Second time's a charm!

Sooooooooo, here in Sao Paulo I take a lot of cabs -- to get to work, to go out, etc. There's a Ponto de Taxi (a taxi stop) right near my "Flatch" (it's called a flat, but pronounced "flatch" -- man, I love Portuguese.) But since Sao Paulo is a city of nearly 20 million people, the chances of running into people on the street would be pretty slim, right? Apparently not.

Apparently all these cabbies stick at the same Taxi Stops, and since I need cabs all the time, at the end of the first month, I started getting the same cab drivers over again and learning their names. To be honest, I think they all started remembered me -- "Aren't you the girl who wanted to go to neighborhood Independente? [which doesn't exist. I meant to say Liberdade, the Japanese neighborhood in near downtown.]? OR "Hey, aren't you the american who goes to Itaim Bibi? [neighborhood where the office is." At first I was astonished to encounter the same cabbie for a second time, but pretty soon I got to know everyone from the Moema Taxi Pont at the corner of Anapurus and Miruna. Gilson (Gi-u-son), Vladmir (Vladj-meer) and of course, Jorge.

Jorge is my best friend out of all the cabbies. He has a voice that sounds like he smokes 2 packs a day. In my first ride with Jorge, early in my trip, I was telling him all the things I knew how to say in portuguese, which back then were only palvraos (bad words.) Caralho, porra, vai tomar no cul. These mean nothing to most of you, but they're pretty nasty, and when I said them they had Jorge rolling on the floor laughing in stitches! It seems like Jorge would be the type of guy who loves Howard Stern.