The Final Night: Karaoke Fever

On my last night in São Paulo  (in early Oct. 2007) some of the girls said goodbye through the language of drunken friendship: karaoke. This was a glorious night to remember. Ligia, Bibiana, Leticia and I rocked it. Behold, Leticia and I in full force, trying not to strain our voices, reading the telepromopter, and hoping that we didn't sound like off-key frogs all at the same time...

Actually I thought we sounded pretty darn good, at least in comparison to the clientele that must frequent the joint. I believe it was the Lorena Hotel Internacional in the Jardins district.

Now, the place wasn't exactly packed...

But did that stop us from giving it our all? Heck no! The one audience member loved us and gave us consistent applause before he'd start up with his own song again. I know what you're thinking; the praise was just by default. Oh no. This guy didn't clap for just anyone. I couldn't really understand what he was saying but I think it was stuff like "Brilliant!," "You should record an album!" and "Best version I've ever heard!"

Our choices were classic:

• To Be With You (Mr. Big)
• Baby One More Time (Britney Spears)
• Total Eclipse of the Heart (Bonnie Tyler - had to look that one up on Google because no one knows that)
• Fire and Rain (James Taylor)
• Zombie (The Cranberries)
• With or Without You (U2)
• You Outta Know (Alanis Morissette)

A nice selection of slow and fast, male and female, 70s to the 2000s. And what made it all the more wonderful was hearing those American songs sung in Brazilian accents. One of those times in my life I wish I had recording device. Just precious.

Crying Is Cool

Our team at work went out to an end of the quarter dinner one night at Tantra Mongolian Grill in Vila Olímpia. The food was incredible.

As everyone finished eating, the new Ambassador to the office, Ben, stood up and presented me with some goodbye gifts. He said he has some very tough shoes to fill. "Speech!" someone shouted. People apparently loved that idea because soon the whole room was yelling "speech!" (Only, whatever the word is in Portuguese.) I got up and said my formal goodbye and thank yous. "It's been such an amazing experience," I said. "You have all been so wonderful. It's really hard for me to leave -" and then I had a hard time pushing the words out. Tears streamed down my cheeks, and when that happens in front of about 30 people who aren't crying, it's a little embarrassing. I did hear a few awwws, and "we'll miss you!" And then from someone - probably Bibi or Ricardo - the most common thing that I spoke in Brazil that got to be a joke with friends: "Muito divertido!" ("really fun").

The gifts were great; I almost felt bad for taking them. They gave me a huge handmade card that looked like the Brazilian flag signed by most of the people in the room (which made me cry again so I had to stop reading), a Brazilian music CD titled "A Arte De Jorge Ben Jor," a live DVD of another popular Brazilian singer, Ana Jorge, and a beautiful coffee table book of the country (appropriately titled Brasil/Brazil) by Alberti Taliani.

In retrospect I should have given the group something in return. But the fact that this had turned into a goodbye dinner for me was a total surprise. I thought we were just going to a regular team dinner.

Carla & Carlos, who I worked closely with on optimization projects in the office. Constantly had a positive attitude, despite having more work than I think I've seen anyone have, ever.

Our smiley team Managers, Michel and Rapha

The next Ambassador, Ben

Trio of Sweethearts: Raquel, Alexandre and Beth
















This is Franqui, leaning away from me. Proof that I must have just generally scared him.


Just the girls! From left: Katia, me, Ligia and Beth
















The awesome Helio smiles! (I told him to smile BIG, because he rarely does.)


Felipe cracked me up. He's one of these people who gets really excited about everything you say.
















Robertina, me, Talita


João gives me a nice big hug.

I miss everyone!

The AdWords Relationship Theory

Google AdWords, the company's online advertising system, is one my international co-workers and I know well. If you're not familiar with it and you own a business, well, you should. And I hope you don't have kids under college age.

One night when a group of girls were out to pizza, Ligia started cracking me up with her analogies of AdWords and men. It made so much sense. (Of course, if you don't understand online marketing, it probably won't make any sense.) Other girls started chiming in with additional definitions and analogies. It became so complex that I requested Ligia document this by email. She did. And so I now present to you:

The AdWords Relationship Theory

Many clients complain that AdWords is too complicated. We also know that most people (advertisers or not, single or committed) complain that relationships are too complicated.
The following descriptions can help you understand how to run a successful AdWords campaign and/or relationship. Therefore, it can potentially help anyone.

Impressions:
Impressions are crucial, especially first impressions. Do your best to not act mentally insane during your first date, even if you are. Do not share immediately that you love to cross-dress on the weekends, dissect living butterflies, or worse, own a Celine Dion CD.

Clicks:
If things go well, there there should be a 'click'. Congratulations! But it's not over yet - now you have to work hard to keep your rejection rate at low levels.

Quality Score:
Quality score plays a very important role in where you stand in relation to the others. Nobody knows exactly how it's calculated, but many factors are taken into consideration: age, height, attractiveness, career, intelligence, humor, overlapping interests, kindness, and general cleanliness.

Search & Content:
Active searching is good, but only reaches 10% of all inventory. Therefore, you have to trust the power of the content network. We all know other people that can put us in contact with relevant audience. Hopefully some of these partners or friends are high-quality. If you don't have any high-quality direct connections, that's ok – you can rely on contextual targeting. This works by choosing to appear on a theme that relates your audience. If you go to the Reserva Cultural book store on a Sunday afternoon, for example, you're targeting intellectual types. On the other hand, if you go to a soccer game, you're destined to meet sports fans.

Phone Support:
Men always request phone support, but getting the number may not be easy. It's certainly not given away freely. But should the two people have a connection, he will be promptly greeted by a friendly voice that will be happy to answer any questions he may have. A guy may also try to get information about other products, the most common being Gmail.

Monthly Budget:
Your budget basically defines how often you can go out to look for your "ads". Our system can recommend a budget, but you won't be able to change it – unless you are promoted or win the lottery.

With standard delivery, the monthly budget will be distributed evenly over the month. If you have $400 to spend per month, you will spend approximately $100 per week. In contrast, you can also go with the accelerated delivery and spend the entire budget in one single night. The choice of accelerated delivery increases with alcohol.

Image Ads:

You want a good-looking ad. Image matters. And, oh, so does the size.

Editorial Policy - Inaccurate Ad Text:
Unfortunately, the information given in the ad text can be completely wrong. He said he was 29 years old, a successful neurosurgeon who graduated from MED-USP (top medical school in Brazil), and loves to play tennis. After a couple of days, you find out that he is in fact not quite old enough to legally drink, still in college but planning on applying to med school, and the only thing he plays is beer pong and video games.

Ad Rotation:
Since the start date of your marketing campaign, you have always used the same ad. You think it's good. Actually, you think it's perfect for you. But how can you be so sure, if you have never tried a different one? Therefore, it's better to test different ad text to see which one performs better. Over time, you'll automatically see the one with better performance more often.

Seasonal Campaigns:
Dating can be considered a seasonal business. There are times of the year that are naturally more conducive to this purpose, like wild New Year's Eve or Carnaval. With that said, you might want to save some money for a seasonal campaign, targeted to party-central areas like Rio de Janeiro or Bahia.

Specific Keywords:
To increase your chances of finding exactly what you're looking for and increasing your ROI (return-on-investment), use specific keywords. If you search for "interesting" guys, you may find broad interpretations of interesting. You're likely to get many prospects, but no conversions. Therefore, we recommend using more targeted, multi-word keywords, such as "interested in arts and literature" or "enjoys traveling on his yacht."

Specific Keywords:
You can benefit from including negative keywords to avoid matches that are irrelevant or unlikely to convert, such as:
–smoker

–drug addict

–gay

–married

–emotionally unavailable

Editorial Policy - Superlatives and Comparative Claims:
If the guy says he is the best in this or better than someone else in that, look for third-party support immediately. Believe it or not, guys lie…

Invalid Clicks:
Our advanced system will automatically filter out users with unethical behavior. However, if you discover that the same IP address has clicked multiple times on your ad, but the motive is suspect, feel free to use the IP exclusion tool.

And there you have it. We agreed we should could make tons of money by writing a book...using AdWords to market it, of course.

A Real Live Reader

Someone I was talking to the other day mentioned he had read my travel blog. And what was more surprising, he liked it. A real live fan (outside of my family circle, which doesn't count). This justified the final documentation of my story. I can't leave my readers hanging - it's just cruel.

More From Buenos Aires

Back to the Buenos Aires trip. As the photo album I posted earlier proves, Betsy dragged me into doing a bus tour. I felt like an old lady. A lesbian old lady, actually, since the tour bus driver originally seemed to think Betsy & I were a couple. Each family or couple is given one souvenir book about the lovely cosmopolitan city to share. Our driver yelled back at us, in front of everyone, "They told me you're separate, so you get two books." Why she felt like she had to make a point of this I don't know.

So we passed the metal flower sculpture that closes at night and opens in the morning, the beautiful Santo Domingo church in San Telmo, and the cathedral of Buenos Aires. This cathedral was especially interesting because it bore graffitti all over the front, sprayed there by people protesting the 30,000 people who disappeared. The church didn't kidnap them, but apparently they didn't do anything about it either. It reminded me of Martin Luther King Jr.'s stance in his Letter From a Birmingham jail: if you're not doing something to help, you're part of the problem. The church said wait, change will come, and he said "action delayed is action denied."

We also enjoyed the La Boca district, with its colorful houses and street musicians. The 9th of July Ave. is another must-see attraction. Although it's just a street, it happens to be the widest one in the world, forcing you wait in the middle and walk two rounds of pedestrian lights before safely crossing.

So while I wasn't thrilled about the bus tour initially, it was certainly educational and I was glad I did it. How else would I have known that the colors of the Argentina flag are inspired by the sky?

But my favorite education was the liquid kind - the most delicious drink ever created, thanks to the Hilton. I like beer, love wine and cherish mojitios, but this...this was magical. I wanted my Moon Bay drink to never end. According to the bartender, it was just Baileys, cinnamon, & citric syrup. Seems a little too simple. But singer Tristan Prettyman would say, "simple as it should be."

And so it ends...

Alright, the blog might be called Three Months in Brazil, but that doesn't mean I can't write about it later. Much later, in this case. I returned in October 2007, and here we are in June 2008. So I'm a little behind. But better late than never.

And now, the exciting conclusion of my Brazilian adventures...

Get a Visa

You should know that to enter Brazil you need a visa. At least you do if you're from the United States. This is because the U.S. did it to Brazil and pissed off their government. So don't forget to apply for one well in advance. Betsy didn't realize she needed one until less than two weeks before her departure. She raced over to the Brazilian embassy and encountered a very bitchy secretary who asked why she was going to Brazil and where she's staying. When Betsy said just for fun, and she's staying with me, the secretary loooked at her straight in the eye, leaned in, and dared to say, "I don't believe you. I think you're going to work there." Betsy denied it, but became extremely nervous about not getting a visa. She ended up having no problems after that, but they do turn people down often.

Carrie Bradshaw

Helio, after watching an episode of Sex in the City, tells me I remind him of Carrie Bradshaw, Sarah Jessica Parker's character. Not just her looks, but also her personality and manner of speaking. I take this as a compliment. She's a cool cat. She's definitely more fashionable than me - I could care less what brand of shoes I'm wearing. But we're both outgoing, independent, and have biggish noses.

There are worse people I could be compared to as a visiting American.

Lula The President

One thing that surprised me was the public's view of their current President. The President of Brazil is Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, more commonly referred to as Lula. When he was elected in 2002, he was a symbol of hope for the common man, as he founded and led groups for workers for years beforehand and came from a meager background.

But I was shocked to hear that this was a man who never graduated high school. (He later received his high school equivalency.) Person after person I spoke with disliked Lula, and I asked why. He is considered a sell-out, a traitor, a liar. They say he takes from everyone to fatten his own pocket. I hate to admit it, but in a way it gave me a small sense of satisfaction, that Americans are not the only ones in modern day to hate their leader.

Shouldn't they have known not to trust a man whose nickname means squid?