Porto Alegre

So I jumped on a plane the day after getting back from Floripa to head directly back in the same direction, except this time a bit farther South. Porto Alegre is the town near where SAP has another big office, in Sao Leopoldo (this one, a Labs office). While its only a quick flight like Floripa, I had a most completely disorganized travel experience I’ve had in a very long time. TAM Airlines… Computer system entirely down. I have a hand written boarding pass (really? Is this for real?). No gates posted, no seats assigned. What a shit show. Luckily they applied ‘Assento Livre” = open seating and we all got corralled on the plane together. Thank god. I later heard from a colleague who was flying home from a location in the North of Brazil at the same time that this was a system-wide issue. Truly. Amazing. It’s actually a miracle the planes got off the ground.

But luckily I did, as I really enjoyed Porto Alegre and the surrounding area. So much so, that for brief nano-second, I actually considered an immediate transfer to the Sao Leopoldo office. Mostly because this office is really, really fantastic. I felt very zen while I was there. This office is an entirely 'green' project.. as in, everything is recycled or sourced from within the local area. They use natural light, making us all look slightly more attractive and making us feel a bit more relaxed and less like over worked selves. They also use wind and solar power and even use the grey water to water the plants. Very cool - Legal! After extensive and passionate descriptions by our colleagues in this office about their gorgeous office, I was really getting into this fictional move. Then, the icing on the cake was this: after lunchtime, I come back to see a full on fitness instructor (in gym gear, with a clipboard and whistle…okay maybe I imagined the whistle) leading the teams through a stretching exercise. This is not the same SAP that I work for in NYC or Sao Paulo!

And last but probably more importantly, on the same trip, I found my 17 year old sister Sean a very cute 18 year old Brazilian boyfriend candidate, the son of one of the partners I was visiting. Sean he’s really cute I promise! And we have a return invitation to Porto Alegre when you come visit later this year. Bonus.