I’ve been experiencing an existential crisis ever since I left New York. It’s only been a few days on the road, but I often find myself wondering, aloud, “What am I doing here?” To date, the hardest thing for me to stomach has been leisure time. Although I graduated two weeks ago, I’m not on pleasure trip. If anything, I consider this a hybrid “workation,” where I am chipping away at a task while simultaneously exploring a new city. Inactivity feels like failure and sitting still is terrifying.

There are ways in which such  a reaction is to be expected; there is no road map for what I have set out to accomplish, and those whose journeys inspired me, had to wrestle with their own doubts either publicly or privately. With meetings and interviews with founders set for early next week, I’m starting to hammer away at my objective, but I can’t shake the feeling there is more I could be doing.

For whatever reason, I accomplish the most when I’m not at my computer. After last night’s rousing introduction to Paulista pub culture, I went with Joao to meet Roberto and Bruno at their house near Villa Madalena. Bruno, who is Debby’s nephew, and my age, is a musician who recently returned from a master course in Barcelona. When I arrived at the house, Bruno was out buying guitar strings, so Roberto and I watched the Roland Garros French Open and talked about sports. Soon Bruno came back and we ate the most delicious beans I’ve ever tasted, followed vine-ripened figs no American unknown to the American palette.

After lunch Bruno and I took the Metro to the Pinacoteca, where we visited the Museum of the Portuguese language. While the idea of creating a museum to honor the language of a colonizing power seems odd, the facility itslef was an homage to the dexterity and richness of Portuguese spoken by Brazilians themselves. The bedrock of Brazilian Portuguese is the European mother tongue, but its influences include other continental languages such as France as well as languages spoken by slaves kidnapped from Angola and Africa’s Southwest coast. The motivation and execution of the museum were brilliant and it’s the third museum I’ve visited where I feel I must go back.

We headed back to Jardins at the height of rush and  I’m inlcuding this short video because I can’t remember the last time I saw a train station this crowded. It’s very possible that more people pass through Grand Central Station during peak times, but the flow of bodies in Luz station was tremedous. At the same time, however, even a full subway car was not that full and if we missed a connecting train, the next one arrived no more than three minutes later.

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Back at the ranch, several of the emails I had been waiting for arrived.  In just a few minutes I was was able to set up interviews for next week when I get back from Rio de Janeiro on Monday. Today was also special because I celebrated Shabbat for the first time in months, or years. While it seems that things are moving along quickly enough here, it’s easy to lose sight of how incremental actions will lead up to a big finish when this trip is over.

It’s approaching 3:30, which would normally be early, but part of me wants to be on a bus to Rio that leaves at before 9 am. It might happen, but I’m already feeling warn down from sleepless nights, hurried days, schizophrenic winter weather and air pollution. If you have any suggestions on how to stay healthy, I would love it if you drop some comments below. I was told that commenting was non-functional, so if this is the case, you might have to email me so I can take the appropriate action. Perhaps I will even cut myself a little slack and cease the crisising for now.

If Brazil is the Texas of South America, then Delta Airlines is an RV with wings. All I have to say about Delta flight 121 to Sao Paulo is that I arrived in Sao Paulo in one piece. Their one “unit” of alcohol on a nine-hour, transcon flight, along with the fact they played “Hotel For Dogs” earned them a big black “X” in my travel future travel plans, However, Upon arrival I learned that an Air France plane with 228 passengers disappeared en route from Rio to Paris. The sobering news put any gripes I had about cramped quarters to rest.

Guarulhos International Airport was relatively restrained for Brazil’s busiest air hub. The excitement was provided by a clutch of teenie-boppers camped outside the international arrivals hall waiting for reggaeton singer called Rebelje. You can see him in the blue hat.

After snapping some pictures of the hubub, I asked a porter who the guy was and he wrote down the name on a business card. Subsequent Internet searches haven’t turned up any info, and the group of kids who came to see him was small, but vigorous.

Out of arrogance alone, I neglected to write down the cell phone number or taxi confirmation code  I needed to connect with Debby and Jose, my gracious hosts. My assumption was threefold:

1. I would be able to connect my laptop to a wifi network
2. Once online I could retrieve the necessary information
3. Buying a phone card to announce my arrival would be a cinch

Although I was able to complete all of the aforementioned tasks, I should have saved myself the hassle with a little planning ahead. After 90 or so minutes lolligagging in the airport, I was in a cab and on my way to the center of town.

Airports are  almost the same as hotel rooms. Their purpose is the same and beyond the language being spoken inside, they are hard to separate. (When I get to Nigeria, I will demonstrate how this is not always the case, but just bare with me, aight?) To know a city, you have to see it from the street level and Sao Paulo’s streets have a grizzly reputation. There is more than one car for every four people, in this city of over 20 million people and while there is a subway system, surface transportation is the dominant means of getting around.

The interminable gridlock has given rise to innovation of its own. According to the Guardian, Sao Paulo has a fleet of over 469 helicopters, to help those with the means avoid “Traffic jams [that] often stretch to more than 130 miles in greater Sao Paulo.” There are  [Click here for more audio] A hotel with a helipad on the rood is just around the corner from where I now sit. However, traffic is just one part of the equation. Crime is also a major factor. In addition to the boom in helicopter sales, The New York Times recently reported how crime in Sao Paulo is leading to an explosion in armored car sales. Chances are very good I will be taking a ride in one tomorrow.

While street crime seems to have a lot of folks on edge, I haven’t seen anything yet. What should have people worrying is the way people drive here. Motorcyclists zip between lanes of stalled cars with suicidal disregard, and drivers are fond of fishing their front ends before oncoming traffic as a way of merging lanes.

Beyond the traffic, I haven’t formed much of an opinion about Sao Paulo yet. The vehicle culture has dominated my 14 hours in town.  The city is enormous, and garish concrete reach into the sky as far as one can imagine. After a lunch of eggplant parmesan, beef cutlets and salad, I went for a walk up to Paulista, and watched as the sun set just after 5:45. Although summer was getting under way in New York, winter in Sao Paulo starts in two weeks. It was somewhat chilly today, with a slight breeze.

I don’t know whether I like Sao Paulo yet, but once I start meeting more people, I’m sure it will grow on me. Thanks to Debby’s networking prowess and a little social media, I’m starting to get the ball rolling from a business perspective. Tomorrow night I will be meeting the Sao Paulo CouchSurfing group at a bar called Genuino nearby and from here, I am confident that interviewing will really get underway.