that's a lot. Where would you like me to start?

Speaker 1: 33:38

Wherever you want to let's let's see if you've been there, you know we don't expect you to expert.

Speaker 2: 33:42

Let's start with the, with the easy one. I have not had the chance to go Yet. I am actually. I'm arranging a trip for a few months from now. I'm actually I'm taking my grandparents, oh.

Speaker 1: 33:53

Okay, I want to talk to you after that. Okay, happily. So we'll talk more about the rainforest.

Speaker 2: 33:59

Yeah, I'm, the hope is I don't. My grandparents have never been to South America. My grandparents were, we're military and they they had we call them postings, what do they call in the military? No, I've forgotten, I don't know. They served in in Germany and Turkey and my grandmother was. My grandfather was in the UK for something. My grandmother went to Mali for a second, I don't know.

Speaker 2: 34:23

They've traveled decently well, right, particularly for people of their generation, but they've never been to South America and my husband's Brazilian. So you know, our kids will be Brazilian, it's they need to learn a bit of South America, right, right, so we were, we were talking about their trip and my grandfather, I mean, I'm sure he knew, but then, of course, that moment when you know something but you don't realize it he was like wait, the rainforest is, it's in Brazil, we got to go to the rainforest. Okay, grandpa, we'll go to the rainforest, no problem. So I don't know. I will have to report back to you about, like a personal experience In a couple months time about what that actually looks like. But the rest of your questions about you know what it does for the world and everything we start getting into into a bit of politics, to be quite honest, because the the Amazon, the Amazonian rainforest, right it's.

Speaker 2: 35:15

It crosses quite a few countries in South America, but the books and the stories and everything that I don't know that I read as a kid and that I presume are still being told to kids, you know, like the save the rainforest thing, it's normally coming from America or from Europe who have generated a lot of the carbon and are looking for kind of an out of like hey, you, you don't cut down your stuff. That being said, brazilian cattle farmers and soy farmers Were, for the past couple years and the previous government administration, cutting down the Amazon at an extremely scary rate. That administration has changed so it has slowed down significantly. Back to I don't know what's acceptable on that, I don't know if there is an acceptable number in that to either the indigenous communities that live there or to, you know, environmental people with that, with their concerns. I'm not well versed enough in that.

Speaker 2: 36:08

I know, it picked up really, really bad for a couple years and it has since slowed down. And then there's also becomes the question of Brazilian and all the other countries that the Amazon runs through sovereignty right, what, how much do they need to work with the Americans and Europeans Overconcern over their own resources, when it is I think it's what they phrase it now as is the largest global carbon sink? I Think. I think that's it.

Speaker 1: 36:37

Hmm.

Speaker 2: 36:38

Yeah, I don't you get into a lot of tricky like multilateral relations between countries there and that's that's heavy.

Speaker 1: 36:48

But I was just curious and that answers that and I'd love to learn more when you get back to that. And then, what about Rio de Janeiro? Hello, or any other, like Golden nuggets. I know I want to pay, you know I've got time as not not too much time, but I, you know, good, like the hot points are, maybe there's certain places where you can Google and see, but is there something that's not Something that someone will Google and find? You know, that's that that you've found as a gem, a beautiful place to To go to.

Speaker 2: 37:20

Yeah, so I mean that the top things that really come up when, when anyone thinks about going to Brazil and any any non-Brazilians who traveled there, their initial stopping points are almost always Rio and maybe maybe then afterwards. So Paolo, maybe, right, because those are like is it? Rio used to be the capital? There's a lot of history and culture there, so Paolo really does have some of the best food in the world. I it's. It's like a culinary goldmine, it's impressive.

Speaker 1: 37:49

What's the best meals there? Japanese.

Speaker 2: 37:53

Japanese, japanese Best sushi I've ever had in my life. I haven't been to Japan yet, but there was a massive Japanese immigration and they they still have like a little Japan in Sao Paulo you will find when you, when you go into a sushi place and you just tell the the, the chef, like, make whatever I want, it's a flat rate and they just put food in front of you. It's called omakase. There are better Omicazes and Sao Paulo for a quarter of the price than anything I ever had in New York City.

Speaker 1: 38:25

Okay.

Speaker 2: 38:26

It's good.

Speaker 1: 38:29

The language is Portuguese throughout the whole country. Is that correct?

Speaker 2: 38:33

The language. The official language is Portuguese throughout the whole country, but if you get real deep into the Amazon, of course you'll find Plenty of indigenous languages. There's tons of them. They're normally in Brasilia complaining about the government having done something, because the government does all sorts of terrible stuff to them, so they're always there complaining or protesting against the government.

Speaker 1: 38:52

We see quite a lot of them.

Speaker 2: 38:53

That is more convenient for them to get to Brasilia than it ever was for them to get to the coast. I'll give them that and then but like okay, so those are the places that everyone's gonna kind of go by default. I don't need to tell you about Rio or Sao Paulo. There's a million websites, blogs, podcasts about those places.

Speaker 1: 39:08

Yeah.

Speaker 2: 39:09

Salvador most people don't talk about, and it really is. It is this like mecca of what West African culture Can look like without so much interference. It really is beautiful and they've blended, like the foods from West Africa, with what's available on the coast in Salvador. The city is absolutely stunning Churches at the wazoo, history at the wazoo, beautiful beaches, food You're never gonna find anywhere else. There's a fried like kind of cornbread dough that they stuff with chopped up shrimp and onions.

Speaker 1: 39:44

Wow, and that's where it's from it's glorious. What's it called, that shrimp?

Speaker 2: 39:51

Caracas, I think I hope it's like a corn thing. Yeah, it's like a fried piece of cornbread.

Speaker 1: 39:59

Okay, yeah, sounds amazing.

Speaker 2: 40:03

I think it's Caracas, caracas, caracas, maybe Caracas. We don't have them so much in in Brasilia, like it's. It's very much a Salvador thing.

Speaker 1: 40:11

And I'm a two-hour flight away from all that so and as it cost wise, is Salvador pretty like less expensive than the US or comparable.

Speaker 2: 40:20

Brazil in general, apart from Sao Paulo. So Paul is expensive. Brazil in general is is relatively cheap. Okay in Brasilia. It's not. It's not uncommon to be able to find a nice two-bedroom place in the middle of the city for a thousand dollars a month. Oh Nice.

Speaker 1: 40:39

Do you get a lot of like expats?

Speaker 2: 40:41

or digital nomads staying there? Not, not in Brasilia Most of the digital nomads are going to. Oh, there's the city in the south. What's the city in?

Speaker 1: 40:51

the south. Let me see what the Allegra.

Speaker 2: 40:54

No, husband is right now Carita by Cori G, but no good at you, I'm not less Florianopolis, that's it. A lot of the digital nomads are there. They have a bunch of tech hubs and really nice hostels. There's really good surfing there. The local population Florianopolis, lord and ass.

Speaker 1: 41:16

Yeah, it's almost like it has like a little bridge across, but it, it's like it, it's like a like. Florida and Minneapolis next mix together Florian.

Speaker 2: 41:27

With none of the bad things of either of those places.

Speaker 1: 41:31

It looks like its own island off of Brazil.

Speaker 2: 41:35

Yeah, so, and this is something that a lot of people, I think, don't know, brazil actually has a lot of islands, so we think about the fact that right it's they have. Their beaches are Atlantic beaches, just like the east coast of the United States. But these coast of the US I really have a few, but they're not sizable generally, they're not heavy pop, heavily populated. My sister-in-law actually lives on an island to outside of oh God, what's the city.

Speaker 2: 42:02

I don't know her her island is called basically pretty pretty Island. In Portuguese, the name of it is pretty island.

Speaker 1: 42:11

Florianopolis. It's amazing, it's so. It's its own little island off the edge. The water is like this gorgeous green emerald the clear, clear color. Lots of buildings, lots of nice houses Right on the water and pure or like, just like docks where you can have your boats.

Speaker 1: 42:28

It's pretty good, it's like amazing, yeah, and then I was looking at Salvador, because Salvador also it's its own little peninsula, like it also, yes, folds in and it's not like right on the coast, but there's a whole inlet side, yeah, calm waters, right where they're at as well, which I didn't you know. Once you click on it, you can see it as well.

Speaker 2: 42:49

And there's, there's also an island not far from Salvador that they actually they run fairies to all the time and look, if you ever Want to go to this island one, go to the islands called a Lagrange big island, but don't take, don't take the ferry. There's a flight, there's. It's a two-hour ferry that you will feel like you're dying on and I think it cost like 75 hey, eyes at the time of this recording was I don't know 25 bucks for the ferry. Okay, or you can book the 15 minute plane flight that gets you there directly from, like downtown Salvador Into the same place. The ferry drops you off and I think it's like $60 and you don't feel like death after you've come off the boat. That's smart.

Speaker 2: 43:33

The boat has no air conditioning and it's just seats in the bottom part of it and there's like the windows don't open so everyone's just packed in there sweating.

Speaker 1: 43:41

We had another podcast where episode where some grease one.

Speaker 2: 43:44

Yeah, oh yeah, brutal like that.

Speaker 1: 43:47

I was just so looking. Is it in the inlet and where it's the island? I see these other islands, like sir dos Passos. We got a tough names check out the islands.

Speaker 2: 43:57

But the best thing I can say is is for anybody who wants to go to Brazil Look, if you want to hit up Rio and Sao Paulo, go for it by all means. You're going to find Things are easier if you don't speak Portuguese, or at least Spanish, in those cities, because you'll have more English speakers. But if you want like a deeper Brazilian experience, should go to places like Salvador. You should go to places like Manaus, which are like the entry to the Amazon.

Speaker 2: 44:27

You should go to places like Iguazu Falls, which put Niagara to shame. I've heard of those before. Is that? Down south that's down south, way down south. It's actually on the shared border with Argentina. These are places that when, if, if, brazil's a big country. I've been there two years. I'm still working on it, right.

Speaker 2: 44:45

Yeah they're all their lives. They're still working on it. I think traveling around it really depends on what you're trying to do, right? If you're trying to do a, let me hang out with other expats in a beautiful place and that has a lot of like live work vibes going on. Gloria and Opolis is gonna work great for you.

Speaker 2: 45:03

Right go down south, go hang out in the little expat hub down there. If you want to go see old deep culture, go check out To some well, I mean Rio, yeah, and Salvador, if you want to see their version of. We joke that it's like West Virginia, but like go see Minas Gerais. The state and Goyas is where the farmers and the miners and All those folks live, where the food changes completely from like shrimp and fish stews to like hearty meat, rice beans. Food reflects the cultures and there's so many different subcultures in Brazil I couldn't break it all down on one podcast.

Speaker 1: 45:39

Right, but I'm just saying how big it is. It's like it's so like, though, yeah the whole east of the Mississippi, united States, and just trying to say like, well, there's Florida, there's New England, there's Texas, there's New Orleans, there's so much, yeah, yeah, all right, so we are getting close to the end. I'd love to get at the Rapids fire questions, unless there's any other burning questions. Oh my gosh, I've gone to do a part two for sure.

Speaker 2: 46:04

I think we need to. Let me get the trip to the Amazon with my grandparents and we'll come back for Amazon speciality, right, okay, and then some other parts of Brazil, great.

Speaker 1: 46:13

So what is our popular holiday tradition that is very big, I mean the in Brazil. Brazil, there's what Rio. So right right now wait destination or tradition no, holiday traditions, traditions.

Speaker 2: 46:32

I'll give you three. Okay, really quick. My husband and I joke a lot about this. My mother in law and I joke a lot about this. Despite the fact that it is summer in Brazil, when Christmas comes around, they are absolutely insistent on serving turkey and roast beef as though or winter Okay, because they picked up this from the US and they're just trying to mimic. It's cute. It doesn't suit the weather, though, because, like we go swimming in the pool and then come back and try to eat turkey. It's just, it's not a good combination. You know, you have to undo the button on your pants at Thanksgiving already, right, yeah?

Speaker 1: 47:03

don't Not in a swimsuit. I don't know why we're doing this swimsuit. That's not a good luck, right?

Speaker 2: 47:07

Yeah, that's not good luck, but given that we're recording this in June, I'll actually I'll give you two things that are specific to June. So in Brazil they don't have Valentine's Day I mean, it's starting to get there just because the corporations are trying to make more money but they have the day of Couples boyfriends, girlfriends kind of is how it would translate.

Speaker 2: 47:31

It's in June, it is their version of Valentine's Day, and there is, there is a sane, a superstition, and it happens. People still do it. My sister-in-law actually did it. It's just hilarious. Uh, when you are trying to find your, your husband, you can go grab a statue of Some saint I don't know, I don't forget which saint st Anthony, st Nicholas, some saint, uh, and you hold him upside down over a bucket of water and you threaten to drown him Until he delivers you a boyfriend slash, soon to be husband.

Speaker 2: 48:09

They just sit there until you, you get yeah, and you scream at the statue.

Speaker 1: 48:14

Okay, so the eligible bachelors will be hanging around looking for ladies that are doing this. Statues, yeah, don't.

Speaker 2: 48:22

Or I think you can also put it's either basil or rosemary like under the rug in their house. My husband thought I did this to him when we first started dating. I was like, why would I do that? I don't even know what that is, maybe you did it, you did it. And then there is actually right now it is the june festival. The festival, does you know? You know, where everybody dresses up as as like country folk or what we would call hillbillies, in a lot of plaid and like funny colors and like bad paisley prints, and they go around and just, I don't know, eat a lot of food. Listen to country music, brazilian country music, interesting, um, and they do that all month right now.

Speaker 1: 48:56

That's a funny thing, yeah, okay. Those are good All right, okay, and then um, what is one of your favorite dishes to eat?

Speaker 2: 49:05

um, favorite dishes. I generally jones for passion fruit juice anytime I'm outside of brazil. Okay, brazil's really good at taking every fruit you can possibly imagine and turning into juice and fruits you've never even heard of. And not smoothies, yeah, like actual, just juice, and it's really refreshing. It's warm down there most of the time, so it's really nice. Uh, something that if you haven't been there, might sound very strange, but I adore it. We cook shrimp and milk and cream inside a pumpkin and serve it over rice with like tiny fried potato Bits that go on top.

Speaker 2: 49:43

I'm obsessed.

Speaker 1: 49:44

That sounds really good. Yeah, rip with cream and a pumpkin inside of a pumpkin over rice. Wow, that is unusual.

Speaker 2: 49:55

So you just throw a whole pumpkin like inside your, inside your, your oven for like four hours. It's great it sounds good.

Speaker 1: 50:02

I have never heard of anyone else eat pumpkin other than you know. United States Thanksgiving Wow, that's cool. Um, how about breakfast? What's a typical breakfast down there?

Speaker 2: 50:12

typical breakfast is um cold cuts bread.

Speaker 1: 50:17

Very european, very german sounding Okay.

Speaker 2: 50:21

Yeah, at least in my experience, and of course it's a big country, right, so maybe there's other experiences there, but my, my husband's family, that's generally what happens and like, uh, I'm not a big sandwich person, especially the bread's not toasted. Okay, so they just like they go down to the bakery and get a little bits of bread and, yeah, like cold cuts, I'm like this is, I'm good. Where's the papaya?

Speaker 1: 50:39

Okay, and what's the money? Called you and mentioned it once. It did not sound familiar at all.

Speaker 2: 50:44

Oh, it's called hay eyes in multiple, hay owl for one.

Speaker 1: 50:48

Hay eyes. How do you?

Speaker 2: 50:49

spell that uh r e I s. So yeah, here's a trick. If you speak spanish and you want to at least pretend like you speak portuguese, it the same thing is in spanish most of the time the r is not pronounced and it becomes an h. Okay that will help with pronunciation of things in portuguese. Oh good, that's helpful.

Speaker 1: 51:07

Yeah, I heard there's a lot of. Is that common?

Speaker 2: 51:10

That's a karaoke thing. So the people from rio that's the karaoke is what we call people from rio. Oh okay, um, they have a lot of the, the shishu. It's even more pronounced in portugal.

Speaker 1: 51:22

Oh, okay, that's right, yeah and cool. And then where's the closest place to surf? To surf uh, or pretty much anywhere along the coast is yeah, he surfs all up and down the coast.

Speaker 2: 51:34

As a matter of fact, my, my nephew he's three Uh, he started surfing like four months ago. What, yeah, I'm like that's crazy. I would fall on my butt. I'm really good at drowning and my nephew is standing up on a surfboard already.

Speaker 1: 51:50

Oh my goodness, yeah, that's amazing, yeah.

Speaker 2: 51:53

Crazy.

Speaker 1: 51:54

He's a little daredevil, no fear. Yeah, where do they surf?

Speaker 2: 51:58

What's the beach? Hey, he surfs the island that they live on. They moved um out out of sel paulo during the pandemic. It was just. It was too much to be in a city apartment with two small kids and everything shut down. So, yeah, they moved to this island called ilabela and he's basically grown up there. Um, he's. For him, island life is is normal.

Speaker 1: 52:18

Oh, it's in san paulo and you're so, paulo, in the state of sel paulo.

Speaker 2: 52:22

It's in the state of sel paulo. It takes uh, it's like three hours driving, three and a half hours driving to get down there from the city.

Speaker 1: 52:28

Interesting. Wow, that's far three hours and it's the same state. Okay, all right. Well, thank you so much, samantha. So good to see you again and, uh, we'll have to revisit after the amazon and maybe go into just more more details on other parts of your humongous country that sounds great.

Speaker 2: 52:45

I would love to.

Speaker 1: 52:46

Thank you so much. This was so fun. Really loved getting to know you, what you do. Good luck to napoleon and the other. I love the name of the other cat that was oopsie daisy, oopsie daisy is exactly I'd like to them.

Speaker 1: 53:03

Thanks, looking forward to our next call. All right until next time. Thank you, bye. Thanks for listening. If you enjoyed the podcast, can you please take a second and do a quick follow of the show and rate us in your podcast app, and if you have a minute, we would really appreciate a review. Following and rating is the best way to support us. If you're on instagram, let's connect. We're at where next podcast. Thanks again.