Planes, Planes and More Planes!

Hi again. I hope all is well.

I always know I am going to see interesting places when I travel with Keith and Kristin. But on Wednesday (April 2), we visited the coolest place ever!

It is a business called Embraer.

Embraer is located a couple of hours from Sao Paulo. It seemed like it took forever to get there, and I was pretty bored in the van. But Kristin promised me that Embraer was worth the wait. Guess what, she was right! Embraer makes airplanes and we got special permission to watch the workers build planes. How cool is that??!!!

Do you see the Embraer sign on the building in the photo above? It is the same logo that I saw at BOVESPA yesterday! Now I know why Kristin wanted me to pay special attention to that sign.

Kristin says Embraer is the third largest airplane builder in the world. I had no idea! Kristin told me a lot of other things about Embraer, but I really can't remember what she told me. I was too busy watching people build airplanes. I LOVE watching airplanes when I am waiting at the airport but visiting the factory is even better.

Here I am just outside one of the HUGE buildings where the airplanes are under construction.

How cool is that photo above?!

I don't remember how long we spent in this building, but it was long enough for me to see how some of the plane pieces go together. It is hard to show you photos of how the pieces go together but here are some of the photos Kristin took in the hangar.

Below you can see what the inside of a plane looks like before the wires, walls, seats, and pilot controls are added.


If you look closely in the photo above, you can see me sitting on the nose of this plane. How cool is that!?
Here I am with Keith and the part of a plane where the pilots sit.

At some point, everyone in our group went to another part of the building where different parts of planes are built. It was REALLY loud so Keith and Kristin had to wear earplugs (they didn't have earplugs in my size so I just covered them with my hands). And, since it was a construction zone, Keith and Kristin also had to wear these really funny plastic glasses. Kristin says they are called "safety glasses."

Don't they look funny with those glasses!? They didn't have any of the funny glasses in my size, so Kristin made me stay in her bag most of the time so I wouldn't get hurt. She did let me look out through a small opening and sometimes she took me out for photos (but only after she knew we were in a safe area).

Here you can see me with Kristin. Can you tell Kristin was having a hard time holding me and the equipment too?

Here are some more photos that I think are really cool.




After our visit to the construction hangars, we had lunch with Embraer officials. Later my friend Simon interviewed a company executive for a television story. And just before we left Embraer, we went back to the first hangar we saw so Simon could do something he calls a "stand up." During a "stand up," a reporter reads a script on camera at the location he/she is reporting from. Very interesting. Kristin and Keith don't have to do this for radio (but they do talk to their recorder all the time, so I guess they are doing something similar).

Here you can see Simon and Steve recording Simon's "stand up." Kristin says I will likely see this on TV and the Web when the project is done. Cool!

It seemed to take Simon and Steve a really long time to record the "stand up" and tape all of the pictures they need for TV. I forgot from my trip to Djibouti that it takes MUCH longer make a television story. But I didn't mind. It gave me more time to watch the workers.

Well that's all for now. Until next time....

A Place Called BOVESPA

Hi everyone! I had another very exciting day on Tuesday (April 1).

That morning Kristin and Keith took me to a place called BOVESPA (Bolsa de Valores de São Paulo). Kristin says it is Brazil's largest stock exchange.

Kristin says BOVESPA is similar to the New York Stock Exchange in New York City. But BOVESPA is for companies doing business in Brazil. Who knew?

I don't really understand how the stock market works so Keith tried to explain it to me. He says when a company wants to get bigger or needs more money, it sells small pieces of the company to people who are interested in helping the company. Those small pieces are called "shares of stock." And the people who buy the stock are called "investors." Sometimes investors decide they want to "trade" their shares to someone else. I think this is similar to trading baseball cards with my friends. Keith agreed it is similar except people use the stock exchange to trade their stocks.

We spent most of our time at BOVESPA on something Kristin called the "trading floor." It is a big room with a wooden floor and LOTS of big television monitors and BIG message boards. I couldn't understand what the boards were saying, but Kristin says they were showing the progress of today's trading.

Kristin says people used to trade their stocks on paper and that the "trading floor" we visited used to be full of men yelling as they bought and sold stocks. But today the "trading floor" is a museum. That's because the trading is now done by computers. Very interesting.

The museum has demonstrations to show how stocks are traded on the computer. Here you can see men showing the museum visitors how the process works.

When they were done, Kristin let me try to trade stock on the computer. I'm not sure I did anything but the colors and the buttons were really cool.

As we were leaving BOVESPA, Kristin pointed out this sign.

I'm not sure why she wanted me to see this sign, but she told me it was really important. Hmm...I wonder what she is up too?!

I am still not sure I understand this stock stuff but BOVESPA was a really cool place to visit.

Later that night after we got back from dinner, there was someone waiting in the hotel lobby that I knew! It was my friend Simon from Washington, DC. Kristin says he is going to work with us for the rest of the time we are in Brazil. How cool is that?

Simon is going to make TV stories so he brought along his camera person, Steve Mort. Steve lives in Florida, and he is very nice.

That's all for now. Bye!

Sao Paulo Update

Hi everyone! I hope all is well in Iowa. Keith and Kristin have been SO busy that I haven't had any computer time. But don't worry, I have had many great adventures this week.

On Monday, we drove around Sao Paulo to look at famous places and to see different neighborhoods. Our first stop was a place Renata called the "Japanese Neighborhood." Kristin says there are more Japanese descendants in Sao Paulo than anywhere else outside of Japan. I had no idea!

Can you see the street lights in the picture above? They look a lot like the lanterns I see in the temples in Asia. Very interesting.

I was so busy looking at the lantern lights that I forgot to ask Kristin to take my photo. Oh well, she probably wouldn't have been able to anyway. She is helping Keith with a video camera. I thought they were making a radio show. Kristin says they are making a radio show but also getting video for a Web site. It is very strange to see Keith with a video camera.

One thing I did see was a McDonald's that served ice cream, but Kristin said we didn't have time to eat ice cream. :(

I noticed a number of interesting paintings on walls and buildings all over Sao Paulo. Kristin says it is "graffiti."
Kristin says it isn't nice to paint things unless you have permission. I think she is right. But it looks like many people in Sao Paulo like to paint anything and everything.

Later we went to a place called Praca de Se... or "Cathedral Square"... in the center of downtown Sao Paulo. Renata says this place is like a "town square" in America. Carlo, our driver, was very worried that someone would try to steal me out of Kristin's bag, so I stayed inside and looked out from a small opening.

The Praca da Se is a really interesting place. There is a large Catholic Church in the square called the "Catedral da Se."
Kristin says the Catholic church is very popular in Brazil. Who knew? But Renata told us that other religions are starting to become more popular. So much so that sometimes preachers from another church will stand in the square and shout their beliefs to the people who walk through the square. That's what this man was doing when we walked by.

There were also many men waiting to shine shoes in the square. Very interesting.

Keith says Brazil's leader, President Lula, used to be a shoe shine boy. Wow! He must have been a smart shoe shine boy. Just as we were leaving the square I noticed someone had set up a place to cut hair. I saw the same type of "salon" when I was in India with Kristin and Amy earlier this year.

Carlo then drove us around town so we could see other interesting places like this colorful shopping street called, Bom Retiro.

Then we stopped at the Museum of Modern Art. Kristin said we didn't have time to actually visit the museum (whew!) but Kristin and Keith did take a lot of photos and video by the museum.

Here's the view from the museum's patio.


Everywhere we went that day I kept seeing these funny looking lime green bubbles on the sidewalk.




I finally asked Kristin what the green bubbles were. She says they are phone booths. Wow, those are the funniest looking phone booths I have ever seen!



Kristin says many people in Brazil cannot afford cell phones so they use these pay phones to call people. Renata says people who use the pay phones buy a special card with minutes on it. Kristin says this is like the prepaid phone cards we can buy in the US. Here I am by one of the phones.

That's all for now.